by Adrian Tame
But in many ways Walsh Street was also part of Dennis’s legacy. Kathy believes the string of unsolved murders and other crimes he left behind, and perhaps more importantly, the allegations that he had a number of police officers on his payroll, convinced many of Victoria’s so-called finest that they still had a score to settle with the family. Without Dennis her other children would never have been caught up in Walsh Street, she says. Or, as she put it in a much publicised television interview at the time: ‘We’re still paying for Dennis’s sins.’
How true this may be is difficult to say, but the fact remains that the family will forever be connected in the public mind with the murder of the two young constables, despite both Victor and Trevor having been acquitted. For Kathy the supreme irony is that their acquittals are seen today as almost irrelevant, and in the minds of many police officers have simply added to the enormity of the score left to settle.
The killing of a policeman is never lightly undertaken by even the most desperate criminals. In only the most extreme circumstances—escaping from custody, or avoiding capture during commission of a major crime—would such a step be contemplated. Even then the consequences are so predictable that the bullet is likely to remain in the breech. This is borne out by the figures: since it was formed in 1853 the Victoria Police Force has lost twenty-nine members in the line of duty. Of their killers, all but the Walsh Street assassins have been brought to justice.
Besides, all the underworld hates a cop killing; it brings too much heat. And Walsh Street wasn’t the murder of a single officer in the turmoil of battle or the frenzy of flight. It was the ice-cold extermination of two young men selected at random and killed for revenge. A Holden Commodore car had been abandoned in the early hours of the morning of 12 October 1988, in the middle of Walsh Street, South Yarra, the innocuous bait in a savage trap. Any patrol car could have been summoned to check why it was there but Prahran 311, carrying constables Steven Tynan, aged twenty-two, and Damian Eyre, twenty, was the first on the scene.
The two officers parked their car close behind the abandoned Commodore and approached on foot. Tynan climbed into the driving seat and Eyre stood or squatted beside him on the road. At least two men came out of the darkness, getting to within a metre of their quarry before the first shot was fired. Tynan fell across the front seat, his skull shattered. A second shot hit Eyre in the back, and a third and a fourth missed their target, presumably because the stricken policeman was able to struggle with his attacker. Then Eyre’s police issue revolver was jerked from its holster, placed against his head and fired at pointblank range. At that moment the course of Victorian criminal history changed forever.
The sound of the shots woke many people living nearby, a number of whom at subsequent court hearings described hearing voices and seeing figures running from the scene. Interestingly, two witnesses, independently of one another, said one of the voices they heard was a woman’s. Others spoke of hearing cries of anguish, presumably from one or other of the two victims. Unfortunately none of them were at their windows when the murderers sprang their trap.
Whoever those men were who stepped out of the shadows, they must have realised they would have the state’s entire police force baying for their blood, and half the underworld anxious to turn them in to cool things down. But did the four men ultimately charged—Victor and Trevor and their two co-accused—fit the bill?
At least one person thought so. Immediately after their acquittal Detective Inspector John Noonan, head of the TyEyre taskforce which investigated the murders, gave voice to the outrage of his colleagues when he bitterly observed: ‘The verdict brought down by the jury says not guilty. They’re certainly not saying that the four people who were charged are innocent, and neither am I.’ He was wrong, of course. Under our system of law the four were innocent from the start, until proven guilty, and their acquittal merely reinforced this innocence. Noonan was supported by the secretary of the Police Association, Senior Sergeant Danny Walsh, who said: ‘I, together with the rest of the police force, am totally devastated with the result. I can’t believe it.’
At around the same time Inspector Noonan was making his statement, a radio message was going out from police headquarters to all units: ‘The verdict in the Walsh Street trial was all four not guilty, repeat not guilty. All units are warned, keep yourselves in control.’
Chief Commissioner Neil Comrie was to observe seven years later, in November 1995, that the aftermath of the Walsh Street period was still dictating the manner in which the war between his force and the underworld was being conducted.
