{"id":628806,"date":"2026-04-24T23:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T23:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/628806\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T23:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T23:12:12","slug":"murder-charges-after-shark-vomits-up-sydney-mans-arm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/628806\/","title":{"rendered":"Murder charges after shark vomits up Sydney man&#8217;s arm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The four-metre tiger shark had been caught alive by a local fisherman, who took it to the aquarium for display a week earlier.<\/p>\n<p>Police inspected the arm, fearing it had been the victim of an attack.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/4d95be99-35c9-4ba2-bfe1-45680a92554c.jpeg\"   alt=\"Jim Smith's arm had a distinctive tattoo on it.\"\/>Jim Smith&#8217;s arm had a distinctive tattoo on it. (Supplied)<\/p>\n<p>But a medical examination revealed the arm had been sliced off with a sharp weapon rather than bitten by a shark.<\/p>\n<p>It also had a distinctive tattoo of two boxers.<\/p>\n<p>Based on a description of the tattoo published in the newspapers, the victim&#8217;s brother identified him as Jim Smith.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, a former boxer and police informer, had apparently been murdered by cheque-forger Patrick Francis Brady.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/e13d8a32-ab6a-4f7f-8e94-0b9753f18b50.jpeg\"   alt=\"Patrick Francis Brady was acquitted of the murder.\"\/>Patrick Francis Brady was acquitted of the murder. (NSW Police)<\/p>\n<p>Brady had allegedly murdered Smith then cut off his arm as part of a standover tactic to get money from respectable businessman\/secret cocaine smuggler Reginald Holmes.<\/p>\n<p>Brady was charged with murder with Holmes the star witness in the trial.<\/p>\n<p>But a few weeks later, Holmes was found dead in his car, shot three times.<\/p>\n<p>In court, Brady&#8217;s lawyer argued that an arm alone was not proof of a murder.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, without an arm, could still be alive somewhere, the lawyer said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/520f5c96-75b2-4d3d-8698-4f840bf6e304.jpeg\"   alt=\"Reginald Holmes was found shot in his car.\"\/>Reginald Holmes was found shot in his car. (Nine Archives)<\/p>\n<p>Both the murders of Smith and Holmes remain unsolved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The four-metre tiger shark had been caught alive by a local fisherman, who took it to the aquarium&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-628806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}