by Justine Ford
During the videotaped interview Adajian repeated the same story. ‘He said he’d gone there, they’d had a cup of tea, then he’d hurt his shoulder,’ Ron says. ‘When he’d come to, they were all dead.’
A short time later, there was a break in the case. ‘I got a call from the crime scene examiners at the wholesalers’ office to say, “You won’t believe it, it’s all captured on video”,’ Ron recalls. He arranged for a copy of the video to be brought down to St Kilda Road. At first, Ron saw Adajian entering the office, sitting down and the hospitable Pins making him a cup of tea, just as he’d said. ‘You then saw him jump up and pull a gun from the back of his pants,’ Ron says. ‘He was fairly flustered and uncoordinated and he grabbed hold of Mr Pin’s jacket but he managed to break free.’
The Pins’ son, Virayuth, who was sitting at the desk, hit a silent alarm under the table. It alerted a security company and in turn, the police. ‘Manuel went back to the table, finished the cup of tea, then got Mr Pin Senior and Junior [to stand] in front and fired three shots into each,’ Ron continues. ‘He then turned around and shot Mrs Pin twice.’
While the murder video gave Ron a clear insight into how the events unfolded, it was nevertheless confronting. ‘Life is very precious,’ he reflects, ‘and in the space of two seconds two lives were lost and a third destroyed.’
The video then showed Adajian going to the safe, from which he started removing all the diamonds. ‘He then saw Mrs Pin was still alive so he pistol-whipped her with the butt of the gun,’ Ron says. ‘She was rendered totally unconscious given she’d already been shot twice to the skull.’
After that, Adajian took off his jacket, put the diamonds in it and slung it over his shoulder like a swag. He also took Lean Thoeun’s wallet and counted its contents. Surprise surprise, thought Ron. He’s counted eighteen hundred dollars, the same amount of money that was in his pocket.
Adajian tried to open the door to make his getaway but it was locked. The building’s high security was designed to keep dangerous individuals out, but now it was keeping one in. The killer started to panic. ‘He was looking for some type of button to release the door so he could leave,’ Ron says. But he couldn’t get out and the cops would arrive any minute.
‘You could just about see his thought process kick in. It was as if he realised, I’m done,’ Ron continues. ‘Then he went into the mode of being a witness, wiping down the gun so there were no prints, making sure there were no diamonds on him, and that the only thing in his pocket was the eighteen hundred dollars, which he later claimed was his personal money. He left the diamonds, however, tied up in his coat beside the front door. In total, he’d loaded up $1.5 million worth of diamonds in his coat.’
Responding to the alarm, the police barged through the door to be confronted by the terrible, bloody scene. According to Ron, Adajian said something like, ‘Thank God, you’ve saved my life! This is horrific!’ After that he was taken to Homicide as a potential witness.
‘So after I’d seen the video I interviewed him again,’ Ron says. ‘Could you have done this and don’t remember?’ he asked the dark-haired man shifting in his seat. ‘He said absolutely not.
‘So I got the video and said, “I want you to watch this and tell me what happens”,’ Ron continues. Adajian quietly watched the video of himself having a cup of tea. But when he saw himself stand up and shoot the Pins, he appeared shocked and horrified. ‘He said, “Oh no, oh no! There must be a monster inside me!” ’ Ron says.
Ron asked him how long this monster had been inside him. ‘He said “Only today”. I said, “How do you explain it?” He didn’t know how to explain it …“It’s me but it’s not me”.’
The only way to understand the man with the monster inside was to delve into his background and find a motive for murder. ‘It turned out he was a heroin addict who was married with two children and he owed money all over the place,’ Ron says. Significantly, Adajian had told various associates on the day of the murders that he was going to come into money. ‘He said he was going to get an inheritance and be able to pay his debt,’ Ron says. ‘He telegraphed to people that was the day it was going to happen.’
When Adajian faced court for the murders of Lean Thoeun Pin and Virayuth Pin, and the attempted murder of Siv Eng Pin, Ron still had a hurdle to overcome. ‘The question was, was he sane or insane?’ he says. ‘So I needed to prove he knew what he was doing, and if that was the case, that he knew it was wrong.’
