Hitman Rodney Charles Collins reaches double figures with new theory
MONSTER hitman Rodney “The Duke” Collins has emerged as a suspect in the disappearance and presumed killing of underworld figure Lawrence Joseph Prendergast in 1985, lifting his ghastly tally of suspected victims to 10.
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REVILED hitman Rodney “The Duke” Collins has emerged as a suspect in the disappearance and presumed killing of underworld figure Lawrence Joseph Prendergast in 1985, lifting his ghastly tally of suspected victims to 10.
Collins took his horrid secrets to the grave when he died of natural causes on Wednesday, at 72, after spending his final decade as an inmate at Barwon Prison.
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Prendergast, who was acquitted of the 1978 murder of former painter and docker Les Kane, disappeared after expressing safety fears.
Early reports at the time speculated that Prendergast was a fifth victim of an underworld war that included the death of standover man Brian Kane, who is among the nine victims long believed to have been executed by Collins.
Mr Prendergast’s presumed murder is one of eight strange and baffling deaths over the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s that state Coroner Sara Hinchey was asked to reopen at the start of this year amid claims of cover-ups and fresh evidence.
Collins was a reptilian gun for hire closely linked to Carl Williams and drug baron Tony Mokbel.
His macabre signature became the needless killings of those with the target at the time of the hit. His two-for-one hits include Ray and Dorothy Abbey in 1987, for which he was convicted two decades later.
Collins was thought to have slit the throats of Michael Schievella and his wife in 1990, and shot police informer Terry Hodson and his wife Christine in 2004.
At his 1979 murder trial, Prendergast accused Brian Kane of being a police informer and of setting him up for Les Kane’s murder.