How Jason Moran's cold-blooded murder made Australia take notice of the gangland wars

GANGLAND SPECIAL: JASON Moran's brazen murder 10 years ago wasn't the first in the gangland war, but it was the most shocking.

Jason Moran profile

WHEN Jason Moran jammed a pistol into the front of his pants on the morning of June 21, 2003, he knew he was a hunted man.

More accustomed to imposing fear on others, Moran had already spent months under threat by the time he made the short drive from home in Moonee Ponds to Cross Keys Reserve in North Essendon for an AusKick footy clinic.

His brother Mark had years earlier been murdered by the same brutal rival – Carl Williams - whose power and willingness to use it was now out of control.

Special report: Inside the Underworld

Fresh in his mind would have been months of conflict, pursuits, stalking and gunfire.

But when the time came and the man in the balaclava and gloves pointed a gun at Moran, his most important protective step was no use.

Before he could even think of reaching into his trousers for the pistol, the firing began. A shotgun blasted through the glass, followed by volleys from a long-handled revolver.

Profile of the main players in Moran hit

As the children in the back of the van screamed, Moran and his mate Pasquale Barbaro were blown away in an execution that  shocked a city already used to years of gangland violence.

The hooded gunman who struck at Cross Keys invaded the public consciousness in a way years of previous bloodshed had not.

Those killings had made news and led to the formation of the Purana taskforce, but the likes of Dino Dibra and Paul Kallipolitis - thugs murdered at home in the back blocks of Sunshine - were barely known to the public.

Victor Peirce and Nik Radev were gunned down more publicly, but even their deaths did not bring home the significance of what was happening.

There was even a sense among some that the underworld was eating its own, with no harm done to the broader community.

But the atrocious end of Jason Moran and Pasquale Barbaro in front of children at Cross Keys changed that.

Jason Moran and the smoking gun

It was also a turning point that  would finally put some of the gangland war’s key players on a course to justice.

Rowland Legg, the senior sergeant of on-call crew two, was at home when he received a phone call at 11.30am.

It was to be the beginning of months of sustained work on a case that ultimately would be removed from his team at a critical stage.

Mr Legg, in customary understated style, told the Herald Sun the scene inside Moran’s Mitsubishi passenger van was “messy”.

“There was relief and astonishment that the children in the back of the van were totally physically unharmed,” he said.

Mr Legg said that within hours, intelligence was being received that a man known as The Runner was responsible.

He had a long criminal history marked by prison escapes and armed robberies in which he made his escape on foot, rather than in a getaway vehicle.

At Cross Keys, the killer had shown a good deal of toe to burn off a pursuing off-duty police officer.

“There was information coming in that he (The Runner) might be the one,” Mr Legg said.

Williams wanted to wipe out Morans

The Runner was known to be extremely close to Williams, who years earlier had been shot in the stomach during a confrontation with the Moran brothers.

“Obviously, we were thinking pretty strongly of the Williams camp,” Mr Legg said.

“(But) you’ve got to eliminate other possibilities. It’s a two-pronged situation.

“It was always possible that it wouldn’t be related to that (feuding with Williams).

“You could not exclude the possibility someone would take advantage of that to carry out their own vendetta. It (the conflict) was common knowledge.”

One of the alternatives requiring a hard look was a pair of men checked by police in the vicinity in the preceding days.
They were monitored then hauled in and questioned.

Investigators established they had alibis and Mr Legg was ultimately satisfied they were there to deal drugs.

There were plenty of people who had cause to wish Moran dead but the Williams crew was clearly on the top line of betting.

He and The Runner were interviewed within days but declined to reveal what they knew.

It was clearly going to be a hard slog, using the kind of methodical checking that eventually yielded two enormously significant breakthroughs.

One came from painstaking, repetitive work that threatened to turn the Operation Dozer investigators’ eyes square.

Grainy black and white CCTV footage from the back of the Cross Keys Hotel was analysed for many hours until they isolated a white van seemingly being used to case the area and later dropping off someone they were to conclude was the gunman.

Jason Moran profile

“A few very committed homicide squad detectives nearly went dizzy staring at the screen,” Mr Legg said.

“They went over it and over it and over it.”

The second major boost came when the call records of a pay phone outside 291 Moreland Rd were analysed.

On the day before the shootings, that infrequently used phone, 2km from the crime scene, had seen an unusual level of use in a short space of time.

There were multiple calls to Williams, one to an associate of The Runner and others to a business in the city and a home in the northern suburbs.

“Áll this was in a block which suggested that the same person or people were making the calls. We surmised they were planning, making final calls,” Mr Legg said.

A visit to the property in the northern suburbs revealed the caller to that address was a violent career criminal from the south-eastern suburbs who it was later established owned the same kind of white van captured by the CCTV.

This man was to become known as The Driver.

The discovery of that vital link set in course a massive surveillance undertaking in which every home and car connected to the suspects were bugged and tracking devices installed.

Jason Moran shooting

It was during this period that The Driver bought an “untraceable” rebuilt car that  the Dozer detectives believed, based on the conspirators discussions and movements, would be used for an imminent major crime somewhere in the South Yarra area.

Soon after, The Driver found and destroyed a listening device planted by police in that car.

Local officers were hastily sent to indicate that it had been installed as part of a lower-level investigation into the previous owner, a man known to police.

The bug find might have been enough to scuttle the plans of many criminals, but scouting for whatever was to happen continued.

Mr Legg said investigators were later to form the view that the weekend of October 18-19 was when the two would strike.

But on the Friday night before, Mr Legg, whose crew was back on call again, received a phone call to say a child was missing in suspicious circumstances at Myrtleford, in the state’s north.

By the next evening, crew two was in Myrtleford investigating the disappearance of Daniel Thomas, the murdered toddler whose body was later found under a house.

The Purana taskforce was assigned to take over the Dozer work, with help from one member of Mr Legg’s crew.

As it happened, The Driver and The Runner did not act on their planning until the next weekend.

Alphonse Gangitano profile

Their target turned out to be drug-dealing hot-dog salesman Michael Marshall, executed at his home in South Yarra at the behest of Williams.

Once again, the shooter had no qualms about the presence of children and Marshall died in front of his five-year-old son.

This time, because of the surveillance earlier put in place, the getaway was only temporary.

The pair travelled to The Driver’s house at Cheltenham, where they discussed getting rid of the gun.

They were arrested hours after Marshall’s death, outside the Elsternwick Hotel, en route to the city, and charged the next day.

Drug baron Tony Mokbel was suspected of having wanted Marshall murdered in revenge for the earlier execution of old mate Willy Thompson.

Ironically, it was actually Williams who had also organised the Thompson hit.

Mr Legg does not mind admitting he and his detectives were angry at being cut off from the investigation after all of their work.

He said a “political” decision was made that Purana needed to be seen to be getting results and so his crew was removed from the Moran job as it neared success.

Jason Moran shooting, Mister X, The driver

Mr Legg said he intended no slight against Purana detectives, who he described as “top operators”.

“We were, after the effort put in and the results we achieved, very disappointed. But once they (Purana) had it, they did a magnificent job,” he said.

“This was more than just us (detectives). The contribution of analysts, forensic personnel, and other Victoria Police services providing support was crucial to the success of this investigation,” he said.

It would take a while, but the work started by Mr Legg’s crew was the beginning of the end for Williams.

The Runner and The Driver – who was fully never paid by Williams for the Moran job – gave statements that  destroyed his empire and put him in Barwon Prison.

It was there that he died at the hands of Matthew Charles Johnson in 2010.