The Matriarch
Page 29
They had been to Trevor’s place. They had an ambulance outside his place ready, but Debbie saved his life. She was heavily pregnant and was going to Safeway to do some shopping, but she didn’t feel up to it, so she stayed home, and saved his life. They maced him, same day as they raided me.
The resulting court hearings didn’t end until March 1995, by which time Kathy had spent a considerable period in custody on remand. She finally admitted to three of the original fifteen charges and was sentenced to eighteen months, nine of them suspended for two years. Because of the time already served on remand she was freed and left immediately for the sanctuary of Venus Bay.
Meanwhile, by June 1991 her oldest surviving son, Peter, was serving his second sentence in Geelong gaol, when he became involved in an incident which caused his transfer back to Pentridge. His incarceration had done little to curb his main skill, drug dealing, and when a fight broke out over who ran the gaol’s very efficient drug cartel, an inmate named Andrew Caddaye finished up with thirty stab wounds. He received a punctured lung and almost had a hand severed in the attack. Peter was one of eight prisoners moved to Pentridge in the aftermath of the assault.
Two months later, possibly as a result of this incident, police began an investigation into Peter’s activities behind bars which was to last until September 1992. The result of their inquiries was a million-dollar five-month trial which ended in October 1994 with Peter getting an additional seven-year sentence.
The trial, before Mr Justice Francis Walsh in Melbourne County Court, heard of Peter’s role as the mastermind behind an audacious drug ring which supplied heroin, amphetamines, marijuana and Rohypnol to gaol inmates throughout the Victorian prison system, principally Pentridge, Geelong and Bendigo.
Peter’s system was based on a network using a corrupt prison officer code-named The Postie, five TAB accounts, three women couriers, and Victor as banker and supplier. For much of the period he ran the syndicate Peter worked in the F Division laundry in Pentridge, from where he spent up to two hours a day on the phone. Unknown to Peter police tapped the laundry phone and recorded a total of more than 17,000 calls, 2,000 from the gaol and the remainder from other tapped phones, including Victor’s, on the outside.
The system was deceptively simple. Prisoners wanting drugs had to have relatives or friends on the outside who would pay money into one of the five TAB accounts, including one in Victor’s name and another in Wendy’s. The drugs were then brought into the gaols, either by The Postie or the couriers, and passed to Peter.
As a result of the break-up of Peter’s syndicate, the entire system of phone use within the state’s gaols has been changed. Prisoners are now allowed to phone only pre-approved numbers.
Kathy maintains that the horrific amount of time Peter has spent in prison since his twentieth birthday has done less damage to him, both physically and mentally, than would be expected.
He’s just like you or me. He’s well adjusted, happy, you’d be amazed. At the end of the last ten stretch he did, he told me: ‘I’ve done a quick ten.’ Doesn’t affect him. All he does is play cards. He’s learnt Vietnamese when he was in the yards. He’s in the slot at the moment because they reckon he’s running the gaol, which he probably was. Victor reckoned Peter’s the untidiest person in his cell. Victor was meticulous. You could eat off Victor’s floor. Peter would just dump a smoke down Victor’s toilet and Victor would go crook. Victor and Peter weren’t that close. Peter reads a lot of transcripts and that ‘cos he helps a lot of other prisoners with their cases.
Since her release after the drugs conviction, Kathy has occupied herself with her house and garden, her new dog, Charlie, her ritual games of bingo and the making of quaint little ornaments. She brings home pieces of driftwood and other items she finds on the beach and paints and varnishes them, transforming them into the kind of novelty found in tourist shops and on mantelpieces everywhere.
When she has made sufficient numbers, Kathy takes her creations to a local weekend market and sells them, generally for between $2 and $5. Few of the purchasers are aware as they set off with their new acquisition that they are taking home a part of Granny Evil, the most notorious matriarch in Australian criminal history.
Kathy has lived at Venus Bay for more than thirty years now and has formed a deep attachment for the place. It seems to provide her with the same sense of sanctuary and peace of mind she found alone in her cell in Pentridge.
In politics they talk about experienced hands ‘knowing where the bodies are buried’. In the underworld it’s better not to use phrases like that. But there’s no doubting Kathy is privy to knowledge in a variety of areas that the average police officer would trade his freddy (badge) for. But there’s never any sense that this weighs heavily on her soul. Kath, above all, is comfortable in her own company. Her fierce self-sufficiency may start to fade over the next decade as old-age creeps on, but there is little prospect of her sinking into a whining, guilt-ridden dotage. If she chooses to grow old in Venus Bay her last years are more likely to be characterised by a grin of defiance than a tear of remorse.
