Gangland mum and former showgirl Judy Moran took up where Carl Williams left off
GANGLAND SPECIAL: IN our special report, Paul Anderson looks at the colourful life of Judy Moran - showgirl, gangland matriarch and killer.
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AS A tottering gangland widow with a glower for her enemies and a royal wave for others - that's how most will probably remember Judith Mary-Anne Moran.
But her résumé lists everything from showgirl to pub manager, machinist to bookkeeper, and author to fashion store assistant.
We've all seen the bouffants, berets and cowboy hats.
There were the bejewelled glasses and peacockish outfits: overcoats and funeral couture a necessity.
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With puckered lips and clipped expressions Judy courted the media like a weathered B-grade actress.
She had all the attributes of a character Barry Humphries might like to create and then exploit for the amusement of his audience.
But who is the real Judy? It is a question many have asked during her colourful journey.
Ask locals about the real Judy Moran in her patch around Ascot Vale and most shy away from the question.
One or two leap to her defence, spouting words such as "generous'' and "benefactor''.
The life and times of Judy Moran
Old-timers speak of a young Judy once prepared to roll up her sleeves and clean pub toilets for a living.
The older Judy was a good cook who liked knitting, they say.
One long-time Ascot Vale resident recalls how Judy used to sit looking after her mother, Olive, as the pickled old souse sat drinking at rough-house pubs in her dressing gown.
Ask police officers and Judy Moran is nothing more than a self-glorified gangster's moll who spawned two nasty crooks and orchestrated the murder of her brother-in-law, Des "Tuppence'' Moran.
By having Des shot dead, Judy, in a bizarre twist, took up where her family's mortal enemy Carl Williams left off years before.
JUDY Moran, nee Brooks, was born on 18 December 1944.
Her dad, Leo, was a wharfie turned wholesale florist at the Victoria Market.
During the 1980s, Leo was a part of the fabric of the Carlton Football Club thanks to his job as chief doorman.
A life member of the club that bleeds blue, Leo allowed country recruits to board with him.
His legacy led grandsons Mark and Jason into strong relationships with then football royalty.
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Judy's mum, a Tivoli dancer, ran a flower shop.
"Olive was the love of my client's life,'' barrister Bill Stuart, SC, said in court when defending Judy on the Des Moran murder charge.
"Olive was gorgeous, as Judy described her.''
Judy has an older brother; an opal miner turned New South Wales wheat farmer who distanced himself from the family in the early 1980s.
"Not as a result of any particular disagreement but that's just simply what happened,'' Bill Stuart said in court.
During the Des Moran murder trial, Mr Stuart described Judy as an articulate and intelligent woman despite her lack of a formal education.
At the age of twelve, after her mother fell ill with pneumonia, she left the Bell Street Girls' Secondary School in Fitzroy to work as a machinist.
Judy a sad old hag with a tragic past
She made police and railway uniforms until she was sixteen.
An avid reader, Judy moved to the Myer Emporium where she worked as a general hand in a fashion office.
Judy was about eighteen years old when she got involved with criminal Les Cole; a wharfie connected to the powerful Painters and Dockers Union.
They were together for two years, during which time Judy bore a son.
Mark Cole was the boy's name, but as his criminal stature grew he would become known as Mark Moran.
By that stage Judy had moved to the position of sales assistant in a fashion store at the Southern Cross Hotel which, according to Bill Stuart, ``was then the most fashionable hotel in Melbourne''.
Folklore has it that Judy had a penchant for thieving clothes from the very outlet that employed her.
Judy, who learned dance as a child, appeared regularly as a showgirl on television programs such as Graham Kennedy's In Melbourne Tonight and another show called The Bongo Club.
But her persona wasn't all cheesy smiles and hot-shoe shuffles. There was smarm behind her charm.
Gangland war survivor Bert Wrout, who spent most of his life consorting with Judy's de facto husband Lewis, has a very strong opinion of Judy.
He says that even in her early life, Judy Moran was a vixen and a liar.
"She was about four or five and her father said to someone: `She's the worst liar I have ever come across,''' Wrout told this author in March 2011.
"When she was about twenty, her father said to me: 'She is the greatest c--- that God has ever put breath into and always will be'.
"To me, she was always someone to be wary of.
"She'd give you up for her own advantage, as most of them would - Lewis included.''
