Damian Leeding’s murder, the Surfers Paradise sniper and more shootings which shocked the Gold Coast
From murders to unprovoked attacks, take a look at the gun crimes that have rocked the Gold Coast. SEE THE FULL LIST
Police & Courts
Don't miss out on the headlines from Police & Courts. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Crooks are stealing guns, removing their serial numbers and selling the weapons for up to $20,000 on the black market.
The Bulletin has been told a stolen police Glock pistol could be bought for $7000-10,000.
An insider said the going price for a self-loading rifle that had been converted to a semiautomatic was about $9500.
Other sources said a submachine gun had a going rate of about $20,000 and a lot of the weapons were purchased as shells and mechanisms were added later.
The basement price for a gun in the underworld was about $1000.
Despite two shootings across the Gold Coast in a 36-hour period and a 20-hour siege this month, police believed the number of weapons-related offences remained steady.
However, Gold Coast lawyers said they had noticed a definite uptick in the number of firearms charges.
A man was injured when shots were fired at a car in Coolangatta on June 4 and in the early hours of Monday, June 7 shots were fired at the police beat in Arundel.
On Tuesday and Wednesday last week, parts of Nerang were locked down when two men, believed to be armed, held a siege in a residential home.
It took police 20 hours to arrest them.
Regional crime co-ordinator Detective Acting Superintendent Chris Ahern said the incidents were “concerning”, but could not say police had seen an increase in firearms incidents.
He said firearms had not overtaken the prevalence of knives.
Police are seeing illegal weapons as they go about their duties and conduct raids.
“Often they are ones that have been stolen and have had serial numbers removed,” he said.
Det Super Ahern said the criminals often targeted rural properties to source the weapons, which were then sold for a mark-up on the black market.
He said the sources for the weapons often varied and were investigated fully.
As for the type of weapons being found, “it’s probably a more concealable firearms”.
A lot of those weapons are also being found by people known to police.
“We know that outlaw motorcycle gangs have an interest,” Det Super Ahern said.
“They historically are interested in getting their hands on firearms.”
Multiple legal sources said they had noticed an increase in the number of firearms offences – especially linked to drugs – in the past 18 months to two years.
One lawyer said they had a long-term client who was picked up with a gun during a traffic stop.
Police found a cache of weapons when they raided his home. The lawyer said the haul surprised him as his client had never been involved with weapons previously.
Last week, experts issued warnings about 3D printable designs on guns, and advice and instructions being made available on public social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Reddit and Pinterest.
Shootings that shocked the Coast
From murders to unprovoked attacks, here is look at the gun crimes that have shocked the Gold Coast.
Murder
MELISSA LEIGH SHAW AND ADAM JAMES GOOLEY
A one-time prostitute involved in the murder of her fiance was likened to the legendary beauty Helen of Troy in a Brisbane court.
Melissa Leigh Shaw colluded with her on-again, off-again partner of five years to kill Shyam Sam Dhody in July 2013.
In the Supreme Court trial in Brisbane, crown prosecutor Dennis Kinsella compared the 30-year-old to Helen of Troy – whose face launched a convoy of ships – and that she’d helped her secret lover kill the bankrupt Gold Coast businessman.
He told the jury her relationship with Mr Dhody – whom she met while working at a Molendinar brothel – had started to sour in March 2013. Mr Dhody was violent and their troubled relationship was approaching an inevitable end in the period leading up to his death, he said.
The 37-year-old died after being shot some 10 times to the head area at close range in his bed at their Gilston home.
Four months earlier he’d been set upon by an unknown assailant and struck repeatedly with a crowbar. Neighbours told of hearing wailing and cries for mercy.
Shaw’s sometime lover, Adam James Gooley, was the assailant in both instances.
Gooley maintained he acted alone when he went to Mr Dhody’s home.
The mechanic believed Mr Dhody was hitting her and had vowed to kill him, the Supreme Court was told.
Both he and Shaw would each be sentenced to life in prison for the murder.
RONALD HENRY THOMAS
One of the men involved in the murder of SP bookie Peter George Wade, 50, and his de facto Maureen Ambrose, 53, in their Gold Coast unit in December 1991 lost his false teeth and left a bloody trail of broken dentures.
