Underbelly 11 Read online

  Every dog has its day: Carl Williams in happier times, when he gave the press conferences and the police said ‘no comment’. It didn’t last.

  Cop this: The day the man behind the gangland killings found the tide had turned against him.

  Purana task force members led by dogged detective inspector Gavan Ryan (centre) just after Williams had been sentenced to 35 years. This time, police held the press conference.

  Too late for shoosh: Carl Williams’ fiercely loyal mother Barb with the drug dealer’s then latest glamour puss. May be the girl was just wagging school.

  What’s the story? Carl Williams is a fat drug dealer who won’t be out of jail before he’s 71, if he lives that long. Yet this young woman turned up at court daily to support him. Go figure.

  Black widow: An angry Judy Moran rolls into court in boutique mourning clothes to see Carl Williams sentenced. Her late son Jason had put holes in his manners, and Williams’s belly, with a .22 pistol.

  Unhappy: Roberta Williams (far right, in the cap) expresses her displeasure to her chubby hubby’s new buxom best friend.

  You’ve got to be kidding (1): What could be the last photograph of Carl Williams, taken in court moments before Justice Betty King sentenced him to a minimum 35 years jail. He stopped smiling then.

  You’ve got to be kidding (2): Ben Cousins’ bizarre statement to camera in which he admitted but failed to explain his involvement with drugs, at the same time wearing a garment rejected by Miami Vice. Go figure.

  Rehab West Coast style: Ben Cousins with unidentified female who may or may not be a drug counsellor.

  Collingwood footballer Alan Didak on a different type of bike. He lived to regret his night out with a Hells Angel.

  I’m no Angel: Alan Didak faces the media to speak about his drunken adventures with outlaw bikie gang members. His memory was shaky.

  Didak searches his memory. Only two things are known: Shots were fired, and there were holes in his story.

  Hudson after his arrest: Gave himself up after gentle persuasion from Hells Angels.

  Christopher Wayne Hudson: Alleged CBD killer, former Fink and Hells Angel gang member, keen Collingwood supporter.

  Outlaw bikies are known for trafficking amphetamines. But their link with guns goes back further and runs deeper.

  When police raid bikie gangs looking for drugs they do not always find them, but they usually find firearms.

  Such as in the raid on a Nomads clubhouse in suburban Thomastown in 2004 when a policeman accidentally kicked a step, which fell apart to reveal five handguns.

  Another raid, in country Victoria, uncovered a cannon, two machine-guns and night-vision goggles at a bikie house.

  From their beginnings in the US after World War II, the ‘one percenter’ outlaw gangs fostered an image of hard-living ‘cowboys’ riding steel horses across a mythical frontier, guns on hips.

  A lot of rebel gang members were ex-military people who knew too much about guns to live without them. Next step was to trade in them, and so gunrunning has also always been a bikie cash cow.

  Australian Hell’s Angels brought back the original recipe for amphetamines from the US in the 1970s and bikies have controlled a slice of the Australian ‘speed’ since.

  But guns, the other side of their business, still have to be imported.

  According to underworld sources and former police, the most common smuggling method is to hide pistols in engine blocks and mechanical parts imported from the US.

  ‘Bikies are constantly involved with cars and trucks. They loved bringing in big cars like Cadillacs to restore and drive around,’ says a former drug squad policeman.

  ‘They would fill the sump with stripped-down pistols.’ Sniffer dogs don’t find guns covered in oil. And, hidden in engine blocks, they are undetected by X-rays. The only way to find them would be to intercept and strip every engine passing through every port.

  Barely one in twenty shipping containers is searched, so that’s unlikely.

  Even if systematic searches were done at big ports such as Melbourne and Sydney, officials might not be as efficient at some smaller ports around Australia. Such as in Tasmania. Not just Hobart but sleepy Burnie and Devonport.

  Underworld lore has it that most new black market pistols arrive in Melbourne from the south, across Bass Strait.

  If ‘the Territory’ is the Deep North, Tasmania is the Deep South. Before the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, Tasmania was one of four states and territories with much laxer gun laws – and enforcement – than in more heavily populated Victoria and NSW.

  A sparse population scattered over a large area of wilderness, a tradition of hunting and fishing and a rural-based economy meant it had more in common with outback Queensland or the Northern Territory than with Victoria.

  Gun use there reflected that – at all levels of society. In a place where many people are related or connected, gun enthusiasts include police, and prison and Customs officers as well as farmers, fishermen and forestry workers, some of whom resented the post-Port Arthur laws that demanded they hand in certain weapons.

  Not all did, hiding guns and creating a cache of ‘orphan’ (unregistered) guns that became part of a black market linking some former mainstream shooters with underworld elements.

  Enter the bikies. Tasmania offers cheap land in isolated areas, yet is only a short plane trip or boat ride from Melbourne.

  Inevitably bikie gangs such as the Coffin Cheaters and the Black Uhlans saw it as a good place to do things away from prying eyes.

  Rural solitude is ideal for producing amphetamines and dealing in cannabis and guns. With the state’s small population, low employment and depressed wages, the bikies and their associates exert influence with both muscle and money.