For advice, Ron turned to the distinguished forensic psychiatrist, Professor Paul Mullen, who’d assessed the Port Arthur mass murderer, Martin Bryant. ‘He said Manuel Adajian was sane because if he was insane he would not be socially in tune with people, and there he was in the video, having a cup of tea and interacting,’ Ron says. The professor also pointed to the way Adajian counted the money and knew exactly how much he had. ‘He said, “In my professional opinion, he’s sane”.’
In the end, Ron scored a conviction. ‘Manuel Adajian ended up pleading guilty and is now doing thirty-five years,’ he says.
And while Siv Eng Pin ultimately survived the ordeal, she is living out her days with severe brain damage in a nursing home.
16
JANE THURGOOD-DOVE
‘There were many twists and turns with this high-profile case.’
– Ron Iddles
Ladies Day at the races is when women from all over Australia dress in their finest florals for the third day of the Melbourne Cup Carnival. It’s a fun day, unless you guzzle too much bubbly, back a loser, or you’re a horse.
On this day in 1997 – 6 November – Ron, who was working the afternoon shift, was called out to a house in Melbourne’s north-west to investigate the shooting of a woman named Jane Thurgood-Dove. Ron was told the thirty-five-year-old had been taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital, where she was fighting for her life.
Jane, a bright-eyed, neatly presented mother of three, had spent the day much like any other: taking two of her children to school and another to playgroup, then catching up on the gossip with a neighbour in the street.
Why shoot this suburban mum? Ron wondered. Was it a domestic dispute? Or was there more to Jane Thurgood-Dove than met the eye?
According to Ron, ‘This is one of those homicides that galvanised the public and created massive amounts of media. Everyone wondered why an attractive woman would be gunned down in the driveway of her own home.’ The case would consume him for almost fourteen years.
*
Ron hadn’t been expecting a murder that day. He’d always found Ladies Day (officially called Oaks Day), a ‘fairly relaxed’ time. ‘When I found out about the shooting I was sitting at Homicide in air-conditioned comfort,’ he recalls. ‘An hour later I was standing over a body.’
On the way to the Thurgood-Dove house in Muriel Street, Niddrie, Ron received a call from police headquarters to say there was already a development: a burnt-out car had turned up in Ryder Street, Niddrie, about 1.5 kilometres from the crime scene. Police suspected it had been used in the shooting.
But first things first: the victim. Ron wanted to know if Thurgood-Dove was going to survive and, aware that doctors could receive patient updates faster than the police, he asked a forensic pathologist to call Royal Melbourne Hospital and find out. ‘Hospitals have very strict protocols around privacy, so if you get a pathologist – who’s a doctor – to ring, you get a better sense of the condition of the patient,’ Ron explains.
As the pathologist set about calling the hospital, Ron arrived at the crime scene, which was swarming with uniformed police and buzzing with static from their radios. There was a primary school two doors down, so SUV-driving mums doing afternoon pick-ups – some still in their race-day best – craned their necks to peer past the police tape.
At least two people, including a schoolgirl and a woman who lived nearby, had witnessed the shooting, so the first uniformed officer at
the scene was able to give Ron a reasonably detailed briefing. ‘He said apparently Jane had driven into the driveway in her early-model Toyota Landcruiser with her three kids in the car – Scott, who was eleven, Ashley, who was six, and Holly, aged three.’ A split second later, another car pulled up behind them. ‘A Holden Commodore then drove into the driveway and the passenger got out,’ Ron continues. ‘He was wearing sunglasses and a beanie, was scruffy and slightly overweight.’
It looked as though Thurgood-Dove knew instantly she was in grave danger. ‘She yelled out, “Oh no, oh no!” ’ Ron says. ‘So the question for the police was, Did Jane know that person? Or did she see a weapon?’ She started running frantically around her car, circling it at least twice until she fell over. Her pursuer – who was indeed armed – had her cornered. ‘At that point the gunman fired two shots into the back of her head. He then ran back to the car, which sped off.’
Jane Thurgood-Dove’s children saw everything.
