Donald Mackay murder details in balance as hitman’s friend talks to police
THE hitman’s mate, who may know the secret of what happened to the body of Donald Mackay, has spoken to detectives after the death of gun-for-hire James Bazley, the man paid to kill the anti-drugs crusader.
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THE hitman’s mate, who may know the secret of what happened to the body of Donald Mackay, has spoken to detectives after the death of gun-for-hire James Bazley, the man paid to kill the anti-drugs crusader.
Cold-hearted Bazley, who was recruited by Griffith mafia bosses to kill Mackay in 1977, died in Victoria last week aged 92, freeing up the only person he confided in to talk to police.
Bazley, a former Melbourne waterfront heavy known as “Iceman” or “Machine Gun”, had sworn his “close associate” to secrecy until after his death.
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NSW homicide detectives, who had been repeatedly rebuffed by Bazley’s wall of silence as they never gave up trying to find out how and where he disposed of Mr Mackay’s body, are waiting to hear from their Victorian counterparts.
They still cannot be sure if Bazley’s friend will divulge his secrets to them or even if what Bazley told him about Mr Mackay’s body was the truth.
The quietly affluent Riverina farming community lost its innocence on a Friday night in July 1977 when Mackay, 43, a hard-working father of four who ran a furniture business in town, was executed in the carpark of the Griffith Hotel.
It was Australia’s first political assassination and his body has never been found.
Mackay, a Liberal Party candidate, had campaigned against organised crime and drug-growing in Griffith. Two years later the Woodward royal commission into drug trafficking found the Griffith cell of an Italian-organised crime group was behind Mackay’s murder.
His death sentence was sealed after it was revealed had tipped off police about a massive mafia cannabis crop at Coleambally.
Mafia boss Tony Sergi, a Griffth wine grower, discovered Mackay’s identify when he was named as the informer in diaries and notebooks obtained by defence lawyers acting for those charged over the crop.
One those tried and convicted over the crop was Sergi’s brother-in-law Vincenzo Ciccarello.
Mr MacKay’s murder remained unsolved until three men — James Bazley, Mafia insider Gianfranco Tizzoni and Fitzroy gun dealer George Joseph — were later convicted in Victoria in 1986 of conspiracy to murder.
Shells left behind in the carpark of the Griffith Hotel were linked to a gun owned by Bazley.
Bazley, who was paid $10,000 to kill Mackay, was also convicted of the contract murders of Mr Asia drug syndicate members Douglas and Isabel Wilson after the mafia decided it was more profitable to smuggle heroin than grow cannabis crops.
Bazley had been living quietly in Melbourne with his wife Lillian, 85, since his release in 2001 from Victoria’s Loddon Prison.
He refused a personal plea from Mackay’s widow, Barbara, to tell the truth just before her death in 2001.
Since then, there has been one false hope after the other for the family.
In 2009, Mr Mackay’s son Paul wrote to then-NSW police commissioner Andrew Scipione seeking a full review of his father’s murder by the state’s cold case squad.
In 2011, NSW unsolved homicide squad detectives failed to get Bazley to break the criminal’s code of silence when they approached him through his solicitor.
In 2013, police spent two weeks excavating a property near Hay after receiving information anonymously that Mr Mackay’s body was buried there. Nothing was found.
Only one of the trio jailed over his death, George Joseph, is believed to be alive. Mafia supergrass Tizzoni died of natural causes in 1988.
After Mr Mackay was revealed as a police informer, the meeting that sealed his fate was held at Tony Sergi’s Griffith winery and attended by drug baron Robert “Aussie Bob” Trimbole, who fled Australia and died in Spain in 1987.
Sergi died in October last year after celebrating his 82nd birthday.
Griffith mayor John Dal Broi said that what happened to Mr Mackay had never been forgotten.
“The people of Griffith would like closure on this terrible blot on the community,” he said.
“While a new generation has emerged since Don was murdered, we will never forget what happened.
“I hope the people involved will be subjected to the full force of the law.”
A NSW police spokeswoman said: “If there is any information provided we will look into it,”