Rebels vendetta ended in a bloody showdown in Picton as bikie Darren Wallace shot dead
THE violent feud came to a head in broad daylight. A Rebels bikie executed his gang’s sergeant-at-arms before killing himself.
A REBELS bikie who shot dead the gang’s sergeant-at-arms at a Picton service station before turning the gun on himself yesterday was a former Australian Army soldier who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tevita Daunibau executed Darren Wallace in front of stunned witnesses at 12.25pm before fleeing to a nearby creek adjacent to a cemetery where he shot himself.
Daunibau served 12 years with the Australian Defence Force before he was discharged with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Wallace is reported to have pleaded with his attacker, saying “Don’t do it”.
In CCTV footage obtained by The Daily Telegraph, the former soldier is seen fidgeting as he gets out of a light blue Audi 300m from the scene of the killing.
Minutes later he walked up to Wallace at a bowser at the Shell service station on Argyle St and shot him once after a brief argument.
The victim had a nine-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son.
There was speculation the sergeant-at-arms, who owned the shop Such is Leather next door to a tattoo parlour linked to the Rebels that was shot at last month, had wanted to leave the gang.
Police sources said many Rebels have been “patching’’ out of the club. Those exiting have to pay a financial penalty.
“It could be one or the other didn’t want to pay or it might have been a personal gripe that got out of hand. It’s hard to know, and especially with both of them dead,” a source said.
The shot-up tattoo parlour is owned by the family of Bacherlorette winner Sasha Mielczarek Jr, with his mother the registered owner and his brother Jay working there.
Jay, whose father is a Rebel, took to Facebook to say yesterday’s shooting had “nothing to do with our shop”.
Locals said the leather shop had been sprayed by bullets on the night the tattoo parlour was hit.
Perfect Goldman Consulting manager Aaron Perfect said he saw the light blue Audi A4 pull up out the front of the shop and watched the man walk away from the vehicle.
“He had a bulge in his pants. (He had) put something down his pants, I wasn’t 100 per cent sure it was a gun,” Mr Perfect said. “The car has been sitting there all afternoon from 10 minutes past 12 and then he left the car and that’s the last we saw of him.
“Then (a colleague) is ringing me saying there has been a shooting in Picton. I went and saw the copper and said, ‘I think the guy you are looking for, that’s his car.’ We both saw him get out of the car, it looked like his pants were down, and he pulled them up, put something down his pants and walked off. Obviously it was a gun.”
Perfect Goldman owner Rochana Goldman said she watched the CCTV with police when they confirmed it was the man they were searching for.
“It is scary,” she said.
“He took his time and he adjusted all his clothes, checked his bumbag, and then just cruises away. (The police) said, ‘That’s him’.
Geoff Hill, 65, said he saw the body of a man when he looked across the street to the service station.
“I opened up the blinds and saw there was a body laying near the petrol pump,” he said.
A woman who did not want to be named said she had known Wallace for more than a year and was shocked to discover he had been killed.
“He lived for his children. He is a big gentle giant,’’ she said. “I just heard about it and I couldn’t believe it.”
Camden Detective Superintendent Wayne Benson said both men were members of bikie gangs and were known to each other.
TROUBLE IN THE HEART OF BIKIE COUNTRY
Ben McClellan
PICTON lies on the outskirts of Sydney but is at the heart of the southwestern fiefdom of the Rebels bikie gang.
The fatal shooting of senior Rebels member Darren Wallace came just a month after his leather shop Such is Leather, and an adjoining tattoo parlour, owned by a family linked to the Rebels, were targeted in a drive-by shooting.
Yesterday the brother of Bacherlorette winner Sasha Mielczarek Jr — whose father Sasha Mielczarek Sr is a high-profile member of the gang — posted on his Facebook page that his family, which runs Picton Tattoos, was not involved in the murder-suicide.
“I want everyone to know I and everyone at the shop are fine in regards to the shooting in Picton today, it had nothing to do with our shop thanks for all the love everyone,” Jay Mielczarek posted.
The Daily Telegraph reported last month that the November 8 shooting of the two businesses was linked to an internal power struggle inside the Rebels.
The southwestern Sydney chapter of the Rebels has its clubhouse in Leppington and they tried in 2009 to open a clubhouse in Picton. The Gang Squad’s Strikeforce Raptor unit has been targeting Rebels across Picton and southwest Sydney in recent years.
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