Revealed: The crimes that shook Sunraysia
From axe murders and mafia hits to fatal hit and runs, the Mildura region has been a hotspot for crime for decades. We reveal some of the biggest crimes in the area.
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It may be known for its grapes and oranges, rivers and being just a stone’s throw away from the Victoria/NSW border, but the Sunraysia region also has a darker, criminal underbelly.
Here’s some of the worst crimes that have shaken the region.
THE 1960s STEVENS AXE MURDERS
A Mildura dad went “mad with an axe” in 1960, killing Urith Stevens and her son Brian.
The bodies of the victims were found in the family home on Fourteenth St in Mildura, according to media reports at the time.
Stanley Victor Stevens, Ms Stevens’ husband, was found in the wee hours of the following morning and arrested for the double murder.
Their 14-year-old son was also found with injuries consistent with being attacked with an axe, but his injuries were not fatal.
He is credited with raising the alarm, notifying a local milkman that his father had “gone mad with an axe.”
Stanley was deemed unfit to stand trial for mental health reasons.
He died in 1989 at the age of 79.
KILLER ALISTAIR ‘SANDY’ MACRAE
Alistair ‘Sandy’ MacRae lived a colourful life involved in the Melbourne underworld in the late 70s through to the mid-80s.
He managed as many as 15 illegal brothels in Melbourne before deciding to move to Merbein, some 12km from Mildura.
Initially he intended to open a massage parlour in Mildura but his application was instantly rejected.
Soon he was involved in the marijuana trade and that led to him murdering Domenico Marafiote at his property on Sixth St in 1985, after Marafiote gave South Australian police the names of Calabrian mafia bosses in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.
Some time later — while serving his sentence for the Marafiote murder — he was charged with the murder of Albert O’Hara, who’s body was also found at his Sixth St property.
He was found guilty of that murder as well and sentenced to another 26 years in prison.
After fighting extradition to South Australia for many years, he was later also found guilty of the murder of Mr Marafiote’s parents and sentenced to 36 years in prison.
There is speculation there could be numerous other bodies buried at the 10ha Merbein property but police are yet to find them.
JOHN VOLIOTIS: KILLED FOR NO APPARENT REASON
John Voliotis was gunned down in front of his wife Paula on Fourteenth St in Mildura on New Year’s Day of 1994 as he closed the security gate of the milk bar they ran.
Despite local paramedics promptly arriving on the scene, Mr Voliotis died en route to the Mildura Base Hospital.
Detectives were at a loss with regards to motive or a suspect for the brazen murder.
Some 12 days later, they arrested Neville Colin Garden in Wentworth.
Garden, a Broken Hill man, was subsequently charged with murder on January 15.
He was found guilty of the murder of Mr Voliotis and the attempted murder of his wife Paula Voliotis and sentenced to 18 years and nine months in a psychiatric facility.
BADENOCH SIBLING MURDER
On a Thursday night in March of 2000, police were called to the Sun Siesta Caravan Park near Mildura Airport.
Siblings Amalie, 34, and Farren Badenoch, 37, had been involved in a violent confrontation.
When detectives arrived, Ms Badenroch was lying in a pool of her own blood with a single stab wound to the stomach.
The siblings had a tumultuous relationship, and the day prior had been involved in a violent altercation at a local supermarket.
The two had also fought at the older brother’s caravan after the incident at the supermarket. That scuffle resulted in Amalie’s death.
In 2002, Farren was sentenced to 14 years for the murder, with a non parole period of nine years.
MURDER OF BABY JAKOBI
In April of 2020, Evander Wilson shook his six-month-old son Jakobi to death because a bottle of soft drink he had ordered with his pizza had not arrived.
He flew into a rage, punching his partner, and Jakobi’s mother, in the ribs and dragging her around by her hair.
Baby Jakobi began crying and Wilson started jiggling him around violently to get him to calm down.
Sadly, Jakobi died as a result of the injuries he suffered.
Wilson was sentenced to eight years and six months behind bars after pleading guilty to one count of child homicide.
He will be eligible for parole in 2027.
CARDROSS HIT AND RUN KILLS SIX
It was February 18, 2006 when a group of teenagers mingling outside a party were hit by a station wagon.
