Underbelly 6 Read online

Clark … staring down the opposition.

  ’Til death do us part … the late John Moss with his killer bride Lorraine.

  Lorraine Moss with her daughters.

  The kitchen crime scene.

  The victim, Johnny Moss … it took years to kill him.

  The investigator, Detective Senior Sergeant Jack Jacobs … took years to catch the killer.

  Scott Wayne Thompson … along for the ride. It could have been fatal for him, too.

  ‘Rambo’ killer Andrew Mark Norrie … said he’d fight to the death, but put his hands up.

  Norrie … a sick pup who waged a one-man war on the innocent.

  A dead set Moran … Jason in his favourite court suit.

  The late Victor Peirce with loving wife Wendy ‘The Witch’.

  Andrew Fraser … a high-flying lawyer who hit a hurdle.

  Norrie had struggled at school and left at the minimum age of 15. He made few friends and rarely had any sort of meaningful relationships. Even relatives found him cold and distant.

  He showed little interest in sex and his experience seemed limited to drunken, adolescent groping sessions at parties that he ‘did not enjoy’. Only violence truly excited him.

  He found his life ‘a bit quiet’ and moved into a small flat in Sydney. If he felt he could find excitement in Australia’s biggest city, he was disappointed and soon drifted back to Brisbane.

  But Norrie did have a flicker of ambition. Like another gun-obsessed adolescent, Julian Knight, who murdered seven people in Hoddle Street in August, 1987, he wanted to be a soldier.

  Norrie tried to join the army because he thought he would be ‘using guns and moving round all the time to different places’. He applied, and was rejected, when he was 19, 20 and 21.

  He was able to join the Army Reserve but was discharged when he was discovered to have a criminal record.

  He worked as a driver, factory worker and a floor polisher but repeatedly quit and went on the dole when he was bored.

  He said he drank about a dozen cans of beer most days from the age of 17 and while he could not see his life radically altering he remained ‘pretty happy the way I was’.

  In 1983, he blew out shop windows with a shotgun over two weekends ‘just for fun’. He was sentenced to two years’ jail and served nine months.

  In late February, 1986, Norrie persuaded Scott Wayne Thompson, then aged just 16, to come with him around the country. The two had lived together in a homosexual relationship for six months in the Brisbane suburb of Annerley.

  Thompson would later claim he didn’t understand the purpose of the trip was to kill. But Norrie saw no need to disguise his motives. He said he was bored with ‘doing the same things each day. I had just had enough and wanted to go off and shoot people and places’.

  On Thursday, February 27, Norrie bought a Sterling semi-automatic .22 rifle at a Brisbane sports store and placed a deposit on an identical model.

  Queensland gun laws at the time meant the sadistic obsessive with firearms convictions had no problems buying the weapons.

  The following day he returned to pay off the balance, then went to the Avis car rentals desk at Brisbane Airport and hired a near-new, silver Ford Falcon with NSW registration.

  He loaded the car with the two semi-automatic rifles, 1800 rounds of ammunition, food and camouflage clothing and then drove to meet his mate.

  Thompson walked out of his work at a Brisbane car detailing firm without explanation. ‘I didn’t tell my boss that I was not coming back,’ he would later tell police. He believed they ‘were going to drive around the states of the continent’.

  Thompson went to Dirty Viv’s, a local cafe, to pay an outstanding bill and then waited to be picked up by his friend and lover.

  Around 4pm he heard a horn. It was Norrie in the rented car. When he got in, he noticed two loaded guns in the back seat. He leant back and took the magazine from one rifle.

  He said he kept his gun in the boot while Norrie insisted he kept his between the front seats. He needed it close at all times.

  They drove down Highway One to Surfers Paradise, where Norrie went to a relative’s house to hand over 10 videos. But he kept five of his favourites for the trip – Terminator, Rocky III, Police Academy, Tightrope and Rambo: First Blood, Part Two. To most they were either escapist junk or harmless action movies, but to Norrie they were training manuals.

  They stayed only an hour before driving towards NSW. ‘During the night he tested his gun to make sure it worked,’ Thompson said later.

