Underbelly 6 Read online

  The patient exhibits a severe and intractable personality disorder. He gave the history in a completely calm, matter-off-act fashion and at no stage showed any signs of regret or remorse about what he had done, but rather pleasure at the prospect of further killing in jail.

  ‘Unless there is some subtle neurological basis for such behaviour, there is certainly no treatment for his personality disorder and prognosis for recovery or improvement is zero.

  ‘He should never be released to the community and will represent a continuing and serious threat to the physical well-being and safety of prisoners and prison staff alike. He is a man of average intelligence with no signs of psychosis. I feel required to add that he is the most extreme case of this type that I have examined during 25 years of forensic work.’

  A year later he was examined again. ‘Norrie is getting worse i.e. more isolated and less communicative,’ the psychiatrist concluded.

  The man who saw himself as a real-life Rambo was anything but a tough guy. His prison report showed that he asked doctors not to give him injections because, ‘needles in the past have made him feel faint’.

  When asked what he thought about the prospect of spending his life in jail, he said he didn’t mind because there were ‘plenty of people inside to stab, bash and kill’.

  He was as good as his word.

  On Monday, June 8, 1987, Norrie was housed in Sydney’s Long Bay jail. He identified his next target, Richard Henry Maddrell, a man found not guilty of murdering four women on the grounds of insanity.

  Norrie used the same tactic he used to trick Mark Lynch near Orbost more than a year earlier.

  He asked Maddrell, ‘How about having a smoke of hash with me?’

  The two men walked into a dark room off the games area. Then Norrie attacked Maddrell with a weightlifting bar, screaming, ‘I’m going to kill you, you bastard. You killed my girlfriend.’ It was, of course, a lie.

  He slashed at Maddrell’s throat with a stolen steak knife but the victim was able to raise his right arm to protect himself.

  Prison officers called on Norrie to drop the knife. Suddenly docile, he handed it to a guard handle first.

  Dr Chiu Lung Wong asked Norrie a series of questions designed to see if the killer had any sense of remorse over what he had done.

  The psychiatrist asked, ‘Two people were shot dead through no fault of theirs. Does this mean anything to you?’

  He responded, ‘No, not really.’

  ‘You do not feel sorry for what happened?’

  ‘No, not at all. I had a good time.’

  ‘Given the opportunity, would you do it again?’

  ‘Oh, yes I would. I had a good time.’

  Dr Wong reasoned that the only people Norrie felt anything for were his grandparents, who had looked after him when he fell out with his mother.

  The psychiatrist asked Norrie if he would kill his grandparents. ‘I would now,’ he answered. ‘Before I did not know how good it would feel shooting people. I do now.’

  He said he enjoyed seeing his victims falling around, ‘screaming and moaning’. Dr Wong reported: ‘There is in him an extreme callousness and a total inability to experience the basic emotions which human beings are normally endowed with.’

  In an interview with Dr Leonard Lambeth, Norrie said he had broken into a video shop when he was young.

  ‘I should have been punished. It is wrong to rob banks, people should not do it. It is wrong to kill animals. I do not like shooting animals. Rape is bad, I do not like anything like that.’

  But murder? ‘It does not really bother me. I do not really think it is that wrong … I cannot understand why they punished me for shooting those people.’

  ANYONE who dealt with Norrie agreed that in an ideal world he would never be released so that he could never again be a threat. But this is not an ideal world.

  A few years after he was sentenced to life, Norrie reached out from within the prison system. He sent the daughter of murder victim, Ian Breust, a letter.

  ‘Dear Jenny, I hope you remember me. I remember you very well. I know where you live, so does Scott (Thompson). We both only have three years left, before we are released.

  We both will be returning to Narooma to have a party with you. We can’t wait, please make sure you have plenty of friends and family at your place for Christmas 1992.

  It will save us time looking for them as we had a lot of fun with Ian.

  Yours sincerely, A Norrie.’