It would become one of Victoria’s most tragic hit and run incidents, with 13 teenagers mown down.
Shane Hirst, 16, Abby Hirst, 17, Stevie-Lee Weight, 15, Cassandra Manners, 16, Cory Dowling, 16, and Josephine Calvi, 16, died.
Thomas Towle, 35, was the man behind the wheel and was sentenced to 10 years in prison with a minimum term of seven.
He was released on parole in 2013 before returning to prison to finish his sentence.
He was released in 2016.
A memorial for the teenagers was unveiled near the site of the crash in 2007.
KILLER MUM POISONED HUSBAND’S COOKIE
A Victorian mum killed her cheating husband by poisoning the cookies she baked for him before stuffing his lifeless body in a chest freezer.
Pleading guilty to manslaughter but found guilty of murder, Rebecca Payne was sentenced to 16 years’ jail but was hailed a hero by her sons and community after her husband, Noel, subjected her to “abhorrent” physical, sexual and emotional abuse for more than a decade.
On September 1, 2020, the mum crushed more than seven of her sleeping pills with a mortar and pestle, before lacing the icing of one biscuit with the powdered poison.
She then handed the deadly biscuit to her 68-year-old husband with a cup of Milo, before she wrapped his unconscious body in a blanket and stashed him in an empty chest freezer.
At trial, Payne detailed to the jury the shocking abuse she suffered inside the family home, located in the tiny town of Walpeup in the state’s northwest.
SECRET MAFIA RUNNING MILDURA
Four active mafia branches were identified in the Mildura area during Giuseppe Carbone’s leadership of the Calabria mafia in the 1950s and 19060s.
A meeting at Carbone’s Buronga property in mid-1963 was attended by ’Ndrangheta bosses from Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Griffith and several other country towns across New South Wales.
A 1966 NSW police report highlighted the ‘Ndrangheta’s well-integrated cross-border network linking Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Griffith and the Riverland, with annual meetings held in Mildura to co-ordinate nationwide criminal activities.
Year’s later, the nation’s political leaders were warned in 1991 an Italian secret society posed a significant threat to Australia.
That year, the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence produced a comprehensive dossier on Italian organised crime in Australia.
The ABCI report said the bugging of an ‘Ndrangheta meeting in Adelaide by the AFP and South Australia Police in 1989 was clear evidence of a massive criminal network.
“Moreover, a copy of the initiation ritual was located at premises of a person who attended the meeting,” the ABCI report said.
20 men attended the meeting, including identities from Melbourne and Mildura.
They were secretly taped discussing the Calabrian mafia’s structure, its infiltration of police and possibly the judiciary, recruitment of new members, weapons purchases and cannabis production.
“Other cells in Adelaide were also discussed and mention was made of ‘the law’ being’ aware that the organisation’s members go to Mildura during July and August every year,” the ABCI report said.
HIGH FLYING DRUG PLOT FOILED
A brazen drug smuggling plot to fly hundreds of kilograms of the drug ice into regional Victoria was linked to the discovery of $2.4m cash in a truck near Mildura.
A Melbourne pilot planned to fly solo halfway around the world in a small plane stuffed with more than 250kg worth of ice destined for Australian addicts.
Many retirees plan overseas travel adventures but 72-year-old Melton South’s Hugh John Gorman took his to dangerous heights, joining an international drug ring with a brazen scheme to fly packages of ice from the US.
The great-grandfather who received a bravery medal for his courage in fighting the Black Saturday bushfires was jailed for at least eight years in 2021 for his role in the sophisticated plot.
Gorman, a former CFA volunteer and trained pilot, travelled to California on three occasions in 2017 to purchase a Cessna P210 Silver Eagle and collect the drugs, worth an estimated street value of up to $118m.
He even ripped out seats in the plane to help store more fuel loads to make the 13,000km journey, County Court Judge George Georgiou said.
Meanwhile, his co-conspirator Peter Caluzzi was sentenced to at least 11 years for his role in organising the logistics of the high-stakes plot, financing the purchase of the Cessna plane and an earlier drug trafficking charge.
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