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Short filmTranscript
00:12They didn't start out as killers.
00:15They were stick-up artists, professional shoplifters, pickpockets and stand-over guys.
00:25The bottom rungs of the Melbourne Underworld ladder.
00:28But somewhere along the line, it all changed.
00:32When the Underworld needed contract killers, they signed up without hesitation.
00:39There are five million stories in the Naked City.
00:43This is one of them.
00:52It was a very, very clinical, clean execution of two people in their own home.
00:59It wasn't committed by the people that we'd been tracking so closely.
01:04They weren't part of this murder, so who was?
01:07Pillows had been placed over their heads to muffle the shots from the heavy-caliber handgun.
01:12In its own way, it was bizarre.
01:14We didn't know what the target was.
01:16We're talking about armed offenders.
01:19Serious armed robbers.
01:20That's what they did for a living.
01:21Moving on to be hitmen is just an extension of that because it's easy money for them.
01:26Pick up a gun, take a contract out.
01:29Who do we know that would be able to provide the information we needed?
01:34Bowen Prison goes into lockdown.
01:37One thing you could say about Carl Williams was he just knew so much.
01:42The Piranha Task Force has been digging for days.
01:45We had an archaeologist with us, cadaver dogs, and we searched everywhere.
01:50Carl Williams was the cornerstone of the case.
01:54If Carl Williams is talking, what is he going to say about me?
01:57Without Carl Williams, there was no case.
02:27I went through uniform, general duties, and I loved it.
02:33In the late 70s, early 80s, most general duties police officers aspired to become detectives,
02:41and I was one of those.
02:45And I became exposed to the Homicide Squad detectives, and I was just so impressed by them.
02:54The way that they would turn up to a murder scene, their professionalism, and I watched
03:02them do their thing, and that was probably what convinced me that this is what I wanted
03:10to do.
03:17My name is Sarah Morse, and I'm a detective inspector currently in charge of our human source
03:22management unit.
03:23I worked with Sol Solomon at the Petra Task Force, and Sol was a great person to learn
03:28from.
03:30We would travel around Victoria going to speak to older criminals, and Sol would have a story
03:35for every town that we went through about, you know, particular murders he'd investigated
03:38in every town.
03:39So it was always very interesting to work with Sol.
03:50Secrets of the past had laid dormant until now.
03:54Carl Williams, the self-declared Premier, was behind bars.
03:58He was serving life with a 35-year non-parole period, a sentence made heavier by the fact
04:05that those once closest to him had turned witness.
04:10In the end, the code meant little.
04:12Carl, they lined up to testify, trading loyalty for leniency.
04:18But Carl wasn't done.
04:20If flipping worked for them, he figured it might work for him too.
04:26With Carl's information, cold cases could be reopened, leads revisited, and missing pieces
04:34found, providing critical breakthroughs in these mysteries of Melbourne's underworld.
04:44Carl, can we see you?
04:55Terry Hodson.
04:57Terry was a larger-than-life character.
05:01He was this big, affable sort of a guy, quick-witted, liked to tell jokes.
05:08He lived with his wife, Christine.
05:11They had three children.
05:13He was well-liked by people that knew him.
05:17But he was a major drug dealer, a main player in the drug scene.
05:23And he was also a prolific police informer for the drug squad.
05:30He was playing both sides of the fence.
05:36He was involved in the Dublin Street burglary, a house where drugs were being manufactured.
05:44It came under the notice of the drug squad.
05:46They were watching it for quite some time.
05:51Terry Hodson and another fellow broke in, looking for money and drugs.
05:57Terry Hodson's arrested at the scene.
06:00After he was arrested for the burglary in Dublin Street, he provided a statement to Victoria Police.
06:07Because some further information had come to light, indicating that there was police involvement in it.
06:18In that statement, he nominated the two police members who were behind the plant to burgle the house where the
06:23drugs were made.
06:26Paul Dale was a detective sergeant at the drug squad.
06:29Part of his team was Dave Mieschel.
06:33Karen Swanson had been a police informer for Dave Mieschel and Paul Dale.
06:38All that information from Terence Hodson was contained in what was known as his informophile.
06:44And his informophile had been stolen from the drug squad office where it was kept by Paul Dale and had
06:50been circulated throughout the criminal community.
06:54Simon Overland is dealing with rats in his own ranks.