Judy's marriage to Les Cole ended.
"Mr Cole was apparently a very heavy drinker and that caused friction and problems,'' Bill Stuart said in court.
Still moving within the circles of bad men with ready guns, Judy fell for another bloke with Docker connections.
Lewis Moran was a heavy-drinking SP bookmaker who ran an abattoir.
According to Mr Stuart: "It was a love affair from the very beginning''.
As de facto partners, Judy and Lewis moved in together in 1965
.
Less than two years later Judy bore son number two: his name was Jason.
Through silent and overt intimidation, the half-brothers Moran would go on to build a drug empire - co-existing with bikie gangs and fellow drug boss Tony Mokbel but making enemies with former groupie turned drug baron Carl Williams.
Bad blood between the Moran boys and Williams would lead to Melbourne's unprecedented gangland war; a war that would see the Williams crew shoot down most of the Moran clan and their allies in very public fashion.
"Mark was the harder one of the two,'' Bert Wrout says of the half-brothers.
"Jason was an out-and-out bully. A thug.''
Judy and Lewis bought a house in the then working-class suburb of Moonee Ponds for $117,000.
Thirty-four years later, in March 2011, that same house would sell at auction for $1.07 million.
"After the purchase of the house) Judy continued to then engage in home duties, as well as doing the books and wages from time to time for Lewis Moran,'' Bill Stuart said in court.
LEWIS and Des were sons to illegal abortion nurse Belle Moran, nee Lewis, and SP bookmaker Des Moran Snr.
Des, also known as "Tuppy'', was born August 3, 1947 - two years after his brother.
Their father took off when the boys were young, leaving Belle to rear them in their Ascot Vale home across the road from the Melbourne Showgrounds and within whipping distance of Flemington racetrack.
When Belle died the property was left to the brothers.
Des attended Essendon Grammar until he was 15, after which he joined Lewis as partner in a slaughtering business (of four-legged animals) at the city abattoirs.
Des continued to live at the home when Lewis moved out to shack up with Judy.
Des Moran did jail time in the late 1970s for contempt of court and breach of probation.
In 1987 he was sentenced to six years' jail for trafficking amphetamines.
A racetrack rogue like his brother, Des realised there was big money to be made in the trafficking of designer drugs.
"It is alleged that (Des Moran) had been involved in drug trafficking with Lewis Moran up until Lewis Moran's murder (in March 2004),'' a police document states.
In court during the Des Moran murder trial, Judy would deny - with a straight face - knowing anything about Lewis being a player in the drug trade.
"The police told me all about it after he was arrested,'' she said.
"I did not know Lewis was involved in drugs. He was a bookmaker.''
Des was a racehorse owner but only punted on a casual basis.
He was a man of simple routine. It was that lifestyle that got him killed.
Of a morning, Des would regularly drive to a property in Toolern Vale, north-west of Melbourne, to tend to racehorses he owned.
He was a regular at the Ascot Pasta & Deli Café in Union Road, Ascot Vale, around lunch time.
Of an evening he would eat dinner and sink a few beers at the Flemington Racecourse Tabaret.
DES was a man who loved his horses, but he hated Judy.
His hatred was no state secret.
He believed Judy was a drama queen and made herself out to be better than others.
In years gone by Judy had reported him for assaulting her.
A close mate of Des, Michael Cassar, said in a police statement: ``He hated her and she was the same with him.''
Adrian Jones, another mate (and executor of Des's will), said:
"I am aware that he disliked Judy Moran and had done so for at least twenty years. I had heard him say once or twice over the years that he believed Judy thought everyone owed her a living.''
In the Supreme Court Judy admitted she did not like her brother in law.
"From the very first time I met Des he was rude, crude and no, I didn't like him,'' Judy told the jury.
"I didn't like his morals. I didn't like what he did to his mother especially, let alone biting his brother's ear off.''
LEWIS Moran was a heavy-handed partner, but Judy stuck with him for a time.
She pulled on the Moran surname in the early 1990s.
"I was getting a passport to go overseas and everyone knew me as Judith Moran so I just made it legal,'' she said in court.
Judy and Lewis did not separate until 1995, after which they continued a ``cordial relationship''.
Lewis gave Judy the Moonee Ponds house and, according to Judy's one-time friend Sandra Cummins, ``kept'' Judy after the separation.