*
Immediately after the briefing, the uniformed officer took Ron over to her car, where he saw she hadn’t been taken to hospital after all. ‘Jane’s body was still lying there,’ he remembers. ‘I said, “How can that happen when I was told she was taken to hospital?” They said, “No, she died here at the scene”.’ Ron was unimpressed but acknowledged that detectives didn’t always receive accurate information at the start of an investigation as events were still unfolding. He made a mental note to get it right for the rest of the job.
Ron asked the uniformed officer where the Thurgood-Dove children were and was told they were at the milk bar. ‘So about ten minutes later I was able to have a conversation with Scott,’ Ron says. ‘He briefly told me what had happened. He said he’d seen his mum get shot.’
Scott possessed an emotional intelligence beyond his years and, unable to save his mum, had tried to shield his siblings. ‘Even though he was young, he had the foresight to take his younger siblings to the corner shop three doors down,’ Ron says. ‘I said, “Where’s your father?” expecting him to say, “We don’t live with our dad”. My brain was ticking over and I was thinking, Is this a domestic? ‘He said his dad – Mark Thurgood-Dove – was at Styrapak [a polystyrene factory] at Campbellfield. I then asked him when he last saw his dad and he said he left for work this morning.’
Straightaway, Ron sent a colleague to the factory where Mark Thurgood-Dove worked as a foreman. ‘One, to see if Mark was at work,’ Ron says, ‘and two, to find out – if he was there – if he’d had the opportunity to leave.’ He quickly learnt that Thurgood-Dove had been at work all day. ‘So sadly, one of my detectives had to tell him that Jane had been shot.’ It is a job every police officer dreads.
Police at the Niddrie house began to process the scene, taking photos and video, and collecting exhibits. Ron remembers one clue that stood out to him. ‘There was a big powder burn at the back of Jane’s head and there were particles on the weatherboard of the house,’ he says. ‘It indicated it was an older-style gun and possibly self-loaded. In ballistics terms, it was unusual.’
Portly gunman, outdated firearm.
Perhaps, Ron thought, the abandoned, burnt-out car down the road might tell us something. ‘From the numberplate we were able to establish it had been stolen from outside the Carlton Football Club at Princes Park on the Monday of that week,’ he reveals. He arranged for the car to be more thoroughly examined.
About three or four hours into the investigation, Ron visited Thurgood-Dove’s parents, John and Helen Magill, who lived in a neighbouring suburb. Standing in the driveway of the Magills’ house, Ron had to tell the distressed father the hard facts of a homicide investigation. ‘I said, “You know what, John? You’re equally a suspect. The way I work is, I try to eliminate the family first – including Mark – and then I work my way out”.’
By this time, the confused children were in their grandparents’ care. Ron will never forget how the youngest was acting. ‘I went inside and Holly was running around and asking where her mum was,’ he says. ‘The police helicopter was up and even though she was only about three, I think she associated the helicopter with her mum’s death.’
A short while later, Mark Thurgood-Dove arrived, giving Ron the opportunity to talk to him too. ‘He was very quiet and reserved but emotional, and had the children around him,’ Ron remembers. ‘He told me he would ring Jane from work every day to see how she was going, but that day, he didn’t call. They’d had an argument the day before over a personal issue and he’d decided he wouldn’t ring.’ Ron says as a detective he would normally have found that odd but he and his colleagues were satisfied because he had been at work all day and could not have pulled the trigger. ‘But,’ he adds, ‘we weren’t satisfied at that stage that he hadn’t contracted someone else to do it.’
Around midnight, Ron and his crew returned to the office, the scene of many late-night brainstorms. The boss, Detective Inspector Paul Sheridan, asked Ron how the investigation was progressing. ‘Terribly,’ the weary senior sergeant replied, recognising this was not a domestic murder he could solve quickly. ‘Jane and Mark were classified as schoolyard sweethearts by Jane’s parents,’ he told the boss, ‘and from all accounts there were no issues within the marriage.’
When homicide detectives don’t find a breakthrough within forty-eight hours, they can face long, drawn-out investigations, as he knew all too well from the Maria James case. At least there were witnesses, Ron reasoned, and that helped. But who would want to kill Jane Thurgood-Dove who, by all accounts, was a warm, gracious woman, devoted to her family?
