 good evening this is crime classics i am thomas highland with another true story of crime listen the sound of brace and bit boring into wood good wood mahogany a hardwood and since this is 1821 and the tools weren't as finely tempered as they are today a resisting wood one needed to really lean into it give it muscle here's something water coming in at last but how slowly just boring holes in the bottom of the ship that's no way to scuttle it is an ax as i said mahogany is a good hardwood fine for ship's heels doesn't hold up under an ax though here comes the atlantic ocean tonight my report to you on the good ship jane why she became flotsam crime classics a series of true crime stories taken from the records and newspapers of every land from every time your host each week mr thomas highland connoisseur of crime student of violence and teller of murders now once again mr thomas highland let's talk about schooners for a moment the first one ever built was in bluster massachusetts in 1713 by captain andrew andy robbie robinson the schooner is a foreign aft rigged vessel and was much used in fishing in its earliest days however it was soon used as an ocean trader taken as it was into the hearts of ship owners since it used a smaller crew the vessel that concerns us here is jane of gibroater rig rig 4 and schooner rig death she'd carry from 90 to 120 tons and had seen service on all of the seven seas the jane was weighing anchor at gibroater on her way to brazil her captain was thomas johnson her cabin boy a youth promoter named andrew camilleer and in the captain's cabin ten pipes of sweet oil 120 barrels of beeswax 14 round jars of fine oil boy yes captain how old are you boy 16 sir you understand the promise i made to your father boy that i would return you a man yes sir continue with the manifest boys 300 oblong jars of olives 14 boxes of raisins 19 bolts of silk boy yes sir your father said you will meet too long milk fat and soft wheel harden you boy put leather where now there's down on your cheek like oh boy yes sir soften that blonde hair of yours with sea spray and muscle those thin arms boy yes sir what have you got in your hand your watch i know it's my watch and i know it was right here on my desk a minute ago i fidget sir so your father told me put the watch down yes sir my father also gave me a book called tales of the oceans never mind that the one with the manifest and that's all except the dollars sir read the manifest boy six 18 gallon casks and one of about nine and one of about seven gallons all filled with Spanish dollars to the number of 38 000 all the above to be delivered to Jose Miguel de Faria by here brazil you watch your peas and cues boy stop fidgeting yes sir after which Andrew never tried to steal the captain's watch again instead captain i saw semen smith opening a cask in the hold and dipping into the olives the youth quickly developed a sense of loyalty to his captain and the ship and its cargo and the captain sensed it good boy and did his best to instill the youth for the sense of responsibility and the next day you may flog semen smith boy here take a whip and don't flinch good boy and nearly skinned semen smith alive a youth two weeks at sea and manhood busting through all over yet with a streak of gentleness mate mate hyman yeah i came down here to cruise quarter to see how semen smith feels i've seen whipping before lad but i got stranded to you you're a scientific whipper you are and that's a true frenchie we yeah old frenchie seen whipping too you're a one you know that led rumply blonde a boy like you with cherry face and a whipper like you didn't want to do it captain knew it didn't he he's so sorry mr smith can't hear you laddie tell him how sorry i am i had to flog him unconscious there's a question i'd like to be asking you led yes sir because the crew's all asking it how did the captain know in the first place that smithy there was seen you tell captain little pinkies please please what leave me alone snitcher ain't you leave me alone or what you see this night don't you you see this night don't you please leave me alone look at him frenchie look at him with the knife we funny edit we're not gonna tell you what laddie playing with knives you'll be a well now i'll be playing too a sticking game and you'll be all over the deck in a second please please let me alone now look look laddie take that knife away from my throat then then will you let me alone oh we were just gaming laddie you're a good gamer you are put the knife away from the throat laddie that's the laddie yes one ain't even she yeah we please let's be friendly oh we're shipmates we are my father told me to make friends shipmates we are we the captain doesn't like me don't you know and you such a gamer and a nicey he thinks i want to break into the hold and steal all those spanish dollars and us just because i know where the keys are do you know 38 000 in spanish dollars them's the best kind that's what's in those casks hey oh yes sir look at you some of those dollars couldn't you frenchie yeah we don't you tell the captain i told you all those dollars oh no we should mates i'm glad i've made friends yeah it's all you have but mr paterson doesn't like me either he's with the captain all the time and takes watch over him when he sleeps and mr paterson don't know true quality in a lad mr paterson's outside the captain's cabin right now i'm such a black knight he hates me and we your friends come along frenchie there's your mr paterson for you sleeping under the stars from a valiant if he awakens you'll raise an awful row oh you know where that key is to the dollar's land yes but if mr paterson wakes up frenchie we throw mr paterson out the board we wait i read in the book it was called tales of the ocean sea how bad parrots used to tie iron to the legs of victims oh so they wouldn't float so i bought a piece of iron along here it is frenchie lash the iron to mr paterson's leg so he