06:57People sometimes let you down, and that's what's happened here.
07:01Police say at least one officer is behind the leaks.
07:05Terence Hodson had been exposed as a police informer, which put his life at risk.
07:12There were a large amount of people who knew that Terence Hodson had been providing information about them to the
07:18police,
07:18which meant there was a large amount of people who had a motive to harm Terence Hodson.
07:22Tribinals do inform on other criminals, but it's a highly risky business informing to police.
07:33He was offered witness protection, but he didn't want it.
07:39Terence and Christine Hodson were really committed to staying in their own home and didn't accept any help from the
07:44police about relocating or changing their names or moving interstate.
07:50Terence Hodson just didn't want to be part of it.
07:53He took his chances.
08:08We were called to a double murder in Harp Road, Kew.
08:15It was a very, very clinical, clean execution of two people in their own home.
08:23They were both found lying side by side on their stomachs with their hands out in front of them,
08:29and they'd both been executed by way of shots to the back of their head.
08:40Nothing was disturbed in the house.
08:43No forced entry.
08:46I realised that it would take a very, very unique killer to be able to get himself into someone's home.
08:55And I thought to myself, well, who do we know that would be able of pulling a job off like
09:06that?
09:17I recall a terrible double murder in 1987, a couple by the names of Dorothy and Raymond Abbey.
09:29Raymond Abbey was known to police for relatively minor matters and his wife Dorothy was the homemaker.
09:39They were murdered in their own home in the middle of the night by three people dressed up as police,
09:48getting entry to the house by saying that they had a search warrant.
09:53The Abbey murders had taken place because Abbey was suspected to have been an informant for the police.
10:04Pillows had been placed over their heads to muffle the sound of a number of shots
10:08from what police believe was a heavy calibre handgun.
10:11Both were in night attire and there was no sign of a struggle.
10:15It was horrific.
10:17But as it turned out, they just never got the evidence.
10:23Looking at the nature of the Hodsons and the Abbeys, nothing was disturbed in the house,
10:30no forced entry and they'd both been executed.
10:35The MO was so similar.
10:39One day, I was at home and I was reading The Age and you'd written an article about Rodney Collins.
10:48And I was reading through the article and as I'm reading through the article, it suddenly dawned on me.
10:59Rodney Collins, we should be looking at Rodney Collins.
11:05Rodney Collins was a bit of an enigma, very difficult to work out and someone that you should never turn
11:13your back on.
11:14He clearly had the reputation as a gun for hire and would do it for money.
11:21He had immense disliking of police but an absolute hatred of police informers.
11:27Rod Collins is a person who only was interested in Rod Collins and what he could do to manipulate people
11:32around him.
11:33I never felt at ease in his company. I always felt as if he was trying to get into my
11:40head.
11:40He was a cocky little man, that's for sure. And no fear at all.
11:45He's a narcissist. He believes he's the smartest person in the room.
11:49He did not care about the suffering of another person. He only cared about himself.
11:54He has absolutely no sympathy or empathy for anything.
12:08Still to come in the Naked City.
12:11The execution of Terence and Christine Hodson ties together police corruption and some of Victoria's most infamous criminals.
12:18Carl Williams is talking and some very serious criminals started to wonder, am I at risk?
12:25It may be the breakthrough that solves a ten-year-old gangland murder mystery.
12:30He's the only person that would be able to pull something off like that.
12:33Would have the nerve to do it.
12:36That's what he wanted to do more than anything else.
12:38He had a hatred of the police.
12:40Nobody frightened me in a courtroom until he did.
12:49Carl had started to talk.
12:51And when Carl talked, detectives listened.
12:54He was sitting on information that could rattle the foundations of several major investigations.
13:01None more explosive than the murders of Terence and Christine Hodson.
13:08The Hodsons were shot dead in their queue home.
13:11Both were shot twice at close range to the back of the head, found face down in front of the
13:16couch.
13:17Terence Hodson was due to give evidence against two former detectives before Hodson was executed.
13:25But the leafy eastern suburb of Kew had more than one investigation on the go.
13:30Just down the road, another case was being worked on from five months earlier.
13:35And it too had Carl's handiwork written all over it.
13:3862-year-old career criminal Graeme Allan Kinabur arrived at his home in Belmont Avenue, Kew, just after midnight when
13:46he was shot several times.
13:48Graeme Kinabur's murder was a significant escalation in the war.
