Lisa Marie Smith

Here’s something I didn’t know anything about.

I walked up to Newtown the other day and saw some street art I hadn't noticed before. The signs are painted on masonite and then fixed to walls with construction adhesive. I found these three in three different locations around Camperdown Memorial Rest Park.

This next shot shows the size relative to the wall in the park.

So when I got home I had a look on the web to see what this might be all about.

From the Australian November 27, 2006.

“TEN years after she jumped bail while facing drug-smuggling charges in Thailand, one of Australia's most wanted fugitives, Lisa Marie Smith, may finally have escaped the law.

Police in Australia and Britain have admitted they have exhausted their inquiries into the 31-year-old, while Thai police privately say they have had no success with their investigation.

Ms Smith, in August 1996, failed to appear in a Bangkok court after her millionaire father, Terry Smith, then the chief executive of the National Mutual insurance company in Hong Kong, paid $75,000 to secure her release on bail.

The first foreigner facing drug-smuggling charges to be granted bail, Ms Smith had been arrested at Bangkok airport in February 1996 and accused of smuggling almost 4kg of cannabis and more than 500 amphetamine tablets.

She briefly spent time in a Bangkok prison and fled the country despite the Australian Government agreeing to negotiate a royal pardon that would have seen her serve less than two years in Thai custody.”

Here are some news links to the story - here, here and here. The last one is a rather stupid opinion piece from Chris Smith from 2GB encouraging Peter LLoyd from the ABC to try to pull the same stunt after being caught in Singapore with drugs in 2008. Lucky he didn't as he was eventually released and is back working for the ABC.

Lisa Marie Smith even has a facebook presence here that gives a good overview of the case.

That's pretty interesting, but what is the purpose of the signs and the cryptic messages? (The Inner West is full of cryptic messages.)

I found a photo of another sign on Flickr, and another at doni dexter photographic. But then I came across a great blog called Darlinghurst Nights which tracks down a whole lot of similar signs apparently made by the same artist around Darlinghurst and Redfern. Go to Darlinghurst Nights and have a look at the images there and read about the bloggers detective work regarding the elusive 'Invisible Man'. While you are there check out the rest of the blog, it's pretty cool.