Underbelly 11 Read online

  In June 2003, Fraser was moved out of the division into the mainstream of Port Phillip and then to Fulham at Sale. Two years later, in June 2005, he was summoned to the guard post at Fulham. At first he thought the meeting would be connected with one of the snippets of petty prison politics that helped pass the days, until an officer leaned over and whispered that a homicide squad detective was on the phone.

  ‘I knew exactly what the call was about before anyone spoke,’ Fraser said.

  On the line was Senior Detective Paul Scarlett, who had spent more than a year re-investigating the Halvagis case and unearthing several new witnesses identifying a man fitting Dupas’s description inside the Fawkner Cemetery in the days and hours before the murder.

  He had checked prison records and knew that Fraser had spent more than a year in the same division as Dupas. His prison sources had told him Fraser had acted as the suspect’s un paid jailhouse lawyer. The homicide detective made the call with no real hope of a breakthrough. ‘I was furious with him, actually. I couldn’t believe he would help someone like that. I expected the call to be short. I thought he’d tell me to get lost and hang up.’

  But when Scarlett introduced himself on the phone, Fraser simply asked, ‘What took you so long?’

  Scarlett asked if he could help in the Halvagis case and Fraser said, ‘You’d better come and see me.’

  Scarlett drove to Sale that night and was inside the prison the next morning.

  He soon confirmed that Dupas had finally made admissions, not to an old prison lag but to a trained legal professional who had dealt with criminals for almost 30 years. It was a breakthrough.

  Police hoped they now had an outstanding witness who would not be intimidated by the court process and could provide a unique insight into Dupas.

  The question was: why had Dupas broken his lifetime habit of refusing to implicate himself? Perhaps he felt that as a solicitor, Fraser was bound by client-lawyer confidentiality. But Fraser was no longer a lawyer and Dupas was never his client. It was therefore an admissible confession and one that could be put before a jury.

  For the police, Fraser was no longer the hated strategist who had derailed many of their investigations. He was the man who could help them finally solve a murder and give the long-suffering Halvagis family a little peace. Fraser was keen to cut a deal’ and the police were prepared to accommodate him. He wanted out and told Scarlett it was ‘a ride there for a ride back’.

  But it took more than a year to get federal clearance to move Fraser’s release date just two months.

  He was freed in September 2006 although he still had to report regularly to the parole board.

  JAIL has done nothing to knock the sharp edges off Andrew Fraser. He remains argumentative and his sentences are littered with the slang he learned from underworld clients. He is outspoken, opinionated and outwardly without remorse for throwing away a career, a reputation, a small fortune and a marriage over a decade-long addiction to cocaine.

  But scratch the surface and the wound is still raw. He loved his job, loved the spotlight and had wanted to be a lawyer since childhood – following the path of his grandfather and uncle. His client list is gone, many murdered in Melbourne’s underworld war. (He admits to having liked Lewis Moran, who was killed in the Brunswick Club in March 2004. ‘He was an old-style crook who would wear it when he was guilty. I saw him when he left jail and I said “See you later”. He said that, no, I wouldn’t. He knew what was going to happen.’)

  Fraser, 56, refuses to play the victim. He knows he can only blame himself for his fall from top lawyer to convicted criminal. He was at the top of his game in the early 1990s when he was first offered cocaine at a party.

  He saw it as a trapping of success rather than a trap and like thousands of others became an occasional (‘about once a week’) user. But by 1999 he was hooked – with a $1000-a-day habit and only just managing to hang out until the end of the court day before using again. ‘I was out of control. I have been stupid. I have damaged my family and myself but no-one else. I didn’t attack anyone and I didn’t steal from anyone. This has been self-inflicted and I just hope people can use my case to show that drugs can bring anyone down.’

  His wide circle of mates has narrowed and the long lunches shortened. ‘The silence from some people I thought were friends has been deafening.’

  But he has learned to value the loyalty of a few above the backslapping of many.

  He is fit and drug-free and his days are filled with early-morning runs, hard labour on a friend’s farm, making up for lost time with his children and writing his memoirs, Court In The Middle.