won't float we let's to see the captain now lad yes sir captains are very sound sleeper here's his captain be careful how you point the captain right between the eyes that's what you did lad right between the eyes i'll tell you dead in a pickle mackerel from cooper's coasties please accident weren't it lad yeah you go on a week it'll do you good that night andrew cried his heart out so forlorn was he for having shot his father's friend and his captain that he did not venture above deck and that's where all the activity was yeah tie this piece of iron to captain's leg frenchie and using a ship shank knot and a 25 pound weight they prepared the captain for sinking sank him these few hours activity was known as piracy there was also murder all together a night of property sprung as it did from the innocence of a 16 year old boy's suggestions just because the youth has read the long since man book tales of the ocean sea just because his father had gotten him a birth aboard ship just because his father wanted to make a man of him but andrew still had a long way to go boy boy never knew if so could a crime like this but it can be where's the key to the dollar's boy yeah beneath the captain's pillow hmm frenchie now we'll fit wait yes lad what do you do with the captain as we did with mr paterson now there are eight of us but smithy cannot work no not since the flogging you give in have you noticed that mr strong is feeble and recovers poorly from his drinking it's true what are you saying lad nothing frenchie we there are eight of us now but two of us ain't very useful i'd know since having them around to divide those dollars we frenchie what mr hyman and frenchie did was unlock that section of the hold where the dollars were kept remove the casks and insert two of their shipmates mr smith and mr strong it was then that the lad andrew appeared on deck what are you gonna do with those tarpots mr hyman fire them and leave the smoke into the hold where smithy and strong are why then they suffocate frenchie you are listening to crime classics and your host thomas hyland here marlena detrick as diane levolta in a new adventure in colorful spain the sultry voiced shantous helps a great bullfighter out of his difficulties in a story titled the man who wanted to die remember tomorrow and every thursday night on most of these same stations the star's address brings you marlena detrick in time for love and now once again thomas hyland and the second act of crime classics and his report to you on the good ship jane why she became flotsam some words about piracy next to being a sailor being a pirate his man's oldest profession since he took to the sea there is literature concerning this type of criminality all the way back to the finitions the vikings were great pirates and you'll be interested to know that during the roman civil wars the city itself was all but starved to death by the incursion of the old atruscan pirates now many of you undoubtedly think that piracy is a matter of the crew of one ship plundering another not so as far back as the plunder of the barcontine athena in 1702 the admiralty ruled that a crew which mutiny and murders its captain and plunders its cargo and steers the vessel off course perhaps toward a different continent a crew which does these things is lumped under the heading of pirates therefore the crew of the schooner jane of Gibraltar were pirates of this there can be no doubt i'll say let's take it to africa mates and african it is helmsman change your course south by southeast african it is lads with spanish dollars to fling and spanish dollars to spend lad andrew yes captain you nearly done landing hi captain each of us now that we are six will receive sixty three hundred dollars ah you hear that lads six three hundred spanish dollars for each of us oh marocco tangy is cairo captain oh you like africa you bonny lad whoa the sights i can show you and you the curly-headed blondie led you are you'll have the ladies nipier than first and kitty captain yes lad the african seas are filled with pirates what are you saying lad i've heard corsairs from tripplely and turks and saracens are what i'm frightened well then be frightened lad would you expect us to turn tail about and go to england may be your scotland scotland with their lonely shores and their long lonely beaches we could get ashore and nobody would know what ah wouldn't be any pirates either oh no scotland bonnie scotland oh yes yeah scotland it is help and change your course no but always and they sailed in that direction for 17 days it was a singularly uneventful voyage in passing other ships they hoisted the american colors identified themselves as the rover 30 days from new york bound for archangel and hyman went about flowed in the captain's green great coat the boy andrew stayed below most of the trip reading but one day when hyman brought him his breakfast the boy looked up from his book and he said when you're going to give orders to scuttle the ship captain scuttle it lad also be surely someone in scotland who'll recognize the ship as a jane and ask of the captain and scuttle it i say off the cape of storming off the cape of storm away and two nights later within sight of the scottish coast at storm away you remember hyman began to drill holes in the bottom of the boat here's an axe what is it you funny lad i think you should give orders to man the long boat get your backs into it man you know what's the matter with you tuna we never make it short oh hold on i tell you uh oh there she go there she go back there she go ah you stupid lump sum dammed them frescoes symbol yeah i know lad never i've never what are you saying lad you never get the car you're all drunk and i just your money will light the bottom of the sea oh now lad everything too the terrible thing now hear this now hear this what the sea did it sent a huge and wonderful wave to the scene and this huge and wonderful wave did this lifted high