Police said one of the assassins lost part of a lower bridge dental plate and some natural teeth in a fierce struggle with Mr Wade.
Ronald Henry Thomas, 43, was found guilty of the callous shooting. He was previously been convicted of the murder of a nightwatchman during an armed robbery in 1967 and had spent much of his life behind bars.
Police have been searching for Thomas’s co-accused, John Victor Bobak, for over 30 years.
Thomas was charged with the double murder, convicted in 1992 and given two life sentences.
RAY WARRINGTON
A retiree shot his sleeping wife in the back of the head at their Coombabah home, then put the gun barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
The bodies of 64-year-old Rosie and Ray Warrington, 62, were found about 11am in the main bedroom of their rented brick home in Barrine Crescent in January 2007.
Neighbours said the dead couple had sold a house in the area two years earlier and moved into the rented house to be closer to family.
Police told the Gold Coast Bulletin that Mrs Warrington was in bed asleep and lying on her side when Mr Warrington came into the bedroom with a .22 rifle.
Police did not find any type of note in the house, which was immaculately clean inside and out.
A neighbour said Mr Warrington went to the local pub every afternoon and had a few beers with the locals.
“He never seemed to overdo it and they seemed a close couple,”’ he said.
“It has to be the neatest rental I’ve ever seen and they were as proud of it as if it were their own.”’
SHANE ROSS AND CAMERON MARTIN
Ex-Comanchero bikie Shane Ross had planned a meeting to sell five kilograms of methamphetamine (ice) the day before he was reported missing.
A committal hearing in the Southport Magistrates Court in January was told Mr Ross said he was going to meet the buyer on Friday, October 18, 2019.
That was the last day Mr Ross was seen alive.
Mr Ross’s Monstr Clothing business partner Cameron Martin was found dead in his car that night.
Mr Ross was found three days later in nearby bushland on the corner of the Pacific Highway and Tallebudgera Creek Rd.
A friend told the court Mr Ross’s drug deal in October 2019 was supposed to be the first of a regular weekly deal. He did not know who was buying the drugs.
“I don’t know when (Mr Ross) got the 5kg of drugs,” the friend said.
He said Mr Ross told him the drugs had come from eastern Sydney.
The friend said that after Mr Ross’ death he discovered the ex-bikie owed people “millions”. “From what I was told it was pretty much every single bikie club in Queensland.”
The friend said Mr Ross had got him into a $50,000 drug debt with people in Sydney.
In March, murder charges against three men were thrown out.
RODNEY JOHN DALE
Dubbed “The Satanic Slayer”, Rodney John Dale thought he would achieve immortality by shooting people and following Satan.
On April 7, 1990, Dale walked onto his Burleigh balcony and began firing at people on the street and into a nearby caravan park. He hit one person.
He then left his Tweed Street unit and wandered down to the street, opening fire on a woman who had gone onto her balcony to see what was going on. He narrowly missed her, showering her in chunks of concrete, her unit peppered with bullets.
He walked down Tweed St, then onto the Gold Coast Highway, shooting both guns indiscriminately and taking off his balaclava. Witnesses described him laughing like a maniac.
He was heard yelling “children of Satan” and “we’ll win, we’ll win”.
During the chaotic 15 minutes elderly couple Kathleen and Llewellyn Lewis were going for a drive to have a drink when their car had bullets rain down on them. Both were hit.
Mrs Lewis died at the age of 77. Her husband survived.
A wedding party’s limousine was also riddled with bullets. The driver Raymond Davis, 61, was shot in the arm and hand. Bridesmaid Mandy Winter, 21, was shot in the leg.
Betty Brodby, 66 was shot in the thigh, John Bristow, 27, Jessie Nowlan, 72, and Thelma Harber 75, were also wounded in the chaos.
In July 1991, Dale pleaded guilty to murdering Kathleen Lewis and the attempted murder of 13 other people in Brisbane’s Supreme Court.
Justice Ambrose sentenced Dale to life in prison on each of the 14 counts.
PHILLIP GRAEME ABELL AND DONNA LEE MCAVOY
Detective Senior Constable Damian Leeding and his partner Nicole Jackson were first to respond to reports of an active armed robbery in the dark of night at the Pacific Pines Tavern on May 29, 2011.