"By this I mean financially supported her,'' Ms Cummins said in a police statement.
Judy explained this in court.
"Lewis would give me $2000 a month for incidentals and he would pay all the utilities, rates etcetera. He paid everything.
"If I needed clothing or anything he would give me more, it just depended.''
The shroud of death fell over the Moran clan in the year 2000.
Judy lost her parents first.
Leo suffered a major stroke in April that year.
Olive passed due to emphysema two days later.
Two months on and Carl Williams shot Mark dead.
Mark was buried at Fawkner Cemetery.
Judy made regular pilgrimages to the grave, where she talked to Mark and placed flowers.
Jason became aware of a plot to murder him and his mum in June 2003.
Judy was sunning her wrinkles in Queensland with Sandra Cummins when Jason rang to tell her about the proposed hit on them.
Apparently they were to be shot dead while visiting Mark's grave on the third anniversary of his death.
One week later, two hitmen working for Carl Williams nailed Jason and a mate of his, Pasquale Barbaro, in a car at a Saturday morning Auskick football clinic.
The following year, Williams had Lewis Moran murdered at a Brunswick bar.
Bert Wrout was also shot, but survived that hit.
"I turned around and there was this gunman,'' Wrout told this author
"He said something to me and I said, `Go and get f---ed, you weak c---'. He popped me. I stayed conscious for a while.''
Judy kept Lewis's ashes on her mantelpiece.
She said in court she "quite often'' spoke to her many dead relatives.
ON the suggestion of a counsellor, Judy had been writing her thoughts and memories ever since Mark's murder.
That exercise evolved into an autobiographical manuscript.
It was published as a book and hit the stores in February 2005.
Judy lost a good friend partly because of it.
"I was not happy with Judy writing her book,'' Sandra Cummins told detectives.
"Judy always wanted to be in the spotlight and although I told her the book would cause trouble and push the girls (Mark and Jason's wives) and the grandkids away, Judy didn't listen.''
Judy received a pretty handy $110,000 advance for a book that contained very little in terms of revelations about her family's criminal exploits.
Judy, meanwhile, was still grasping to an idea that Des had millions squirreled away: millions that once belonged to Lewis.
"Judy believed that Lewis had millions put aside and she believed that after Lewis was murdered, the access, knowledge and money went to Tuppy,'' Ms Cummins told police.
As Crown prosecutor Mark Rochford, SC, would say in court: “This was a planned and calculated murder motivated by Moran and an on-going financial dispute with Des Moran.”
Some 18 months after Lewis Moran’s death, Judy contacted former detective turned private eye Brian "The Skull'' Murphy to try to trace the booty.
"Judy Moran said she had a bit of a problem with money,'' Mr Murphy said in his police statement.
According to Mr Murphy, Judy told him she and Lewis had invested "a lot of money'' with an accountant and bought property, including a hotel in Warrnambool, before they became estranged.
Judy told Mr Murphy that the accountant told her that "all the investments had gone bad and there was nothing in the pot''.
Mr Murphy said in court: "She said that she'd been robbed by an accountant and she reckoned that Lewis's money was now being held by the accountant and Des Moran.
"She said there were millions of dollars...She said that she believed that Tuppence was controlling the money and that she was getting none and that wasn't fair.''
Mr Murphy made some inquiries and told Judy he would not grill Des about it.
Mr Murphy said in court: "She said, `Well, I'll get the money my own way'''.
According to Sandra Cummins, Judy visited Des around Christmas 2006 and issued a demand: ``I want what I'm entitled to''.
"She told me that she had gone to his house with some guy in a car and wanted (Des) to buy her a new car and wanted money off him,'' Ms Cummins said in court.
"They had words. He said, `You'll never get another cent off me'''.
DES Moran dodged a bullet with his name on it on the night of March 17, 2009.
A hitman took a shot at him in his Mercedes in his driveway, but missed.
On June 15, hitman Geoff "Nuts'' Armour – a former Rebels bikie president - shot Des dead in his favourite Ascot Vale café.
Armour was working for Judy, who drove him and an unwitting accomplice, a man named Michael Farrugia, to and from the murder scene.
Des copped multiple rounds in the brain, neck, shoulder and chest.
As Supreme Court judge Justice Lex Lasry would say: "Whatever else might be said about Desmond Moran, at the time of his death he was utterly defenceless.''