  Norrie started their four-state hit and run campaign in Tweed Heads, where they shot up shops and cars.

  They fired at a broken-down Volkswagen south of Kiama, shot indiscriminately at buildings in Meroo, then fired on a family of four in a van near Ballina.

  For Norrie, it felt good to terrorise people, but he was still unsatisfied. He began to look for what he believed would be his ultimate thrill – murder.

  THE first few months of 1986 were hectic for Ian Breust. In late February, he was dancing with his wife, Kay, when he tripped and fell, damaging his ankle.

  He was forced to take two weeks off work as a road ganger. The injury gave him the time to help prepare for the wedding of his son, Steven.

  It was Monday, March 3, and Steven’s wedding was only five days away. Ian was almost over his injury and bored. Kay suggested he drive to the nearby Lake Corunna to try to catch some bream, before picking her up at the local doctor’s surgery, where she worked as a receptionist.

  The lake was only a few minutes from their Narooma home. Breust parked his beige Toyota Corona sedan beside the highway and was able to walk down an easy track to the lake shore.

  The 46-year-old was not a keen fisherman but it was a relaxing way to pass the time while his wife was at work. Just before 4.45pm he packed his gear and began to walk back. He didn’t want to be late to pick up Kay.

  As the fisherman began to walk up the track, Norrie and Thompson were driving by. Norrie saw the empty Toyota by the side of the road and did a U-turn to park behind it.

  Norrie, dressed in his make-believe army gear, left the car for a quick reconnaissance mission then returned to get his gun. He didn’t have to go far as Breust – a father of three – was limping slowly toward him.

  Thompson would later tell police, I then saw and heard Andrew firing the gun down the embankment. I saw a fishing rod fall down. I saw an old man’s face and then I didn’t see it, so he must have fallen down.

  ‘While Andrew was shooting his rifle he was talking. He was saying things like “You old bastard”.

  ‘I’m pretty sure I heard a voice, not Andrew’s, say “Oh Jees” and the last bit “us” was mumbled out. Andrew then said, “Never say that word again” and kept shooting.’

  He fired until he was out of bullets. Then he took a second clip from his camouflage pants and reloaded.

  At least 17 shots were fired at Breust. Police said that after the first magazine was exhausted, Norrie took a second and fired two more shots into his victim’s head at point-blank range. Breust was shot at least seven times.

  Kay Breust became concerned for her husband and went to the lake to search. She found his body. It is an image she still can’t forget.

  ‘He was an easy-going man who just lived for his children. It was just so wrong. He (Norrie) obviously got a great deal of pleasure doing what he did,’ she said later.

  Norrie walked back to the rented Falcon and drove off. Thompson said he asked why he had killed the man. ‘I just wanted to know I could still do it,’ he supposedly answered. The teenager said he was terrified: ‘I spewed in the car.’

  All the action left the men hungry and tired. Hours after the murder they slipped into Gippsland and booked into a motel in Stratford, near Sale, at 2am on Tuesday, March 4. Norrie was still dressed as a fake soldier.

  The motel owner, Ian Copper, remembers both guests ‘were dressed in army style black and green camouflage uniforms. I assumed that they were a
rmy personnel’.

  Norrie asked for a room with two single beds. He ordered two breakfasts of bacon and eggs, fruit juice and toast. They were given room seven. He paid by credit card.

  When they left the next morning Norrie called out, ‘Thanks a lot mate. I’ll see you later.’

  Norrie had dreamed of killing for years. But the reality was much better than he had imagined. He couldn’t wait to experience the feeling again.

  MARK John Lynch had come to rely on the kindness of strangers. Divorced for six years, the once energetic and optimistic young man had become a drifter – aimlessly hitch-hiking between Melbourne and Sydney.

  It had not always been that way. His father, Michael, said Mark had been ‘a lovely boy, easy to get along with and popular with people’.

  He lived in Sydney and was married in 1974. The marriage lasted five years. After the break-up, Lynch began to descend into mental illness and was put in hospital with schizophrenia. ‘He started to hear voices, he thought he was God,’ his father said.

