‘I pulled the trigger’: Moment hitman confesses to teen’s execution
Desperate to talk to a homicide cop, a killer inside a maximum-security prison cut his face and arms. His demand met, the phone call that followed blew open one of NSW’s most shocking crimes — the murder of 15-year-old Brayden Dillon. LISTEN TO THE EXPLOSIVE CALL
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A jailed killer was so desperate to talk to a detective, he took a blade to his face and arms until prison guards called the cop.
It was midnight when Detective Sergeant Luke Scott received that panicked call from maximum security inmate Conrad Craig — and it changed the course of one of NSW’s most shocking crimes.
Craig had stabbed himself in the face with a pair of scissors and cut his arms until Lithgow prison guards pulled him out of his cell and dialled Sergeant Scott’s number.
Craig was ready to confess.
“I’m confessing to what happened — he f**kng died,” the hitman revealed.
“Yeah, I f**king pulled the trigger.”
He was referring to the Brayden Dillon murder investigation, a case that has dragged in both underworld and legal fraternity figures.
The Sunday Telegraph can reveal the contents of the explosive phone call after it was tendered as evidence in the NSW Supreme Court this month.
Fifteen-year-old Brayden was asleep in his family’s Glenfield home in southwest Sydney when Craig kicked down the door and shot the teenager in the head on Good Friday in 2017.
Three months later, Craig was arrested and charged with murder.
But police suspected the execution was part of a plot that extended far beyond the hired hitman.
As the officer-in-charge of the investigation, Sergeant Scott had already been to visit Craig, a career criminal who had been groomed and adopted into the Brothers For Life gang. But, for more than a year, the 29-year-old inmate had remained silent. He wouldn’t give up who allegedly put him up to murdering an innocent 15-year-old in cold blood.
On the night of January 12, 2019, Craig changed his mind.
His sister had been charged with being an accessory after the fact to Brayden’s murder, he couldn’t talk to his two children and he wanted out.
“Um, is there anyway you can come up?” Craig asked quietly.
“I want to tell ya what happened and also about another three or four that have been charged and I know done it.”
Craig claimed he only meant to kneecap Brayden when he stormed into his bedroom and shot the sleeping teen at close range.
Sergeant Scott was faced with a delicate situation.
He had an accused killer prepared to divulge potentially explosive information about a major murder investigation but Craig was making unreasonable demands.
He wanted to be moved from Lithgow jail immediately. Craig knew that other inmates would suspect what he was doing. He feared he’d be labelled a “dog” or word would reach criminal figures on the outside and his family would be in danger.
But Sergeant Scott knew the red tape he had to go through meant it wasn’t possible to get Craig relocated at midnight on a Sunday.
He wanted a sign that Craig really was willing to tell them about the murder.
“Mate, tell me this, cause I am going to have to ring my bosses to talk to them,” Sergeant Scott said.
“Are you going to tell me that Chokolatta put you up to shooting that kid?”
Chokolatta is the nickname of Abdul Abu-Mahmoud, who has pleaded not guilty to orchestrating Brayden’s murder and faces trial in the NSW Supreme Court this month.
His defence has previously denied Abu-Mahmoud was a member of B4L and told a court that Craig was directed to kill Brayden by B4L leader Bassam Hamzy, who still runs the gang despite being in jail.
Craig replied: “I’m f**king sitting here telling ya I’m going to.”
There were others too, Craig said, and “the money man”.
“I’m giving you your number one.”
At the time, Sergeant Scott, who worked on Strike Force Wongala with a team of homicide detectives, was in a car in Sydney’s southwest, sitting outside a suspect’s house ahead of an arrest in another case — another murder investigation into a 40-year-old man whose mutilated body was found in Sadleir.
He told Craig he would come up to Lithgow first thing the next day but Craig wasn’t satisfied.
“I am saying I can get there tomorrow, that’s the earliest I can get there,” he said.
“And mate, it takes me 2½ hours to get to Lithgow from just where I am right now,” Sergeant Scott said.
Craig replied: “I f**king did what I had to do, every c**t knows I am doing. Who knows who the f**k they know and their f**king boys.
“I am sitting next to the f**king bloke with the gun for f**king Pasquale (Barbaro, who was murdered in 2016) thing. How do I know who he knows?”
Craig suspected one of the inmates in his prison unit had a mobile phone and he was worried word would spread that he was talking.
He wanted his niece and Nan moved out of their homes that night.
“You’ve put me through hell,” Craig said.
“You’ve put my family through hell. The other motherf**ker wants to f**king gangster on, think they’re mad c**ts and leave me with it and laugh at me. I am not f**king youse around.”
It wasn’t easy moving a prisoner in the middle of the night, Sergeant Scott tried to assure an increasingly agitated Craig.
“Well mate, you’re in contact with me now and I really appreciate the fact that you trust me enough to tell me these things,” Sergeant Scott said.
“Cause I know that it would be hard and I promise you I will protect your family. I’ve been saying that from the very beginning mate.”
The officer assured Craig he would personally call his niece for him and reiterated he’d be at the jail the following day.
Craig went on to plead guilty to murder, provided a detailed statement and agreed to give key evidence against his co-accused.
The court has heard during Abu-Mahmoud’s trial that Craig claimed he accepted $20,000 to kill Brayden in an act of revenge for Abu-Mahmoud following his nephew’s death in 2016.
Craig also told police about the alleged cover-up that followed Brayden’s murder and the falsified affidavit he was paid to sign to exonerate Abu-Mahmoud.
For his assistance, he received a 20 per cent discount on his sentence but that still landed him with a maximum 40 years behind bars.
Five days later, when it came time to give that evidence against Abu-Mahmoud, Craig backflipped and claimed he acted alone.
Why he changed his version is anyone’s guess and it has fallen to Justice Ian Harrison to decide how credible a witness the gunman is.
Originally published as ‘I pulled the trigger’: Moment hitman confesses to teen’s execution
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