People who are new to the case will probably find themselves wondering if there is a smoking gun, a single piece of evidence that proves that the massacre was the product of a conspiracy, or that Bryant was a patsy. There are, in fact, dozens of smoking guns in this case, and a list of the top ten smoking guns will be posted on this blog in the next few days. For the moment, though, a fact that should be better known is that, when Bryant staggered out of the burning Seascape guest house on the morning of April 29, his words were: 'Don't shoot. I am the hostage.' So we have known since April 29, 1996, that he (Bryant) was the hostage, not the gunman. (It is interesting that Bryant spoke in the singular. Since he was probably drugged for most of his time inside Seascape, he would almost certainly not have known that the gunman had taken a number of other hostages.) It is astonishing that the bias in favour of Bryant's guilt has been so deeply entrenched for so long that no one has yet grasped the significance of the fact that, when Bryant emerged from Seascape, he felt the need to clarify to the police who he was. At this stage, of course, Bryant could have had no idea that the police had already decided that he was the gunman.
A second smoking gun is a startling piece of information betrayed by Hobart Mercury reporter Michael Bingham in his book Suddenly One Sunday (1996), the lightweight narrative of the massacre and its sequel at the Seascape guest house that is probably the only book about the case that has been reasonably widely read. According to Bingham, the first Special Operations Group (SOG) personnel consisting of three people arrived in Taranna by helicopter from Hobart at about 3.15 p.m on April 28. The second set of SOG personnel arrived in Taranna by land at 4.12 p.m. 'The first of them [i.e., those who had arrived at about 3.15] moved forward to Seascape just before 4 p.m.' (p. 106) Unbelievably, Bingham goes on to mention that when the first police arrived at Seascape, which was shortly before 2 p.m., an SOG man (whose name is not given) was already present at the scene: 'As they approached Seascape, they saw a vehicle on fire. They stopped and spoke to an SOG member, who told them that there were wounded people at the Fox and Hounds Hotel up the road, and that police were needed there as soon as possible.' (p. 106)
In other words, an SOG man - or, at least, someone with SOG identification - was on the scene at more or less exactly the same time that the car was set on fire, which was first reported, according to Bingham, at 1.57 p.m. (p. 100). Numerous questions have to be asked about this SOG man, who must have been outside Seascape by 1.55 p.m. at the very latest. First of all, what was he doing at Seascape before 2 p.m., when the first SOG party did not even arrive at Taranna until 3.12 p.m. and at Seascape until 'just before 4 p.m.'? Second, his early presence strongly suggests that he was already at Seascape when the gunman arrived there from Port Arthur. If so, how did he know that the gunman was going to go there? And, if he was there before 1.55 p.m., why didn't he try to apprehend the gunman as he exited the stolen BMW and entered the guest house? And why was his priority to deflect the next set of police to arrive on the scene (Constables Pat Allen and Perry Caulfield) to the Fox and Hound Hotel 800 metres away?
An explanation that makes sense is that the SOG man WAS the Port Arthur shooter. After arriving at Seascape, he would have ditched his wig and his ear muffs inside the BMW before setting fire to it (thus eliminating the evidence of his impersonation of Martin Bryant inside the Broad Arrow Cafe). He would have been present at the location, with his SOG identification, when the first police, including Allen and Caulfield, arrived outside Seascape a few minutes later. At this stage, his overwhelming concern would be to send police to another location as a means of buying more time for his next step, his transformation into 'Jamie,' the gunman inside Seascape who was subsequently (and erroneously) identified by the authorities as Martin Bryant. Certainly, he was inside the house, and speaking with ABC reporter Alison Smith, when she rang the Seascape number between about 2.20 and 2.30 p.m.