  It is widely known in underworld and police circles that large groups of bikies ride the Spirit of Tasmania back and forth regularly, and not to take the fresh air.

  Vehicles and luggage are not routinely searched and, in any case, the bikies are skilled hands at building caches for drugs and guns into vehicles.

  In theory, guns should be no easier to import to Tasmania’s ports than those on the mainland. Anecdotally, they are. One reason is that until the 2001 terrorist attacks, US Navy ships regularly called into Hobart (and Fremantle) en route to the Middle East.

  Authorities either deny or ignore it for diplomatic reasons, but it is a fact that US sailors routinely smuggled in large numbers of handguns, easily done because the sailors do not have to clear Customs.

  There is proof this also happened in Melbourne, and every reason to think it still happens in any port where US warships call for rest and recreation.

  On November 12, 1998, for instance, the huge aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln anchored in the Derwent River and most of its 5500 sailors came ashore over five days.

  One group carried a wooden crate through the rudimentary ‘beach guard’ on Princes Wharf, hailed a taxi and went to a nightclub for a pre-arranged meeting.

  Inside the crate were 40 new Colt .45 calibre semi-automatic pistols, a favourite US military sidearm. Not only lethal handguns, these were prized collectors’ items commanding a premium that made the crate of 40 worth more than $100, 000 on the black market.

  Today, they would be worth up to three times as much, an indication of how the black market has been inflated by drug money, and the alarming penchant of nightclub poseurs to carry ‘a piece’.

  Although smuggling guns is an easy way for American sailors (and soldiers) to raise local currency, the aircraft carrier crew was not after money this time.

  As part of a pre-arranged plan, it swapped the crate of pistols for another crate.

  This held a breeding pair of young Tasmanian devils, trapped to order a few days before near Richmond, east of Hobart.

  Americans are fascinated by the animals because of the popularity of the Warner Bros cartoon character Taz. The devils were smuggled on board the ship.

  And the pistols? Almost all of
them were taken to the mainland and sold covertly, not all to active criminals.

  A former policeman, posted to the Melbourne docks to protect US ships from anti-nuclear protesters in the mid-1980s, recalls several of his colleagues swapping their police jackets for new pistols taken from the ship’s armoury.

  ‘The first time I went was for the USS Sterett. For some reason the crew were mad on collecting jackets everywhere they went. Obviously the armoury officer had done a deal with the sailors, because they would take your jacket, then direct you to the armoury guy and he would give you the pistol,’ the former policeman said.

  ‘The funny thing was that every time a (US) warship came into port after that, cops would be running around collecting jackets to swap for pistols.

  ‘They must have got dozens. From memory they were nine-millimetre Berettas.’

  US Navy ships have visited Australian ports only rarely since September 11, 2001.

  But plenty of cruise ships and freighters visit, and dozens of them visit Tasmania’s ports. Somehow, somewhere, illegal handguns are flowing in unchecked, according to underworld and police sources.

  In Melbourne’s northern suburbs, underground dealers have boxes full of American-made handguns: Colts, Rugers and Smith & Wessons, in calibres from .22 to .45.

  Most sell for about $5000 each, but $20, 000 will get five, allowing a cashed-up buyer to sell four to others and keep one ‘for nothing’. Those willing to take the risk can drive them to Sydney, where they bring up to $8000 each.

  Handguns have become a fashion accessory for even low level drug dealers who want the gangster lifestyle centred on money, sex and violence.

  The most favoured pistols are the most concealable: like the lives of most of those who buy them, they are nasty, brutish and short.

  And every one that ends up on the streets, under a car seat or stuck down the back of someone’s jeans is only a heartbeat away from repeating the horror of what happened in Melbourne in June 2007.

  CHAPTER 5

  Where there’s smoke

  The gun’s here in our yard.

  The rotten mongrel has hidden it here.’

  THEY stayed sealed in a police plastic evidence bag for more than twenty years. The sort of incidental material gathered at every murder scene – just in case.

  Three damp cigarette butts found near some shrubs and trees at a mullock heap … where a sniper waited for his target to arrive around midnight on April 15, 1985.

  The shot of 44 metres was an easy one for an experienced shooter – armed with the high-powered rifle steadied on the fork of a small tree just 250mm from the damp ground.

  The killer lay on his stomach, making him virtually invisible. Not that the men on the other side of the deserted county road would have bothered to look.

  They weren’t soldiers on patrol or gangsters in the middle of drug deal. They were four transport workers loading a truck for the nightly midnight run to Mildura.

  The depot was floodlit with powerful fluorescent lights – meaning anyone could look in, while those inside could not focus on anything hidden in the darkness. But what had appeared an easy shot in planning became less straightforward in practice.

  Firstly the driver of the truck backed into the depot at a slight angle, leaving the sniper’s view momentarily blocked.

  Then when the truckie jumped out of the cab he quickly went inside, swinging open both rear doors of his truck, again blocking the view.

  The gunman moved about three metres to the left for a clean shot and waited silently while the driver helped load the boxes from McPhee Transport Depot in Bellevue Road, Bendigo.

