Martin Bryant

Martin John Bryant (born 7 May 1967) is an Australian mass murderer who shot and killed 35 people and injured 23 others in the Port Arthur massacre between 28 and 29 April 1996.

He is serving 35 life sentences plus 1,652 years without the possibility of parole at Risdon Prison in Hobart.

Martin Bryant was born on 7 May 1967 at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Hobart, Tasmania.

He was the first child of Maurice and Carleen Bryant.

Although the family home was in Lenah Valley, Bryant spent some of his childhood at their beach home in Carnarvon Bay.

After he was suspended from New Town Primary School in 1977, psychological assessments noted that he tortured animals.

Bryant returned to school the following year with improved behaviour; however, he persisted in teasing younger children.

In 1979, 12 year old Bryant was hospitalised in Royal Hobart Hospital, Tasmania from an injury caused by a firework accident.

While in the hospital, he was interviewed by local TV station.

Locals recall abnormal behaviour by Bryant, such as pulling the snorkel from another boy while diving and cutting down trees on a neighbour's property.

He was described by teachers as being distant from reality and unemotional.

At school, Bryant was a disruptive and sometimes violent child who suffered severe bullying by other children.

He was transferred to a special education unit at New Town High School in 1980, where he deteriorated both academically and behaviourally throughout his remaining school years.

Descriptions of Bryant's behaviour as an adolescent show that he continued to be disturbed and outlined the possibility of an intellectual disability.

When leaving school in 1983, he was assessed for a disability pension by a psychiatrist who wrote: "Cannot read or write. Does a bit of gardening and watches TV ... Only his parents' efforts prevent further deterioration. Could be schizophrenic and parents face a bleak future with him."

Bryant received a disability pension, though he also worked as a handyman and gardener.

In an examination after the massacre, forensic psychologist Ian Joblin found Bryant to be borderline mentally disabled with an I.Q. of 66, equivalent to an 11-year-old.

While awaiting trial, Bryant was examined by court-appointed psychiatrist Ian Sale, who was of the opinion that Bryant "could be regarded as having shown a mixture of conduct disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity and a condition known as Asperger syndrome".

Psychiatrist Paul Mullen, hired at the request of Bryant's legal counsel, found that Bryant was socially and intellectually impaired.

Furthermore, finding that he did not display signs of schizophrenia or a mood disorder, Mullen concluded, "Though Mr. Bryant was clearly a distressed and disturbed young man, he was not mentally ill."

In early-1987, when Bryant was 19, he met 54-year-old Helen Mary Elizabeth Harvey, heiress to a share in the Tattersall's lottery fortune, while looking for new customers for his lawnmowing service.

Helen, who lived with her mother Hilza, befriended Bryant, who became a regular visitor to her neglected mansion in New Town and assisted with tasks such as feeding the fourteen dogs living inside the house and the forty cats living inside her garage.

In June 1990, an unidentified person reported Harvey to the health authorities and medics found both Harvey and her mother in need of urgent hospital treatment.

With Helen suffering from infected ulcers and Hilza with a hip fracture, Hilza Harvey was moved into a nursing home and died several weeks later at the age of 79.

A mandatory clean-up order was placed on the decaying mansion and Bryant's father took long-service leave to assist in cleaning the interior.

The local RSPCA unit had to confiscate many animals living in the house.

Following the mandatory clean-up, Harvey now invited Bryant to live with her in the mansion and they began spending extravagant amounts of money, which included the purchase of more than thirty new cars in less than three years.

The odd pair of friends began to spend most of their days together extensively shopping, usually after having lunch in a local restaurant.

Around this time, Bryant was reassessed for his pension and a note was attached to the paperwork: "Father protects him from any occasion which might upset him as he continually threatens violence ... Martin tells me he would like to go around shooting people. It would be unsafe to allow Martin out of his parents' control".

In 1991, as a result of no longer being allowed to have animals at the house, Harvey and Bryant moved together onto a 29 ha farm called Taurusville that she had purchased in Copping, a small township.

Neighbours recalled that Bryant always carried an air gun and often fired it at tourists as they stopped to buy apples at a stall on the highway and that late at night, he would roam through the surrounding properties firing the gun at dogs when they barked at him.

They avoided him "at all costs" despite his attempts to befriend them.

On 20 October 1992, Harvey was killed at the age of 59 along with two of her dogs when her car veered onto the wrong side of the road and hit an oncoming car directly.

Bryant was inside the vehicle at the time of the accident and was hospitalised for seven months with severe neck and back injuries.

He was briefly investigated by police for the role he played in the accident, as Bryant had a known habit of lunging for the steering wheel and Harvey had already had three accidents as a result.

She often told people that this was the reason she never drove faster than 60 kilometres an hour (37 mph).

Harvey even allegedly said to a neighbour that "one of these days the little bastard [Bryant] is going to kill me".

Bryant was named the sole beneficiary of Harvey's will and came into possession of assets totalling more than AU$550,000.

In a 2011 interview, his mother recalled that while Bryant was very young, she would often find his toys broken and that he was an "annoying" and "different" child.

A psychologist's view was that Bryant would never be capable of holding down a job as he would aggravate people to such an extent that he would always be in trouble.