Judy Moran: Underworld matriarch’s life from showgirl to murder in Moonee Ponds
A stunning 1930s mansion filled with antiques served as ‘murder headquarters’ for Melbourne underworld matriarch Judy Moran, the former showgirl who lost every man she ever loved to a bullet in Melbourne’s gangland war. NEW LIFE & CRIMES PODCAST — LISTEN NOW.
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FORMER showgirl turned crime queen Judy Moran lived a lavish life in her Moonee Ponds mansion surrounded by ornate antiques and secretly-stashed weapons.
Her home was filled with constant reminders of the price of a life lived outside the law: photographs of the dead, and their ashes. Her sons Mark and Jason. Husband Lewis. Each fell to bullets fired during Melbourne’s gangland war.
Judy spoke with their ghosts often.
These days she’s likely to be haunted by another: That of her brother-in-law Des “Tuppence” Moran, shot dead on her command.
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MURDER HQ IN MOONEE PONDS
A real estate agent once described Judy’s home in an advertisement as “Overflowing with period detail and charm, this home is a true tribute to the glamorous 1930s era”.
But in court, it earned a completely different description: “Murder headquarters”.
The last few hours Judy spent there was in the custody of gangland investigators, the Purana Taskforce detectives, while they searched the premises for evidence in the murder of Tuppence Moran.
A racehorse enthusiast, Tuppence liked to eat lunch at the Ascot Pasta & Deli Cafe and later drink at the Flemington Racecourse Tabaret.
Tuppence’s brother Lewis had been a renowned SP bookmaker and a violent debt collector who’d dabbled in the designer drug trade.
Judy and Tuppence had fostered a hostile relationship for some time.
She suspected he had funds or property from Lewis that should have been hers.
After all, Judy put up with a lot during her years with Lewis, who was Jason’s father.
He was abusive, sending her to hospital on occasion.
She’d moved in with him after Leslie “John” Cole — a gangster connected to the Painters & Dockers Union who sired Judy’s first son, Mark — left to take his criminal career to Sydney.
“When John Cole left, Judy and Lewis were well and truly a couple,” Sandra Cummins, a former friend of Judy, once told police.
In 1982, a gunman shot Les Cole dead in Sydney. Mark was murdered in 2000.
TUPPENCE MORAN SHOT DEAD
By June 15, 2009, most of the men who’d ever meant anything to Judy were dead.
Lewis had been shot at a pub in Brunswick in 2004, while running for his life.
When a gunman had appeared at a cafe on Union Rd in Ascot Vale just before noon, one of the last of the Moran men would follow the same fate.
Armed with a semiautomatic Glock pistol, the gunman shot Tuppence seven times.
“He (the gunman) just kept pumping them into Des,” one witness would later tell police.
“I think he was just making sure he was dead.’’
It was the second attempt on Tuppence’s life.
DNA evidence suggests Armour first had a crack at Tuppence on the night of March 17, 2009.
On that night, a disguised gunman using a silenced pistol prone to jamming fired a shot at Tuppence as he sat in his car at his Langs Rd home.
The bullet penetrated the windscreen and miraculously lodged in the steering wheel.
The next time the hit was better planned.
REBELS BIKIE TURNED HITMAN
In the lead up to the shooting, former Rebels bikie president Geoffrey “Nuts” Armour and his de facto partner, Suzanne Kane had been staying at Judy’s home.
Kane was the sister of Jason Moran’s wife Trisha.
Jason, Judy’s second son, had been executed at he sat in a van at a children’s Auskick clinic in 2003.
Armour affectionately called Judy “Big Mama’’.
Judy used her home as security to obtain a $400,000 bank loan, with which she bought several cars — one of which was given to Armour as prepayment for the murder.
On the day of the murder, Judy drove Armour and an unwitting mate of his to Union Rd in a second-hand Ford Fairlane.
Judy sat waiting in the Fairlane as Armour, wearing a wig and with his oblivious friend in tow, shot Tuppence dead inside the deli.
The duo ran back to the waiting car.
“Did you get him?” Judy asked.
“Yeah, no worries,” Armour replied, “I got him.”
“Well done,” she said.
After parking the Fairlane in her garage, Judy returned to Union Rd to put on a show of shock and grief for watching eyes.
Back at her home about 8.30pm, Judy spoke with Purana’s Det Sen-Sgt Stuart Bateson, a detective she’d had many dealings with during Melbourne’s gangland war.
As part of her attempted subterfuge, she told Det Sen-Sgt Bateson she believed Tuppence’s murder was an extension of the underworld war.
As she spoke, other detectives were uncovering the Ford Fairlane in her garage.
They immediately recognised it from footage from the Union Rd shooting.
“HELLO, JUDY”
Later that evening, Judy put on a pair of gloves and a purple knitted head warmer with a big pompom on top.
She drove the Ford Fairlane from her garage and dumped it in a Brunswick street.
As she walked from the car and tossed her gloves, a voice said, “Hello Judy”.
“Mark Hatt from Purana. What are you up to?”
“I’m just going for a walk to clear my mind,” Judy replied.
“It’s been a terribly stressful day.”
“I understand that,” Det-Sgt Hatt said. “Hop in the car and we’ll give you a lift home.”
Judy was told she was under arrest.
Detectives armed with a search warrant scoured her home.
Judy knew what lay hidden about the house, and it wasn’t long before investigators found it all. A goldmine of evidence.
In a dog bed they found a sawn-down shotgun with a cartridge in the breech and five more attached to the stock.
A safe hidden behind a compartment of a bedroom bookcase.
A wig, balaclavas and other clothing worn by Armour and his unwitting accomplice. Number plates.
And handguns: a revolver, a semiautomatic pistol and the icing on the cake — the Glock pistol used to shoot Tuppence Moran dead.
All the while Det-Sgt Hatt sat in a chair beside Judy, who was wrapped in a doona.
JUDY MORAN’S TRIAL
By the time her murder trial reached a jury, Judy was using a motorised wheelchair to get around due to a hip complaint.
She wanted to jury to believe she was too old to be involved in murder, and couldn’t have taken part as she was tending her son Mark’s grave at Fawkner Cemetery at the time of the shooting.
Phone records showed a call was made from her mobile phone at 11.11am on the day of the shooting — and according to expert evidence, that call could not have been made from Fawkner Cemetery.
The jury didn’t buy her tale and found her guilty of murder.
Armour, 45, pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 26 years’ jail with a 21-year minimum.
Judy, 67, copped the same sentence.
Her barrister, John Saunders, said she would face “extreme hardship” if stripped of the money made from the sale of her home — which had sold for $1.07 million at auction while she was in custody.
Judy would not be able to buy items from the prison canteen nor live in comfort upon her eventual release, the Supreme Court was told.
Judy was allowed to keep $356,000 from the sale.
Her lawyer told the court: “Ms Moran is effectively alone in the world.’’
Originally published as Judy Moran: Underworld matriarch’s life from showgirl to murder in Moonee Ponds
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