Born in 1935 in Sydney, Kevin John Simmonds was a teen rebel without a cause, who’d do time in two juvenile prisons before serving a three-year stretch as an adult in Goulburn Gaol. Released in February 1959, he embarked on a crime wave that saw him steal the equivalent of $1.1m worth of goods in just four months. For these offences, Simmonds got a 15-year sentence, and, in court, vowed to escape. He did just that, breaking out of Long Bay Gaol on the 9th of October 1959, triggering the biggest manhunt in NSW history — and the first Australian media circus of the television age.