An examination of the extraordinary sequence of events leading to and following the Walsh Street murders will help to explain why they made and changed history.
11 October 1988: Career criminal Graeme Jensen is shot dead in a car in the outer suburb of Narre Warren. It is later revealed that Jensen and his associates, including Victor Peirce, had been under surveillance and that the police had allegedly made threats against their lives. Detectives would also claim that underworld circles had decided that the next time police killed a criminal, the death would be doubly avenged—two of their number would pay the penalty.
12 October, 4.45 a.m.: Constables Tynan and Eyre shot dead in Walsh Street. Police immediately claim link with Jensen killing.
12 October, afternoon: Victor Peirce’s home at 86 Chestnut Street, Richmond (Dennis’s former house) raided. His wife Wendy, nephew Jason, and Jason’s close friend Anthony Farrell taken in for questioning. Farrell later becomes one of the four put on trial for the murders.
12 October, later same afternoon: Police raid the Brunswick flat of Vicki Brooks, Kathy’s daughter, minutes after Victor has fled over a back fence. Peter McEvoy, an old friend of the family and tenant in the flat, is questioned but not arrested. McEvoy is to become another of the four defendants.
12 October, later in day: Having been warned by friends that police are likely to shoot him first and ask questions later, Victor goes with his solicitor to police headquarters to give himself up, but is told there is no officer available to see him.
13 October: Victor again visits police headquarters, and this time is charged with the murder and armed robbery of Dominik Hefti, a security guard killed during a raid on 11 July 1988 at a supermarket in Brunswick. Police have had Victor under surveillance, suspecting him of the robbery, and Jason Ryan has implicated him in the killing of Hefti in a statement made immediately after the raid on Chestnut Street. Eventually the Hefti charges against Victor are withdrawn, and charges of murdering Tynan and Eyre are laid. He spends the next thirty months in custody.
Next few days: Police raid the habitats of known criminals across the state as officers drop current inquiries to help with the manhunt. Police refuse to attend routine calls without back-up, requiring two cars for all but the most innocuous of assignments. The state government offers a reward of $200,000, and Police Minister Steve Crabb describes the killings as cold-blooded and despicable.
14 October: Damian Eyre buried.
17 October: Steven Tynan buried.
21 October: TyEyre Taskforce formed. Initially, and probably for political reasons, senior police have decided to treat the slayings as ordinary murders, despite Walsh Street being the first multiple killing of policemen in Victoria since the days of the Kelly Gang in the late 1870s. The entire 130-strong Bureau of Criminal Intelligence, and surveillance experts from the drug squad and the National Crime Authority, are made available to the taskforce.
21 October: Jason provides police with his first version of the killings, naming those allegedly involved, including family friend Jedd Houghton, during a lengthy interview.
24 October: Jason taken on a four-day tour of country Victoria by three detectives, leading to allegations of police intimidation aimed at gaining further information from him.
27 October: Jason names career criminal, Gary Abdallah, as the man who provided the get-away car for the murders.
28 October: Jason enters w
itness protection scheme. He is to remain in the scheme for close to three years at a cost of more than $2 million.
31 October: Jason incriminates Anthony Farrell and another friend, Emmanuel Alexandridis, in events leading up to the killings, and gives further information about Farrell, Houghton, McEvoy and his uncle Victor. Jason himself becomes the first person to be accused of the killings and is charged with murder. At a midnight hearing in the Supreme Court he is bailed into the custody of the protection squad.
1 November: Anthony Farrell becomes the second accused and is charged with murder. Police carry out the second of nine raids on Victor’s home in Chestnut Street, and charge his wife Wendy with possession of a firearm, assault on police, and indecent language.
Early November: List of suspects numbers twelve, later to grow close to 100. The state government passes legislation allowing bugged phone conversations to be admitted as evidence in court.
16 November: Jason again changes his story for police, naming Houghton, McEvoy, Farrell and his uncles Victor Peirce and Trevor Pettingill as the murderers.