  Jenny’s mother, Kay, received the letter and did not tell her daughter or two sons for years, trying to protect them from the man who killed her husband but, eventually, it was leaked to the press.

  Kay Breust said the letter anguished her already traumatised family.

  ‘Jenny still has nightmares. It would be so wrong if he was ever to get out.’

  While Norrie was sentenced to life in NSW for the murder of Ian Breust, he was eligible to apply for a minimum sentence and technically he could have been freed as early as 2002.

  But first he had to appear before the Victorian Supreme Court over the murder of Mark John Lynch.

  The court was told Norrie had improved in jail and had not been involved in violent incidents for years. The impression given was that with maturity his mental state had improved and he was no longer the same threat.

  But police who dealt with him for years said Norrie had just become cunning. He no longer answers questions about his mental state honestly. He has learned to say what he thinks people want to hear.

  In the early years of captivity, he expected to remain in jail for life – then he began to believe he could one day be released if he pretended to have reformed.

  But, in December, 2001, the Victorian Supreme Court Justice Bernard Bongiorno, former state Director of Public Prosecutions, sentenced him to a further 14 years, six months, for the murder of Mark Lynch.

  And Scott Thompson? He has been released from prison and is believed to be working as a jackaroo on an outback cattle property in Queensland.

  CHAPTER 7

  Old age and treachery

  They may not have found the smoking gun, but they found the next best thing … a blanket with a bullet hole in it.

  ‘JOHNNY’ Setek was not used to winning. His marriage had broken down, he had drifted through a succession of dead-end jobs and his attempts to get rich through gold mining had failed. But there was one thing in life that showed him he wasn’t a loser.

  And that was Super Dux, Setek’s star greyhound.

  Setek had been connected with greyhounds for more than 20 years and he knew all about false promises and shattered dreams. But this time it would be different.

  Super Dux was strong, quick and loved to run. And the battling trainer could see something else in that long, lean body – his dog had heart and a winner’s spirit.

  For six years Setek lived in the bush in his old caravan, parked under a rusted shed of corrugated iron. It was going nowhere and neither was he.

  For most of that time he had used basic machinery to move tonnes of earth and rock at his small mining claim in the Kingower State Forest, near Inglewood, north-west of Bendigo in central Victoria.

  It was off the same road where the 27-kilogram Hand of Faith nugget had been found a decade earlier, but all Setek found was that he was in the right place at the wrong time.

  Setek, 60, would occasionally find a small nugget that he would swap for groceries at a local store. He kept a small, water-filled jar containing a few specks of gold – as if to prove there was still hope of that big win.

  The reality was that he was a pensioner who had lost contact with his wife and children and was just managing to survive on his fortnightly welfare payments. But those who knew him said the one thing he hadn’t lost was his passion for life.

  And he loved dogs, greyhounds in particular.

  He had a doberman, a greyhound bitch, Royal Vintage, and a litter of eight pups. But Super Dux was his favourite.

 
Super Dux was no canine Phar Lap but the young dog showed promise. It had finished third in its first start and won its last two races at Horsham and Shepparton.

  If Setek had been a cunning punter, he would have tried to talk down his dog to improve the odds. But Johnny was an enthusiast. He told everybody about Super Dux and urged them to back it at its next start at Shepparton on August 19, 1993.

  He was so confident that the usually conservative local policeman gave him $5 to bet on the dog at the track that night. An unconservative man might have risked perhaps $25.

  ZDENEK Setek had been one of thousands of young men who fled post-war Europe for Australia. He was just 17 when he arrived in 1949 but he could not settle in his adopted country.

  In 1965, he returned to Czechoslovakia and two years later married Miladia, who had two children from her previous marriage.

  They tried to make a home in Holland but in 1969 sailed to Melbourne before moving to Bonegilla and, later, Bethanga. They had a daughter but after four unhappy years of marriage they separated.

  Setek told friends he fought the Nazis when he was 14 and had been fighting to make a living ever since.