Epilogue
I learned, when I drove Kathy to the South Melbourne funeral of her son, Victor Peirce, in 2002, the extent to which she is still widely respected by the doyens of the Melbourne underworld. And this respect comes despite her exile in the quiet backwater of Venus Bay for the past three decades.
As we stood together outside the church, a procession of baldheaded, black-suited men filed up to her, bent over and whispered words of condolence into her ear, and then slipped a few notes of currency into her pocket.
This was a rare visit to Melbourne for the woman known universally as ‘Granny Evil’. When possible she avoids the city and the killing fields of Richmond, where her son Dennis’s home became an abattoir for humans. ‘Just too many bad fucking memories, love,’ she has told me countless times.
Over the years she’s been dragged back there by various movie and TV companies, anxious to film her on the streets where her family once held almost feudal sway over the rest of the population.
Kathy’s attitude to this ongoing obsession with rehashing the events of the past is to resile from nothing. As she grows older and more frail (she is now, at the time of publication, in her eighty-fourth year) she remains defiant and resolute in her refusal to justify or excuse any of the terrible events she witnessed, or in which she played a role.
And for those who point out the appalling records of the children who grew up under her influence, she has this response:
I loved my kids and did everything I could for them. They were hard fucking times early on, it wasn’t easy. But they all knew I was there for them, and always would be
Chronology
1935
March 27
Kathy born to Albert Kemp and Gladys Lee
1937
Kathy’s sister Wilma born
1939
Kathy’s sister Barbara born Albert enlists in army and goes to war
1941
Albert dies Kathleen Shields takes over care of girls
1945
Family moves to St Kilda Barbara dies
1950
Kathy starts work in clothing factory
1951
Kathy meets Dennis Ryan
Nov 7
Kathy’s first child, Dennis, born
Dec 14
Kathy marries Dennis Ryan
1952
Sept
Dennis Ryan goes to fight in Korean war
1953
Jan 25
Kathy’s second child, Peter, born
Feb
Kathy meets Billy Peirce
1954
Gladys takes over Dennis and Peter
Aug 11
Kathy’s third child, Vicki, born
1956
July 8
Kathy’s fourth child, Shelley, born and taken into care
1957
July 15
Kathy’s fifth child
, Stephen, born and taken into care
1958
Nov 11
Kathy’s sixth child, Victor, born
1960
Jan 7
Kathy’s seventh child, Lex, born
1961
Kathy meets Jimmy Pettingill
July
Kathy’s eighth child, David, born and taken into care
1963
Dec 18
Kathy’s ninth child, Jamie, born
1965
Feb 1
Kathy’s last child, Trevor, born
1967
Kathy breaks with Jimmy Pettingill
Kathy moves family to Olympic village and starts work at Sentimental Bloke Hotel
1968
Sept 16
Billy Peirce dies
Dec 8
Dennis’s first conviction (wilful damage)
1969
Nov
Dennis learns Kathy is his mother
1970
Jason Ryan, Kathy’s grandson, born
1971
Kathy has heart attack, recovers, then goes into massage parlours Family moves to High St, Northcote
1972
Jimmy Pettingill dies
1973
Oct 17
Dennis and Peter go on rampage in Sandringham
1974
Aug 1
Dennis sentenced to ten years gaol, Peter fourteen
1975
March 11
Kathy’s first charge (indecent language)
1976
June 25
Kathy gaoled for fourteen days for harbouring escapee
1978
Dennis released
Oct 1
Kathy loses eye in shooting incident
Dec 18
Dennis gaoled for three months for harbouring Jamie Family moves to Ross St, Northcote
1979
July 20
Dennis gaoled for four years for parole breach
1980
April 22
Dennis given two months’ sentence for aiding escapee
1981
Dennis marries Heather (Sissy) Hill in Pentridge Gaol Dennis’s and Sissy’s daughter Lindy born
1982
June
Kathy buys house at 108 Stephenson St, Richmond
July
Dennis released and joins Kathy
1983
May 27
Greg Pasche last seen alive Dennis’s and Sissy’s daughter Jade born
Sept 14
Tom Wraith murdered
Nov
