Deadline: One of the final links to Melbourne’s great Picasso scandal, Race Mathews, laid to rest

Almost four decades on, one of the main players in Melbourne’s great art scandal — the theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman from NGV — has been laid to rest.

The barren wall at NGV where the stolen Picasso painting was displayed before it was nicked in 1986.

Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with their weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.

Picasso theft tested race

It’s almost four decades since the sensational theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman from the National Gallery of Victoria.

One heavyweight figure pulled into the drama was Race Mathews, who will be farewelled this week with a state memorial at the Arts Centre Melbourne.

The theft of the $1.6 million Picasso on August 2, 1986 thrust the mild-mannered politician into the spotlight.

As the state’s police minister, also saddled with the arts portfolio, he faced stereophonic fallout over the actions of the thieves — the self-proclaimed Australian Cultural Terrorists.

A ransom letter received soon after the heist demanded a 10 per cent increase in arts funding among other changes to help struggling artists — including a new art prize called The Picasso Ransom. If the demands weren’t met in seven days, they threatened, they’d burn the painting.

1A photo of the Picasso painting stolen from the National Gallery of Victoria is held before the empty frame being examined by Sen-Det Tony Jay.

No one could deny the art terrorists had a way with words.

Their correspondence called the minister “Rank” Mathews and a “tiresome old bag of swamp gas” and a “pompous fathead”, not really the stuff an MP would put on his business card.

It should be noted that the urbane Mathews took the insults with his customary good humour. While, behind the scenes, police worked hard to recover the uninsured masterpiece.

A second ransom demand, which ominously came with a burnt match, made the risks clear. Would the thieves panic and destroy the Picasso rather than be caught with it?

Another possibility was that the letters were a ruse aimed to divert attention from professional criminals who might be smuggling the work out of the country to sell to a black market buyer.

Race Mathews with Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mick Miller as police work to crack the case.

Then, 17 days after the theft, came a breakthrough.

A third letter arrived saying Weeping Woman was in locker 227 at Spencer St railway station. Police went there and, in the presence of NGV director Patrick McCaughey, turned the key.

Inside was a brown paper package exactly the dimensions of the missing painting, as indeed it was. The case has remained unsolved and the odds of that changing are extremely long despite suspicions and speculation about this person or that.

It has thrown up at least one novel and a documentary and a semi-factual work (titled “Framed”) by the brother of artist Peter Rosson, who was blamed for the theft by police acting on a tip-off.

The arrest ruined Rosson’s career and he took his own life in 2002. It was never clear whether the authorities paid out the promised $50,000 reward for the tip-off that framed him for the theft.

Unlike a lot of crooks, those responsible can keep a secret and don’t sell each other out.

Several people must know exactly who did what but they have stayed as silent as a mafia wife.

The front page of The Sun on August 5, 1986.

Getting back to Race Mathews, his memorial service outlined a career which began as a teacher and speech therapist.

Before standing for state parliament, he served as principal private secretary to Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and worked on what would become Medicare.

In Victoria, he led reforms that strengthened child protection, modernised the police force, tightened gun laws and improved emergency response after the killer Ash Wednesday fires.

He compared well with his latter-day counterparts at Spring St.

Mr Cruel theories (cont.)

Some people do Wordle or watch Netflix or play pickleball or collect interesting mushrooms. Others just work on their Mr Cruel theories.

Mr Cruel theorists come in all shapes and sizes and from all over the globe, it seems. What they come up with are perfect examples of how circumstantial cases can sound persuasive yet be as nutty as a fruitcake.

There’s the guy in the United States, somewhere like Ohio, who has painstakingly combed the internet for years for the long-range “clues” that he says “prove” that Mr Cruel is actually one of Melbourne’s retired senior journalists.

The internet sleuth has traced the alleged child abductor, let’s call him Rusty, from his childhood home somewhere around Ivanhoe to his various other homes and at least three marriages, including one stint overseas.

The American has “proven” that Rusty has had access to an army revolver because his late father (shock revelation) had served in World War II.

Police sketch of the dark green balaclava used by Mr Cruel.

It’s a long and convoluted theory that involves house plans, job movements and much else. But it’s no more complicated than the one dreamt up by the inner-suburban professional who got a lawyer to prepare a non-disclosure document for Deadline to sign before revealing her painstakingly built Mr Cruel theory with a full-scale slide show presentation with diagrams, maps and old newspaper clippings.

He was sure he had the evildoer in her sights, right down to a corner house with just the right layout of driveway, et cetera.

The big flaw in the investigation, he confided, was that the police check of several thousand dwellings got it wrong because if you look at the guilty house from the front it doesn’t appear you match the layout of the house described by one of the abducted girls.