  He drifted around Australia, working as a truck driver, crane operator, chef and builder.

  In 1987, he moved to Inglewood from NSW and squatted in his dilapidated caravan off Ironbark Dam Road. Locals began to call the area Setek’s Hut.

  Strictly speaking, it was illegal but a state mining warden persuaded Goldquest Mining to allow Setek to live there in return for acting as a caretaker on the property.

  ‘Johnny’ was cunning and resourceful, supplementing his old-age pension with small amounts of cash from scrap and illegally selling firewood gathered in the state forest.

  He spent more money on food for his dogs than for himself. As a pensioner, Setek lived on budget cuts of meat and made his own grappa from local fruit. But Super Dux was fed on a diet of steak.

  In 1992, Russell Morgan Harrod, then 66, moved to the area and the two battlers found they shared an interest in greyhounds.

  Harrod, a divorced builder from Carlton, and the eccentric European immigrant became close friends. Harrod said he became co-trainer of Super Dux on the promise of half the winnings.

  On the morning of August 19, 1993, Harrod drove to Ironbark Dam Road. He said Setek was still asleep so he massaged the star greyhound and fed the dog steak. Super Dux was to race at Shepparton that night.

  The dog looked fit and ready. He had been trained the bush way – chasing a lure attached to Setek’s battered Ford panel van along a rough track.

  Johnny, the self-taught handyman, had built an exercise machine for his dogs. It may have been a basic life for a man but it was Club Med for greyhounds, at least compared with the life of working dogs around a place like Inglewood, where most dogs spend their lives on short rations and a long chain, with the promise of a bullet if they don’t measure up.

  That afternoon the greyhound was given another meal. The two pensioners were content with take-away pies.

  They put Super Dux in the back of Johnny’s old rusted Falcon van and drove into town. The first stop was the Inglewood butcher. When Setek asked the shop manager, Adrian Starr, for $500 to back the dog, Starr knocked him back.

  Setek popped in to get his mail, telling the postmistress, Marie Ralph, that Super Dux would win that night. They then stopped at Ray Stagg’s garage for $20 worth of fuel for the round trip.

  When they got to the races they paid the $2 kennel fee and bought another round of pies for an early dinner while the bookies set up. The two men walked the dog until the first race but it wasn’t to be Super Dux’s night. He finished second last.

  It is here that the story of two battlers and a dog takes a turn into lies, mystery, deceit and greed.

  According to Harrod, they loaded Super Dux into the van, then Setek saw an old friend – a man known only as ‘Maurie’, an Italian-looking gentleman with a large moustache. They talked for 30 minutes before parting. No one at the track would later be able to recall seeing the mysterious Maurie.

  The next day Setek and Harrod worked for nearly six hours building permanent concrete dog runs at Setek’s property. The greyhound owner clearly planned to continue living at his basic squat. According to Harrod, they had dinner together and watched television in the caravan before parting for the night. At 8.15am the next day Harrod went back to the property.

  He must have had a remarkable eye for detail. Five months later, he was able to tell the police that Setek had been dressed in a ‘brown suit, brown pork-pie hat, brown shoes and blue tie. He had his brown suitcase in his hand’.

  ‘He told me he was going to Tasmania with Maurie for a week’s holiday. I almost fell over because this was the first I had heard about it.

  ‘I asked about his dogs and he just said, “I’ll be right.” By this I thought he meant I was going to look after everything for him.’

  Harrod said they then drove Johnny’s old van to Bendigo and that Johnny got out at the post office and told him Maurie was going to pick him up there. It was 9.15am, he said.

  ‘I haven’t seen Johnny since that day.’

  And nobody else has, either.

  HARROD would later claim his partner first rang to say he was staying another fortnight, then a week later, he rang again. ‘He said he had bad news, he was staying in Tassie permanently.

  ‘He got a job training dogs and he was now in Launceston. He told me to sell everything and put the money into building my house. He told me he wanted $1500 for Super Dux, $300 for each pup and $9000 for his Fiat Bulldozer.’