Phillip Graeme Abell, no stranger to armed robberies, was carrying a loaded sawn-off shotgun.
He had threatened hotel patrons and employees while Donna Lee McAvoy tied their hands behind their backs and put money into a bag.
Benjamin Ernest Power, McAvoy’s partner, was the getaway driver.
Damian confronted Abell and was shot in the face at point-blank range. The Coomera detective died three days later in Gold Coast Hospital, aged 35.
The death brought the city to its knees. Thousands turned out for his funeral in Broadbeach.
Abell and McAvoy were convicted of Damian’s murder while Power pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Years earlier, Abell shot his father in the face and mother in the back with an altered shotgun in Labrador.
While serving eight years, six months’ jail – a portion in maximum security – for an armed robbery of a Brisbane National Australian Bank in 1995, he dreamt of a career in martial arts.
He had been released on parole for similar offences only two weeks earlier.
Prisoners were “fearful of him” due to his name and martial arts ability.
He told a psychologist that he “takes very little notice of any law” and that the bank holdup was “not serious as no-one was injured”.
STEPHEN LOCK
Karina Lock never stood a chance — her estranged husband Stephen wanted her dead and nothing was going to divert him from his mission.
“He was going to kill her,” a witness said.
“It was as simple as that.
“He didn’t care if there were 10 people or 100 people in there — he just didn’t care.”
About 30 people in the restaurant for breakfast watched on stunned as Mr Lock then knelt next to his dying 49-year-old wife, held the handgun to his own head and fired.
Manslaughter
PAANICE FRAULINE LAWRENCE
Kiwi woman Pannice Frauline Lawrence shot her abusive partner in the back during a night on the drink.
Following a series of “belittling”, “niggling” and “smart-arse” remarks from a “smug” Scott Morrison, Lawrence went to her adult son’s room in her Southport home about 2am on January 3, 2018 to seek help.
Her son and his pregnant partner were asleep, but Lawrence, then 39, found a shotgun and returned with it to the loungeroom.
Lawrence – who had asked Mr Morrison to leave – sat with the gun for some time when he made a move to retrieve more beer from the kitchen.
She then fired the weapon while his back was turned, killing him.
She told police Mr Morrison had previously punched her in the head and burned her with a cigarette.
“It’s my house, he just hit me all the time, I didn’t mean to,” she reportedly said to authorities at the time of the shooting.
In February 2022, the Supreme Court in Brisbane sentenced her to nine years’ jail for manslaughter.
DIONNE LACEY
A judge lashed out at Australia’s worsening gun culture in 2009 when sentencing the son of a former milk mogul to jail over a shooting death.
Supreme Court judge Glenn Martin handed a 10-year jail term to Dionne Matthew Lacey, 22, the son of Ken Lacey, for the manslaughter of landscaper Kevin Palmer in 2007.
Justice Martin sentenced his brother Jade Michael Lacey, 26, to five years’ jail after a jury found him guilty of unlawful wounding with intent to maim. He was found guilty for the kidnap and torture of 19-year-old Owen Matthews, who had been held at gunpoint and forced to dig his own grave.
“The carrying of firearms is becoming more frequent in this state and this country,” Justice Martin said during the sentencing hearing for Dionne Lacey.
ATTEMPTED MURDER CONVICTIONS
ROBERT KINGSLEY COROWA
A Robina mother described how she identified her son’s shooter when he walked into her workplace months later.
He went to the Marjanovic family house about 10pm and had a friend lure Mr Marjanovic into the street before firing three rounds from his sawn-off shotgun.
Mr Marjanovic was wounded in the shoulder before running back inside the house.
His mother told a court she caught glimpses of the shooter on the night as he ducked in and out of parked cars.
“He was doing like hide and seek. Marko was his target,” the woman said. I screamed ‘Marko get inside the house’.”
Then, while at work at a Caltex service station at Mermaid Beach in February the next year, she saw a shirtless man with “fancy” sneakers and a “death before dishonour” tattoo on his chest come in and get some drinks.
“My heart went ‘Wow, I have seen this person before and he shouldn’t be here’,” she said.