the long boat the dollars and the sailors and on a narrow strand of beach put them down again this huge and wonderful wave oh lie me hey ain't this something friendly oh we wave tossing us boat and all right to shore lead andrew lead yes we're saved yes we're saved we're saved give it to you lads we're saying and and it's this bonny bonny lad that's a cause of it all this lad this and this curly blundering andrew lad oh lad this is a great and good luck thing to know you to sail with your likes thank you thank you he says hey such a lad such a lad you are but the rest of that night was a terrible one the fury of the skies and the sea over that narrow strand and six men huddled there not daring to move lest they lose their way in the dark and stumble into the torrent yet even in these small hours of despair they had presence of mind enough to bury each of them part of their Spanish dollars and we should take an oath of secrecy and they each of them took a terrible oath swore never to reveal what had happened nor of the money nor the murders a good thing too for the next day a suddenly become and sunny day a group of men came running up the beach toward them what do you hear a boat broke up in the sea and prays be for a sturdy longboat who'll be you Roderick MacIvers ah way be of your fated catch the Betsy out of San Francisco I am MacIvers surveyor of customs these are my men oh and we'll want to look at your sea chess oh you corner open me that sea chess for instance now have a look now we'll see now what's this dollars now Spanish dollars now you how come a blundering boy like you with sus curvy look is that corner stand guard here while I fetch a brace of constables to this spot this has the looks of I don't know what but I didn't like it please sir how old will be you boy 16 sir there's never been a razor to my cheek hell yeah if I could see my father sir this land could I walk with you fairly heated boy could be my own son almost surely walk with me I have something to tell you sir so what happened sir mad mad what they held me prisoner out of Malton and murdered captain and mr. Patterson and nice mr. Smith and mr. strong they suffocated the nice mr. Smith and strong with smoke from a tar barrel and stole those Spanish dollars are you seeing the truth I'll take an oath on it and you'll show testify lad I want to I want to go on lad but continue with your story and I struggled with mr. Hyman with the pistol and he overcame me and kill captain and then I had that one that we call Frenchy tie ironed the captain's leg and throw him overboard and then suffocated two others with smoke from a tar barrel how old are you lad 16 my father's far away in Malta I must tell you boy as a father myself and as judge in the court of law that near have a witness such a courageous lad as you you are as candid a witness as air appeared before me your manners are modest and your statements are sincere and distinct and it is to your ado that justices try and the case of these men Peter Hyman and the Frenchman Francois Gauthier you may step down boy Peter Hyman and Francois Gauthier the rest of your crew has been dismissed as not guilty of the heinous crimes as charged but the jury has found the two of you to be beasts of the sea and guilty as charged therefore I announced to you the sentence of death which will be fought with put into execution though your crimes as charged be murder and piracy to my mind your guilt is of a far greater kind the scar is slashed across innocence the innocence of that youth sitting there gentle child of blundling curl bravely hiding the scalding hurt vipers and upon the second Wednesday of january next to come you will be dead I have here an account of the execution the two men Peter Hyman and Francois Gauthier ascended the drop at 20 minutes past 11 they remained on the platform for some minutes being administered as they were by men of the cloth but observers noted that neither one seemed to listen to prayers nor did they repeat any supplications rather did they merely stand there and shake their heads as if some observers say they did not believe what was happening to them in the pressing crowd of onlookers was seen master Andrew Camilleer close to the front smiling and bowing to those who recognized him Andrew Camilleer I should tell you and never went back to Malta nor to sea he was married next year to the comely daughter of a widower and when his father-in-law shot himself to death in six months time he inherited a large sum of money in just a moment Thomas Highland will tell you about next week's crime classic the good ship Jane tonight's crime classic was adapted from the original court reports and newspaper accounts by Morton Fine and David Friedkin the music was composed and conducted by Bernard Herman and the program is produced and directed by Elliott Lewis Thomas Highland is portrayed on radio by Lou Merrill in tonight's story Gary Montgomery was heard as Andrew and Ben Wright as Hyman featured in the cast were Herb Butterfield Paul Freese Steve Roberts and William Johnstone Bob LeMond speaking now here again is Thomas Highland next week Suffolk England in the year 1676 we will concern ourselves at that time with a rousing cocaine match a fine old castle at stake winner take all it's listed in my files as Roger Nems how he though dead won the game thank you good night this coming Sunday CBS radio's department of public affairs offers a documented progress report on the Negro in America titled the high mountain narrators will be William H. Hastie United States Court of Appeals judge and Admiral Alan G. Kirk the same production team that brought you bomb target USA 38th parallel USA parole file 732 and other hard-hitting factual documents about life in America now turns its attention on the high mountain or look at the progress and problems of the Negro in America this Sunday on most of these same stations you hear America's favorite shows on the CBS radio network