Hitman and Donald Mackay murder suspect James Frederick Bazley dead
JAMES Bazley, the hitman suspected of killing Griffith anti-drugs campaigner Donald McKay, was a dog lover who refused to execute a victim’s dog when ordered by a mob boss. He had no such issue with people.
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THE hitman suspected of killing anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay is dead, closing another chapter in Australia’s highest profile mafia plot.
James Frederick Bazley, 92, spent his last years in a Melbourne nursing home. The health of the nation’s oldest known contract killer had been poor for years. It is understood he died on Thursday morning.
He will be remembered as the Calabrian mafia triggerman police believe shot and disposed of the body of the Griffith-based businessman.
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Bazley takes Australia’s greatest unsolved crime to the grave after rejecting repeated attempts by New South Wales and Victorian detectives to appeal to his conscience and reveal where Mr Mackay’s remains were buried.
But he refused to tell them, claiming he was not involved.
It is believed Bazley was paid $10,000 to kill Mr Mackay, who was shot in the car park of the Griffith Hotel on July 15, 1977.
Bazley, who was the nation’s oldest known contract killer, has had ailing health for several years.
In 1986, Bazley was convicted over the double murder of drug couriers Douglas and Isabel Wilson — who were part of the ‘Mr Asia Drug Cartel’, and found guilty for the conspiracy to kill Mr Mackay.
When he executed the Wilsons and buried them in a shallow grave in Rye, he was also meant to kill their dog, but his love of animals prevented him from doing so.
He also was convicted for armed robbery.
But Bazley, remarkably, had a life sentence reduced to 15 years, walking free from a country prison in 2001.
He lived most of his days out in Carlton North with his wife Lillian before being moved into a nursing home several years ago.
Bazley remained in contact with underworld players until his death and was known to Carlton Crew identities such as Mario Condello.
It is understood he died this morning.
Bazley was a gun-for-hire during the Painters and Dockers wars of the 1970s, and twice survived being shot.
Former Victoria Police officer Brian Murphy came to know Bazley well over the years.
He said Bazley had intervened in the period after his fatal 1971 confrontation with criminal Neil Collingburn at the Russell St police station.
Murphy was later charged and acquitted of the manslaughter of Collingburn, but members of the ruthless Painters and Dockers union wanted him executed in the death’s aftermath.
“He looked after my interests when I was charged and people were going to blow my house up,” Murphy said.
One man who knew Bazley well said he was a quiet, well-spoken man.
“He’d be one of the most underrated scallywags in history,” the source said.
“He looked like a minister of religion. He was a very easygoing fellow, until he was upset.”
But the assassination of Mr Mackay led to multiple inquiries, royal commissions, and the collapse of the `Mr Asia Drug Cartel’.
Mr Mackay, who was politically active, is thought to have been murdered because of his efforts to expose the marijuana trade and was set to name the Griffith-based mafia families behind the drug’s distribution.
There have been attempts to find his body in the past two decades, the last in 2013 when an excavation took place at a property near the NSW town of Hay, in the western Riverina region, but nothing was found.
Bazley, in 2013, said he had nothing to fear from the search.
“I know I am innocent and there might be evidence if the body turns up that could prove that,” he told senior crime reporter Keith Moor,
“I hope police find the body. I know I didn’t do it and finding the body could clear my name.”
Bazley was also once offered a large TV deal for an interview about the unsolved Mackay murder, but ultimately rejected the offer.
Gianfranco Tizzoni, who died in 1988, became a police informer, telling investigators he helped Robert Trimbole organise the murder, which was ordered by Trimbole’s mafia bosses.
Bazley was recruited from Melbourne to mask the Griffith-based plot.
Trimbole, known as “Aussie Bob’’, fled Australia in 1987 — a decade after Mr Mackay disappeared, and died in Spain on the run from authorities.
A funeral for Bazley will be held next week.
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Originally published as Hitman and Donald Mackay murder suspect James Frederick Bazley dead