  It took only minutes to load, but time was everything in this cut-throat business. The driver had already picked up mail two blocks away at the Australia Post depot and would head straight off to pick up freight from a late Ansett truck delivery before driving hours through the night to Mildura.

  Kevin Pearce, a hardworking battler who tried many jobs before moving into the freelance courier world, shut the doors of his van and stood momentarily in the light as McPhee’s night manager Paul Thompson handed him an envelope with his payment.

  It took only a few seconds but it was enough.

  The sniper fired just one shot from his powerful .308 hunting rifle. It struck Pearce on the left side, leaving a gaping wound that his shocked mates tried to staunch with a toilet roll. A sliver of the bullet damaged his spinal cord so badly he would have been left a paraplegic. If he had lived.

  Kevin Hugh Pearce, father of three daughters, lingered for three weeks before he died.

  Within minutes of the shooting those close to the victim believed they knew who was behind the attack.

  But two decades later, the only suspect remains free and apparently unaffected by the whispers that continue today. The case looked like remaining one of many in which police claim to know who did it but lack the solid evidence to convict. So when in 2006 detectives sent the three John Player Special Virginia 25s cigarette butts found at the scene for DNA examination they did so as a matter of routine rather than in hope of a late breakthrough.

  The results, however, were anything but routine and were positive enough to breathe new life into an old case.

  KEVIN Pearce, 45, was a hard worker determined to remain his own boss. He and his wife, Joan, ran milk bars and guesthouses before moving into the dog-eat-dog transport business.

  The work was tough and margins slender for owner-drivers so in 1982 Pearce joined forces with two others, Bill Matthews and Barry Coates, to form CMP (Coates, Matthews, Pearce) Trucking Contractors to carry freight and mail to northern Victoria.

  With eight large trucks and two vans they planned to become the major transport firm in Bendigo. At the heart of the business were the Australia Post mail runs that provided regular income and allowed the partners to load their trucks with private contract work to make a profit.

  Pearce controlled the Mildura (valued at $61, 000) and Echuca ($49, 000) mail runs while Matthews kept the Robinvale contract. Matthews was a ruthless self-made man whose reputation for being keen on a dollar was matched by his reluctance to spend one.

  Some of his associates claimed his paperwork was sloppy and when there was an error in accounts it would invariably fall in his favour. And the tough truckie rarely seemed bothered when those errors were revealed.

  Some of those burnt by Matthews vowed to never again deal with him but working for a bad boss was better than not working at all so many returned.

  But from the beginning the CMP partners argued and after a year Coates bailed out.

  Pearce was uncomfortable when Matthews employed his mistress, Dianne Robertson, as the office manager – believing they were not making enough money to employ her.

  According to Joan Pearce, Matthews did the books and was always short of money for accounts forcing the Pearces to use $5000 from their milk bar to top up the trucking firm.

  Tired of excuses over shortfalls the Pearces left the partnership in February 1984 and commissioned a local solicitor to recover the money they claimed they were owed. Matthews was also committed for trial on a charge of stealing 10,000 litres of fuel from the company. And Pearce was to be a witness against him.

  The one-time partners became ferocious competitors and Pearce began to win work from Matthews, who made it clear he would use any means to fight back.

  ‘After the partnership broke up Kevin used to give me the impression that he was frightened of what Matthews might do to him. I think Kevin was also scared for the whole family, not just for himself,’ Mrs Pearce said.

  ‘I know Kevin used to be petrified about going to pick the freight up but I did not know exactly why.’

  The breaking point appeared to be when Pearce was awarded a contract from McPhee Transport to deliver freight to Mildura. Matthews was furious, as he had been confident he would win the tender.

  Pearce’s oldest daughter told police, ‘In about January 1985 McPhee’s Transport contacted Dad and offe
red them their delivery run to Mildura, which Bill Matthews had previously had.

  Dad accepted this offer and took the contract from Bill Matthews.

  ‘Dad told me after Christmas this year that he had been told by someone at the Bendigo Mail Centre that Bill Matthews said he was going to get him. Dad has been worried that Matthews would get him and Dad actually said he thought Matthews would shoot him.’

  If the third partner Barry John Coates thought when he quit the company that he could walk away from the conflict he was soon to learn there was no way out.

  Even when he was in the firm he found someone was holding a grudge. According to his wife, Dianne, Coates found the truck he drove was repeatedly vandalised, leaving brake lines and the radiator hose cut.

  Like many who dealt with Matthews, Coates decided to quit while he was behind believing he had been ripped off for thousands of dollars.

  But when Matthews later wanted his former partner to help out with the trucks Coates decided practicality outweighed principle.

  ‘Barry wanted to keep on the good side of him instead of the bad side of him,’ his wife explained.

  Enraged by losing business Matthews escalated the commercial war. ‘Bill started to send his own truck to Mildura at a loss, just (to) be vindictive,’ Mrs Coates said.

  ‘I know Bill wanted the Mildura run desperately. I think Bill wanted to buy Kevin out but Kevin refused.’

  According to Mrs Coates, Matthews believed if Pearce was out of the way he would inherit the Mildura run. ‘I heard from Barry that Bill was going to shoot Kevin to get him out of the road … Barry tried to talk him out of it and told him that he should not be a fool.’