  The bulldozer turned out to be owned by someone else. Harrod tried to sell the caravan for $2000. Then he moved it onto his ten acre property where he was building a house. He took Setek’s tools and clothes and began to drive his old van.

  He helped strip the corrugated iron from the shed so a friend could use it to build his own.

  He sold Super Dux and the pups for less than $2000. Super Dux would never win again. Within weeks of Setek disappearing, everything he owned had been sold or used. There was little left to indicate he had ever existed.

  In November, Harrod said, his mate rang again. Harrod claimed he told him the Inglewood police wanted to talk to him. Despite having dropped into the station for a cup of coffee at least once a week for years, Setek’s attitude appeared to have changed.

  ‘He just said “I ain’t gotta do nothing”.’

  ‘I told him I had sold Super Dux and he said he had heard about it. He didn’t ask me for the money at all.’ He said the call lasted two minutes.

  Soon the locals were talking. They couldn’t believe Setek would leave without saying goodbye and they knew he wouldn’t leave his greyhounds.

  Local pastor Reverend Donald Ride said, I felt that he favoured his dogs in detriment to himself in that he spent a lot of money feeding them and caring for them.’

  A mining warden, Kevin Ryan, had known Setek for about four years. ‘His dogs were his life. John had one greyhound, two alsatians, and a doberman to my knowledge and he used to take great care of them.’

  Another local, Alan Gardner, said he was a ‘bit of a battler, with most of his money being spent on his greyhounds’.

  Even Harrod admitted, ‘Johnny really loved his dogs.’

  Setek was an eccentric but an honest one.

  He was given a line of credit at the hardware shop, grocery store, spare parts business, garage and livestock store. He always paid his bills but when he left he did not settle his accounts.

  Every fortnight he would get $315 put into his Commonwealth Bank account and every fortnight he would take it out to pay his bills. A week before he disappeared he withdrew his pension money, leaving a balance of $5.21.

  The pensioner didn’t touch the account again despite his fortnightly payments. By February 24, 1994, there was $4496.61 in the account.

  It wasn’t long before police were told Setek was missing. They went to Harrod, who told the st
ory of his friend walking out and giving up everything he owned.

  They didn’t believe him. No one did.

  Detectives sent forensic experts to check Setek’s old caravan. They may not have found the smoking gun, but they found the next best thing … a blanket with a bullet hole in it.

  Scientific tests showed the muzzle had been against the blanket when the rifle was fired. Whoever pulled the trigger did it at point-blank range. There was also evidence a bullet was fired inside the caravan.

  Detectives tracked down Setek’s daughter, Alice, and took a DNA test which showed the blood found around the bullet hole was a 98 per cent paternal match with her.

  Police had the blood, but where was the body?

  CAROL LEACH was worried because her horses were getting out of a nearby paddock so she decided check the gates.

  She had to drive past the Loddon Valley Abattoirs and the local offal pits. She knew the area well as her husband ran a backhoe business and sometimes dug trenches in the pits.

  As she drove past, she saw Setek’s distinctive old Ford, which she had often seen parked opposite her house when he was in town.

  She thought idly that Johnny was hunting in the pits for food for his dogs. She gave him a wave, then realised it was the wrong man. ‘When I first saw the man he appeared to panic.’

  She said the man she saw was well-dressed, which surprised her because of the stench and filth of the pits.

  It was, as she would find out much later, one or two days after Setek had gone missing.

  About 10 weeks later, Carol Leach was operating a cement mixer for her husband near the post office when she looked up and saw the panel van.

  There was a man sitting in the driver’s seat. He was the one she had seen at the offal pits.

  It would be four years from the time Setek disappeared until police were to search the pits. They used earth-moving equipment but, with hundreds of buried animal carcasses, it was a hopeless task.

  Detective Senior Sergeant John Morrish has a sign on his desk that reads: ‘Old age and treachery will overcome youth and talent.’