Walsh Street police shootings
Encyclopedia
The Walsh Street police shootings was the 1988 murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

 of two Victoria Police
Victoria Police
Victoria Police is the primary law enforcement agency of Victoria, Australia. , the Victoria Police has over 12,190 sworn members, along with over 400 recruits, reservists and Protective Service Officers, and over 2,900 civilian staff across 393 police stations.-Early history:The Victoria Police...

 officers, Constables Steven Tynan, 22, and Damian Eyre, 20. The officers were responding to a report of an abandoned car when they were gunned down about 4.50am in Walsh Street, South Yarra, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 on 12 October 1988.

Four men, Victor Peirce
Victor Peirce
Victor George Peirce was an Australian criminal from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Peirce was a member of the Pettingill family, headed by matriarch and former Richmond brothel owner Kath Pettingill....

, Trevor Pettingill, Anthony Leigh Farrell and Peter David McEvoy, were charged with murder and later acquitted by a jury in the Supreme Court of Victoria
Supreme Court of Victoria
The Supreme Court of Victoria is the superior court for the State of Victoria, Australia. It was founded in 1852, and is a superior court of common law and equity, with unlimited jurisdiction within the state...

. Two other suspects, Jedd Houghton and Gary Abdallah, were shot and killed by Victoria Police before being brought to trial.

In 2005, Wendy Peirce, widow
Widow
A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...

 of accused Victor Peirce, gave an interview to media detailing how her late husband had planned and carried out the murders and was actually guilty as charged.

The Walsh Street police shootings are mentioned several times in Underbelly Files: Tell Them Lucifer was Here
Underbelly Files: Tell Them Lucifer was Here
Underbelly Files: Tell Them Lucifer was Here is an Australian made-for-television movie that aired on February 7, 2011 on the Nine Network. It is the first of three television movies in the Underbelly Files series, the other two being Infiltration and The Man Who Got Away.It tells the true story of...

and are portrayed in slightly fictionalised form in the feature film and book Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom (film)
Animal Kingdom is a 2010 Australian crime drama written and directed by David Michôd, and starring Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, Luke Ford, Sullivan Stapleton, Jacki Weaver and James Frecheville...

. The events also form an important part of the narrative of the Australian drama Killing Time
Killing Time (TV series)
Killing Time is an Australian television drama series for TV1 subscription television channel that first screened in 2011. It is based on the true story of disgraced lawyer Andrew Fraser. In New Zealand it screens on Prime Television....

.

Prior events

On 11 October 1988, Peirce's best friend, Graeme Jensen, was killed by police in Narre Warren. Jensen had been under observation by the Victoria Police Armed Robbery Squad, who had planned to arrest him in connection with an armed robbery and murder. Police followed Jensen to a local store. Three cars containing eight detectives attempted to block Jensen in as he left the store; however, one of the cars was delayed by passing traffic, allowing Jensen to drive through. Police later gave sworn evidence that they saw Jensen brandish a firearm. Police yelled at Jensen to stop, one detective yelled: "He's got a gun." Jensen was then shot dead. His car crashed into a roadside pole.

Report of an abandoned car

On 12 October, 13 hours after Jensen's death, at 4:39am, Constables Tynan and Eyre were operating a divisional van from Prahran police station when called to an abandoned Holden Commodore
Holden Commodore
The Holden Commodore is an automobile manufactured since 1978 by the Holden subsidiary of General Motors in Australia, and, formerly, in New Zealand. In the mid-1970s, Holden established proposals to replace the long-serving Kingswood nameplate with a smaller, Opel-based model...

 left in Walsh Street, South Yarra. While the officers were examining the vehicle, they were ambushed by armed offenders. Constable Tynan was cut down with a shotgun while sitting in the car, and Constable Eyre was seriously wounded. Constable Eyre, despite suffering serious injuries, is thought to have struggled with the attacker until another person approached him from behind, managed to remove Eyre's service revolver from its holster and shoot him in the head with it.

Police believed members of a Melbourne armed robbery gang had organized the murders. In the period up to April 1989 there had been an unusually high number of fatal shootings of suspects by police. The execution-style killings of the two police officers was thought by many to have been a payback by members of the Melbourne underworld.

