Andrew Rule examines Mark 'Chopper' Read's claim from the grave that he killed four people

ANDREW Rule examines Mark "Chopper" Read's parting shot - a claim that he killed four people in a notorious criminal career. | Chop comes 'clean'

CHOPPER Read was a showman to the end. Like a punch-drunk old fighter, he squeezed one more payday from a career of violence that had supposedly ended when he shot outlaw biker Sid Collins in 1992.

Read took the wounded Collins to hospital but later regretted what he called his "Christian kindness" when Collins co-operated with police to get him charged over the shooting. He was jailed indefinitely under tough Tasmanian laws aimed at repeat violent offenders, and served six years.

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But the consummate yarn spinner put a twist in the tale when he claimed - in what Sixty Minutes touted as a "deathbed confession" - that he killed Collins in revenge in 2002.

He said Collins approached him after a public speaking show Read did at Casino in New South Wales that year. Allegedly, Collins believed they could bury the hatchet and invited Read to hang out with him that night. Read claims he took the chance to get revenge by shooting Collins with the biker's own gun and burying his body "near a pile of dirt" close to a football ground.

Hit or myth? Claiming Collins' scalp was the most eye-catching of the murder claims he made on the program - but it wasn't the only one.

Read confirmed what he'd boasted many times: that he'd murdered "Sammy the Turk" Ozerkam outside Bojangles Nightclub in 1987, and had been amazed that a jury swallowed his self-defence argument. No surprise there.

 

More controversial - but perhaps almost credible - is the claim he killed painter and docker Des Costello in 1971, when Read was just 17. Like Kevin Taylor, who shot waterfront union heavyweight Pat Shannon on the orders of Billy "The Texan" Longley, Read was manipulated by older painter and dockers he hero-worshipped.

There are at least two other candidates for the Costello murder but Read's makes some sense - especially given that Costello's body was found under earthworks for the eastern freeway then being built next to Collingwood, where Read says he shot him.

Finally, he claimed he and his mate "Mad Charlie" Hegyalji killed a pedophile murderer called Reg Isaacs in Pentridge prison "in 1974". Isaacs was in fact found dead in D Division in early 1975, a death written off as suicide because the corpse had a sheet knotted around his neck tied to a door knob.

As the (retired) policeman who arrested Isaacs in 1974 told me last week, "It's hard to hang yourself from a door knob - unless you've got a couple of blokes helping you." It was an open secret in prison that prisoners wanted Isaacs dead. Also it's no secret some warders turned a blind eye to Read's prison violence because it suited their purposes.

Verdict? Two out of the four "kills" claimed are a certainty. Three is not ridiculous and four might be a stretch. The story teller always knew the value of a surprise ending.