by Adrian Tame
Robertson: No. 43.
Dosser: Who chopped the legs off?
Robertson: No comment.
Dosser: What was used to chop them off?
Robertson: A chainsaw.
Dosser: Where is this chainsaw now?
Robertson: In the Prahran tip.
Dosser: Why did they chop the legs off?
Robertson: I don’t know. They reckon I was a weak cunt because I couldn’t stand the smell. I nearly vomited.
Robertson then spoke of putting the body in a forty-four-gallon drum and adding cement, lime and a form of acid used to clean bricks. Dosser asked him who drove the van containing the drum to the Yarra River, where it was finally dumped.
Robertson: I did, I was pretty pissed though. I can remember drinking a bottle of Scotch . . . on the way . . . the van really stunk after we dropped it [the drum] in. There was also a hell of a smell in the house, and we had to go and get Pine-o-Kleen and splash that around to kill the smell. Shit it was off.
Two other men were mentioned during the interview. One was Jimmy Rizio, owner of the van used in the disposal.
Dosser: Was Rizio there when Anton was shot?
Robertson: No, he came later with a sheila, I don’t know her name, but it was all set for Rizio to fuck her. I think he was going to hump her in the shower, but she had the rags on, so he left her. Fred [the second man mentioned by Robertson] finished up fuckin’ her anyway.
Dosser: Do you want to say anything about the incident? Robertson: I didn’t shoot him, that’s all. If I say too much then I’m off. I’ll be knocked . . .
Robertson’s second October 21 statement went into even more detail. It began with the stripping of Kenny’s body down to his underpants and the burning of his clothes. It was shortly after this, according to the statement, that Jimmy Rizio and ‘a blonde-headed sheila’ arrived and made their abortive attempt at having sex in the shower, while Kenny’s half-naked corpse lay still warm nearby. ‘Jimmy came out and said he hadn’t had a fuck because the sheila had the rags on.’ Jimmy then left.
The Enforcer was there at the time, together with Lynn Williams, who called the ambulance when Jamie overdosed, and Vicki Ward, who was to become another murder victim. While Miss Jones and the ‘blonde-headed sheila’ cleaned the lounge carpet with Pine-o-Kleen, Dennis, Robertson and The Enforcer carried Kenny’s body from 49 Cubitt Street to number 43. They returned to 49, drank for two hours and then returned to 43 and placed Anton head first into the forty-four-gallon drum taken from the back yard of 49. Dermis added the lime and acid to the drum and plugged in the chainsaw. While The Enforcer and Robertson boarded up the windows, Dennis went to work. Robertson’s statement continues:
He started to hack at the legs of Anton around the knee area. There was bits of flesh and bone flying everywhere. I spewed up. Dennis cut off one leg and poked it in next to the body. Dennis said: ‘Fuck this, let’s have a drink.’ He turned off the chainsaw and we all went back to 49. Dennis had bits of shit, bone all over him. I had some on me. When Dennis was sawing off the leg you could hear the bone hitting the tin in the building.
Dennis and Robertson returned to 43, where Dennis made an abortive attempt with the chainsaw to remove the second leg. He then went back to 49 and returned with a meat cleaver. Robertson stayed at the front of the house.
After the second leg was severed all clothing was burnt and the following morning the lime bag and acid bottle were also burnt. Later cement was added to the drum. Another day went by and still the body had not been removed. By now thirty to forty bottles of Pine-o-Kleen had been used in an effort to get rid of the stench of rotting flesh. Finally Robertson and The Enforcer took the drum, weighing 265 kilos, in Rizio’s van and rolled it into the Yarra, from where it was recovered by police four months later in a metre of water. According to The Enforcer, during the four months before its discovery the barrel was used as a regular jumping-off base for people swimming in the Yarra.
When it was opened at the city mortuary the legs were still in the barrel and the lime seemed to have had little effect in hastening the decomposition of the remains. Three bullets were recovered from the upper part of Kenny’s body.
Not long after this, on 19 March 1986, Kathy made a statement to the police, something she would have avoided at all costs in normal circumstances. But Dennis was putting on the pressure.
