The boy who shot my nanna
Updated
Sally Sara's family connection to one of South Australia's youngest murderers.
My nanna's neck was wrinkly, as nannas' necks often are. But I remember quite distinctly the remnants of a scar.
"You see that? That's where he shot me."
The scar was barely the size of a 5 cent piece and the wrinkles made it harder to find, year by year. But nanna could point to the exact spot on her neck without even looking.
I can't remember being told the story for the first time. It was just something I knew. I thought everyone's nanna had a scar like that. My brothers and I didn't pay much attention. Our curiosity ran on two different speeds — politely bored when we were told the stories we were allowed to know and insanely fascinated by those we were not.
We were explorers. When nanna wasn't looking, I loved to get into her sewing room and adjust the measurements on her dressmaking mannequin, until the boobs stuck out like Dolly Parton and the gut like Norm from the Life Be In It commercials.
I was also on a mission to use poppa's 'Special Toothpaste', because we weren't supposed to. I eventually found out why, when nanna saved me with seconds to go. Poppa's 'Special Toothpaste' wasn't toothpaste at all, it was a tube of haemorrhoid cream. I don't think there would have been enough child psychologists in the world to undo the horror of that ... wrecked by Rectinol.
My brothers and I stayed at Nanna and Poppa's place in Adelaide every Christmas holidays. We were country kids. We would sit up in our beds at night, listening to sirens go past on nearby Anzac Highway as if it were New York.
"Police!"
"No, it's a fire truck."
"Two fire trucks! It's heaps loud."
Our room was out in the fibro annexe, with lino on the floor and light blue paint on the walls. Our absolute luxury was the portable TV we were allowed to watch until we fell asleep. Nanna would gently creep in and turn it off and sometimes just watch us for a minute — just as I secretly watched her, gentle and soft in her nightie.
My nanna was the kind of lady people stopped in the street. She was beautifully dressed in outfits she made herself. I loved holding her hand and walking down Rundle Mall in Adelaide, as if the compliments flowed down her arm and into my palm. I caught each one with pride.
My poppa, Fellex, spent much of his working life in boiler suits and boots. He kept machinery humming in the factories north of Adelaide, while my nanna worked in the office and ran the switchboard. She was paid to talk on the phone, which was a pretty good fit.
They were a couple for life. Fellex and Patricia Fredberg.
At night time, poppa snored with industrial volume. Nanna sat up much of the night, thinking, worrying, doing crosswords and listening to 5AA. In the quiet times, she was nervous. If family members were ever late for a gathering, she would panic that something terrible had happened.
As I grew into adulthood, I wondered if her nervousness and fear came from the day she was shot. As a granddaughter, I wanted to understand. As a journalist, I wanted to piece together the details of what happened.
The boy with the gun
It was March 1936.
She was 16 years old. Patricia Jolly, Patty, my nanna.
The boy was 14 years old. Ronald Albert Sharpe, Ron, ward of the state.
My nanna grew up on a farm called Tolderol near Milang, south of Adelaide. Her parents often had wards of the state stay with them to help keep the numbers up at the local school and to work on the farm.
In return, the boys were fattened up on plenty of kindness and country cooking.
"They were poor, undernourished, unhappy kids, but they soon became well adjusted to our home life," she would say later in life. "One boy was a bit difficult to manage, he had a violent temper."
That was Ronald Albert Sharpe. He was short and skinny with curly hair and piercing pale eyes — so pale they made some people feel uncomfortable. An odd kid.
My nanna's parents were away in Adelaide for a few days, so she was home alone with Ronald. She didn't trust him, so when she heard some noise coming from the front room she went to investigate.
She walked up the passage. Out came Ronald, with a .22 rifle, loaded and ready to fire. He didn't say a word.
He pulled the trigger. The firing pin struck. The gunpowder ignited. The bullet whizzed down the barrel. The outcome was still undecided for a fraction of a second.
If my nanna flinched one way, she'd be shot in the face, the other and she'd be safe. She froze. The bullet spun in high-speed chaos. Bang. Zip. Gunshot smell. Ringing in the ears. Shock.
My nanna was hit twice. She fell to the floorboards.
Ronald stood over her with the rifle.
She looked at him. His eyes were fixed. She thought if she didn't escape, he would finish her off. She got up, shaking and bleeding, and sprinted through the dry grass to the next farmhouse.
"I was able to run across the paddock and one of the Clifford girls plugged my wounds, one in the neck and one in the shoulder. They put me on a stretcher and took me up to the Strathalbyn hospital. I have always felt very fortunate that he didn't kill me," Nanna recounted.
There was no clear motive for the shooting. Ronald said he was just playing with the rifle and it was an accident.
My nanna's mum was recovering from surgery in Adelaide and no-one wanted to make a fuss, so no charges were laid. But my nanna knew it wasn't an accident.
Her dad always kept the .22 unloaded and the ammunition hidden separately. Ronald had aimed right at her, deliberately, coldly and carefully.
It wouldn't be the last time Ronald Albert Sharpe would pull the trigger. He was about to become one of the youngest murderers in South Australia's history.