  The Halvagis case created a dilemma for the long-time defence lawyer. Angry at his treatment in jail and believing his sentence was excessive, he relished the irony of the fact that the very authorities that had destroyed his career now needed him to trap a serial killer.

  But there was never any doubt that he would give evidence – even though he knew the defence would try to destroy his credibility as the key witness. The past that he desperately wanted buried would be exhumed – his excesses and drug history would again be news. But the fact was, as experienced prosecutors said, if Fraser’s testimony had been negated the case against Dupas would collapse.

  Predictably, defence lawyers claimed that Fraser was motivated only by money and that he fabricated the confessions to claim the $1 million reward offered in the Halvagis case. They claimed he was a self-serving liar who saw testifying against Dupas as a way to regain part of what he had lost when jailed over drugs. The jury examined Fraser’s credibility, returning during deliberation to ask questions about his testimony.

  The jury already knew that Dupas was a killer. Usually, an accused’s prior convictions are kept from the jury but because of the suspect’s notoriety Justice Phil Cummins decided to confront the issue.

  He told the jury at the start of the trial that while they may have heard that Dupas had twice been convicted of murder they could not use that knowledge to pre-judge him. He urged them to remember that they should acquit or convict on the evidence they were about to see and hear.

  Fraser says he was unaware of the reward until after police first contacted him. ‘I didn’t have the faintest idea. I just wanted to do my time and get out. You just put one foot in front of the other and try to get through each week.’

  The expert negotiator says that if he was motivated by there ward he would have contacted detectives and tried to cut a deal long before they rang him.

  The reward was first offered in February 2005 and Fraser did not make a statement until June – when Senior Detective Paul Scarlett approached him. ‘Dupas is the worst sort of human you can imagine. I didn’t seek to trap him. I just wanted to do my time and slip out under the radar. But once he talked, I had no option but to stand up and be counted.’

  As he speaks his mobile phone sounds. The ring tone is from the classic Warren Zevon song Lawyers, Guns and Money, to which the lyrics are:

  ‘I’m a desperate man,

  Send lawyers, guns and money,

  The shit has hit the fan.’

  WHEN the jury returned with their guilty verdict against Peter Dupas the Halvagis family was there to hear it. For them it was the end of a decade-long quest for justice.

  ‘Thank you,’ whispered Mersina’s father George as he hugged a homicide detective who had spent years investigating the murder.

  Outside the court Mersina’s brother Nick said, ‘For ten years our family has lived our sister’s death. That was a very small part of her existence. The rest of our existence we are going to remember her 25-year fantastic life.

  ‘For five weeks, we sat opposite a guy who has now been convicted of three murders of innocent women. I don’t know how any person could sit in that room with the lowest form of human existence and not get angry.’

  The Halvagis trial illustrated the best and worst of humanity. In Dupas we saw the mutated version of the human condition. A man with no compass
ion, no morals, no remorse and no courage; a man who hunted women as if they were prey and then hid behind silence when he was exposed.

  But in the same court was the victim’s family, who refused to give up when there were no answers. They fought for Mersina who could not speak for herself. And there were police and prosecutors who kept going even when they knew that Dupas had already been jailed for life and would never be released.

  As Director of Public Prosecutions, Paul Coghlan had a budget to manage. It would have been easy to shelve the Halvagis case as too expensive an exercise when the suspect could never be released from prison in any case. But he knew that justice, not a set of numbers, is the real bottom line in the judicial system.

  He said while Dupas could not receive a heavier sentence the prosecution was pursued because ‘for the Halvagis family it was important to see that justice was done.’

  Coghlan, who on the week of the Dupas guilty verdict was elevated to the Supreme Court, said, ‘It is likely he has committed more murders (but) cases are about evidence.’ He described Dupas as ‘one of the most evil people we’ve ever dealt with’.

  The head of the investigation, Detective Senior Sergeant Jeff Maher, said Peter Norris Dupas was ‘pure evil and should never be released’.

  Senior detective Paul Scarlett said it ‘was a great relief that justice could be done for the victim and her family’.

  He described the Halvagis family as a wonderful family that deserved answers about Mersina’s death. ‘Nothing can bring Mersina back but at least they know that the man who did it will never have the chance to do it to someone else.’

