Walsh St police shootings: Murder witness Jason Ryan reveals why he dobbed in accused police killers
HEAR a member of Melbourne’s worst crime family explain why he spoke out over the sickening Walsh St police murders. The Ryan Tapes
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GANGLAND scamp Jason Ryan was the key to a successful prosecution in the Walsh St police murders case.
But his evidence couldn’t lock the jail door on two of his uncles and family associates charged with murdering police constables Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre.
In an exclusive interview with this reporter many years ago now, Ryan said he risked all to testify because Tynan and Eyre were young cops who had no links with a war raging between his uncle Victor’s armed robbery crew and the Victoria Police armed robbery squad.
It was 27 years ago today that constables Tynan and Eyre were shot in cold blood in Walsh St, South Yarra, after being sent there to check out an abandoned car in the darkness.
Both were shot at close range.
NOT FORGOTTEN: Tribute to Walsh St victims
Few doubt that Tynan and Eyre were murdered as payback 13 hours after armed robbery squad detectives shot dead career bandit Graeme Jensen, who flashed a gun while trying to evade “the jacks”.
Jensen, an associate of the infamous Pettingill crime clan, was best mates with “Flemington Crew” armed robbery gang leader Victor George Peirce.
Peirce, a nasty crook and sixth child to crime matriarch Kath Pettingill, was charged with the murders of Tynan and Eyre alongside half-brother Trevor Pettingill and associates Anthony Farrell and Peter McEvoy — himself a notorious stick-up man.
Also implicated was violent career criminal Jedd Houghton who — before police could question him — was shot dead by members of the Special Operations Group while trying to avoid arrest.
A car thief named Gary Abdullah was also implicated, but was also shot dead by police after pulling a weapon.
Ryan, who grew up under the care of nanna Kath Pettingill and her murderous drug-dealing eldest son Dennis Allen, agreed to turn on his criminal family and become a prosecution witness in the Walsh St murder case.
Victor’s wife, Wendy, was initially also prosecution witness but turned hostile, leaving young Ryan, a raw 17-year-old, as the prosecution’s main hope.
For obvious reasons after the trial, Ryan went into hiding — fearing a bullet for his disloyalty.
Ten years after the Walsh St shootings I was a cub police reporter aged in my mid-20s.
By then, Ryan — who’d found trouble with police despite trying to rehabilitate — wanted to come in from the cold and tell his life story.
He told it to me.
My first question: “Why did you put your life on the line to testify against your uncles and their mates over Walsh St?”
His answer: “’Cos those two policemen (Tynan and Eyre) had nothing to do with Jensen’s death.”
Ryan and I first met at the Coogee Bay Hotel in New South Wales.
It was November 1998.
Not quite sure what to expect, I met a clean-cut thinly framed bloke with crystal blue eyes; a trace of a scar under one of them.
In the company of a female supporter — who did not want to be publicly identified — Ryan appeared a little on edge.
We were maybe as nervous as each other.
A few drinks settled any nerves.
It was at a Chinese restaurant near Kings Cross that evening where Ryan began to open up over dinner, and more drinks.
He was candid, spoke in great detail and told chilling tales — sometimes with a dry punch line and sometimes with cold indifference.
In between mouthfuls he talked about three murders he saw Uncle Dennis commit.
He was a young teenager at the time.
“Mine was far from the perfect upbringing but Dennis was like me dad,” he told me.
“He showed that he cared.”
At that time in the mid 1980s, Allen was running a million-dollar heroin-trafficking business out of several houses in the blue-collar suburb of Richmond.
With the backing of his notorious family, Ryan graduated to a cocky standover kid.
“I did a lot of bad things,” he admitted over dinner.
“I was always confident because I had my family there. Dennis virtually said I was his young apprentice ... As I did more crime I got greedier.”
By age 13, he said, he was drinking heavily and injecting speed.
It was around this time he witnessed Uncle Dennis murder “friend” Wayne Stanhope after a day of drinking and injecting speed.
Allen was a mad dog at the best of times, but went off tap during binge sessions.
“Stanhope wanted to kill Dennis,” Ryan told me.
“They all wanted his gold.”
Allen shot Stanhope in his lounge room in front of a group of friends as Stanhope went to change the record player.
“Dennis shot Stanhope six times,” Ryan continued, chopsticks in hand.