There was a weight of misfortune and sadness behind this boy that even he didn't know. It began decades before he was born.
Family of origin
Ronald was actually from one of the most respected families in South Australia: the Broadbents. They were sturdy, buttoned-up Wesleyan Methodists who arrived with the first European settlers on HMS Buffalo. They farmed up in the Adelaide Hills, ran business in the city and never missed church on Sundays.
George Broadbent was an accountant and played the organ for a choir at the Wesleyan Church in North Adelaide. His wife Jane cared for their children, 14-year-old Florence, 11-year-old Lillian and three-year-old Harold.
What happened in the winter of 1893 changed the course of the family.
Jane Broadbent became critically ill with a skin infection and died on May 27. Her husband George died of tuberculosis only seven weeks later. They were each only 39 years old — and their children were now orphaned.
The death certificates of George and Jane Broadbent, Ronald Sharpe's great-grandparents.
The Broadbents' middle daughter, Lillian, had been destined for a life of music, manners and marriage. But by the age of 18 she was unmarried and pregnant, a scandal for the daughter of such a devout family.
She was sent to the Salvation Army maternity home in Carrington Street, where she gave birth to a daughter, Eva Florence Broadbent, on January 28, 1900.
By the age 25, Lillian was sent to the Parkside Lunatic Asylum and her daughter Eva was placed in state care. Eva was only seven years old when she was admitted to the children's home at Edwardstown. It was a frightening place for a little girl.
She was sentenced to stay in state care until the age of 18 because she was an illegitimate child and her mother was deemed unfit to care for her.
The bonds of kin were damaged. None of it was Eva's fault, but she bore its consequences for the rest of her life.
"Sentenced until 18 years being a neglected & illegitimate child, whose father is unable to maintain."
A record of Ronald Sharpe's mother Eva Broadbent, in the admissions book for the Adelaide Industrial School, a place for children awaiting placement with foster parents or in apprenticeships.
Eva served her time and was released when she reached adulthood. At the age of 21 she married a young fisherman, James Albert Sharpe. He was a violent man with a terrible thirst for alcohol. The marriage was miserable.
A year later, Eva gave birth to a son, Ronald Albert Sharpe — the boy who would later shoot my nanna.
Ronald grew up watching his father beating his mother. Eva was unable to protect herself or her son from the violence. It all became too much for her and just like her mother, Eva was locked up in the Parkside Lunatic Asylum.
Ronald was sent into state care, just like his mother had been.
"I was placed with the state when I was eight years old. I remember it very well," he would later recall. "I was at Renmark and I was sent from there to the Industrial School at Edwardstown. I also remember my life before that when I lived with my mother and father.
"My father and mother did not live happily together. My father used to drink a lot and came home drunk every Saturday night. He used to drink all his pay. My mother was often very ill. They do not live together at all now."
Home life was so miserable and terrifying, Eva struggled to stay alive. By late 1936, she was locked up again in Parkside Mental Hospital, flattened by depression.
Ronald was on the run. He'd escaped state care after shooting my nanna a few months earlier and was looking for a place to stay. He had no family to turn to.
Waiting to explode
In early 1937, Ronald rode his bike to a sheep property called Richmond Park, near Robe, south of Adelaide. It was run by bachelor Stephen Bradley and his spinster sister, Catherine Theresa, both aged in their 50s.
"The three of us got on very well together. The boy seemed fairly happy with us," Mr Bradley would later tell the court.
But by January 1938, the mood was changing. Ronald had been with the Bradleys for 10 months. He resented being told what to do, especially by Ms Bradley, who was a hardworking, no-nonsense woman.
Sometimes he would sit at breakfast in surly silence. Mr Bradley started noticing other worrying signs too.
"He was rather inclined to be cruel and had a bad temper. He was cruel to animals and seemed to take delight at anything in pain."
On January 24, 1938, Mr Bradley went out to move some sheep, leaving his sister Catherine home alone with Ronald.
Ronald was brooding as he watered the garden of the homestead. He was still angry that Catherine had told him off while they were moving sheep several days earlier and for being out late in Robe the day before. He couldn't let it go.
He went into a grain storage shed and loaded the Bradleys' .22 rifle. His rage exploded. He later told the court what happened.
"I suddenly lost my temper and picked up the rifle. Miss Bradley was coming up the path towards me. She was only a few yards away. I lifted the rifle up under my arm and pointed it towards her and fired. She cried out and started to run towards the gate going to the shed.
"But after going about 10 yards she turned and ran into the kitchen. I continued shooting her whilst she was running. I think there were about four shots in all and they all hit her.
"When I had fired the bullets that were in the rifle, I grabbed the rifle by the barrel and ran up and struck Miss Bradley with a blow on the side of the head with the stock just as she was going in the kitchen door. The blow broke the rifle, the stock fell off and Miss Bradley then slammed the door.
"I realised what I had done only when I saw Miss Bradley going in the kitchen door covered in blood and I found the broken rifle in my hands. I didn't realise at the time I was doing something wrong. I could not have been in my right senses, because I wouldn't have done it if I had been.
