Nick Martin murder: Police charge former soldier but questions remain
Not even Nick Martin’s wife knew anything was wrong with her bikie boss husband until he threw his arms in the air before he slumped to the ground.
National
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Through the heat, noise and dust kicked up by the dragsters at Perth’s Motorplex speedway that Saturday night, few spectators realised the man among them who suddenly fell to the ground had been shot.
Not even Nick Martin’s wife Amanda knew anything was wrong with her husband until he threw his arms in the air, brushed her side and gasped “babe I’ve been shot” as he slumped to the ground.
“No one knew that he’d been shot because … the noise, the cars, they didn’t know,” she would later recall of the night her husband, a former Rebels bikie boss, was murdered.
Someone called out “he’s had a heart attack”; but then they looked down and saw her hands which were holding his and were covered in blood.
Ms Martin’s daughter Stacey Schoppe and her partner Ricky Chapman, a former bikie, were sitting nearby and he too was crumpled on the ground.
The 51-year-old Martin had his gangster enemies and had been shot once before, about 10 years ago but his trackside death last December was a shock and sparked panic in the ranks of Western Australia police that a bikie war had just erupted.
Some time later police say a curious discovery was made – the bullet was fired from at least 300m away, through that heat, dust and noise and the packed public trackside seating tiers.
On Wednesday the assassination that has gripped the western side of the nation for months but attracted little attention elsewhere became a national news story as a 34-year-old former Special Forces soldier was charged with murder.
He was also charged with two counts of unlawful act or omission with intent to harm over the wounding of Chapman and a five-year-old boy sitting nearby hit by the murder bullet fragment.
The WA Supreme Court threw down a suppression order on his identity, due to serious concerns for his safety and that of his family, despite declaring it wouldn’t take “a rocket scientist” to establish just who the high-profile alleged shooter was.
He was remanded in custody to face court again, under some of the tightest security cordon ever seen in the state, on April 24.
But just why Martin was shot or whether he was the actual intended primary target remains a mystery as police continue to attempt to piece events and evidence together, the gaps in the case file evident as even after the former soldier was charged with murder they appealed for public information and continued to dangle a $1 million reward for evidence that leads to his conviction.
WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said today “come to the police or the police will come to you” as he warned organised crime groups they were being watched.
“We have a strong belief and concern that there are persons’ lives at risk here,” he said. “That’s why we are putting such a tight security blanket around the whole thing. You are dealing with unstable criminal gangs here, they are quite confused at the moment but they also need to be looking over the shoulder because we are after them.”
His words came as detectives found the barrel of the rifle allegedly used in the killing, seized CCTV footage and were reportedly making inroads into who had organised the contract killing and why.
The alleged shooter’s true background is not fully clear but his CV declares him as a former Australian SAS.
His circle of friends include celebrities and models.
While there is no evidence to suggest the current matter is link, WA has a long history of OMCG gangster wars that until the mid 1990s was dominated by the Coffin Cheaters and Gypsy Jokers.
In 1996 the Rebels, then the largest OMCG in Australia with hundreds of members from the East Coast notably Brisbane and Sydney, would eventually dispatch more violent members to WA to ensure the Rebels colours were maintained in the face of local OMCG opposition.
Such was the importance of the state the now exiled to Malta national Rebels president Alex Vella would personally visit on mass ride outs and anointed local man Nickolas Thomas Martin as State president.
Biker violence followed as the trade and trafficking of meth and money laundering grew.
When Martin was shot outside his Perth home in 2011 he joked for the media “better luck next time” as he pointed to the bullet holes on his bike and a bandage on his elbow.
The Rock Machine was suspected as the gangs made tit-for-tat shootings and fire bombings.
Around 2015 Victorian Comanchero boss Mick Murray was on holidays in Darwin when he was reportedly bashed by Rebels members sparking a side war back in Perth with east coast Comanchero members.
The Rebels began to buckle and splintered with some members crossing over to the rival Mongols.
Only last month Martin was taken to Royal Perth Hospital after a fight with a Hells Angels leader.
At the time of his death, the National Task Force Morpheus was also breathing down Angels’ neck, with the intelligence-led task force made up of police from every state looking at ever widening friction between east and west coast bikie clubs and the expansion of both their organised crime activities and networks.
Two months before the shooting a significant nationally co-ordinated police operation centred around WA but targeting the Hells Angels nationally led to more than two dozen arrests related to firearms, drugs and money laundering.
In December WA Police turned to Morpheus and particularly the Australian Criminal and Intelligence Commission’s Australian Gangs Intelligence Coordination Centre for help after the Martin murder but then forensics made a breakthrough and detectives began widening their list of suspects.
Originally published as Nick Martin murder: Police charge former soldier but questions remain
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