Ty-Eyre task force

The police investigation was known as the Ty-Eyre Task Force, a combination of the two surnames of the officers killed. It was headed by Detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...

 John Noonan and was the biggest investigation Victoria Police
Victoria Police
Victoria Police is the primary law enforcement agency of Victoria, Australia. , the Victoria Police has over 12,190 sworn members, along with over 400 recruits, reservists and Protective Service Officers, and over 2,900 civilian staff across 393 police stations.-Early history:The Victoria Police...

 had ever undertaken at the time and also the longest running, spanning 895 days. At the height of the investigation, police had hundreds of officers working with the task force to investigate the murders.

The Flemington Crew

Police investigations revealed the shotgun used to perform the murders was the same weapon used earlier in a bungled attempt to blast open a bank door during a robbery at the State Bank in Oak Park
Oak Park, Victoria
Oak Park is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 11 km north of Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Moreland...

 seven months earlier. A gang, police dubbed The Flemington Crew, had robbed at least four Melbourne banks. The robbers, on security cctv at the Oak Park robbery, had left shotgun shells at the scene. Seven months into the investigation, the shotgun itself was found half-buried in an inner-city golf course plant bed by a gardener. The shotgun and shells became the single forensic link police had, linking the Oak Park robbery to the same shotgun used in the Walsh Street murders.

Pettingill family

Members of the gang responsible for the robberies were believed to be Victor Peirce
Victor Peirce
Victor George Peirce was an Australian criminal from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Peirce was a member of the Pettingill family, headed by matriarch and former Richmond brothel owner Kath Pettingill....

, Graeme Jensen, Jedd Houghton and Peter David McEvoy. The home of Victor Peirce was raided the day following the Walsh Street shootings. Peirce's house was later demolished and the backyard dug up in the search for evidence.

Trial

The trial of the four men accused, Victor Peirce, Trevor Pettingill, Anthony Leigh Farrell and Peter David McEvoy, began in March 1991. The prosecution alleged six people were involved in the planning of the shootings, the accused, Jason Ryan and the late Jedd Houghton.

Prosecution

Jason Ryan became a prosecution witness in the trial and was offered immunity in exchange for his testimony. Police placed Ryan under the witness protection program and removed him to Mansfield
Mansfield, Victoria
Mansfield is a small town in the foothills of the Victorian part of the Australian Alps. It is approximately 180 km north-east of Melbourne...

 on 24 October 1988 for questioning. His evidence changed a number of times up to the opening of the trial.

Ryan's evidence had implicated Gary Abdallah, Jedd Houghton, Anthony Leigh Farrell and Emmanuel Alexandris. Police were told the party of killers were Jedd Houghton, Peter David McEvoy, Anthony Leigh Farrell and his uncles Victor Peirce and Trevor Pettingill. Houghton was shot and killed during a police raid on a Bendigo caravan park in November 1988. Abdullah was fatally wounded during his arrest on another matter in April 1989.

Victor Pierce's wife, Wendy Pierce, also became a prosecution witness and entered the witness protection program. She had previously maintained her husband was with her in a motel all night on the night of the murders; she retracted this alibi in preparation to testify against her husband . But, in a pre-trial hearing, she retracted her retraction and, as a hostile witness, did not appear at the trial.

Not guilty verdict

All four men charged with the murders were acquitted
Acquittal
In the common law tradition, an acquittal formally certifies the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as the criminal law is concerned. This is so even where the prosecution is abandoned nolle prosequi...

 in the Supreme Court of Victoria
Supreme Court of Victoria
The Supreme Court of Victoria is the superior court for the State of Victoria, Australia. It was founded in 1852, and is a superior court of common law and equity, with unlimited jurisdiction within the state...

.

Victor Peirce and Peter David McEvoy were taken back into custody on other charges, yelling "We'll be killed, we'll be killed". Peirce claimed after his acquittal that he was afraid of police retribution and issued a statement in which he professed his innocence and requested "to be left alone to work and prove to the community I am not as bad as police and the press has made me out to be".