But, he said, if investigators had gone around the corner to enter by the tall side gate in the tall side fence, it revealed exactly the lay-out that they were looking for: with a certain-sized step up into a certain door and so on.

This theory, of course, was far from crazy, merely statistically unlikely. Somehow, somewhere, Mr Cruel slipped through the net — and it’s maybe it’s possible that a corner house with two driveway entrances could be overlooked by overworked investigators driving around looking for a needle in a haystack. But it’s a big maybe.

The devasted parents of Mr Cruel victim Karmein Chan in 1991.

Another theorist tells us that people think she’s crazy. She says she not only knows who Mr Cruel is, but she knows that he’s actually two people, and one of the two is her father.

As a bonus, she also claims to have the answers to several other cold cases. This would be handy for the homicide squad. If true.

Then there’s the bloke from Balwyn who calls Deadline regularly. He’s a regular suburban dad apart from the fact he’s sure he has been living next door to the real Mr Cruel for many years. Right back, he says, to when his suspect’s short-lived marriage fell apart and the oddball neighbour started to go on South-East Asian holidays rather too regularly.

The Balwyn source is mystified why police don’t act on his tip-off and “check out” the neighbour and his house, which he is confident fits the description that one of the victims provided. He admits he can’t be exactlysure of that bit because he’s never actually been inside the house and doesn’t want to act like a snoop or stoop to trespassing. Hmmm.

One thing is certain. This posse of obsessives can’t all be right. Neither can all the other several thousand Mr Cruel hunters out in the world, each one sure they have the monster in their sights.

After 30 years, tracking Mr Cruel seems an awfully long shot. Almost as unlikely as an arrest over the Easey St murders after nearly five decades was until last September.

Murphy’s lore

The worth of Country Fire Authority volunteers was highlighted during the Ash Wednesday bushfires of 1983. One who distinguished himself on that dark day, February 16, was Kerry Murphy.

Captain of Mt Macedon CFA at the time, Murphy led two units monitoring a fire that had started at Riddells Creek and burned through the forest for two weeks before being fanned by high winds and extreme heat.

A sudden wind change put all the other local firetrucks hopelessly behind a big fire in Wombat state forest, which within minutes was racing towards Mt Macedon. Only Murphy’s two crews stood between the fire front and the township.

The quiet heroism of Kerry Murphy and his crews were remembered this week. Picture: David Crosling

They fought to save those houses they thought they could save without dying in the process. Telephones were down and water ran dry, forcing them to pump from swimming pools.

Seven people died in Macedon and Mt Macedon that night and more than 400 homes were lost. Of the 45 members of Mt Macedon CFA, 23 lost their homes. Many, such as Kerry Murphy, worked for days without sleep.

The quiet heroism of Kerry Murphy and his crews was remembered this week when a big gathering farewelled him at his memorial service at the Mt Macedon brigade. He’d been a member for 52 years and had risen to be CFA board chairman.

His honours included the Public Service Medal, Australian Fire Services Medal, Centenary Medal, National Medal and CFA Life Membership. None of which matters compared with what he and others did in that terrible 24 hours in 1983.

The late-model Renault going rogue through Leo Hoffman Reserve.

VIP or FW?

Newport in Melbourne’s west has been blessed with a visit from a very important person on vital official business.

That’s one possible explanation for whoever drove his late-model Renault through Leo Hoffman Reserve last Tuesday morning.

Either that, or he’s just a complete peanut who didn’t think he should have to make a marathon trip around the block like everyone else.

He used the footpath as his own personal road, passing a children’s playground on a school morning.

The VIP visit ended when the driver exited over the pedestrian crossing used by students from a nearby primary school.

Attached is a grainy Bigfoot-style image captured by a Deadline contributor.

Not feeding the masses

Kebab lovers have a plethora of options in the northern suburbs but that hasn’t stopped YouTuber and former jailbird Spanian getting in on the giggle.

Sydney-based Spanian opened up shop in Preston amid considerable hullabaloo last week and hungry fans travelled from far and wide to taste his offerings.

It must be said that kebabs are probably a safer business option in Melbourne town than trying to move in on our volatile illicit tobacco or acai markets.

Competitive friction has led to a great many arsons in the outlaw smoke game sector and, more recently, firebombings of acai shops.

The grand opening of Spanian’s new Preston outlet created quite an impression with queues snaking down the street and police forced to manage traffic snarls.

Most of those wanting to get some of Spanians fare were turned away.

“Worse than Disneyland,” was one visitor’s assessment.

Spanian, who already has three kebab outlets in Sydney, is known for producing videos on the toughest neighbourhoods in the world, among them our very own Dandy Bong.

The drill rapper, real name is Anthony Lees, spent more than a decade behind bars then reinvented himself after his release in 2017.