I was in gaol for drug offences. Dennis comes out with the homicide squad. Now I won’t talk to the police if I can help it. The screw takes me over to the office, and this is in front of them [homicide squad officers] Dennis says to me: ‘If you don’t tell them that Robbo did it, they’re gonna charge me with the murder.’ So I did. I made a statement.
Kathy told the police that when Dennis summoned her to witness Kenny’s dying moments she asked Robertson: ‘Who did it?’ Her statement continued:
He said: ‘I did. He tried to tamper with the two kids.’ I knew Anton was gone, but I didn’t really believe it until I saw it on the telly where someone was found in a barrel in the river. I was told by Robbo that he had put him in a barrel and dumped him in the river, but I didn’t believe it. I thought it was all bravado. I thought they had taken him to the hospital.
The inquest opened in November 1986 and quickly became an ordeal for all concerned—for Kathy because of her dawning realisation that her statement to police was likely to produce a murder conviction against Robertson, breaching her dedication to the criminal code; for Coroner Hal Hallenstein in attempting to select the truth from the wildly conflicting evidence put before him; for the police due to the savage mauling they received over their investigation; and lastly for relatives of the dead man who had to listen to the horrifying descriptions of the disposal of his body.
Dennis was called before the coroner early in proceedings so that his options could be explained to him. Hallenstein told him that he was implicated in Kenny’s death, and that he could remain during the hearing and give evidence if he wished, or he could leave the building. Dennis chose to leave.
One of the early witnesses provided a unique insight into how Dennis appeared to outsiders on first acquaintance. Daryl Stewart, a Noble Park rigger who had driven Kenny to Dennis’s home in Cubitt Street one evening, had this to say: ‘As I walked through the house I saw a guy with all gold chains around his neck. It was unbelievable all the chains. I couldn’t believe it.’
Various police witnesses then described the discovery of the body and tendered photographs showing Kenny’s corpse and its severed legs immediately after recovery from the Yarra. The autopsy report began: ‘The entire body was covered by greasy, greyish brown and crusting, white, foul-smelling material . . .’ Amazingly, Kenny’s tattoos were still largely intact. They included a heart with scrolls, ‘a fierce head surrounded by golden wings and snakes entwined, and a skull with large teeth’. The right leg was severed just below the knee and the left leg twelve centimetres below the knee.
Peter Hastilow, who had sold Dennis much of the furniture he bought for his various properties, then gave his version, describing being with Dennis in the kitchen when he heard the fatal shots fired, and being warned by Robertson to keep his mouth shut.
‘Miss Jones’ was the next witness, and her first statement describing the shooting was read to the inquest:
I saw Robbo sitting down at the table pointing a gun at Anton. Robbo seemed to be off his head. He had a terribly angry look on his face. Robbo’s arm was straight out, pointing at Anton, and he fired once. Anton said words like: ‘Fuck mate, what’s going on? I thought we were just mucking around.’
Under cross-examination Miss Jones altered her story, saying she had been at the house when an argument broke out. Dennis had told her: ‘Go and grab my kids and take them around to my brother’s house because something’s happening here.’ She said she had been kept prisoner for two days after this and Dennis had placed a gun at her head, ordering her to tell police that she had witnessed Robertson shooting Kenny. In truth she did not se
e Kenny shot, she said.
The coroner then ordered suppression of Miss Jones’s identity, and adjourned the hearing to 19 December. This was when Detective Dosser underwent his ordeal in the box.
He spoke of being present when the forty-four-gallon drum was opened and seeing ‘what appeared to be the left ear, hair and left cheek of a human body set in concrete.’
During cross examination by Mr T. Forrest, appearing for Robertson, the name of Senior Sergeant Paul Higgins cropped up. This was the same officer, later to be gaoled on corruption charges in one of Victoria’s costliest and most celebrated trials, whose tip-off from a regular but unidentified informant (almost certainly Dennis) had led to the discovery of Helga Wagnegg’s body.
Forrest asked Dosser if Dennis was Higgins’s informant. After objections and legal argument he again put the question, ‘Do you know whether that information that was relayed to Sergeant Higgins was via Dennis Allen?’
