Captured: Portraits of Crime 1870-1930 - Flipbook - Page 107
As an expert I swear on oath that I could put three shots into Moore while
he was running across that veranda. I have put 40 shots into three penny
bits at 25 yards one after the other and won the rifle championship of NSW.
The rifle at the time was fully loaded and ready for action. I could have
fired at Moore and hit him three times while he was going from the steps
to the door.
In 1929 while still detained at the Governor’s Pleasure, Foy made an
application for release. He recounted his story and insisted that he was of
sound mind. In 1921 he had followed legal advice to plead guilty on the grounds
of insanity thinking that this would result in a short gaol sentence. But he now
believed this had been a mistake. He also thought that the original charges had
been “trumped up”. Parliamentarian Matthew Kilpatrick, Member for Wagga Wagga,
made representations on Foy’s behalf, and on 21 March 1929 the Executive Council
recommended his conditional release from Parramatta Mental Hospital. In July
that year, Foy’s release was made unconditional. He does not appear again in the
NSW Gaol Photographic Description Books, 1870-1930.
Maximilian Foy was the son of Mark Foy, the founder of the well-known Foy
and Gibson store in Collingwood, Melbourne. Mark Foy died in 1884 when Maximilian,
the only child from his second marriage to the much younger Catherine Power, was
an infant. Although Mark Foy had six children by his first marriage, he left the bulk
of his estate to Maximilian and Catherine. Mark Foy’s sons, Mark junior and
Francis—Maximilian’s much older half-brothers—established the famous Sydney
department store, Mark Foy’s, named after their late father.
As a boy, Maximilian or Max attended the prestigious Geelong College.
He was considered an able and academically gifted student and a champion shooter.
Foy married Marcia Lewis in 1913 in Sydney. They had three children but later
separated. Foy appears to have worked occasionally as a labourer in his later years
and at times may have been unemployed. How much of the Foy inheritance he retained
is not known. Maximilian Foy died on 28 May 1949.
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