“I came out of the bedroom. I had a gun with me at the time — it was a .25 auto. Dennis looked at me and grabbed the gun. The music was still pumping and Stanhope’s last words were, ‘Help me Dennis.’
“The other people sitting on the couch were horrified. Dennis gave Stanhope another seven from my gun. As he was doing it he said, ‘That’s for your mates.’
“Dennis grabbed him and dragged him because he was bleeding on the carpet — Dennis was fond of his carpet — and he dumped him on the tiles.
“Dennis finished his drink and grabbed Stanhope’s head and smashed it into the tiles. He became like an animal.”
Ryan said he was afraid and refused to help his uncle move the body, as ordered.
“I’d just watched a movie prior to this called Evil Dead, and in that movie the dead people always come back.”
Stanhope’s death went to inquest but Dennis Allen was never charged.
The next murder Ryan witnessed was that of prostitute Helga Wagnegg in November 1984.
Ryan suggested she was “put off” because Uncle Dennis believed she was informing to police; something Allen himself was suspected of doing on occasion to stay out of jail.
Wagnegg died of a “hot shot” drug overdose, purportedly administered by Allen, who then drowned her with a bucket of water collected from the Yarra River.
“He put her head in the bucket,” Ryan said.
“He was just making normal conversation and she was going blue and purple.”
Wagnegg’s body was later dumped in the Yarra.
An inquest into her death ended with an open finding.
It was about a year later when Allen killed former Hells Angel bikie Anton Kenny.
According to Ryan, unidentified bikie members contracted Dennis to kill Kenny.
“We had a bit of dealing with the bikie gang,” Ryan explained.
“Dennis wanted to buy an M-60 (machine gun) off them. That’s how far Dennis was going. He was thinking of going to war with the police.
“Kenny’s rocked down and was sitting at the table. Underneath the table was a .38 special. Dennis had no T-shirt on to show Kenny he didn’t have a gun. Kenny gave Dennis his gun, thinking he was doing the right thing.
“Anyway, Dennis pulled the .38 from under the table and went boom. Emptied it right out.”
Kenny’s legs were later chopped off and his body sealed in a 44-gallon drum.
In 1987, Allen died of a broken heart; his ticker irreparably damaged by his chronic lifestyle.
THE following year — in the hours after the shooting murders of constables Tynan and Eyre in South Yarra — heavily armed police arrested Ryan and associate Anthony Farrell while on the hunt for Victor Peirce who was an immediate suspect for the Walsh St murders.
Fearing for his safety from both sides, Ryan said he started talking to the cops about Walsh St and was taken away on a country “trip”.
“There wasn’t many barbecues, I can tell you that,” he said sarcastically of the four-day trip.
Ryan gave several statements.
“I told them bits and pieces and told them some bullshit because I didn’t trust them at first,” he told me.
“I was only 17 and confused.”
Ryan came to trust Det-Insp John Noonan, one of the taskforce bosses.
He said that after testing Noonan with half-truths and lies he eventually told his version of the truth.
By the time the case went to trial, Ryan found himself bearing the weight of the prosecution case on his young shoulders.
The defence barristers hammered his credibility during cross-examination.
Ryan said the pressure and responsibility in the witness box became unbearable.
“I was a kid and the lawyers there were smart people. If I was lying, why wasn’t I charged with perjury? And if the magistrate didn’t see enough there in the 14 days of the committal hearing, why did he commit them to trial?
“I felt sick every time I went to court. I couldn’t explain things at the trial like I did at the committal. The defence lawyers just heard what they wanted to hear then they cut me off.”
Ryan went interstate after the Walsh St four were acquitted.
Ryan tried to stay away from crime, but fell back into old habits when things became too difficult.
During our time in Sydney he presented as a genuine young bloke with a rough edge, dry sense of humour and street smarts.
He was hard not to like, considering his shocking upbringing.
Ryan could have traded heavily on his background but did not sensationalise or seek pity.
“People can can me for whatever I’ve done in the past — I accept that,” he said.
“But I did stick me neck out (by testifying against my family). I thought I was doing the right thing. People should ask themselves what reason did I have to lie and give up me whole family.”
It wouldn’t be until 10 years later that we would speak again.
It was around the 20th anniversary of the Walsh St shootings, and Ryan still stood by his word.
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