Gangland kills ‘could have been stopped’ had Terrence Blewitt been brought to justice

THREE gangland killings could have been avoided if a hitman was brought to justice for the brutal slaying of a security guard years earlier.

Police fear a missing Melton man with links to known underworld figures may have met with foul play. 53-year-old Terrence Blewitt was last seen on 12 April 2004 when a friend dropped him at the cnr of Hume AVENUE and Lachlan ROAD in Melton South between 2-2.30pm. He got into a green Hyundai Excel sedan and hasn't been seen or heard from since.

THREE gangland killings could have been avoided if a hitman was brought to justice for the slaying of a security guard years earlier.

Some NSW police remain perplexed at why hitman Terrence Blewitt was free to allegedly murder Graham “The Munster” Kinniburgh, helping spark the killings of Andrew Veniamin and Lewis Moran.

Blewitt, whose body was ­finally dug up in Melbourne last month, had been fingered years earlier for the killing of the guard in NSW but was never arrested or questioned.

“This bloke got away with murder then went on to ply his trade elsewhere,” one officer told the Sunday Herald Sun.

SPECIAL REPORT: BLEWITT A VIOLENT MAN WHOSE LUCK RAN OUT

Investigators had in 2000 been given a statement and corroborating evidence with the potential to put Blewitt behind bars over the shooting death of guard Robert Jones in a bungled robbery.

The evidence, gathered four years before Kinniburgh was executed, appeared compelling. An informer, Blewitt’s getaway driver in the stick-up, named him to detectives.

Graham “The Munster” Kinniburgh in 2002. Picture: Ellen Smith

Lewis Moran outside court in 2003.

The informer also took police to a rural location where they were able to retrieve the barrel allegedly sawn off the murder weapon.

Some serving and former police in NSW are baffled at why Blewitt was never charged with murdering Mr Jones. One said vast resources had been committed to an ultimately fruitless corruption probe based on the informer’s claims.

The same credence should have been placed on his apparent intricate knowledge of the Jones case, a former detective said. “We all know who did it,” he added.

Despite Blewitt being a suspect, a 2009 inquest found Mr Jones, 34, had been shot by an unknown person. In December 2003, Blewitt would allegedly shoot dead senior crime figure Kinniburgh.

Police seaching for human remains in Yarrawonga in the case of the disappearance of Terrence Blewitt in 2004.

Four months later, close Kinniburgh associate Mick Gatto shot dead Veniamin in a Carlton restaurant. Gatto — later ­acquitted of murder on self-defence grounds — had believed Veniamin was the Kinniburgh shooter.

Days later, crime patriarch Lewis Moran was shot dead in retaliation for the killing of ­Veniamin.

Blewitt vanished and was murdered within weeks of his associate Moran’s death.

Asked specific questions on the Jones case, NSW Police said: “As the death is a matter that remains with the unsolved homicide team, we are unable to provide further detail.”