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TRACKED, TRICKED AND TRAPPED

Fate dealt cruelly with a confident Alice Springs thief a few years ago. A competent operator from the South, he found the easy-going, bushy atmosphere of Alice most attractive, and wasted no time in performing several good jobs.

In one of these he broke and entered a shop known as the Kayell Agency, in Todd Street, and stole a number of watches, a radio and a lady's brush and comb set. In another he went into a room at the Stuart Arms Hotel, broke open a locked cupboard and stole an expensive camera owned by a visiting professional photographer. The workings of this extensively gadgeted camera intrigued him and, on returning to his room, he set about finding out how to operate it.

The Kayell job was reported to the Police on the night of r9th January, 1953. Constables Ron Corbin and Kevin Smith went to the scene at once, in company with Tracker Charlie. The ground in the vicinity was hard-packed, with only a scanty layer of dust, and was not at all helpful for tracking. Darkness had set in, and Charlie had only a torchlight to assist him in his search for tracks. In time he managed to pick up a shoe mark about a sixteenth of an inch in depth and not more than two inches long. Eventually he was able to pick out enough similar markings to lead the party into and along Parsons Street and down to a spot in the bed of the Todd River. There, buried in the sand, were found two stands of a type used for displaying watches. These were identified by the owner of Kayell as his property.

Early the following morning, as Constable Corbin, with Constable Goeff Millgate and Tracker Charlie were setting off for the Todd to continue the investigation, a report was received of the camera theft at the Stuart Arms. Constable Basil Courts went off on this inquiry and his investigations led him to a man who had recently arrived from_. the South and was boarding at the Alice Springs-Hotel. His suspicions were soon strong enough to cause him to search the man's room and property. He found a camera answering the description of that stolen from the Stuart Arms and contacted Sergeant Hughes, who then collected the Todd group and brought them to the hotel room. An exposed film was found behind a wardrobe and, purely " on spec ", was handed in to a photographic processor.

A further search in the vicinity of the man's room led to the discovery, in an unused refrigerator, of the watches and other property stolen from Kayell. But the man was definitely innocent. He kept on saying so. A further check of his effects produced a pair of crepe-soled shoes with an uncommonly large heel and a ridge at the toe formed by the binding on the edge of the sole. Of course, they were not stolen shoes — they were his very own. Yes, he would be willing to put them on and walk around in them. He put them on and walked out into the yard and back. Charlie looked at the indentations and immediately exclaimed, " That that same track now, Boss ".

The party moved off to the Kayell scene and on down to the Todd. Charlie clearly demonstrated that the man's

tracks were identical with the suspect's followed by him the previous night. But the suspect, good man that he was, would have none of it — not even when brought back to the hotel and faced with a barmaid who identified one of the recovered watches as one which he had offered to her as a present.

While he was still being interviewed and still protesting his innocence, the processed film was returned to the Police. The suspect was shown one of the photos and an immediate confession followed. The photo dearly showed him taking his own photo — quite unwittingly — while experimenting in his room with the camera. The mirror on the dressing table revealed all! (Even another camera, sitting up on the dressing table and not known, up to that stage, to have also been stolen).

During his ensuing twenty-four months in Phil Muldoon's famous Alice Springs Gaol he no doubt lamented exceedingly over being so skilfully tracked by an Old Australian, so foolishly tricked by a new camera, and so completely trapped by those high brick walls.