The Houdini of Boggo Road escaped the prison in 1946. He shouldn't have taken a friend

Boggo Road Gaol crouches imposingly like a gargoyle on a hill in Brisbane's south.

It's a wound from the old days of penal policy, morphed in the minds of Brisbanites over the years into a heritage part of the city.

The quintessential prison — which closed finally in 1992 — housed Queensland's most notorious criminals, and ran the gamut of riots, mistreatment, hunger strikes, and violent crime.

And, from time to time, escapes.

Over the wall

Tall and tense, Arthur 'Slim' Halliday was locked up in Boggo Road in 1939 for house-breaking.

True crime writer and Boggo Road historian Jack Sim said Halliday was "a very intelligent and curious personality".

"He was not a man that liked to be alone with his thoughts. He was always driven to move forward, to be on the move," he said.

"You cage a creature like that and you're asking for trouble."

It was only a year before he made his first escape, absconding over the wall with improvised tools and disappearing, before being recaptured several weeks later.

That dash for freedom saw him labelled a dangerous person, further increasing his sentence. Prison staff kept a better eye on Halliday after 1940.

"It was a hell of thing he did in that escape … he really threw mud on everybody, all those in charge of the prison. He absolutely embarrassed them," Mr Sim said.

Back in prison, Halliday had to consider how he'd spend the war years. He may have been made promises.

Mr Sim believes prison authorities told Halliday if he kept his head down through the wartime years, he could get some time off his sentence.

"Well, the war came and went. Halliday got nothing, and he wasn't very impressed by the end of 1946."

Halliday's Leap

Known today as the Houdini of Boggo Road, Mr Sim said Halliday "deserves his status as one of the greatest jailbreakers in Australian history".

He was incredibly intelligent, and "if it were not for the sad aspect that he'd been put into an orphanage and had had a hard early life, if he hadn't drifted into crime … he would have had a very satisfying life and career."

By 1946, Halliday had resolved to attempt another escape. But this time, he would need assistance.

Halliday's behaviour during the war years had ingratiated him with prison officials, and he was able to lock down a job pouring concrete in a tunnel near the prison storeroom.

"Halliday told whoever would listen that he was up for the task of doing this work … he befriended a young guy called Vic Travis who was working at the jail storeroom," Mr Sim said.

Travis had a "plum job" thanks to his father, who worked in the police force.

"The storeroom was where everything you could ever want to escape was: cord, rope, nails, hammers, old uniforms, chemicals. You name it, it was in the storeroom.

"And that was sort of what Halliday was thinking."

The storeroom was also well-positioned for his purposes, only a stone's throw from the place he'd gone over the wall in 1940 — a spot that after 1946 would become known as Halliday's Leap.

"He could see that there was really no great improvement in the security of that part of the jail … he realised: this is where we'll do it again, go over that back wall."

But along with the tools and positioning, Halliday knew you needed one thing once you were over the wall — cash.

"And that's when Halliday got Derwent Arkinstall into the scheme."

'One of the most hated men in Queensland'

If Halliday made one fatal error in planning his escape it was throwing his lot in with Arkinstall, who Mr Sim said was "one of the most hated men in Queensland" after shooting dead a well-known taxi driver in cold blood.

"Halliday … talk about a dumb decision. [Arkinstall] is the last person you really want to be going over a wall with. You don't want to attract attention, you know?"

But Halliday and Travis needed money, and Arkinstall's father was able to smuggle some into the prison.

It's never been clear how the escapees communicated with each other, with Arkinstall under constant guard, but Mr Sim said "they somehow managed to pull this whole plan together".

Over a period of months, the trio prepared a makeshift ladder, gathered clothing, monitored guard movements and, when the time was right on December 11, made their move.

"And realistically, it went off pretty well. They got over the wall, hailed the taxi, and the taxi took them to the other side of town," Mr Sim said.

"They even tipped the taxi driver."

The taxi driver, dropping them at Nundah on the other side of town and didn't know where they'd come from — the escapees were dressed in civilian clothing acquired in the store by Travis.

The driver certainly didn't know one of his passengers was a convicted taxi driver killer.

Their absence was noticed mere minutes later, and a massive police hunt was launched. But it was already too late.

For days there was no sign of them. With a murderer escaped and at large, tensions mounted in the public, and the police went as far as setting fire to the scrub in Nundah Cemetery in an attempt to smoke the escapees out.

Searches for the three men continued, but Victor Travis had already split. He was recaptured at a Redbank military camp two weeks later.

Mr Sim said Halliday's choice to stick with Arkinstall was "the dumbest decision ever".

Taking a companion left Halliday with no hope of avoiding recapture.

"Authorities would be pissed off with Halliday, but it's Arkinstall that they absolutely must capture and smash to the ground, because he's a vicious, vile murderer in every sense," Mr Sim said.

'Can't blame a man for trying'

The police search spread wider and wider over the next few days, as Halliday and Arkinstall made their way toward the coast.

In the end it wasn't a cop who spotted the escapees, but two teenage boys fishing at the mouth of Nundah Creek.

Colin Jones and Fred Flynn reported seeing two men on a small island in the area, who ran when spotted by the boys.

Scores of police officers descended on the island, and Halliday and Arkinstall were found in mangroves with only their heads above water and arrested.

Waist-deep in a mosquito-ridden swamp, Halliday called out: "Don't shoot. We have nothing."

Even being marched to the cop car, Arkinstall wasn't done. He made a lunge for the revolver of renowned cop Bill Cronau.

"He comes down the stairs and makes a go for his gun. And Bill just turns and hooks him straight,"

Mr Sim said.

Nose bloodied, Arkinstall made a quip that could have applied to the whole fiasco: "You can't blame a man for trying."

Halliday's choice to involve Arkinstall in the scheme still baffles Mr Sim to this day.

"I think Halliday loved to have a faithful canine companion with him," he said.

Halliday was "socially awkward, prone to temper tantrums" and had a difficult upbringing.

"He had a part of him that had a soft spot for broken causes."

Halliday would remain in prison for the next couple of decades. In 1953, he was convicted of murdering taxi driver Athol McCowan on the Gold Coast.

But his story wasn't over. On the outside later in life, Halliday would become the neighbour and babysitter of Brisbane writer Trent Dalton.

Played by Australian actor Bryan Brown in the TV adaptation of Mr Dalton's best-selling novel Boy Swallows Universe, the real-life Halliday has become a central character in the mythology of Brisbane.

"Just about every conceivable crime, all the crimes that happened in our state … the perpetrators ended up behind the red brick walls of that jail," Mr Sim said.

"We're a prison island, that's how we began. In our blood, we're still bound and constrained by our past."