The world’s most dangerous hitmen killed for cold cash
FORGET hitmen in movies and video games, these 10 contract killers — including Australia’s worst and a Hollywood idol’s dad — are the real deal.
True Crime Scene
Don't miss out on the headlines from True Crime Scene. Followed categories will be added to My News.
CONTRACT killers, often referred to as hitmen, have long been glorified in film and video games due to their ruthless nature and covert methods.
Countless films and games have cashed in their manufactured mysterious allure — one entertainment company even brought a video game about a contract killer, entitled Hitman, to the big screen.
In reality, there are four types of contract killers, according to a recent British study done on hitmen and their trade.
The four categories, according to the Birmingham City University study, are:
THE “novice” — a paid killer new to the game and keen to prove himself in the underworld.
THE “dilettante” — a “cleanskin” prepared to kill for money to pay a bad or exorbitant debt.
THE “journeyman” — an experienced career criminal.
THE “master” — a phantom expert killer whose identity remains unknown.
The academics involved in the study examined 27 British contract kills (committed by 36 men, including accomplices, and one woman) between 1974 and 2013.
The average cost for murder was about $25,000 and the cheapest hit cost only $340, the study found.
Professor David Wilson said in the study: “Hitmen are familiar figures in films and video games, carrying out hits in underworld bars or from the roof tops with expensive sniper rifles.
“With the exception of (one case in our study), the reality could not be more different.
“British hitmen are more likely to murder their victim while they walk the dog or go shopping in suburban neighbourhoods.”
The most comprehensive Australian Institute of Criminology study to date found that relationship disputes and spousal conflict were the reasons for the highest number of attempted and successful contract killings in Australia, followed by disputes over money and the desire to silence witnesses or seek revenge.
The average payment in Australia was about $16,500 for a hit, with $50,000 the highest fee and $500 the lowest.
A witness in the Lewis Moran murder case told police he was paid $140,000 — $10,000 less than the agreed price — to organise and do the driving during that 2004 hit.
Detectives were told the money was shared with two men who did the shooting.
Guns are a contract killer’s preferred choice of weapon, according to studies.
Here’s a list of some well-known hitmen; the real contract killers.
Benjamin Siegel
Known as “Bugsy”, Benjamin Siegel was a notorious US mobster who carved celebrity status thanks to his charm, good looks and gangster persona.
Having started as a standover merchant around the time of the Prohibition era, he is said to have become an alleged contract killer as mafia factions blazed away for control of the rackets.
The formation of the “Murder Incorprorated” crime syndicate has been attributed, in part, to Siegel who has been linked to many deaths, including those of crime bosses Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano.
After the mob moved Siegel to California to run gambling rackets, he was acquitted of the shooting murder of fellow mobster Harry Greenberg.
A hitman shot Siegel dead in his Beverly Hills home in June 1947.
Harry Maione
Known as “Happy” because of a permanent scowl, Harry Maione was another New York mobster linked as a hitman to the busy Murder Inc kill syndicate.
He is alleged to have carried out up to twelve murders — including killing potential witnesses — as a tit-for-tat mafia war raged during the 1930s and ‘40s.
Maione was convicted of murdering a loan shark named George “Whitey” Rudnick.
Maione was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in New York in February 1942.
Frank Abbandando
Known as “The Dasher”, Frank Abbandando was another member of the Murder Inc gang. Abbandando is reputed to have killed up to 30 people, including mobster Felice Esposito, for as little as $500 a head.
He, like Maione, was convicted of the murder of George Rudnick and sentenced to death via electric chair at Sing Sing Prison, New York.
James Frederick Bazely
A former Painter and Docker enforcer and gunman, Victorian criminal James Bazley was as tough as nails in his heyday.
Described by many as an Aussie mafia hitman, Bazley was convicted of conspiring to murder Griffiths anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay in 1977 and murdering Mr Asia gang drug couriers Douglas and Isabel Wilson in 1979.
He was jailed for nine years on the conspiracy charge and to two life terms for the Wilson murders.
It has been reported he was paid $10,000 for the Mackay job and $20,000 to kill the Wilsons.
Victorian detectives charged Bazley with conspiring to murder Mr Mackay.
He couldn’t be charged with murder as the killing took place in NSW.
Gianfranco Tizzoni, who died in 1988, gave evidence that he helped Robert Trimbole organise Mr Mackay’s murder, ordered by Trimbole’s mafia bosses.
Tizzoni said he recruited Bazley through a Melbourne gun shop owner.
More recently, detectives had circled Bazley’s name as a person of interest in the unsolved murder of Melbourne wharf identity Alfred “The Ferret” Nelson, who went missing back in 1971.
Paroled in 2001 and now in his late 80s, Bazley has denied any involvement in the deaths of Mackay and Nelson.
Christopher Dale Flannery
Known within underworld and police circles as “Mr Rent-A-Kill”, Chris Flannery was a Melbourne-born criminal who become one of Australia’s most dangerous reputed hitmen.
After several murder acquittals, Flannery moved his family to Sydney and was said to have worked as a bodyguard for Sydney crime figure George Freeman.
He became an ally of the feared Arthur “Neddy” Smith during Sydney’s underworld war and grew a reputation for being trigger happy.
He once reportedly told a police officer: “You’re not a protected species you know — you’re not a f---ing koala.”
It is alleged Flannery shot Sydney drug squad detective Mick Drury on behalf of a Melbourne criminal for $50,000.
Drury survived the hit.
Flannery was also linked to the shooting death of criminal Tony Eustace.
By the time he disappeared without trace in May 1985, presumed murdered, Flannery was linked to up to a dozen unsolved killings.