Wendy Pierce was charged with perjury, convicted and sentenced to serve 9 months non-parole.

Timeline of relevant events

  • 25 January 1987 - Mark Militano is shot and killed by Victoria Police.
  • June, 1987 - Frank Valastro is shot and killed by Victoria Police.
  • 1 October 1988 - Hai Foong (Joshua) Yap was shot by Steven Tynan during a robbery, ending up a paraplegic who later died of his wounds and self neglect.
  • 11 October 1988 - Graeme Jensen is killed
  • 12 October 1988, approx. 4:50am - Walsh Street killings occur
  • 21 October 1988, TyEyre taskforce set up
  • 24 October 1988 - Jason Ryan moved to Mansfield and placed under witness protection
    Witness protection
    Witness protection is protection of a threatened witness or any person involved in the justice system, including defendants and other clients, before, during and after a trial, usually by police...

  • 17 November 1988 - Jedd Houghton shot and killed by police in a Bendigo
    Bendigo, Victoria
    Bendigo is a major regional city in the state of Victoria, Australia, located very close to the geographical centre of the state and approximately north west of the state capital Melbourne. It is the second largest inland city and fourth most populous city in the state. The estimated urban...

     caravan park.
  • 9 April 1989 - Gary Abdallah is shot and killed by Victoria Police
    Victoria Police
    Victoria Police is the primary law enforcement agency of Victoria, Australia. , the Victoria Police has over 12,190 sworn members, along with over 400 recruits, reservists and Protective Service Officers, and over 2,900 civilian staff across 393 police stations.-Early history:The Victoria Police...

     after pulling an imitation pistol on detectives.
  • 26 March 1991 - four accussed men found not guilty.
  • 1 May 2002 - Victor Peirce shot and killed in Bay Street
    Bay Street
    Bay Street, originally known as Bear Street, is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Toronto. It is the centre of Toronto's Financial District and is often used by metonymy to refer to Canada's financial industry since succeeding Montreal's St. James Street in that role in the 1970s...

    , Port Melbourne in drive-by shooting linked to Andrew "Benji" Veniamin
    Andrew Veniamin
    Andrew "Benji" Veniamin was an Australian criminal, convicted car thief, murderer accused of killing 7 underworld figures and was one of the key figures involved in the Melbourne underworld killings...

  • October, 2005 - Widow of Victor Peirce, Wendy Peirce gives an interview to John Silvester, detailing her husband's involvement in the crime.
  • February, 2010 - Peter McEvoy told New South Wales Police, in anger, that he had heard the final words of a dying constable, prompting calls for a coronial inquest into the deaths of the two policemen.
  • 13 March 2011 - Sunday Night
    Sunday Night (Australian TV program)
    Sunday Night is an Australian news and current affairs program produced and broadcast by the Seven Network. The program airs on Sunday nights at 6:30 pm, and is presented by Seven News Sydney presenter Chris Bath.-Overview:...

    airs former police officer Malcolm Rosenes' claim Graeme Jensen was killed in cold blood and had a sawn-off rifle planted in his car after death.
  • October, 2011 - The book A Pack of Bloody Animals was published, concluding that two of the defendants, Anthony Farrell and Trevor Pettingill, played no part in the murders of the two policemen.

See also

  • Moorabbin Police murders
  • Melbourne gangland killings
    Melbourne gangland killings
    The Melbourne gangland killings were the murders in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia of 36 criminal figures or partners between 16 January 1998 and 13 August 2010. The murders were in a series of retributional murders involving various underworld groups. The deaths caused a sustained power vacuum...

  • Crime in Melbourne
    Crime in Melbourne
    Crime in Melbourne refers to criminal activity in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. One of the main functions of Victoria Police is to detect criminal activity, and prosecutions take place in the Victorian court system....

  • Pettingill family
    Pettingill family
    The Pettingill family is an infamous Melbourne-based criminal family, headed by matriarch Kath Pettingill. Family members have many convictions for criminal offences including drug trafficking, arms dealing and armed robberies...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK