How long before Carl Williams becomes a legend?

One would imagine that it will be quite quick. Quicker than average one could even say. Carl Williams gained great notoriety in recent years due not so much to his money making criminal activities but to his way of dealing with the competition. He had the unfortunate habit of shooting them dead.

His rotund figure and baby face looks made him the most unlikely looking crime lord.

However last year a biopic TV series done on him and his criminal era where many were shot dead. It was one of the most successful TV series in recent times and from it will proliferate many other books, articles and maybe even a movie or to. With his very violent murder in prison yesterday that will only add to the Carl Williams mystique.

In one way he was canonised even before he died thanks to modern day TV. Of course he is no different than the Australian criminal legend, Ned Kelly. The same as Carl Williams, a murdering thief who left a trail of victims of crime in his wake. But it seems we have a need to make heroes of such villains in our Australian psyche.

5 years, 10 years or 20 years before Carl Williams is held in high esteem? Maybe longer but it seems safe to say that the stage has been set for this man to become one of the great modern day “Highwaymen” of Australian history.

Here is a picture at his trial. The woman in the yellow beanie is his ex-wife spewing venom at the blonde woman who was his new 20 something girlfriend at the time. These two women were publicly fighting over a man who was about to spend at least the next 35 years of his life in jail.

I have done some prison time myself, fortunately as an employee rather than a resident. I used to sometimes watch “visits” as it was called when the visitors came to see the men in jail. I was for ever surprised at the long line of attractive women who would come in through the gates dressed in all their finery that would have the average man pursuing them for sure.

Maybe this is the same psychological mechanism at work. There is something about the outlaw man that is attractive to at least some women. In addition overall society can tend to put them in some position of reverence as well.

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