  He had been an apprentice plumber but left after a year. He worked in factories but after ‘the voices’ took hold, was virtually unemployable. Eventually, he learned he could survive with the help of a network of social welfare groups dotted around Australia.

  In March, 1986, he decided to hitch-hike from Melbourne to Sydney and although he was broke, chose to go the long way, along the Princes Highway, rather than the more direct Hume Freeway. Time was the only thing Lynch, 34, had plenty of. But even that was running out.

  On Monday, March 3, at 3.50am Senior Constables Michelle Johnson and David Burton were on routine patrol when they saw Lynch about one kilometre north of Sale.

  They pulled up and Johnson asked, ‘What are you doing standing here in the dark like this?’

  Lynch said, ‘I’m trying to get to Sydney, to my parents’ place.’ He had no luggage or money and said he had left Melbourne five hours earlier.

  According to the two police he wasn’t concerned about his lack of money, although his next small social welfare payment was not due for another eight days.

  He was unshaven and dirty, with matted, shoulder-length hair. According to Burton, he was wearing ‘dark grey or black trousers that were miles too big and filthy’.

  About seven hours later, Lynch walked into the St Vincent De Paul centre at Bairnsdale. He told staff he hadn’t eaten in two days. He was given a $10 Coles New World supermarket food voucher. One social worker was to remember ‘he was very polite and grateful’.

  Karole Suckling, who worked at the Bairnsdale Coles three days a week, could smell Lynch before she saw him queuing at the checkout.

  He bought chocolate biscuits, chocolate cake and cheese rolls. It came to $9 and he was given $1 change.

  With his appearance, Lynch was always going to struggle to get a lift.

  Three drivers saw the homeless man as he plodded along the road towards the NSW border. None could bring themselves to pick him up.

  They were not to know they were leaving the harmless Lynch to be picked off by a psychopath.

  Robert Sporer lived at a farm near the Princes Highway. About 6pm on March 4, he was driving back from Orbost when he spotted Lynch. ‘Usually I pick up hitch-hikers on the road … (but) this bloke I had never seen before and because he looked a bit rough I decided not to pick him up,’ he was to recall.

  Sporer lived nine kilometres from Orbost. He sat on the porch that evening and he saw no one walk past. The next day the drifter’s body was found just 200 metres from his house.

  About 6pm, grazier Arthur Pardew and local stock agent Bill Lynn saw a man just out of Orbost on the highway.

  ‘He waved as if to indicate that he wanted a lift in the direction we were driving. We did not stop.’

  More than three hours later a cleaner called Lance Bills was driving home to his wife and three children when he saw a man hitch-hiking.

  ‘I felt sorry for this person due to the fact he was on foot and it being late at night. I thought I would stop and see if I could help him. As I drove towards this person I suddenly changed my mind in case I was being set up.’

  It was near the spot where Lynch’s body would be found the next day.

  Bills kept driving and became annoyed when a driver heading the other way did not dip his high beam. He looked in his rear view mirror and made a mental note that it was an XA Ford, almost certainly driven by Norrie.

  Thompson would later tell police they were driving towards Orbost when they saw someone hitch-hiking in the dark. ‘I thought it was a girl because of the long hair.’

  He said Norrie did a U-turn and pulled up. He asked the man if he wanted a lift to Sydney. For Lynch the warm new Ford and the two welcoming strangers were perfect. He did not hesitate.

  Norrie said before they began their long trip they would pull up to share some beer and dope. They drove for less than five minutes before stopping again.

  Norrie couldn’t wait to relive the thrill of killing. He jumped from the car and shot Lynch, probably in the neck. The shot would have been fatal but he would have taken minutes to die.

  According to police reports Lynch fell back into the car, then stood up and tried to run for his life.

  Norrie later told homicide squad investigator John Ashby, ‘He was moaning then he got up real quick, pushed past me and ran. I shot him again. I emptied a magazine into him and a couple more after that – about 15 shots.’