13:52He was one of the most respected criminals in Melbourne.
13:56He was part of the establishment and a good friend of Mick Gatto.
14:01Graeme Kinabur had been out shopping and was coming home.
14:04And as he pulled up towards his house, two gunmen emerged and shot him dead.
14:11Obviously saw the criminals coming at him and fired one shot before they mowed him down.
14:18It looked like a professional hit.
14:22Graeme Kinabur's murder was not an easy one to solve.
14:25It wasn't committed by the people that we'd been tracking so closely.
14:31And ultimately that became a cold case.
14:38I was given the investigation when I arrived at Piranha.
14:42This was really different because there wasn't a great amount of witnesses.
14:45There were people who had gunshots.
14:47But nobody really saw somebody in the street that night.
14:50So the investigation relied heavily on a statement from the runner who had been arrested and charged with several murders.
15:00And then decided to become a police witness.
15:03Most statements that we take from people we do then set out to corroborate independently as well.
15:09In his statement he says that he was actually tasked by Carl Williams to kill Graeme Kinabur.
15:15But he had several other murders on the go at the time that he was also planning.
15:19And so in the end he outsourced or subcontracted this murder to Terence Bluart and Stephen Asling.
15:28Stephen Asling was a very violent career criminal.
15:32He had spent very little time outside of prison.
15:35He had committed offences from a very early age.
15:39It does seem to be a training ground that you would start with armed robbery and very easily progress to
15:43murder.
15:49My name's Bruce Knight.
15:51I was a member of the Victoria Police from 1973 to 2010.
15:55Of that time I had 18 years with the Special Operations Group.
16:03The primary role of the Special Operations Group was counter-terrorism and deal with high-risk offenders.
16:12Or do tasks that were beyond the capability of other members of Victoria Police.
16:19Members of the Special Operations Group have a variety of skills.
16:23Weapons skills, entry technique, surveillance, communication.
16:28So they can carry out any duties that do come up.
16:40Early July 1992, Victoria Police approaches for Operation Thorn to work on Normie Lee, Stephen Barchi and Stephen Asling, who
16:54they suspected were going to commit armed robberies.
16:57Surveillance.
16:59Surveillance had been following them and they'd shown interest in telemarine and went out there and would surveil and watch
17:06the ANSET freight terminal.
17:11We had 21 SOG members deployed in a variety of locations.
17:17The offenders parked adjacent to the front of the ANSET air freight.
17:21We saw an armor guard truck drive into the air freight terminal and back up to the front door.
17:29And they were unloading bags out the back of the armored car.
17:35Two men with masks on were seen running towards the armored car.
17:41They then grabbed a bag each of money and a white panel van reversed up.
17:47The offenders with masks and guns were out of the armor guard van heading towards the white Ford panel van.
17:54I gave the order for them to be intercepted.
17:58Asling then floored the car.
18:01As he took off with such haste, Normie Lee and Barchi fell out of the back of the van, stumbled
18:07to the ground, jumped up, surrounded by SOG members.
18:10They then pointed their weapons at the SOG members and both were shot.
18:18Asling took off in the van.
18:21One of the SOG vehicles could see the white panel van approaching them.
18:25They crossed the median strip and rammed the white Ford panel van head on at a speed of about 80
18:33kilometres an hour.
18:36He was bounced around in the car.
18:38They got him out, put him on the ground and handcuffed him.
18:47Just before 2pm, two bandits entered the Ansett freight terminal adjoining the main airport complex and ordered two armor guard
18:54personnel and several staff to lie on the floor.
18:57The robbers, armed with magnum revolvers and wearing rubber masks, seized a large amount of cash and were leaving the
19:04building when police swooped.
19:08Barchi was wounded several times and Normie Lee was hit twice.
19:13Normie Lee subsequently died at the scene.
19:17Barchi was taken to hospital for treatment for gunshot wounds.
19:22In the back of the white panel van, they had two military semi-automatic assault rifle.
19:27We believe that their plan was if they had been followed by anybody, they would have just kicked the back
19:33door of the van open and open up on whoever was behind them.
19:3832-year-old Stephen John Asling, one of the alleged bandits in yesterday's swarted million dollar cash and gold bullion
19:45robbery, appeared in the city court today.
19:49A number of armed robbers, as their confidence grows, go on to bigger and better things.