  Life and times of a serial killer

  JULY 6, 1953 – Born in Sydney, youngest of three children. Moves to Melbourne with his family when still a baby.

  OCTOBER 3, 1968 – Arrested for stabbing a woman in Mount Waverley with a knife. Given eighteen months probation and sent to psychiatric hospital for examination.

  MARCH 10, 1972 – Caught peeping at a woman through the window of her Oakleigh home. Fined $50.

  NOVEMBER 5, 1973 – Raped a woman with a knife and threatened her baby in Mitcham.

  NOVEMBER 15, 1973 – Questioned after frightening a twelve-year-old girl by repeatedly staring at her.

  NOVEMBER 30, 1973 – Arrested and charged with rape, housebreaking and stealing, and housebreaking with intent to commit a felony.

  JANUARY 1, 1974 – While still on bail for previous offences, and remanded to a psychiatric hospital, arrested for peeping at young girls showering in toilet blocks at Rosebud Beach. Fined $140 for loitering with intent and offensive behaviour.

  SEPTEMBER 30, 1974 – Jailed for nine years, with a minimum of five, for the November 1973 rape.

  SEPTEMBER 4, 1979 – Released from jail.

  NOVEMBER 9, 1979 – Raped a woman while threatening her with a knife at Frankston (while still on parole).

  NOVEMBER 11, 1979 – Chased a woman in Frankston, threatened her with a knife but fled.

  NOVEMBER 18, 1979 – Stabbed an elderly woman in the chest at Frankston.

  NOVEMBER 19, 1979 – Tried to grab a woman in Frankston but she screamed and he ran.

  JUNE 2, 1980 – Sentenced to six years with a minimum of five for the Frankston offences.

  FEBRUARY 6 to 14, 1985 – Given pre-release leave from jail.

  FEBRUARY 13, 1985 – Helen McMahon murdered while sunbathing on a beach at Rye.

  FEBRUARY 27, 1985 – Released from jail.

  MARCH 3, 1985 – Raped a 21-year-old woman at Blairgowrie Back Beach.

  JUNE 28, 1985 – Sentenced to twelve years with a minimum of ten.

  MARCH, 1992 – Released from jail.

  SEPTEMBER 23, 1993 – Attempted to assault a girl horse-riding at Kyneton. Prosecution not authorised by the Office of Public Prosecutions.

  NOVEMBER 5, 1993 – Renita Brunton murdered, stabbed up to 60 times in her Sunbury shop.

  JANUARY 3, 1994 – Attacked woman with a knife and indecently assaulted her in a Lake Eppalock toilet block.

  NOVEMBER 21, 1994 – Jailed for three years and nine months for false imprisonment. The possibility of an indefinite sentence under dangerous offenders laws not raised by the prosecution.

  SEPTEMBER 29, 1996 – Released from jail.

  OCTOBER 4, 1997 – Margaret Maher’s body found dumped near Hume Freeway at Somerton.

  NOVEMBER 1, 1997 – Mersina Halvagis stabbed to death while visiting her grandmother’s grave at Fawkner Cemetery.

  DECEMBER 30, 1997 – Kathleen Downes, a 95-year-old widow, found stabbed to death in her room in a Brunswick nursing home.

  APRIL 19, 1999 – Nicole Patterson stabbed to death in her Northcote home.

  APRIL 22, 1999 – Dupas arrested at a Thomastown hotel.

  AUGUST 15, 2000 – A Supreme Court jury finds him guilty of the Nicole Patterson murder. Sentenced to life with no minimum.

  FEBRUARY, 2001 – ask force Mikado set up to investigate Dupas in connection with a series of unsolved murders.

  OCTOBER 2, 2002 – Dupas charged with the murder of Margaret Maher.

  AUGUST 15, 2003 – Magistrate refuses to commit Dupas to trial. DPP Paul Coghlan, QC, presents him directly to the Supreme Court.

  AUGUST 11, 2004 – Convicted of the murder of Margaret Maher. Sentenced a second time to life with no minimum.

  FEBRUARY 1, 2005 – A $1 million reward offered for information on the Halvagis murder.