  ‘I just picked him up off the side of the road took him out the bush and just shot him.’ He said he was ‘not really a good shot, I don’t have to be … well I was so close you wouldn’t miss anyway’.

  Asked why he did it, he responded, ‘Just enjoyment.’

  Thompson may not have been bright but he had enough brains to know that when Norrie pulled off the highway things were about to turn ugly.

  He got out of the car. Then he heard Norrie yelling and firing shots and he knew the man they had picked up minutes earlier would be dead. Thompson said Norrie wanted him to search the derelict for a wallet, ‘but I said no’.

  ‘Andrew then took me by the shoulder and made me look at Mark.

  ‘It was awful. There was blood pouring out of his head. Andrew said “You will see this more often”.’

  AS police began to search for the random killers, the pair drove through Melbourne to the resort town of Apollo Bay.

  They booked into Green Acres, overlooking the links golf course and the man-made harbour, built to protect the local fishing fleet.

  Norrie shortened the barrels of both guns and confided to his confused and frightened partner that he would not stop until he had killed police – ‘because people who kill cops are always liked in prison’.

  They drove into South Australia and headed into a heavily-treed area near Mt Gambier. Norrie was beginning to tire of his companion.

  Thompson was stupid but he still had an animal instinct for survival. He committed his first sensible act since getting into the car outside Dirty Viv’s in Brisbane six days earlier. He ran.

  Norrie fired shots at Thompson. It was more than a lover’s tiff.

  It was not known whether he was trying to frighten the teenager or wanted to kill him but the latter wasn’t sticking around to take his chances. He managed to escape.

  Len Johnson was sitting at his desk in the Woods and Forest Department at Nangwarry about 1.45pm on March 6 when Thompson ran in yelling, ‘Somebody’s trying to shoot me … I didn’t want to have anything to do with the murder.’

  When the police arrived, he blurted out, ‘I saw him kill the poor old man.’

  Senior Detective Bernie Connell was the first to approach the silver Ford, which was bogged in sand. He saw Norrie grab his rifle and run into the forest.

  Special task and rescue force police began a hunt for Norrie, who had been nicknamed ‘Rambo’ by the media.

  Constable Anthony Crowley could hear, but not see Norrie in the darkness of the bush. ‘I heard noises of grass crunching, a
s if it was trodden on.’

  Crowley yelled, ‘Police here, stop.’ He still couldn’t see the suspect but heard him begin to run.

  Crowley fired his shotgun in the air. ‘With this I heard this person fall to the ground.’ He then called for back-up. It was about 4.10am. Far from carrying out his threat to shoot police Norrie lay face down with his hands above his head until he was arrested at 4.15am on Friday, March 7.

  His sawn-off rifle was next to him. There were 14 bullets in the magazine and one in the breech. He had a full packet of 50 bullets in his pocket and $52.81 in his wallet.

  When he was taken to the Mt Gambier police station about 5.30am he was offered the chance to rest before his formal interview. He responded, ‘Yes, I am tired. I would like to have a sleep now.’

  It was not because police were concerned with the killer’s welfare; they didn’t want a confession damaged in court because of allegations the suspect was fatigued. He was asked if he wanted anything.

  ‘Yes, I would like a glass of milk,’ he said.

  When asked by police why he killed, he told them ‘I was bored, just wanted to shoot someone. We were going to call at houses and I just wanted to shoot people.’

  While continuing to talk about his killings he asked ‘Do you think I could have a coffee? Thanks for the sandwiches, they were good.’ When police asked him what had motivated to kill strangers he said,

  ‘Just enjoyment.’

  THE seemingly motiveless nature of his murders meant that Nome’s sanity had to be questioned. He was interviewed and studied by psychiatrists used to dealing with the mentally disturbed and the downright evil.

  Norrie showed no signs of remorse and was untroubled by talking about what he had done.

  He told a psychiatrist, Doctor John Shand, he felt ‘pretty good’ when he murdered Ian Breust. He said he expected to be caught but was not worried about a long jail term, believing it ‘was worth it’.