19:54And I think moving on to be hitmen is just an extension of that because it's easy money for them.
20:06Stephen Asling is similar to Rod Collins in that sense of paranoia that he always believed that he was being
20:11followed and targeted by the police.
20:13He had a hatred of the police and would definitely kill somebody for money.
20:22In the early 80s in Melbourne, the main thing that crooks were looking for was fast money.
20:28It's all about armed robberies, quick money from banks who probably didn't have the security that they've got nowadays.
20:41Crooks in those days would gravitate to that easy money and Rod Collins was one of those.
20:48I'd got word that he was so-called tooling up to do the job of some description.
20:54No idea what.
20:58We followed Rod to a place in St Kilda.
21:04Another car rolls up with two other people.
21:07So we got this nested crooks gathering together.
21:12There were four of them.
21:14And they were all well-known, serious armed robbers.
21:18That's what they did for a living.
21:20And they had decided, big plans, they were going to take out a bank.
21:26It lives forever in my memory because it was so spectacularly bad and idiotic.
21:31They follow in convoy in two cars to the Ringwood area.
21:36In Maroondah Highway, Ringwood, there's a group of banks all together.
21:41So we put some surveillance there.
21:44We had our SAG team to take them out if they did something wrong.
21:49We had several teams out there watching.
21:51They were proceeding that way when the surveillance units lost them.
21:55And they just got a bit distracted.
21:59So they let the time go past and then they were running a bit late.
22:05They dropped one car around the corner and drove to the back of the bank.
22:10They break into the bank and they're going to take out all of the safety deposit boxes.
22:15But they didn't get anything because they'd closed down for the day.
22:19So they left there and went back to where the other car was.
22:24The police, meantime, send in what is known as the Soggies,
22:29which is a special operations group near the guys that go, hut, hut, hut, hut,
22:34and come in and cause maximum damage.
22:37And as they went to change getaway cars, we pounced on them and arrested them.
22:43And they did just that.
22:45They arrested them with force, one could say.
22:49The photos that we had for the court showed all of them with black eyes.
22:56They had torn clothes.
22:59Their pants were down around their ankles.
23:01They'd stripped them down.
23:04Caught literally with their pants down.
23:09Having a look at them in the photos,
23:11they hadn't had a good day.
23:14In those days, I think they felt I were professional crooks.
23:19We were the professional police.
23:21This is business.
23:24And Rod was the same.
23:26He had no fear.
23:28He didn't care too much about going to jail, being caught.
23:32Didn't worry him at all.
23:38We had other encounters along the way, Rod Collins and me.
23:44I was present when a search warrant was executed in his house.
23:51The warrant was for firearms.
23:53And I sat with him at the kitchen table.
23:56He had a thing where he'd call me Solly all the time.
24:01Which is a little on the disrespectful side, but I didn't mind.
24:05It's good to keep on talking terms with people like Collins.
24:09But I suddenly became conscious of the way he was,
24:14the way he was sitting at that table and the look that he was giving me.
24:18And it all seemed a bit strange.
24:19And I had this feeling.
24:20And I looked under the table and got the shock of my life when I saw he had a handgun
24:28pointed directly at me.
24:30The whole time.
24:34He clearly had the reputation as a gun for hire.
24:37And easy money for someone who has no conscience is to pick up a gun and take a contract out.
24:43That's what he wanted to do more than anything else.
24:46He was always a suspect for the Abbeys. Always.
24:50And to my mind, it's number one for the Hodgson's murders.
24:55Number one, for sure.
24:57And you know, right from the word go, you can see it was his MO.
25:01And it was just about getting the evidence.
25:04There's a big difference between knowing and then proving it in court,
25:07as I'm sure most people are aware of.
25:11In my view, Collins is the only person that would be able to pull something off like that.
25:16Would have the nerve to do it.
25:20So, I mentioned it to the team and we decided that we'd have a look at Rodney Collins.
25:31As Carl's stature grew, we actually had people coming to him offering their services as hitmen.
25:39We know Rod Collins felt quite left out and he said to Carl on one particular day,
25:45Hey, I'm willing to do whatever you need me to do. Just bring me in.
25:52Fairly soon, we were able to link Rodney Collins to Carl Williams.
25:59Carl Williams was meeting Rodney Collins and having walk and talks.
26:04Less than a week later, the day before, he was going to give evidence.