Dosser replied: ‘I believe it may have been, yes.’
So five months before his death here in a public forum was first-hand evidence that Dennis was supplying information to the police. What came next provides a rare insight into the murky business of what can happen when police are obliged to weigh the merits of an informer against the gravity of the offences he may be committing.
Forrest: Were any forensic examinations made of Mr Allen’s house, at that time, that is before the body was found?
Dosser: No.
Forrest: Why not?
Dosser: I can’t give a reason.
Forrest: You had information that a murder had been committed, you knew the name of the deceased, you knew where it was supposed to have been committed, but no forensic examination took place for some months afterwards?
Dosser: That’s correct.
Forrest: Who was in charge of this investigation?
Dosser: I was.
Questions about the offences Dennis was facing at the time were then raised. Then:
Forrest: Has Dennis Allen been interviewed in the form of a record of interview about this offence?
Dosser: Not by myself.
Forrest: Has he been interviewed by anyone, in the form of a record of interview?
Dosser: He refused to partake.
The subject then turned to Higgins’s role.
Forrest: To your knowledge was that information [about Kenny’s body being in the Yarra] relayed to Mr Higgins by Dennis Allen?
Dosser: I couldn’t answer that.
Forrest: What connection did he [Higgins] have with this investigation?
Dosser: None.
Forrest: And yet he seemed to be the only source of leads that you had?
Dosser: He was a source, yes.
Forrest: Is Mr Higgins giving evidence here?
Dosser: No.
Forrest: Has he made a statement?
Dosser: No.
Forrest: So here is a man who is dealing directly with a major witness, or indeed a possible accused in this matter, Dennis Allen [yet] he [Higgins] has not taken a formal statement from him, that is correct?
Dosser: Yes.
Forrest: He is not even in the homicide squad, and he has nothing to do with the squad that would have anything to do with this investigation?
Dosser: Yes.
Under further examination Dosser conceded that Robertson had not been asked to sign the notes of the interview conducted with him, was not asked to read the record of those notes, and was not tape-recorded despite the facilities being present.
Forrest continued to pile on the pressure. He elicited from Dosser the fact that Dennis and Kenny had fallen out over a drug deal in which Kenny supplied poor quality drugs. Dosser conceded this could have been a motive for Dennis murdering Kenny, but said the matter had not been investigated, and would not be investigated. Pressed by Forrest, however, he changed his reply: ‘Yes, it—yes, it will be investigated.’
Forrest: That is not what you said a minute ago.
Dosser: No, I’m sorry, it will be investigated, yes.
Coroner Hallenstein then summarised his dilemma:
One has a statement by [Miss Jones] and a statement by Hastilow, who identify Robertson as the person who killed Kenny. We have a third witness, Pettingill, who says that, by way of admission, Robertson has indicated to her that he has killed Kenny. We then have the other side of the coin. [Miss Jones] has recanted on oath, there are aspects as to the credibility of a number of witnesses, and there is a statement by Robertson which specifically and in detail implicates one Dennis Allen as the person who killed Kenny. Now, what do you say I do with those two sides of the story?
Coroner Hallenstein’s finding was that Kenny died from ‘gunshot wounds to the abdomen unlawfully and maliciously inflicted by Peter Ian Robertson’. He then formally charged Robertson with Kenny’s murder. Robertson pleaded not guilty, and was refused bail and remanded to appear at the Supreme Court.
By this stage Kathy was racked with guilt that the statement she made in gaol on Dennis’s orders was going to condemn Robertson to a lengthy sentence.
Dennis dies in the meantime [April 1987, before Robertson’s trial]. Now I’m ready to commit suicide, right? Because I’m not going to be the one that sends a man to gaol. Right? That’s the criminal code. You can’t. I had to retract the statement, because I would have killed meself rather than send Robbo to gaol. I can’t . . . I’ve got to live by our code.
So Kathy stood in the witness box at Robertson’s murder trial and told of a deathbed confession by Dennis of having murdered Kenny, and thus secured Robertson’s acquittal. The circumstances in which she made this court appearance were extraordinary.