17 November: Police trace Jedd Houghton to a caravan park in Bendigo. Houghton has become aware he is under surveillance as a Walsh Street suspect and, allegedly, is heavily armed. Police storm the caravan in which he is living, and he dies instantly after being hit with two shots. Police say he pulled a gun on them. Evidence will later be given that Houghton confessed his role in the killings to his girlfriend’s father.
29 November, early hours: Trevor is kidnapped outside his Fitzroy flat by four masked men, bundled into a car and driven to the bush, where he is severely beaten with a sledgehammer. His assailants repeatedly order him: ‘Tell the police the truth.’ He is dumped by the roadside and spends the next two weeks in hospital recovering from his injuries. In a newspaper interview Kathy initially claims the kidnappers were police officers, but subsequently retracts, saying it was a rival gang of criminals. Still later, after the acquittals, she goes back to her original opinion that the culprits were police.
23 December: Wendy Peirce stabs a woman in the face with a broken glass in a pub brawl in Richmond, causing serious injury. She is charged with attempted murder and spends Christmas in custody.
30 December: Victor is brought to court from Pentridge where he is on remand on the Hefti murder and robbery charges, and is charged with the murders of Tynan and Eyre. He is remanded back to Pentridge.
5 January 1989: Police carry out their final raid on Chestnut Street, reducing the house to matchwood with the aid of massive earthmoving equipment. They also excavate the site to a depth of two metres and remove many spent bullets, presumably dating back to Dennis’s occupation. The search takes place with the permission of the Taxation Department which now owns the property, having seized it from Dennis’s bankrupt estate.
13 January: Victor carried bodily down Russell Street into court by four police officers flanked by six detectives. Defence counsel refers to it as ‘a show for the media circus’.
9 April: Gary Abdallah repeatedly shot by police while being questioned in his Carlton flat. Two officers present say he pulled an imitation pistol on them.
26 April: A rusting sawn-off shotgun, believed to be one of the murder weapons, found buried at Royal Park Golf Course by a gardener. Police trace the history of the gun, an unusual make, imported from Japan, through painstaking research.
Late April: First signs of conflict between two heads of the taskforce, Detective Inspectors David Sprague and John Noonan. The rift is to worsen, virtually splitting the investigation into two warring camps. Both men admit retrospectively that their failure to get on, exacerbated by problems with Wendy Peirce, irreparably damaged the inquiry.
3 May: Peter McEvoy appears on television, after being interviewed by Inspector Noonan, saying he is afraid police are planning to kill him because they believe he was involved in the murders.
10 May: McEvoy arrested and charged with murders.
19 May: Abdallah dies in hospital without regaining consciousness. Inquiries into the police shooting will include an inquest, an investigation by the Ombudsman and a trial. Allegations will be made that police shot Abdallah after tying him up but all charges are eventually dismissed.
Early June: Wendy, now on bail on the attempted murder charge, has a series of meetings with police, during which she is shown love letters from Victor to other women, and agrees to enter witness protection scheme.
15 July: Before police arrive to take her into witness protection, Wendy has a number of visitors to her Cheltenham home and claims to be forcibly administered heroin as a ‘hot shot’ intended to kill her. Among those alleged to be involved are Trevor, Peter McEvoy’s girlfriend, and a man who had been sharing a prison cell with Victor.
Mid-July to late August: Wendy provides the police with a series of video-taped interviews giving information on various crimes, including murders and armed robberies, involving members of Kathy’s family.
Late July: Split between Inspectors Sprague and Noonan worsens. Wendy refuses to have any dealings with Noonan and two other taskforce officers who were previously involved in raids on the family during Dennis’s reign in Richmond. As a result Noonan is kept in the dark about vital information supplied by Wendy. The two other officers are temporarily removed from the taskforce, to the outrage of their colleagues.