Not one prone to sit in agreement with judiciary, Bert Wrout said: ``That was one of the most brutal callous acts anyone could perform.
"I've had the worst perpetrated on me and seen Lewis killed in front of me but that was something special, to put I think five into Des's body and two into his head.
"He wouldn't have expected it.''
After the killing, according to Farrugia, Judy “was in control”.
Farrugia told the jury: “She asked Geoff, ‘Did you get him?’ He said, ‘Yeah, no worries. I got him.’ She said, ‘Well done.’ She started patting him…on his back.
“She said she’ll look after everything. She’ll get rid of everything.”
Judy hid the murder car in her garage.
Armour's gun, clothing and other items connected to the murder were stuffed into a safe hidden inside Judy’s home.
"Judy told me to keep me mouth shut, otherwise I'll cop the same thing,'' Farrugia said in court.
Judy returned to the shooting scene and cried crocodile tears for police and the media.
In a statement made to police officer Sgt Sussan Thomas that day, a shrewd Judy floated the possibility that Carl Williams’ crew might have been responsible for the café murder.
“It’s the anniversary of Mark’s death today,” she told Sgt Thomas.
“They tried to kill Jason and I on this day in 2003. (One of Carl Williams’ gunmen) was waiting for us on that day at the cemetery but we went there the day before because Jason had a feeling. I wonder if they were there today.”
It was a crafty play that prosecutor Mark Rochford, SC, would criticise at trial.
“She wants it to play out as another gangland shooting and, ‘Poor Judy, it’s happened to her again,’” Mr Rochford would go on to tell the jury.
“Jason, Mark, Lewis…No one’s going to suspect Judy Moran because here she is at the scene crying and upset, just like it’s happened again. That’s what that’s all about.”
Detectives found the murder car in Judy’s garage and, thanks to the work of surveillance police, later arrested her after she drove and dumped it.
"Hello, Judy. Mark Hatt from Purana Taskforce,'' the arresting detective said in introduction.
"What are you up to?''
Judy sighed.
"I'm just going for a walk to clear my mind. It's been a terribly stressful day.''
TO the homicide detectives, Judy's house - with its eccentric mix of crystal antiques, tea sets and framed family photos - looked like a grandmother's home.
But they knew Judy was no average granny.
She asked to lie down on the couch as the detectives went about their search.
Hidden in a dog's bed near the back door, investigators found a shotgun with a cartridge in the breech and five attached to the stock.
“That horrified me because my little dog used to pull that cushion around all the time,” Judy protested in court.
“He was only eight months old and when the police said the gun was loaded, I felt sick. That’s disgusting.”
The real reason Judy was feeling sick that night was because the cops had caught her red-handed.
The detectives later found the incriminating gear hidden in her safe.
At her trial in February 2011, Judy claimed she was tending Mark's grave on the morning of Des Moran's murder.
Phone evidence disputed that, and the jury did not believe her.
It took six days for the jury to find her guilty.
Bill Stuart told her plea hearing that she was bereft of many friends and was really ``an old woman for the age of sixty-six''.
"There is every reason to expect as a high probability that given the nature of the sentence that Your Honour must impose, she will die in custody,'' Mr Stuart submitted.
Mr Stuart mentioned that due to her dodgy hips and other health problems, Judy had access to an "electric chair'' in jail.
He was, of course, referring to her motorised scooter.
On August 10, 2011, Justice Lasry sentenced Judy to twenty-six years' jail with a twenty-one year minimum: the same term he handed Geoff Armour, who pleaded guilty.
"This was a deliberate and brutal killing for either retribution or financial benefit - or some combination of both,'' Justice Lasry told her.
Before she beetled from the courtroom in her little electric scooter, most likely for the last time in her B-grade career, Judy had the last say.
"You are wrong, sir,'' she called out.
"I am innocent.''
Judy Moran remained a terrible actress to the end.
She's still alive and kicking despite her bad hips and a recent visit to hospital for a blood clot.
Her recent trip from prison cell to hospital bed sent media outlets into a spin: could this have been the end of the gangland matriarch and with it the end of a crime dynasty?
Feature stories about her life and times were prepared; journalists waiting to air their work as soon as the ageing jailbird fell off her perch.
It didn't happen.
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