Crimes that shocked Melbourne: A chilling list of the most appalling incidents in the CBD
SOME of the worst crimes that Australia has ever seen have taken place in Melbourne’s city centre. Here’s a list of chilling events that brought the CBD to a standstill.
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MELBOURNE’S central business district has been witness to many shocking crimes which have brought the city and it’s major arterials to a standstill.
For the first of our series on the worst crimes in Melbourne and our suburbs, True Crime Scene has chosen five of the most shocking in the CBD in recent memory.
Our series on our most shocking crimes will also revisit the scenes in other parts of the city.
The Queen Street massacre
IN December 1987, law school dropout Frank Vitkovic armed himself with a sawn-off M1 carbine rifle and embarked on a hateful shooting spree.
The twisted Vitkovic had chosen to target a former friend named Con Margelis who, for some unknown reason, became the focus of his rage.
Vitkovic had fantasised about revenge from the age of 11, according to his secret diaries.
He went to the Telecom Credit Union in the Australia Post Building in Queens St to murder Mr Margelis, who managed to hide.
Vitkovic shot random victims.
Laughing, he strolled several floors pulling the trigger as victims begged for mercy.
“Who’s laughing now,” he yelled.
Vitkovic shot eight people dead and injured four others.
After his 15-minute shooting spree, Vitkovic fell to his death from an 11th floor window.
It was later revealed he liked to watch violent “Rambo-style” videos and had collected newspaper clippings about Julian Knight’s shooting rampage in Hoddle St.
CBD killer shoots three in King St
HELLS Angels bikie Christopher Wayne Hudson was flying high on a cocktail of anger, booze and the drug ice when he unleashed his fury in the city early on the morning of June 18, 2007.
After bashing a young woman outside a strip club, Hudson dragged friend Kaera Douglas through the streets and assaulted her.
Two men intervened to try to help Ms Douglas on the corner of Flinders Lane and William St.
Hudson opened fire on them, killing lawyer Brendan Keilar and seriously wounding Dutch backpacker Paul de Waard.
Ms Douglas was also shot and wounded.
Hudson managed to escape the chaos as firemen and paramedics arrived to tend to the bleeding victims, unaware if they, too, might come under fire.
Chaperoned by a high-ranking Hells Angels member, Hudson later handed himself in to police.
He pleaded guilty and was jailed for life with a 35-year minimum term.
“These events occurred at a place where ordinary people are entitled to feel safe,’’ Supreme Court judge Justice Paul Coghlan said when sentencing the bikie.
“Two of your victims were not known to you and were shot for doing no more than trying to help the young woman you were assaulting.
“None of your victims represented any threat to you, imagined or otherwise.”
Jewellers murdered in Manchester Unity massacre, Century Building heist
DURING a bloody rampage, a bungling bandit shot dead father and son jewellers Lean Thoeun Pin and Virayuth Pin during an attempted jewel heist in the Century Building in Swanston St.
The would-be robber, Manuel “Jack” Adajian, was armed with a Russian pistol and also shot Mrs Siv Eng Pin.
Miraculously she survived, but was left with permanent disabilities.
The shooting spree, in the Pin’s wholesale jewellery business on December 4, 1996, was premeditated and driven by greed.
It brought the city to a standstill.
Adajian, whose fatal heist was filmed on CCTV, pleaded guilty.
He was jailed for life with a 25-year minimum term.
That fatal jewellery heist was very similar to one that happened in the Manchester Unity Building, also in Swanston Street, on St Patrick’s Day in 1978.
Armed with a .22 rifle, a bandit shot jewellers Paul Pace and Keith Hyman and a customer named Robert Wartman execution-style as they lay on the floor.
Convicted double killer Alex Tsakmakis was suspected of having committed the horrendous triple murder.
A fellow prisoner bashed Tsakmakis to death in jail, and no one has ever been charged.
The Russell St bombing
IT was the day before Good Friday in 1986 when vengeful criminals planted and detonated a car bomb outside the Russell Street police complex.
The bombers — bandit boss Stan Taylor and his fellow robber Craig Minogue — had originally planned to “give the bomb to the jacks as a Christmas present”, but due to their busy armed robbery schedule they had to hold it over until Easter.
The car, a Commodore laden with explosives attached to a triggered alarm clock, exploded just after 1pm on March 27, 1986.
The blast killed Constable Angela Taylor, severely injured many other police and people in the vicinity and extensively damaged the police complex and other buildings.
Had the explosive payload not been of amateur design and fully detonatedas planned, the death toll and level of destruction would have been much worse.
According to one politician at the time, it was the day Melbourne lost it’s innocence.
Taylor was jailed for life with no chance of release.
Minogue copped life with a 28-year-minimum.
The sentencing judge, Justice Frank Vincent, described the bombing as an “act of war”.
The killer vagabond
A DEFENCELESS Renea Lau was walking across the Kings Domain gardens near St Kilda Rd in June last year when a drunk homeless man attacked her while on the hunt.
Ms Lau did not survive the savage, sexually-driven assault.
Scott Allen Miller pleaded guilty to murdering Ms Lau and to two counts of raping her in the gardens.
Ms Lau, a Chinese national formally known as Yuk Ling Lau, was on her way to work as a pastry chef when Miller chased and grabbed her.
He knocked her unconscious, dragged her to a secluded spot and sexually assaulted her for about an hour.
A passer-by caught him in the act but, assuming the pair were lovers, ignored the attack.
Early-morning walkers later came across Ms Lau’s body.
After his arrest, the California-born Miller told police the shocking crime “just happened”.
He said he was “blind drunk” and “just exploded into this violent, violent rage”.
“I didn’t even think about it,” he told detectives.
“I saw her, I attacked her and I raped her.”
Ms Lau had head injuries and died of asphyxiation.
Miller is awaiting sentence.
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