26:09Terry and Christine were dead.
26:19Carl Williams, as you would expect, was in maximum security.
26:23He didn't have access to a lot of other prisoners.
26:27He was kept in what was pretty much isolated detention.
26:31He had one or two others in the cell with him at any one particular time.
26:36He wasn't a particularly strong individual.
26:39And to survive in jail, he needed to surround himself with people who were stronger
26:45and perhaps more experienced jailhouse enforcers.
26:49He chose Tommy Ivanovich and Matthew Johnson, people he thought he could trust.
27:00Lex Lasry, former barrister, former Supreme Court judge in Victoria.
27:06Matthew Johnson was a very imposing man and, you know, in its own way, it was bizarre
27:11because he was in a high security section of Barwon with Williams.
27:16But he has a very strong view about people who give information to the police.
27:22One thing you could say about Carl Williams was, if there was one person who knew about it, he knew
27:31about all of it.
27:32He'd been all the way along complaining about people giving evidence about him.
27:37He suddenly decided that perhaps he could get on this and get a reduced sentence by giving evidence against a
27:45police officer.
27:46And he started to make a deal and make statements to do just that.
27:51In exchange for telling police this information, he'd be eligible for a $1 million reward for solving the Hodson's murders.
27:59And crucially, police would support his appeal to have his 35 year sentence potentially cut by up to 15 years.
28:08And it was only ever going to be another criminal like Carl Williams that was going to be able to
28:14provide the information we needed.
28:17So that was a big breakthrough. And the case just got stronger against Rodney Collins.
28:23Detective Senior Sergeant Sol Solomon was central to the attempt to prosecute one of his own, Paul Dale,
28:29over the execution of Terence Hodson and his wife.
28:32He had Carl Williams taken from prison to interview him.
28:38Carl Williams finally admitted to us that, yes, he was approached by someone.
28:46Who I won't name, who wanted Terry Hodson dead and offered up some money to have it done.
28:54Carl Williams then told us that he approached Rodney Collins to see if he was interested in doing the job.
29:01And Collins took the contract.
29:05It's very difficult to trust someone like Carl Williams.
29:07We looked to see what phone records we might have or what even surveillance information we would have that corroborates
29:14the movements and the things that Carl Williams said he did.
29:19Whilst we were working on Collins, he was being looked at for the Abbey murders, but he got away with
29:27it.
29:29One of the things I thought we might be able to use to our advantage is to reopen the case
29:38against the Abbey's and see if we can progress it further than what the original investigators did.
29:50We reopened the Abbey double murder investigation.
29:56We utilised some electronic surveillance on Collins and Collins' girlfriend at the time.
30:03She was speaking to Collins during visits and Collins was saying things to her, making admissions that he was involved
30:14in the Abbey murders, that he'd done it.
30:17And we were able to hear what was being said.
30:20We managed to get three or four of Collins' prisoner buddies that he served time with to come forward and
30:28make statements that Collins had actually made admissions that he'd murdered the Abbeys.
30:35There was an offender called Mark McConville.
30:37When he was in prison for another matter and he was dying, he made a statement and he implicated himself
30:43and Rod Collins in the murder of Dot and Ray Abbey.
30:46But because he wasn't able to give that evidence because he ultimately died, we set about corroborating every aspect of
30:54Mark McConville's statement for the murder of Dot and Ray Abbey that implicated Rod Collins.
31:00We were able to progress it to a point where we got what we needed.
31:04It was an amazing result when you think of it, you know, to be able to reopen a case after
31:11so many years and to get the evidence.
31:14Any cold case murder, especially a double murder that's solved, you know, gives the public a lot of confidence.
31:22And we did it purely to try and get into Collins' head to see if we can get him to
31:28say something to incriminate him for the Hodson murders.
31:31We decided to go and arrest Rod Collins in Fairfield for the Abbey murders.
31:38It was decided that we would just make the arrest and do the search.
31:42No SOG would be used and it would be a fairly low level knock on the door and take him
31:48into custody.
31:48It was extremely risky, but we'd stand a better chance to get something out of him, not necessarily that day,
31:56but maybe in the future.
32:05This is what we found in his little flat.
32:07It's his little one bedder.
32:09A 45 semi-auto loaded.
32:13Australian Federal Police target profile.
32:16A document that had about 60 pages that contained hundreds of names, car numbers, addresses.