Charles Harrelson
Actor Woody Harrelson’s father, Charles Harrelson, died in the Supermax federal prison in the US state of Colorado in March 2007 while serving two life sentences for the murder of a federal judge.
Charles Harrelson was convicted of the May 1979 slaying of US District Judge John Wood Jr who was shot outside his home in San Antonio, Texas.
Prosecutors said a drug dealer hired Harrelson to kill Judge Wood because the dealer did not want the judge to preside over his trial.
Harrelson, who had been linked to other murders, denied killing the judge.
He was transferred to Supermax, the highest-security federal prison, after attempting to break out of an Atlanta prison in 1995.
Woody Harrelson only learned of his dad’s notoriety when, at 12 years old, he heard his father’s name mentioned as the suspect in the assassination of the judge.
Charles Harrelson, who made a bizarre claim he was an accomplice in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, denied he murdered Judge Wood.
Woody Harrelson, who reconciled with his father during the Wood murder trial in 1981, paid expensive lawyers in an effort to secure a retrial for his dad.
But Charles Harrelson died from natural causes in prison, aged 69.
In one of his many Hollywood roles, Woody Harrelson played a sociopathic serial killer in the film Natural Born Killers.
The film’s director, Oliver Stone, reportedly asked Harrelson to play the role “more like your father”.
Richard Kuklinski
Richard Leonard Kuklinski was nicknamed “The Iceman” due to his cold-blooded nature and the fact he once froze a victim to confuse the time of death.
By his own account he was one of the world’s most prolific hitmen.
A bear of a man, the married father of two from New Jersey in the US was convicted of five murders and serving consecutive life sentences when he died aged 70 in March 2006.
He had also pleaded guilty to murdering a New York detective.
During several prison interviews, Kuklinski claimed to have killed between 100 to 200 men — many as a mafia hitman.
He said he did jobs for people who wanted them done, and that those people paid him a good price.
Kuklinski claimed to have killed his victims in a variety of different ways: he said he used guns, a crossbow, an ice pick, grenades, chainsaws, poison and even hungry rats.
He said he never killed women or children, and claimed to have had a hand in the mystery disappearance and murder of union boss Jimmy Hoffa for $40,000.
Experts and mafia insiders have laid doubt to some of Kuklinski’s claims, but no one doubts he was a prolific hitman.
Alexander Solonik
Tagged as Russia’s best-known contract killer, Alexander Solonik earned many nicknames — including “Superkiller” and “Alexander the Great” — due to rumours about his killing proficiency.
A former policeman and top marksman, he is said to have had an uncanny ability to shoot with both hands.
He confessed to killing several leaders of the Russian underworld but never identified his employers.
He shot several policemen in a shootout while being arrested in October 1994 during a routine document check.
European newspaper Sevodnya one stated: “Solonik could be called one of the best known and most ruthless contract killers.
“His nearly supernatural ability to disappear and emerge again might easily be compared to that of international terrorist ‘Carlos the Jackal’.”
Solonik managed to escape from custody on several occasions.
A body identified as his was found in 1997 near Athens, where he was believed to have been running a crime syndicate.
The body had been strangled but had no identification, according to reports.
Many people believe the body was not Solonik’s and that he lives on under an assumed identity.
Jorge Rivera Ayala
An employee of the late cocaine queen Griselda Blanco, Jorge Ayala was a contract killer convicted of three hits but suspected of involvement in up to 35 murders in Miami.
Police suspect he killed many during the 1970s and ‘80s as Miami became awash with cocaine and rival crime gangs who imported and sold the drug.
A notorious figure in Miami’s crime annals, Ayala’s eventual testimony helped bring down Blanco.
Known as the “Godmother”, Blanco was a ruthless South Florida drug baroness gunned down in Colombia in 2012 after being deported from the US.
Last year, Ayala, 49, made an unsuccessful court application to seek parole after 25 years in jail. That application was based on a claimed “handshake deal” made with prosecutors back in 1993.
A judge denied the application.
“Jorge deserves to get the benefit of the bargain,” a defence lawyer told reporters after the failed hearing.
“He doesn’t deserve to die in prison. He’s atoned for what he’s done.”
Andrew Veniamin
Known within underworld circles and among friends as “Benji”, Andrew Veniamin was a kamikaze gunman who swapped allegiances during Melbourne’s gangland war.
A young man who preferred revolvers because they did not jam, Veniamin was suspected of pulling the trigger on several people — some for personal reasons and others while doing favours or following orders.
He joined the camp of gangland baron Carl Williams, who embarked on an underworld killing campaign fuelled by greed and revenge.
Veniamin was known to like the high life, and Williams was able to provide.
He was the prime suspect in several unsolved murders.
While acting in self defence, colourful businessman Mick Gatto shot an armed Veniamin, 28, dead in a Carlton restaurant in March 2004.
During Gatto’s murder trial, defence lawyer Robert Richter questioned witness Steve Kaya about Veniamin.
Richter: “He had a reputation as a hitman who killed people?”
Kaya: “Yes.”
Richter: “For money, I suggest?”
Kaya: “Yes.”
Crown prosecutor Geoff Horgan asked Gatto: “You believed he had murdered ... how many people?”
Gatto replied: “There was at least six. Could be more. Maybe eight.”
FOREST TERROR: The Butcher Baker’s sickening hunt
LONG READ: Push to solve little girl’s rape, murder
PETER DUPAS: Inside the mind of a serial killer
How this teen became a savage killer
An evil lives within killer Jamie Lee Dolheguy, but was it always there or did it manifest from the years of abuse and neglect that marred her childhood.
Overland’s stunning concession in Lawyer X Royal Commission
Former police chief Simon Overland has been grilled by the Royal Commission into the Lawyer X scandal, and revealed how he kept the use of Nicola Gobbo from the state’s top prosecutors.