"I did not want to injure Miss Bradley. She had always been very kind to me and I was fond of her. When I realised what had happened I got terribly frightened and got my bike and rode into the scrub."
Ronald fired four shots. One hit Ms Bradley in the jaw, the others struck her torso. Her head was bloodied too, where he'd cracked her skull with the rifle butt.
Incredibly, Catherine was still alive. She collapsed. Her brother arrived home a short time later and saw the rifle stock in pieces.
"I called out quietly," Mr Bradley said of the scene. "I heard my sister's voice in answer from the kitchen. I went into the kitchen and saw her lying on some old clothing on the floor. She seemed rather distressed. There was blood on her chin and forehead. I went down to the road to get help."
Ms Bradley was taken to Millicent hospital in the back of a car, with her brother by her side.
"I was with her almost continuously until she died the following morning," her brother recalled. "My sister was 53 years of age. She was a healthy woman and had never been in hospital during her life."
Crime and punishment
Ronald fled into the scrub and eventually surrendered in Robe. He initially told the police his name was Bob Jolly, the surname of my nanna's family. But he later confirmed his real identity, Ronald Albert Sharpe. He was only 5 feet, 3 inches tall and dressed in a blue suit as he was led into the court at Mount Gambier. His mother Eva sat in the public gallery, weeping and begging to give evidence in support of her son.
Ronald didn't show any obvious emotion. The only time he cried was when his dad and younger brother visited him at the police station. It had been several years since he'd seen either of them. The reunion broke him for a while.
The trial only lasted two days. A jury of local men retired at 7.45pm and returned with their verdict at 9.00pm. Ronald Albert Sharpe, guilty of murder, sentenced to hang. His mother cried out as he was led away by police. Ronald was taken by train to Adelaide Gaol, where he was imprisoned with adult inmates.
Ronald was tried as an adult, even though he was only 16.
Church leaders and lawyers lobbied the State Government to commute his death sentence to life in prison because of his youth and harsh upbringing. Even the jury in the murder trial had made a recommendation of mercy.
The governor-in-council approved the decision to spare his life in May 1938. Ronald's mother, Eva, kept begging for her son to be freed and forgiven. But she died in 1944.
'But for the grace of God'
By the 1950s, the Salvation Army, prison chaplains and prison visitors were pleading for Ronald to be released. They argued he had been locked up for long enough and deserved a second chance.
The case drew compassion, but also fear. It upended the natural order of things. The legal system and the society didn't know what to do with a child who committed murder.
Was he fully responsible for what he did? Or was he the victim of his upbringing? Was the boy more dangerous than the fully grown man he later became?
"The lad was only 16 years of age when the crime was committed and he has now served 13 years imprisonment.
"I do very sincerely trust that this young man who has no influential people to take an interest in his case, may be given his opportunity to rehabilitate himself."
— Brigadier S.A Somerville, Salvation Army
My mother, Helen Sara, remembers a probation officer visiting my nanna in Salisbury in about 1954, to discuss Ronald’s possible release.
"I would have been about 10," she said. "It was a very small house, little tiny sitting room, so if someone came to visit, there was nowhere to go.
"I just remember it was a woman parole officer, like a social worker-type person. I just remember hearing mum say, 'please, please, don't ever let him out — because I'm sure had I not got up, he would have shot me again and I've got no doubt he could do that to someone else'."
The State Government never officially announced Ronald's release. It happened quietly; the exact dates and details are still locked away in the archives.
We do know that Ronald was out of prison and married by 1969. He fell in love with a widow, Louisa Iris Page, lived in Alberton and worked as a groundsman. His deadly violent past was a well-kept secret.
He died of lung disease on December 19, 1974, aged 52.
My nanna Patricia lived a life of family and joy. The inch of good luck that sent the bullet through the skin of her neck, rather than the artery, was a gift. She savoured it.
Her survival flourished into marriage, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Nanna died peacefully in 2007 at the age of 88. Her ashes were scattered in the paddocks of Tolderol, where she grew up and where she ran the day she was shot. Poppa lived to 91 and died the day after Anzac Day in 2011.
There's no anger from our family towards Ronald Albert Sharpe — my mother Helen just feels sadness when she reads the story of Ronald and his struggling mother, Eva.
"Absolutely, I feel sorry for him. Absolutely, absolutely. When I heard how violent he was to the lady he killed all I thought was, you poor boy. All I could think of was this boy who had all these terrible things happen and he unleashed it on this woman.
"If you were eight years old and you'd witnessed domestic violence and your mother had suddenly disappeared and wasn't there to take care of you, the anger would be uncontrollable for that boy.
"His life would have stopped at age eight, when he had to leave his mother. The damage to him along the way in those eight years would have been so much, his whole being would have been stunted at eight. Inside him was a scared, frightened, lonely little boy.
"All mothers love their children — mothers don't have children and don't love them.
"There but for the grace of God go I."
Do you know more about this story? Contact Sally Sara
Credits
- Reporter: Sally Sara
- Producer: Tim Leslie
- Developer: Colin Gourlay
- Archival materials: State Records of South Australia, Trove and Geneology SA
Topics: critique-and-theory, brisbane-4000
First posted