Corowa had stalked his former girlfriend to Toowoomba and back with a private investigator before shooting Mr Marjanovic.
He was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to 12 years and 228 days in jail.
ANTHONY YOON SUN SOONG
A former Big Brother contestant was shot in the carpark of a Gold Coast restaurant because a jealous gunman thought he was his ex-girlfriend’s new beau.
He was wrong.
Anthony Yoon Sun Soong was found guilty of the attempted murder of Samuel Wallace in early 2019.
Almost four years earlier, he fired four shots into a jeep driven by Mr Wallace in the Merrimac carpark. Soong peppered the car with bullets, wounding Mr Wallace in the thigh.
On the day of the shooting, Soong assaulted his former partner after a string of calls went unanswered and he became aware that she had become “acquainted” with another man.
An irate Soong threatened to kill the new boyfriend and demanded they meet. Mr Wallace drove his roommate to the restaurant.
Soong unleashed on the wrong man. After shooting up the car, Soong went up to the jeep’s window, held the gun to Mr Wallace’s head and pulled the trigger, News Corp reported in 2019.
Mr Wallace heard a click, but the gun did not discharge because it was jammed or there were no more live rounds.
Soong then pistol-whipped Mr Wallace, who told him he had got the wrong guy, striking him three times in his forehead.
Soong was also sentenced to 18 months’ jail for burglary and 12 months’ jail for unlawful assault while armed, to be served concurrent with the 13 years for attempted murder.
ROBINA TOWN CENTRE SHOOTING
Mark James Graham became a poster boy for Australia’s largest biker magazine as he awaited his fate for shooting two people on a rainy Saturday in April 2012 at Robina Town Centre.
The former Finks bikie, who had numerous facial tattoos including the bikie tag “1%” under his left eye and the words “carnage” and “revenge”, was the front-page sale for the Live to Ride magazine for a feature article on his new home, the Mongols.
Graham was on weapons and drugs when he fired two shots, wounding rival Bandido bikie Jacques Teamo and an innocent shopper.
He was arrested in Melbourne following a month-long manhunt.
In 2014, Graham was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to 12 years’ jail.
Eighteen months after the shooting, Teamo played a key role in the notorious Broadbeach bikie brawl and subsequent protest outside a police station.
FRANCESCO SURACE
A young man lost an eye and his father was shot in the groin when two strangers stormed their Pimpama property on Boxing Day 2016 claiming the house belonged to them.
In the Supreme Court in Brisbane in September 2019, Francesco Surace, 44, pleaded guilty to a raft of offences including attempted murder, grievous bodily harm, possession of a shotgun and trespass.
He also confessed to supplying drugs in a correctional centre, unlawful possession of a weapon and common assault.
He was sentenced to 10 years’ jail.
His brother Giuseppe Surace was sentenced to eight years’ jail on the basis he was a party to his brother’s offending, after pleading guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm while in company and two counts of grievous bodily harm.
ROBERT GEORGE SPEEDY
Brave dog squad boss Gary Hamrey offered a humble response just weeks after he was shot in the face at point-blank range by robbers.
“I’m not a tough bastard or anything,” he said. “It hurt like hell, although it wasn’t initially painful. It was just shocking. It stung and you could smell it. It stunk – burning flesh, blood and gunpowder.”
Sgt Hamrey was shot in the face from four metres after cornering two men who stole $40,000 from the Arundel Tavern in the early hours of September 26, 2013.
“I felt a really big whack to the head, to the side of my head, and it started to sting,” Sgt Hamrey later told the Supreme Court.
In December 2015, Labrador man Robert George Speedy was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to 21 years in jail. Accomplice Jake Daniel Watson was sentenced to eight years in jail after pleading guilty to committing a malicious act with intent and armed robbery.
SHOOTINGS
MIRIAM ANNETTE EASON
A gun-toting granny who fired several shots at a Nerang home in March 2016 told police she wanted to see an optometrist to fix her eyes before returning to the property.
Miriam Annette Eason pleaded guilty to two counts of dangerous conduct with a weapon and one count of unlawful possession of weapon.
In April 2018, the then-53-year-old was sentenced in the Southport Magistrates Court to two-and-a-half years in prison, suspended after 18 months.