32:23I have no doubt.
32:24One of those names on that list was his next target.
32:28Binoculars.
32:30Night vision gear.
32:32Ballistic vest.
32:34He had a surveillance device.
32:36You point it in a direction and you could hear what's being said from long distance.
32:41He had portable two-way radios.
32:43He had a government frequency book.
32:45So he could patch into, he knows what frequency police and other government agencies are working on.
32:54Balaclava, mask, wig.
32:56And he had these collapsible adjustable mirrors that you can see around corners.
33:02I would call that a pretty good assassin's kit.
33:10Finally, we got Collins for the Abbey murders.
33:14Now we had to try and get into Collins' head to incriminate him for the Hodson murders.
33:22The execution of Melbourne couple Terence and Christine Hodson eight years ago ties together police corruption and some of Victoria's
33:30most infamous criminals.
33:32Collins has now been returned from the Melbourne Custody Centre to Barwon Prison.
33:38I had about five meetings with him at Barwon Prison.
33:44The way I got to him was just, he liked to have his ego stroked.
33:48And he had a saying, he used to say, just remember one thing, I hold all the aces.
33:54And I could remember those words.
33:56Every time I would go and see him, he would always say, I hold all the aces.
34:02And then I would ask him questions like, you know, who do you think would be capable of committing a
34:09crime like the Hodson's double murder?
34:11Because it was done by somebody very professional, very cool, very clinical.
34:17He'd smile and say, yes, that's right, Sol, it was.
34:20And he reminded me that, you know, he holds all the aces.
34:25And we eventually charged him with killing Christine and Terry Hodson.
34:39He was in court and myself and some other detectives were down executing a search warrant in his cell.
34:49When he got back to his cell that night and he found under his pillow the ace of spades from
34:55the playing cards.
34:57He was not very happy about that.
35:00He's not very happy about that at all.
35:12So Carl Williams is in jail.
35:15He's now become known publicly.
35:17It's in the paper that he's informing to the police, supposedly about corrupt police officers.
35:23But for others, they're starting to say, well, he knows what I've done.
35:28And some very serious criminals started to wonder, am I at risk?
35:33So there's two things.
35:35One, he's in jail with Matthew Johnson, a guy that hates police in fullness.
35:39And two, there's other people on the outside worried like hell about what he's talking about to the police.
35:46All of a sudden, he's in grave danger.
35:57Carl's testimony is critical to a conclusion in the Hodson case.
36:01But the pressure around it has been ramping up, reaching crisis point.
36:06The word of a man who knows it all is invaluable.
36:11But word spreads fast in the underworld and fear even faster.
36:20There'd been a lot of media publicity at the time around the fact that Carl Williams was getting a lot
36:27of benefits.
36:29He was in with two particular individuals and there was pressure being brought to bear upon them
36:34to get themselves moved from that unit, because to stay there with Carl any longer would mean that they are
36:42tarred with the same feathers as Carl, that is a police informer.
36:45So Carl's days were numbered.
36:49Coming forward to give evidence against Dale, you might think that that's how he would salve his conscience, I'm just
36:56giving evidence against a policeman.
36:59But he just knew so much.
37:01There must have been people who feared that if he got into the witness box, almost anything could come out.
37:09If Carl Williams is talking, what danger does he pose for me?
37:13I don't care if he gives evidence against a police officer, but what if he decides to give evidence against
37:18me?
37:19And there's no doubt in my mind, those concerned people from the outside had conversations with people on the inside.
37:31One of the most intimidating characters I think I've ever dealt with was Matthew Johnson.
37:41I have never seen anyone of his size or his ferocity.
37:46He'd been up on a charge of murder in front of me and he actually gave evidence, so he was
37:51really up close to me.
37:53He had a look of malevolence that I have not seen before or since.
37:58He was charged with killing a man by setting fire to him, having made a funeral pyre on which he
38:08could place the body, poured petrol down his throat, slit his chest open so he could get more in, and
38:16then threw a match.
38:18It was supposedly the motive was that he owed him $20 for cannabis.
38:23Nobody frightened me in a courtroom until he did.
38:26He's the scariest man I think I've ever come across.
38:43Carl Williams, he was in the common area reading a copy of the Herald Sun.
38:49The tables in the centre of the room, on the front page of the Herald Sun that day, which he
38:54was reading, was the story about the assistance the government were giving him for his children's private school fees.