I got a phone call from _________V of the police. He’s blind drunk. This is about seven o’clock on a Saturday night. And he said: ‘If you’re a good Catholic, rah, rah, rah,’ and he’s rambling on, ‘and we’ll fix you.’ It was a death threat. So I’m having a bit of a cry after he’s said that.
Monday morning I walk into the Supreme Court building. There’s a jack there, a jack there, and a jack there. I had been spat on in the corridor by Anton’s relatives, his brothers. And I had the police ready to kill me. And I think: ‘I’m trapped.’ Right? So I call the tipstaff out, right? And I said to him:_________ has threatened my life and I want you to tell the judge.’ And he comes back out, and he says: ‘Mrs Pettingill, the judge said he’s aware of the situation, but please do not say anything in front of the jury.’ The police threatened my life.
Despite her fears Kathy still managed to tell the jury, just one month after his death, of Dennis’s confession and on 28 May 1987, Robertson was acquitted of Anton’s murder, largely on the strength of Kathy’s evidence. He was immediately charged with unlawfully disposing of a body, and on 29 June was gaoled for four years. Passing sentence, Mr Justice Murray said Robertson, then aged thirty-one, was lucky not to have been charged with being an accessory after the fact or murder, which carried a maximum penalty of fifteen years.
The judge described the disposal of Anton’s body as ‘the most horrifying set of circumstances which I have had occasion to deal with.’ He added that the manner in which Dennis and Robertson had acted would ‘certainly live in my memory for a long time.’
Today, eight years later, it is difficult to work out the truth of Dennis’s deathbed confession. If Kathy was lying in court, and there is no reason to suspect she was, she is unlikely to admit it now and face perjury charges.
* * *
Anton Kenny was the last of the seven victims most widely believed to have been murdered directly or indirectly by Dennis. The other six were Greg Pasche, Victor Gouroff, Lindsay Simpson, Wayne Stanhope, Helga Wagnegg and Jamie Pettingill. Kathy’s view is that, of these, Dennis murdered Simpson, Stanhope and Wagnegg. But the real truth of how many slayings can be laid at his door is now almost certainly beyond uncovering. A series of other killings and disappearances linked to his name still remain on police files.
On 18 August 1986 a woman
called Elizabeth Shaw died of a suspected ‘hot shot’ in a flat in St Kilda. Shaw was a heroin addict and people in Dennis’s circle suspected her of also being an informer. So when Dennis’s name appeared on one of the death notices in the Sun, police suspicions again turned to Stephenson Street.
The notice listed nearly twenty names including Dennis, Victor, Trevor and Kathy. It read, in part: ‘Sadly missed by those she worked for. She inspired some by the stories she told . . . Vengeance is mine, said the Lord.’ One theory suggests the notice may have been placed by police, hoping to flush out a suspect. But there is something very familiar about the cryptic sentiments expressed. Kathy has only the vaguest of memories of Elizabeth Shaw, and knows nothing about the death notice.
Four months later, in December 1986, the body of Vicki Ward, a thirty-four-year-old unmarried mother of two young daughters, who was present during the disposal of Anton Kenny’s body, was found by three road workers dumped in a ditch in a remote area of Campbellfield, with a bullet wound in the back of the head and another in an arm. She was wearing a grey jumpsuit and gold chains around her neck and ankles—so robbery was an unlikely motive.
Early evidence suggested she had been at a restaurant with friends on the evening of her death, but had left around midnight. The friends told police a vehicle had pulled into the restaurant car park and the occupants had sounded the horn. Vicki went out to the car, saying she would be back in twenty minutes. She was never seen alive again.
Initial police theories centred on an impending murder trial she was due to appear in as a key witness. But there was something else. Vicki had been one of Dennis’s lovers and had even lived with him in Stephenson Street for a period. As a result of one of the many raids on his properties Vicki had been charged, along with Dennis and Jamie, with trafficking and possession of heroin. There was also evidence that the relationship between Vicki and Dennis occasionally ran off the rails. Police had watched unseen one night as Vicki cowered in her car in Stephenson Street as Dennis systematically smashed every window and light on the vehicle. So had Vicki become just another of his victims?