  SEPTEMBER 11, 2006 – Charged with the murder of Mersina Halvagis.

  AUGUST 9, 2007 – Dupas found guilty of murdering Mersina Halvagis.

  Court In The Middle, by Andrew Fraser (Hardie Grant).

  CHAPTER 8

  Hitting back

  If the puncher would not own up, he would gun for the target he could clearly identify – the off-duty policeman driving the bus.

  HE didn’t see who threw the punch, but he felt it. His left eye was swelling fast and he felt woozy. It wasn’t until he heard an agitated onlooker yelling into a mobile phone, ‘Now he’s covered in blood’ that he realised he was bleeding so much, down his cheek onto his white shirt.

  All he knew was that someone inside the mini-bus had snatched his hat and, worse, his yarmulka (the skull cap orthodox Jewish men must wear) and that when he’d demanded its return he’d been hit in the face.

  What hurt most, Menachem Vorchheimer said later, was being attacked and humiliated in front of his children for no reason except being what and who he is. That made him angry. Months later, he still was. And a year after that, living in a different country, nothing has changed for him except the date. He is still angry and he still wants justice.

  It started around 6.20pm on October 14, 2006, a Saturday – not just the Jewish sabbath but last day of one holy festival and the beginning of another, Simcha Torah, a time of rejoicing and prayer for orthodox Jews. It was also Caulfield Guineas Day, the beginning of another sort of festival, the Spring Racing Carnival, which has its own rituals: mostly involving betting, drinking and the wearing of brightly coloured garments and much fake tan.

  Menachem Vorchheimer had been walking west down Balaclava Road from his home in East St Kilda: a slight, bearded figure in a black hat and coat, wheeling two of his three children – Yudi, six, and Simi, three – in a pusher. His wife, Shoshi, was home with the youngest while he took the other two to the Yshiva synagogue for the children’s program after ‘the usual long family lunch – three or four hours outside in the courtyard’.

  The children had been looking forward to lollies, stories and seeing others their own age at the synagogue. This is how the family spent their holy day together.

  Then the mini-bus full of rowdy passengers drove past, heading west. Young men were yelling. The young father heard ‘Go the Nazis’ and ‘F… the Jews’. He says one of them mimed a machine-gun sweep, as if to mow down passers-by, including him and his children in the pram. Some joke.

  The only word Vorchheimer could see on the bus was ‘Christians’ an
d he wondered briefly if it were some weird ultra-Right religious group, cruising Melbourne’s Jewish district to persecute people like himself and his family. When he found out later it was the name of the bus line he smiled about the obvious Christians v. Jews joke. But, on the day, there was nothing amusing about what happened next.

  Orthodox Jews do not drive on the sabbath and mostly live walking distance from synagogues, so the street was crowded with men dressed like Vorchheimer in black hats and coats and long beards, standing out like the Amish in Pennsylvania, apart from the absence of horse-drawn carts. Inevitably, this attracts comment and abuse – more in recent years than before, a trend that worries Jewish community leaders.

  Often, on Friday nights and Saturdays, louts scream insults as they drive past. Usually, their targets ignore it because the abusers speed away.

  This time it was different. The mini-bus was fully loaded and slow – and so were most of its passengers, apparently, because they made the mistake of yelling just as the bus was stopping at a red light.

  Vorchheimer left the pusher on the footpath and went to the driver’s window, demanding to know who they were and if there was anyone in charge who could prevent the offensive behaviour.

  He says the driver was surly and dismissive and refused to identify the group or its leader. ‘He just told me it was a charter bus.’ Passengers would later claim Vorchheimer kicked the bus in anger. If he did, he could hardly be blamed.

  It might have ended with that. But the bus mob couldn’t let the exchange rest there: it would be too much like being rebuked and losing face, perhaps. As the bus moved off, a man leaned from a window and snatched Vorchheimer’s hat and yarmulka. He was mortified.

  ‘I went back to the footpath to the kids,’ he recalls. ‘Then a grey car flashed by and pulled in front of the bus to make it stop.’ As he hurried along with the pusher, he saw someone running towards the bus. This was a man he would later know only as ‘Keith’, who had seen the hat being grabbed and was angry about it.