Hitman: Christopher Flannery, the Melbourne boy who became killer so volatile crooks turned against him

As a boy, Christopher Flannery had already raped, owned guns and assaulted police. When he was later nicknamed Rent-A-Kill, it wasn’t by being one of nature’s gentlemen.

Christopher Dale Flannery was a Brunswick boy who murdered in Melbourne then consolidated his gruesome record north of the border.

It is not completely clear how many lives he took but you don’t earn the nickname Rent-A-Kill by being one of nature’s gentlemen.

His volatility meant that, in the end, even other criminals were sick of him – with fatal consequences.

As with so many of his contemporaries and those before him, Flannery had the formative experience of living in a boy’s home in his youth.

His time in the cruel, abusive environment at the Morning Star boy’s home in Mount Eliza is suspected of having plenty to do with the man he became.

As a teen, Christopher Flannery had convictions for rape, gun crimes, assaulting police.

By his late teenage years, Flannery had convictions for rape, gun crimes, assaulting police, car theft and burglary.

In prison, he made useful criminal connections and they expanded greatly when he was released.

Flannery became known as an enthusiastic bash artist and soon graduated to the role of contract killer.

His first victim is believed to have been Melbourne lawyer Roger Wilson, who vanished in February, 1980.

Wilson’s Porsche 911 was found at Tullamarine Airport, opening the possibility he had bolted overseas.

What police soon came to suspect was that Wilson had been on his way home to Nar Nar Goon when Flannery and fellow underworld figure Kevin “Weary” Williams posed as police and pulled him over.

Widow Kathleen leaves a news conference after results of inquest into death of missing husband Christopher Flannery in 1994. Picture: Greg Newington

They cuffed Wilson and drove him to Pakenham, shot him dead, and buried him.

A prosecution witness in the Wilson matter, Deborah Boundy, disappeared, presumed murdered, during the proceedings.

She had recanted on her decision to give evidence, but that was clearly not enough reassurance for somebody.

There were persistent suggestions the late Melbourne gangland figure Alphonse Gangitano had some role in her vanishing.

Flannery and Williams were in 1981 acquitted by a Supreme Court jury which deliberated for 14 days in the Wilson case.

As soon as he was freed, Flannery was arrested for the 1979 Sydney murder of brothel operator Raymond Locksley.

He was not acquitted until 1984 but is believed to have stayed busy in the interim.

In 1982, former Painter and Docker and high-level drug syndicate member Terrence Basham came into Flannery’s sights.

Basham was reputedly in dispute with heavy members of the gang, who contacted Rent-A-Kill for a resolution.

Funeral of Tony Anderson at Botany Cemetery in 1985.

He travelled to Murwillumbah in northern New South Wales and shot dead both Basham and his partner Susan Smith.

Their two-year-old child was unhurt.

Flannery would later become a bodyguard for feared Sydney crime boss George Freeman.

But those who knew him said he always struggled to control aggressive and violent urges.

His increasingly erratic and drug-addled behaviour, along with a famously unsuccessful hit, would ultimately be a big part of his undoing.

In 1984, he almost killed undercover detective Michael Drury in an extraordinary shooting at the cop’s Sydney home.

That attempt was financed by Melbourne drug dealer Alan Williams, whose activities and freedom were under serious threat from Drury’s work back in Victoria.

The failed killing brought enormous heat on many people – not the least of them crooked Sydney detective Roger Rogerson – and Flannery’s fortunes were on the decline.

He was at war with underworld strongman Tom Domican, trading terrifying drive-by shootings with him and lashing out with unnecessary aggression at the wrong people.

In 1985, associate Tony Eustace was shot dead in the Sydney suburb of North Arncliffe.

Two children found Eustace dead beside his gold Mercedes.

Flannery is thought to have been the culprit but Eustace was famously uncooperative with his dying words.

“Fuck off,” he is said to have told police when they asked who had shot him.

There are many versions of what happened to Flannery after he vanished a month later.

What is not in doubt is that powerful and dangerous underworld figures and corrupt police were in furious agreement that he’d outstayed his welcome.

The most popular theory is that he was lured to Freeman’s home to check out a machinegun, then murdered.