After shooting at her son-in-law, she told police she would have her eyes fixed before attempting to finish the job.
She couldn’t believe she’d missed and told investigators she should have gone to an optometrist first.
The court heard she stood just 2m away from her son-in-law.
The court heard Eason had a history of mental health issues and drug abuse and was self medicating with cannabis at the time of the shooting.
‘I’VE HAD HARDER SPARRING SESSIONS’
After being shot eight times former MMA fighter Gokhan Turkyilmaz wrote to social media taunting his attackers: “I’ve had harder sparring sessions.”
He then posted a photo of himself drinking a beer.
Police were then investigating whether it was a “get back” for a shooting at the Logan Hyperdome shopping centre earlier that month, in which it is alleged members of the Logan chapter of the Rebels ambushed members of the Beenleigh chapter of the Bandidos.
“Investigations are ongoing and no charges have been laid,” police told the Bulletin almost three years on from the attack.
WHITE CAR AND A HANDGUN
Businessman Steven Saillot and a workmate were pulling out of his Upper Coomera driveway just after 8am in late 2017 when two men in a white hatchback pulled over.
The two men, who were not known to the workmate, fled the scene as Mr Saillot’s workmate escaped unharmed.
Mr Saillot then made his way across the park before paramedics took him to hospital with severe injuries to his eye.
A year earlier, the father suffered a broken leg when a novice jet ski rider smashed into his $40,000 speedboat in the Broadwater.
SURFERS PARADISE SNIPER
Hylton Miller and his family gave up their lives in South Africa to move to the Gold Coast, hoping to escape the violence that haunted their every day in the troubled nation.
In one incident he was shot four times while his family was held captive during a home invasion.
What they would encounter on the Gold Coast would do what South Africa couldn’t – tear their family apart and ultimately take the life of the man who had tried to lead them to safety.
The bullet that struck Mr Miller literally came out of the blue, fired in the air from more than a kilometre away in what was quickly dubbed the “Surfers Paradise Sniper” case.
What followed for Mr Miller was tragic. He survived emergency surgery, spending four months in a coma only to contract a severe infection that required more than 30 operations at a cost of more than $120,000.
Salesman Rick El Masri was charged with grievous bodily harm in relation to the shooting.
During the trial the jury was told Mr El Masri had been at a boozy dinner party hosted by fellow car salesman Hakan “Harry” Altinoglu and also attended by both men’s girlfriends.
Police alleged Mr El Masri had drunkenly fired two shots from a large calibre handgun towards his former workplace – the Hollywood Showgirls strip club – from the balcony of Mr Altinoglu’s unit in the Circle on Cavill high-rise building.
The bullet missed the nightclub and continued on, striking Mr Miller who had taken his family 10-pin bowling and was strolling home along the beachfront with them.
Both Mr El Masri and Mr Altinoglu each blamed the other for pulling the trigger to let off steam about past grudges. The two girlfriends denied seeing who fired the gun and the weapon was never found.
Mr El Masri was acquitted following a two-week trial in the Southport District Court.
Five years later after learning of Mr Miller’s passing, lawyer Michael Gatenby said: “He lost everything – he lost his business and he lost his relationships.
“He was just a shadow of the man he was.
“He had a very successful airconditioning business that was in such demand that he couldn’t keep up, then all of a sudden he lost absolutely everything.”
NIKOLAUS ALEXANDER BLYTON
A man who robbed a millionaire’s son at gunpoint killed his father in self-defence during a house boat attack 11 years ago.
In February, Nikolaus Alexander Blyton, 30, avoided actual jail time for the armed robbery and grievous bodily harm of Luke Tomlinson at Helensvale on July 19, 2018.
The Southport District Court heard Blyton was in a car with two men and Tomlinson, who had earlier withdrawn $30,000 from the bank to repay debts.
Blyton, who had a sawn-off shotgun at his feet, turned to Tomlinson in the back seat and demanded the money.
“The complainant initially thought you were joking and told you to get f — ked,” Judge Deborah Holliday said. “You then pulled out a sawn-off shotgun and told the complainant to give you the money or you would shoot him in the leg.”