39:03And at that stage, there were a lot of rumblings in the unit that Carl was in.
39:10Tom was just walking around in the unit.
39:14The next thing that anybody knew, Matty Johnson had removed a seat post from an exercise bike.
39:23Hit it in his cell and at an opportune moment came up behind Carl Williams.
39:29Matthew Johnson standing behind Williams with the seat post in his hand.
39:32And bludgeoned him to death as he was reading the paper.
39:40And Carl was probably dead before he fell off the chair and hit the floor.
39:47And that other fellow was there, turned his back and just didn't watch it.
39:54So that's what happened there.
40:00Carl's lying dead on the floor.
40:0310, 15 minutes goes past.
40:06Johnson and Ivanovic are walking around waiting for someone to come.
40:09No one came.
40:11Eventually, Johnson, I think, got on the phone and said something like,
40:16I think Carl's had a bit of a problem.
40:17You'd better send somebody, but don't send a woman.
40:20Because he didn't want any women to see the gory mess that he'd made of Carl Williams yet.
40:27Barwon Prison goes into lockdown as a steady stream of homicide detectives arrive
40:32to investigate the death of notorious underworld kingpin Carl Williams.
40:36The face of Melbourne's bloody and long-running gangland war,
40:40he was serving a minimum 35-year sentence for three underworld murders.
40:45Despite the efforts of paramedics, he could not be revived.
40:48He was pronounced dead at 1.47pm.
40:54Talk us through the murder of Carl Williams. Do you remember that?
41:00I can indeed.
41:01I was sitting in court and my associate stood up, put a note in front of me and said,
41:11Carl Williams murdered whatever time it was.
41:15And I wrote a note back that said, I'm surprised he lasted that long.
41:21How did you feel?
41:25In some ways, it was in...
41:30Actually, how did I feel? Let me say that again.
41:33You know, I'd always said to Carl Williams,
41:36Carl, don't invest in superannuation.
41:38You're never going to get it collected.
41:40So I was not surprised.
41:42Where was I?
41:44I was on a treadmill at my local gym when my phone rang in my gym bag.
41:52So I thought, I better answer this.
41:53And it was someone from work.
41:55And he said, you better sit down.
42:00Carl has just been murdered.
42:14Okay.
42:15This is a tape-recorded interview conducted at the Darwin Prison
42:19on the 19th day of April, 2010.
42:24What's your full name and address, please?
42:26Matthew Charles Johnson, Darwin Prison.
42:31Matthew Johnson had been arrested and charged
42:35with the murder of Carl Williams.
42:38Have you got any comment to make about that?
42:41No comment.
42:42No comment?
42:43No comment.
42:45Johnson was charged with murder.
42:47You know, in its own way, it was bizarre
42:49because this is all on CCTV.
42:52Are you aware that there is video
42:58within the prison complex?
42:59No comment.
43:00Some of the photos that were released from the court
43:03show Matthew Johnson standing behind Williams
43:05with the seat post in his hand.
43:08Carl's lying dead on the floor.
43:11Well, at this stage, I'll advise you
43:13that you're going to be charged with the murder of Carl Williams.
43:16You do not have to say or do anything
43:18unless you wish to do so.
43:20But whatever you say or do may be recorded
43:22and given it evidence.
43:23Do you understand that?
43:25Yes.
43:27In terms of the fact that it was Matthew Johnson,
43:31I went, well, that doesn't really surprise me.
43:33What surprised me was that he was in a cell
43:35with Matthew Johnson.
43:50Matthew Johnson is a brutal killer.
43:53Carl believed that he'd be protected by Matthew Johnson.
43:57But what he underestimated is that Matthew Johnson would never put up
44:02with protecting a police informer that went against everything he stood for.
44:08He's saying it's the...
44:10I've found...
44:11I get that.
44:12One proper, one on the archers.
44:15Yeah.
44:16Yeah.
44:16But he speaks.
44:18That's what he was doing.
44:19Waiting to get.
44:19Yeah.
44:20Very blown out.
44:22Carl was not the type to survive a long time in jail.
44:27Particularly once he was cooperating with the police.
44:29It's a real death wish in places like Barwon.
44:35Another blow in a long wait for answers.
44:38Paul Dale was charged with the Hodson murders.
44:41The charges were dropped when gangland boss Carl Williams was killed in prison.