Later in July: The Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) declines to help the taskforce prepare its final brief for court, presumably because the DPP does not believe the case is yet strong enough. Pressure is also coming on the taskforce from Chief Magistrate John Dugan to get the committal hearing under way. The job of compiling the brief is immense, involving 230 witnesses, 700 exhibits, 900 witness statements, 6,500 information sheets, 700 audio tapes and 12,000 telephone recordings. Close to 3,000 cab drivers alone are seen during investigations.
28 July: Split comes to a head in prolonged public row between members of the taskforce.
Early August: Taskforce numbers are reduced from fourteen to six, and Sprague and Noonan move their remaining teams into separate offices. Little or no communication follows between them.
Mid-August: Charges of murder against Jason Ryan withdrawn. He is granted immunity after agreeing to testify against the accused.
31 October: Committal hearings begin against Farrell, McEvoy and Victor. Prosecution alleges the three accused, plus Trevor, Jedd Houghton and Jason, gathered in a South Yarra flat to plot the death of the two police officers in revenge for Jensen’s killing.
November: Committal hearing continues with allegations by fellow inmates that Victor has confessed in gaol to the murders. Another prisoner, Lindsay Rountree, tells of an alleged attempt by Victor to recruit him into an underworld group pledged to murder two police officers each time a criminal is killed by police. Kathy’s daughter Vicki also gives evidence, leading to a permanent estrangement between them.
8 December: Wendy begins her evidence, which will include details of an affair she says she had with Graeme Jensen, and much about Kathy’s family during the Richmond days. Most damning of all, she tells of Victor saying, the night before Walsh Street, that he was ‘going to kill the jacks that knocked Graeme’. When he returned the next morning, she alleges Victor told her that he, Jedd Houghton and Peter McEvoy had killed two policemen in South Yarra.
22 February 1990: Committal ends with Victor, McEvoy and Farrell being sent for trial on charges of murdering Tynan and Eyre.
9 July: Trevor charged with the murders and ordered to stand trial, after limited committal proceedings, with the other three defendants.
21 January 1991: Voir dire preliminary hearing in the Supreme Court to test evidence Wendy is due to give before the trial. It soon becomes clear she is no longer prepared to provide the same evidence she gave at the committal, and later that day she signs herself out of the witness protection scheme. Thus, eighteen months, $2 million and thousands of hours of police work after she has become the main hope for the prosecution
, Wendy walks away from the case, effectively destroying its chances of securing convictions. The prosecution is now left to rely almost entirely on the evidence of Jason, who will admit to continually lying and changing his version of events on five occasions. The jury must also be aware he has been granted immunity from charges.
Early February: Kathy’s daughter Vicki enters the witness protection scheme. She has already informed police that McEvoy has allegedly confessed his role in the murders to her.
Mid-February: Trial begins. Various prosecution witnesses fail to give same evidence as at committal. Jason, as the main Crown witness, comes under heavy fire from the defence. His background with Dennis in Richmond is probed in depth, leaving the impression of an unstable and unreliable witness.
Early March: The four accused make unsworn statements from the dock, on which they cannot be cross examined. Their evidence is likely to be viewed by the jury as less credible than if they had taken the oath, allowing their versions of events to be put to the test of close questioning. Trevor says he spent the night of the murders at home in North Fitzroy, sound asleep under the influence of sedatives. Victor says he was in a motel room with Wendy and his three children. McEvoy says he spent the night in Vicki’s flat in Brunswick. Farrell says he also spent the night there, on the settee, under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
Mid-March: With the evidence completed, the jury retires to consider its verdict.
26 March: After six days of deliberation jury returns not guilty verdicts against all four accused. Media estimates of the total cost of the case quote a figure of $30 million. This includes $800,000 in legal aid for the defendants, who have been represented by one Queen’s Counsel, five barristers and eight instructing solicitors. Of this $800,000, a total of $600,000 came from a State Government grant. The six-and-a-half-week trial is estimated to have cost $65 a minute.