Blyton pointed the gun at Tomlinson before the pair struggled. The gun fired, striking Tomlinson in the leg.
He handed over $12,500 and was told not to tell the police. He was later left in the middle of the road.
The court heard Blyton had previously been charged with the murder of his father, 66-year-old Ron Livingstone. He was later acquitted of all charges, the court heard.
Blyton’s defence counsel explained he “killed his father effectively in self-defence” after he came at him with a knife on a house boat at Hope Island in November 2011.
BENOWA BLAST
Police say two teenagers hit by shrapnel during a drive-by shooting were lucky to be alive.
The pair, 17 and 19, were with another person in the garage of a house in Benowa on April 10, 2013 around 7.20pm when up to five shots were fired from a car.
Both were hit in the back by shrapnel, taken to Gold Coast Hospital with minor injuries and later released.
Police said they could easily have been seriously hurt or even killed.
“We can’t draw any link between who may have been responsible and the actual victims.”
They admitted both victims were known to police and the house had been visited by officers recently over a “number of incidents that may or may not be related to this”.
It’s believed a small calibre gun was used in the attack which police have described as a “one-off incident”.
Police said it was likely the shots were fired from the passenger seat of the vehicle, believed to be a white Holden sedan.
A neighbour, who declined to be named, said he saw a white car driving down the street after the shooting.
“I heard something like fireworks. I certainly didn’t think they were gunshots at the time,” he said.
He heard four shots in 30 seconds before the car drove away.
CHASE JOHN HASKELL
A shooting at a busy Gold Coast car park in 2012 was part of a botched extortion attempt that landed Chase John Haskell in jail for seven and a half years.
He was sentenced in the Brisbane Supreme Court after pleading guilty to a string of charges.
The court heard Haskell had arranged to return a stolen car to its owner in exchange for money but things went awry when he arrived at the meeting on October 19, 2012 to find the owner with three other men, one of whom was armed with a knife.
The 25-year-old Haskell yelled and fired a warning shot into the ground. It ricocheted and grazed one of the men on his hip and hand.
Haskell fired another shot into the air before fleeing in the stolen car, Crown prosecutor Michael Copley said.
He was arrested more than two months later and found with illicit drugs, a large amount of cash, jewellery, electronic goods, several weapons and other prohibited items.
Haskell pleaded guilty to charges including drug trafficking and possession, weapons possession, going armed to cause fear, dangerous conduct with a weapon, assault occasioning bodily harm while armed, dangerous operation and unlawful use of a vehicle, and assaulting police.
Mr Copley said Haskell’s “lawless behaviour” at the Molendinar shopping centre car park indicated a “disregard for others”, while defence barrister Mal Harrison said it was the behaviour of a drug addict out of control.
JAY DARRIN ELLISON
Jay Ellison yelled “sucked in (expletive)” before opening fire on a man he had never met outside a Southport property in February 2016.
He fired a pistol into the man’s stomach and thigh after hearing of a row a friend was having over storage of furniture.
In September 2017, Ellison, 27, pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court to a raft of offences including armed robbery, malicious acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm, possession of cannabis and stealing.
The court was told the man required two bouts of surgery and was hospitalised for two weeks after the incident, where the court heard Ellison yelled: “Sucked in (expletive)” before opening fire.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the man said he “struggled to understand the cowardly attack”.
“I’ll never forget the sparks flying from the barrel and the extreme pain I felt,” he said.
Ellison also pleaded guilty to the robbery of the Varsity Lakes Tavern, which occurred some time after the shooting.
The court heard Ellison and another man entered the tavern and told seven people to get on the ground and put their phones out of reach so they could not call police.
The court was told he got away with about $4000 and had to be tracked down by the dog squad.
When Ellison was found at a property nearby, police found the rifle used in the robbery in the footwell of a car parked outside, the court heard.
Shocking dashcam footage captures Southport crash
Wild dashcam footage has emerged after a shocking crash at one of the city’s most busy intersections. WATCH THE VIDEO
Golly Gosh: Top cop ‘unavailable’ amid election dressing down
The police commissioner refuses to respond to heavy criticism of an internal directive adding journalists “incompatible with QPS values” to a declarable association policy including criminals.