44:45Carl's family aside, the Petra Task Force were the only other people in Victoria who were
44:51absolutely devastated that day.
44:53It was devastating.
44:55Absolutely devastating.
44:57I knew then that that was a massive hole being blown into the prosecution case we had
45:03in relation to the Hodson killings.
45:08The whole prosecution case was built on the foundation of Carl Williams.
45:16And it wasn't there anymore.
45:17Without Carl, there was no case.
45:22Me and my fellow lead investigator had been working on this case now the best part of six years.
45:28And it just went.
45:31Very demoralising.
45:36Carl's brutal bludgeoning at the hands of an inmate seemingly unravelled the cold case detectives
45:42had been so close to solving.
45:45Carl initially ordered the hit on Graham Kinneborough in his ongoing war against the Carlton crew
45:50and the Morans.
45:52The alleged killers of Kinneborough were named by the runner.
45:56The talk alone doesn't make a case.
45:58The evidence wasn't strong.
46:00And one of the accused hitmen conveniently disappeared, making a difficult job even harder.
46:08The file remained open, but progress was slow.
46:12In this city, secrets don't stay buried.
46:16They just wait for someone to dig.
46:23After the murder of Graham Kinneborough, Terence Blewett went missing.
46:27We set about investigating the suspicious disappearance of Terence Blewett.
46:32We had information that led us to an illegal tip in Thomastown.
46:38For the right amount of money, you could dump whatever you wanted on that site.
46:42It had since been rehabilitated.
46:45It looked like a beautiful untouched field.
46:48Far from what it had looked like at the time that Terence Blewett went missing.
46:54So we decided that that site was fairly interesting for us.
47:09I was given permission to hire a very big digger.
47:12And we went there and started excavating that massive site.
47:17Unfortunately, after two and a half days, we uncovered nothing.
47:22And I'd been told that if we didn't come home with Terri, then I should probably look with some other
47:28line of work very soon.
47:30I did feel a great amount of pressure.
47:34I ordered some aerial photographs of the site around the time that Terence Blewett went missing.
47:41We'd noticed in the photographs there was two diggers and one of them had never moved.
47:48And we could see before and after that the digger was in the same place.
47:52So we were able to line up where we thought that digger was using the rooftops of the nearby factories.
48:02And as soon as we started scraping back the layers, we could see a trench.
48:07And so I rang my boss and said, we think we've found where he's buried.
48:11And he said, stop digging.
48:14No, I couldn't wait.
48:16So we kept digging.
48:19And because the site that they had dug into had house bricks and asbestos and all sorts of things in
48:25it, there was the normal soil profile.
48:26But then persisting through the layers was other material that shouldn't have been there.
48:33And then on the last scoop of the day, in the bucket was Terence Blewett.
48:42I was so relieved.
48:46So we compiled the brief and we took that to the Office of Public Prosecutions for an opinion.
48:51And the Crown Prosecutor's response to us was, what are you waiting for? Go and charge him.
48:56More than 13 years after Graham Kinneborough was executed outside his Kew home, one of his alleged killers is finally
49:04on trial.
49:04The jury was told Asling was acting on behalf of Carl Williams, who had a powerful hatred of the Moran
49:10family and their associates.
49:15Because I'm naturally a pessimist, I thought he would be acquitted.
49:19So when the jury returned a verdict and they looked straight at me when they said guilty, he was sentenced
49:24to life in prison with a non-parole period of 27 years.
49:28Stephen Asling made no comment, was impassive and he was removed from the court.
49:34I've never felt so overjoyed.
49:43Melbourne's gangland war ran on drugs, money and a steady supply of hired guns.
49:50At the centre was Carl Williams, a suburban nobody who built an empire by unleashing hitmen to erase rivals and
49:59grab the lion's share of the city's drug trade.
50:04For time it worked, bodies dropped, Carl got rich and fear did the heavy lifting.
50:12But loyalty in the underworld has a short self-life.
50:16His gunman flipped, hard-working police cracked the code of silence and his empire finally imploded.
50:26In the final twist, the man who ordered so many killings met his own end.
50:31Not on the street, but in a prison unit, bashed to death, becoming just another victim of the violence he
50:39once commanded.
50:41In the underworld, dead men tell no tales.
50:48There are five million stories in the naked city.
50:53This has been one of them.
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