Martin Bryant

Early life

Martin Bryant was born on 7 May 1967 at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Hobart, Tasmania, the first child of Maurice and Carleen Bryant. His family lived in Lenah Valley, and he spent part of his childhood at their beach home in Carnarvon Bay, near the Port Arthur Historic Site. His mother later recalled that as a young child he was annoying and different, frequently breaking his toys. A psychiatrist who examined him told the family he would never hold a job due to his aggravating behavior.

At age 12, he was hospitalized after a firework accident and interviewed by a local television station. Locals noted abnormal behavior, such as pulling a snorkel from another boy while diving and cutting down trees on a neighbor's property. He started primary school at The Friends' School in Hobart in 1973, where he was disruptive and violent, suffered severe bullying, and was described as distant from reality and unemotional. After suspension from New Town Primary School in 1977, psychological assessments noted animal torture.

He returned to school with improved behavior but teased younger children. In 1980, he was transferred to a special education unit at New Town High School, where his academic and behavioral performance deteriorated. Assessments as an adolescent suggested a possible intellectual disability. When leaving school in 1983, a psychiatrist wrote that he could not read or write, did a bit of gardening, watched TV, and might be schizophrenic.

Bryant received a disability pension but also worked as a handyman and gardener. After the massacre, forensic psychologist Ian Joblin found him borderline mentally disabled with an IQ of 66, equivalent to an 11-year-old.

Adulthood

In early 1987, at age 19, Bryant met 54-year-old Helen Mary Elizabeth Harvey, an eccentric wealthy heiress to a share in the Tattersall's lottery fortune, while seeking customers for his lawn-mowing service. Harvey lived with her mother Hilza and befriended Bryant, who became a regular visitor to her decaying mansion in New Town, helping feed the fourteen dogs inside and forty cats in the garage. In June 1990, an unidentified person reported Harvey to health authorities; medics found both Harvey and her mother needing urgent hospital treatment.

Harvey had infected ulcers, and Hilza had a hip fracture; Hilza was moved to a nursing home and died weeks later at age 79. A mandatory clean-up order was placed on the mansion, and Bryant's father took long-service leave to help clean. The RSPCA confiscated many animals. After the clean-up, Harvey invited Bryant to live with her.

The pair spent extravagantly, buying more than thirty new cars in under three years, and spent most of their time shopping after lunch at a local restaurant. Around this time, Bryant was reassessed for his disability pension; a note attached to the paperwork stated that his father protected him from upsetting occasions because he continually threatened violence, and that Bryant said he would like to go around shooting people, concluding it would be unsafe to let him out of his parents' control.

In 1991, because animals were no longer allowed at the mansion, Bryant and Harvey moved to a 29-hectare farm called Taurusville in Copping. Neighbors recalled Bryant always carrying an air gun and firing it at tourists stopping at a highway apple stall. Late at night, he roamed neighboring properties firing at barking dogs. Residents in Copping avoided him at all costs despite his attempts to befriend them.

Port Arthur massacre

Bryant has given conflicting and confused accounts of what led him to kill thirty-five people at the Port Arthur Historic Site on 28 April 1996. He allegedly told a next-door neighbor, 'I'll do something that will make everyone remember me.' His defense psychiatrist, Paul Mullen, said Bryant became fascinated with the Dunblane massacre in Scotland, and that his planning started with Dunblane; before that, he was thinking about suicide. Bryant's first victims were David and Noelene Martin, owners of a bed and breakfast called Seascape.

The Martins had beaten Bryant's father in purchasing the property, which his father had made great efforts to secure financial support for, and his father had complained about the damage to their family. Bryant apparently believed the Martins bought it out of spite and blamed them for causing the depression that led to his father's suicide. He fatally shot the Martins in the guest house, stole their weapons and keys, and drove to Port Arthur. At the site, he paid the entry fee, parked, and entered the Broad Arrow Café carrying a large blue sports bag with his arsenal.

While eating, he tried to start conversations about the lack of WASPs and Japanese tourists. He then took out a Colt AR-15 SP1 Carbine and began firing from the hip. Within fifteen seconds, he fired seventeen shots, killing twelve and wounding ten. He then walked to the other side of the shop and fired twelve more times, killing another eight and wounding two.

He changed magazines, fled, and shot at people in the car park and from his yellow Volvo 244 as he drove away, killing four more and injuring six.

In popular culture

In March 2012, Sydney artist Rodney Pople won the AU$35,000 Glover Prize for a landscape painting depicting Port Arthur with Bryant holding a firearm. The 2019 Pond song 'The Boys Are Killing Me' on their album Tasmania referenced the massacre. The 2021 film Nitram, directed by Justin Kurzel, is based on Bryant's life; Caleb Landry Jones played Bryant and won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor.

Did You Know?

• Bryant was assessed for a disability pension in 1983 with a psychiatrist writing he 'Cannot read or write. Does a bit of gardening and watches TV.'
• Bryant inherited over AU$550,000 from Helen Harvey, who had allegedly said to a neighbour 'one of these days the little bastard [Bryant] is going to kill me.'
• Bryant's father Maurice died by suicide in August 1993, with his body found in a dam on the Copping farm with a diving weight belt around his neck.
• From 1993 to late 1995, Bryant travelled overseas fourteen times, but his favourite part of the journeys were the long flights where he could endlessly speak to fellow passengers.