Crime read: Bouncer and bikie informer Jason Tyler‘s brutal end
HE HAD no face. His skull was broken into little bits. This Queensland bouncer met a brutal end. And the man accused of being behind the execution was allowed to go free.
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HE had no face. His skull was broken into little bits.
Bikie informer, drug dealer and bouncer at the End of The World nightclub in Cairns Jason Tyler met a brutal end.
Shot five times through the legs, the killers stuffed a sock into his mouth and stomped his head until it smashed like an eggshell.
His body was initially thrown over a cliff near Port Douglas but later retrieved and buried in a shallow grave in scrubland on the Rex Range.
Mr Tyler’s death under the boots of his former Bandidos bikie gang club mates came in the early hours of August 20, 1995.
It was put down to the unforgivable sin.
He’d reputedly broken the code of silence strictly enforced by of one of the world’s most feared outlaw motorcycle gangs: The Fat Mexicans. He ratted them out to police and paid the ultimate price.
His killers were rumoured to have been awarded the macabre bikie badge of honour “Demonio de Destruction” or “Demons of Destruction” — given to those who kill or maim to protect the interests of the club.
Three outlaw bikies were jailed over the gangland slaying — with one committing suicide in prison before going to trial.
But a dark cloud still hangs today over the police investigation into what is one of the far north’s most high-profile organised crime murders.
One Bandidos bikie gang insider-turned-supergrass questions the immunity from prosecution deal which allowed a former kingpin allegedly behind the execution to go free in return for doing what Mr Tyler was slain for: turning police snitch.
Pam Walsh, the mother of bouncer and father-of-two Jason Tyler, 24, can neither forgive nor forget.
Mrs Walsh, in a 2005 interview, told how one night of unspeakable horror cost the lives of three men.
She felt prison was not punishment enough for the brutal killers. “I want justice,” the grieving mum said.
“I don’t feel justice has been done.”
“The guys who murdered my son were given the patch (Demonio de Destruction) as some form of award.
“That means the hierarchy in Sydney were rewarding them, condoning what happened. And that is just so abhorrent.”
Michael Anthony Rousetty, 35, was convicted of murder, sentenced to life imprisonment, and despite being described as a “model inmate” has spent the bulk of his jail time in solitary confinement in the Townsville Correctional Centre.
Sydney man Grant Clear was found dead in his prison cell before going to trial.
Another man, charged as an accessory after the crime, David Houghton, also spent time in prison.
“So many lives wasted. So much brutality,” said Mrs Walsh, of the 1995 incident when her son was lured to the Bandidos bikie gang clubhouse in Edge Hill.
“I weep with pain when I think of what Jason had to endure.
“They kneecapped him, shot him five times in the legs, but he was still alive. Then they gagged him, stuffed a sock into his mouth, and stomped him to death. His skull was smashed to pieces.”
The motive for the killing was still unclear, Mrs Walsh said.
But she admitted it may have been linked to her son’s sexual liaison with a niece of Clear as well as his “dabbling” in the drug scene.
Cairns police Detective Senior Sergeant Ed Kinbacher, who lead the seven-year investigation, said: “I can understand a mother’s grief and obviously emotions are still very raw”.
Detective Kinbacher said the Tyler execution was one of the far north’s highest profile organised crime murder cases — but he was confident that police got the killers.
“That sort of extreme violence is very unusual,” he said.
“And (the investigation) was made more difficult by the code of silence that surrounded the bikie gang members.
“It is regrettable the group resumed in Cairns but one would hope the violence associated with it previously is no longer.”
Bandidos turncoat Stevan Utah, in the book Dead Man Running by Ross Coulthart, gives insight into the Tyler murder.
Utah said the word around the clubhouses was that Mr Tyler had given evidence about the Bandidos to police.
Utah witnessed vicious beatings, helped dump corpses, knew about the theft of rocket launchers and machine guns. He saw men executed in front of him.
In an attempt to regain control of his life, Utah resorted to the unthinkable: he rolled over to the Federal Police and told them all he knew about the Bandidos.
“What happened to him (Mr Tyler) is what will happen to me if they ever catch me. Except in my case they’ll drag it out a bit, make me suffer. After what I’ve done to them they’ll want to cause some serious pain,’’ Utah says in the book.
Utah tells how former Cairns chapter president Peter Klarfeld, aka PK, got a get-out-of-jail-free card for providing evidence to police about the murder.
PK led detectives to the lonely burial site on the Rex Range three years after the killing and, controversially, was given full immunity from prosecution.
“PK’s full indemnity from prosecution was justified to jurors on the grounds that ‘little fish must be used to catch big fish’,’’ Coulthart wrote.
“But there are claims to this day that there is something very wrong about the way PK’s evidence against his former Bandido mates was not questioned more rigorously by police and prosecutors who chose to rely on it.
“The Bandidos charged with Jason Tyler’s murder admitted their roles as accessories after the fact in disposing of the body but they flatly deny to this day that they were the ones who committed the murder.
“The court was told it was in fact Klarfeld and another bikie, Clear, who pulled the trigger — a claim put to PK under cross-examination, which he denied.
“He (PK) now lives on a secure farm in splendid isolation in the Atherton Tablelands rainforest behind the town where he once reigned as chapter president, no doubt watching his back very closely.’’
Peter Klarfeld told the murder trial in Cairns Supreme Court in August 1995 how he confronted Bandidos sergeant-at-arms Rousetty, at the clubhouse on the afternoon after the murder took place.
Mr Klarfeld said Rousetty, along with other Bandidos members including Clear, had lured Mr Tyler to the Bandidos’ former clubhouse in Collins Ave, Edge Hill, in the early hours of August 20, 1995, to give him a beating.
Mr Klarfeld said Rousetty told him the beating had got out of hand after Mr Tyler fought back.
“I approached Mick Rousetty and said `what the f*** is going on?,” Mr Klarfeld said.
“He said ‘the c**t deserved it, I whacked him. I replied ‘why did it have to go this far? I don’t want to have anything to do with this. You’ve gone stupid again’.”
Mr Klarfeld said Rousetty told him Clear had shot Mr Tyler in the legs to “slow him down” because he had resisted them.
Rousetty also ordered another man, Dave Houghton, to shove socks in Mr Tyler’s throat to “let him eat this”, Mr Klarfeld said.
He said Rousetty later told him that they had burned Mr Tyler’s clothes in two 44-gallon drums.
Mr Klarfeld denied claims from Rousetty’s defence counsel, James Sheridan, that he had made up the conversations to cover his own back and that it was in fact he who, along with Clear, had killed Mr Tyler.
“I don’t know where you got that from.” Mr Klarfeld told the court.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
TIMELINE OF EVIL
AUG 20, 1995 Jason Tyler was murdered after being lured to the Bandido Outlaw Motorcycle Clubhouse at Edge Hill.
NOV 11, 1998 Jason’s body found in a shallow grave in bushland.
MAR 2, 1999 Five Bandidos committed to stand trial for the 1995 death — Michael Rousetty, David Houghton, Peter James White, Troy Charles Mitchell and Grant William Clear.
APR 26, 1999 Clear found dead in his prison cell.
AUG 13, 1999The trial saw Houghton and Rousetty convicted of murder and jailed for life, while Mr Mitchell and Mr White walked free.
AUG 22, 2000 Houghton and Rousetty successfully appealed the decision.
NOV 19, 2001Mistrial ordered in the case of Rousetty.
NOV 20, 2001 Judge ordered jury to find Houghton not guilty of murder. He was, however, guilty of accessory after crime.
AUG 20, 2002 Rousetty found guilty of murder and jailed for life.
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