Victor Gouroff disappears
Nov-Dec
Dennis buys three more houses in Richmond
1984
July 23
Operation Cyclops launched
Aug 11
Wayne Stanhope shot dead
Sept 18
Lindsay Simpson shot dead
Oct
Six Cyclops raids on various houses
Oct 24
Dennis buys five houses in Cubitt St, Richmond
Nov 8
Helga Wagnegg’s fatal visit to 108 Stephenson St
Nov 27
Victor and Trevor charged with trafficking in heroin
Nov 29
Jamie bashes undercover policeman
1985
Jan-Feb
Further Cyclops raids
May 9
Coroner’s Court bombed
May 14
Dennis allegedly sends ‘Miss X’ to Sydney to collect heroin
May 14
Jamie dies from overdose
Aug 6
Peter released from gaol
Sept
Dennis threatens roadie with gun
Sept 4
Shots fired at Prahran Police Station
Nov 6
Anton Kenny murdered
1986
March 5
Anton Kenny’s body recovered from Yarra
April
Peter raided and remanded in custody
Aug 27
Sissy suicides in Pentridge Gaol
Dec 10
Vicki Ward murdered
1987
Mar 11
Dennis charged with Stanhope murder
April 13
Dennis dies in St Vincent’s Hospital
April 13
Inquest into Sissy’s death
1988
April
Kathy moves to Venus Bay Peter gaoled for thirteen years
Oct 11
Graeme Jensen shot by police
Oct 12
Two police constables murdered in Walsh St, South Yarra
Oct 31
Jason charged with policemen’s murders
Nov 1
Anthony Farrell charged with policemen’s murders
Nov 17
Jedd Houghton shot by police
Dec 30
Victor charged with policemen’s murders
1989
April 9
Gary Abdallah shot by police
May 18
Peter McEvoy charged with policemen’s murders
July 15
Wendy Peirce enters witness protection Kathy’s lost children contact their mother
1990
Feb 22
Victor, McEvoy and Farrell committed
July 9
Trevor charged with policemen’s murders
1991
Jan 21
Wendy’s about-face
Feb
Vicki enters protection
March 26
All four accused acquitted
1992
Dec
Kathy moves to Rowville to look after Victor’s children
1993
April
Victor gaoled for eight years on drug charges
May
Gladys dies
Sept 16
Operation Earthquake raid on house at Venus Bay
1994
May
Kathy released from gaol
1995
March
Trevor gaoled for five years on drug charges
1998
March
Trevor released from gaol
April
Victor released from gaol
1999
July
Peter released from gaol
2002
May 1
Victor murdered in execution-style shooting in Port Melbourne
Acknowledgments
TO GEOFF FLATMAN, CHRIS DANE, PHIL DUNN, BILL MORGAN-PAYLER, PAT TEHAN, BOB VERNON, CHARLIE NIKAKIS AND BERNIE AHEARNE, with thanks to each and every one of you for legal assistance provided TO NUNZIO LAROSSA, who comforted me when I was feeling down
TO LEO, who kept me going at court when I was in dire straits TO LILLIAN LIEDER, QC, for comforting me in Lonsdale Street TO STEVE AND HIS WIFE, who never let our family down under any pressure
TO MY TWO SONS, who conducted themselves in the dock during the Walsh Street trial like gentlemen TO DEBBIE, for being there with me at the verdict, and who is still with me with her two young sons
TO HUGH RIMMINTON, who sat with me through the verdict TO SALLY GLUYAS, who was kind when the jury were out TO ROBIN AND THE TWO DEBBIES, who came to Fairlea every fortnight for our great barbecues TO PAT from Venus Bay
TO RAY, JANE AND PADDY, who supported me in my court case after having known me at Venus Bay for only two months TO THE UNKNOWN PERSON who wrote to me at Venus Bay and let me know she felt for us
TO DENNIS, my first-born, despite all the violence and fear he created
AND TO ADRIAN TAME, for having the guts to write this book
KATHY PETTTNGILL
TO WARREN BARKER, for inspiration
TO JOHN GRANT, for introductions and memories
TO LEON GETTLER, for invaluable advice
TO TOM NOBLE, for generous assistance with research, and permission to quote from his
excellent books
TO JANE (for reading) and GEOFF (for listening) McDONNELL
TO PETER HILL and VIRGINIA KONG, for comments and safe-keeping
TO ANDY WALKER, for research and wise counsel TO ROBERT MACOLINO, for his thoughts TO THE AGE and HERALD-SUN, Melbourne, for allowing me to use their library facilities