‘If you don’t have a motive, you’re going to struggle,’ Ron explains. ‘And twelve hours in, we had no motive and had a gut feeling we were in for the long haul.’
*
From the outset, the media was fascinated by the murder of Jane Thurgood-Dove, perhaps because she was a mum, an innocent victim, or a well-presented woman in her prime. Whatever the reason for the heightened interest, the Homicide Squad was going to make the most of it, knowing that someone in the community had information about the murder. ‘We put out a FACE† image of the driver from the witness descriptions,’ Ron says. ‘And we tried to manage the large volume of interest in the case.’
Every morning after Thurgood-Dove was killed, Ron started work at 5 am. He wanted to sift through information that came in from Crime Stoppers overnight so that, by 7 am, he could allocate appropriate tasks to his detectives. They were long, intense days for the whole team. ‘After spending the day finding out anything we could, we’d regroup as late as nine or ten at night and talk about what we’d achieved and where we were going from there,’ he recalls.
From a forensic point of view, the stolen car was of interest. In it, the crime scene examiners had discovered a second-hand Apollo brand battery that had ‘Good. 2.11.97’ marked on it. That indicated someone had purchased the second-hand battery on 2 November 1997. Not by the owner of the car, though – before his car was stolen, he’d had a brand new Dunlop Dynapak battery in it.
In the back of the car, police found a fire-damaged men’s jacket that didn’t belong to the car’s owner either. The Homicide Squad asked the media to publish pictures of the battery and the jacket and it yielded a result. A man phoned to say the jacket was his and that it had been in the back of his VN Commodore, which had been stolen from Flemington Racecourse. ‘His car was recovered in Myross Avenue in Ascot Vale with the jacket and a pair of sunglasses missing, as well as the car battery,’ Ron says. ‘The batteries were taken from both VN Commodores, which we could now link because the jacket from the first car wound up in the second car, which was used in the murder.’ It was all very strange.
Ron thought if he could find out where the battery from the murder car had been purchased and by whom it might lead him to the killer. ‘We checked nearly every wrecking yard in Melbourne,’ he says. His crew found two car yards that may have sold the battery but couldn�
��t confirm it either way. ‘We could never work out who purchased that battery or satisfy ourselves it came from a particular wrecking yard.’
But why steal two cars and replace their batteries in the first place? What did it mean? ‘All it shows is a connection between two stolen cars, and for whatever reason they stole the battery out of each car,’ Ron says.
Even he was baffled.
*
Getting inside the mind of a murderer is difficult when you don’t know who they are or their motive. In an effort to find out more about Thurgood-Dove’s life, the detectives continued speaking to those closest to her, including her sisters, Susan and Sandra. That’s when the case started hotting up. ‘Susan said that about ten days before the murder, she visited Jane, who was somewhat stressed,’ Ron says. ‘She asked what was wrong but Jane said, “I can’t tell you”. When Susan asked why, Jane said, “If I told you, you’d never ever understand”.’
So Jane Thurgood-Dove had a secret. One she couldn’t tell her sister, who was close to her, Ron thought.
Rummaging through Thurgood-Dove’s handbag, the investigators found a clue. ‘In Jane’s handbag was a card from a police officer,’ Ron recalls. ‘It had his name on it and he worked at an inner Melbourne police station.’
A member of Ron’s crew paid the policeman a visit and asked how he knew Thurgood-Dove. ‘He said he knew John, Jane’s dad, because he ran a stall at Moonee Ponds market where he bought his meat,’ Ron says. ‘He’d also lived with Jane’s sister, Susan, who he was in a relationship with for two years.’ On top of that, Thurgood-Dove cleaned the policeman’s house to boost the family income.
Ron says the policeman made a written statement saying he’d last spoken to Thurgood-Dove about a week before her murder. He’d phoned her while he was on night shift and she was cleaning his house. ‘He said he spoke to her for about a minute, but he was tired and didn’t want to keep talking,’ Ron recalls. ‘But when we checked the phone records we found out that the call went for a lot longer than that.’ This gave Ron new questions to ponder: Was the police officer simply mistaken, or not being open with the facts?