The ‘monster’ in unit twelve, who murdered over a garden tap, will spend 24 years behind bars
An elderly Mordialloc man who shot his two neighbours over a garden tap dispute will likely die in jail after being sentenced.
News
Don't miss out on the headlines from News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Mordialloc “monster” Rodney Lee will likely die in jail after shooting his two neighbours dead in a fit of rage after they turned off the shared garden hose.
Lee, 74, who was wheeled into the Supreme Court of Victoria on Monday, will spend the next 24 years behind bars after pleading guilty to the murder of Saumotu Gasio, 62, and Tibor Lazslo, 72, in the communal garden of their suburban unit block on January 13, 2022.
Justice James Elliott, who noted that Lee was “highly likely” to spend the rest of his days in a cell, sentenced the self-described loner to a maximum of 30 years.
He will be eligible for parole at age 98.
“You murdered two people in their places of residence, where they’re entitled to feel safe,” Justice Elliott said.
“Both victims were completely defenceless against you.”
Justice James Elliott said while the senior citizen “not have many years to live”, his “disproportionate, senseless and brutally violent” crime and “very limited remorse” meant his moral culpability was “high”.
He noted a psychologist found Lee was “likely suffering from paranoid personality disorder”, saying he believed other inmates had been targeting him while in custody.
Lee’s sentencing comes as the surviving residents reveal what really happened on the day of the murders – “the day from hell”.
“He was evil”
Neighbours Janice Bateman and Bob Teear share more than the odd cup of sugar.
For years, the communal garden of their Mordialloc unit block was a space for cold beers on summer nights and long conversations between neighbours.
People were friendly, with the exception of one man, the “monster” in unit twelve.
Rodney Lee, 74, is “evil”, Ms Bateman says, perched on her blue armchair.
The 24-year-resident of the social housing block says, for 10 years, she watched the “strange” and “bitter” old man spiral from “thief” to cold-blooded murderer.
He liked “dominating people”, Mr Teear adds from across the small living room of the ground floor unit.
“If anyone left anything outside he’d knock it off. He was barred from quite a few places, the hotels, the Mordialloc men’s club.”
But there was, for years, one thing that would trigger a burning rage inside Lee more than anything else.
On an afternoon not long before what the residents describe as “the day from hell”, Ms Bateman was standing in the garden. To Lee’s horror, the shared garden tap had been switched off.
“He was screaming. He was frothing at the mouth, he was in a rage,” Ms Bateman recalls.
“He spat in my face.”
“Police charged him and warned me to stay away.”
Months later, on January 13 last year, police would return to the units, but this time, Mr Teear says they missed their chance to save two lives.
“I was sitting under the tree. I noticed that the tap was on so I went and turned it off,” he recalls.
“That’s when Rod stormed over, bare chested and … he ran towards me with a chair, prongs out and he knocked me down.”
But Ms Bateman says the officers failed to take a statement from Mr Teear.
“If that policeman had gone and arrested Rod, none of this would have happened.”
“The night from hell”
That night, Lee would unleash an hour of madness after discovering the hose had been switched off again, turning the green garden into a bloodied war zone in an attempt to massacre his neighbours.
A group of residents had gathered in the garden to escape the stifling heat in their units when a furious Lee stormed out and demanded to know who turned the tap off.
“Water is precious,” Saumotu “Saul” Gasio, a resident of the unit block, told him.
Lee stomped back to his unit. He grabbed his shotgun from under his bed.
Moments later, Ms Bateman, who had walked back to her unit, heard a “bang”.
Lee had blasted Mr Gasio, 62, in the shoulder, sending the group scrabbling for cover.
Mr Gasio, wounded, stumbled into Ms Bateman’s unit, and collapsed in front of her and her grandson.
“Our darling Saul falls through the door. My grandson Keegan, who was working on the couch, went white and I saw him just leap over this and he’s grabbing tea towels out and trying to keep him alive,” she says.
Despite the 40 year age gap, Mr Gasio and Keegan had struck an unlikely friendship and even had plans to start a business together.
“Saul was like a grandfather to him. He was saying to him, it’s all right, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”
Meanwhile, Mr Teear, feet still planted on the grass near where Lee had opened fire moments earlier, was frozen in fear.
“Our neighbour Peter grabbed me and he said run,” Mr Teear recounts.
“We were trying to bash the fence down at the back (of the units) when Peter turned around and saw Rodney loading the gun.”
Both men desperately jumped the fence.
“I have not cried so much in my life,” he says.
As they ran for help, Keegan was still trying to revive Mr Gasio, but Ms Bateman says they were like sitting ducks in her unit.
“It was open slather,” she said.
“The door was open and Rodney was wandering around with the gun.
“Keegan had Saul in his arms.
“I remember him screaming, no nanna, no.”
Ms Bateman decided to run for help.
“I said I love you, as I was going out the door,” she recounts.
But as she was escaping, Lee shot at her, she says.
“He just missed me.”
Another resident, Tibor Laszlo, a Hungarian expat who had rushed to Mr Gasio’s aid, saw Lee trudging towards the pair, before aiming the gun at Keegan.
In a moment of heroism, Mr Laszlo placed himself between the young man and the end of Lee’s barrel.
“Tibor jumped in front of Keegan. He was also shot,” Ms Bateman says.
Ms Bateman says her grandson refused to leave the dying men’s sides, later telling her what he had told them in their last moments.
“He said, ‘I kissed Saul and I kissed Tibor and said, I’ll see you in heaven,” she says.
Minutes later, Mr Teear watched “police come from everywhere”.
“Rodney came out of his unit with the gun pointed at them.”
A remorseless Lee, in his police interview, bragged about the senseless killings, admitting he’d shot them both out of anger.
Saumotu Gasio
Meanwhile, police called Mr Gasio’s son, Rasta, but could not tell him how his father had died.
Mr Gasio, a well-known martial arts teacher, father of eight and grandfather of eight, had been placed into a coma three years earlier after a triple bypass.
So when Rasta got the call, he thought it must’ve been a heart attack.
He would only find out three days later that his black belt-donning dad was shot dead by a 74-year-old.
By then, the police tape had cleared and Rasta says he could see blood stains on the ground.
“We saw where he was shot and there was still blood all over the ground,” he says.
Rasta and his two siblings, Jeorja and Damien, sitting just steps away from where their father died on the floor of his neighbours unit, say it will forever pain them to know he was “blindsided” and couldn’t defend himself.
Rasta, who was expecting a child at the time, recalls telling his dad he and his partner were having a baby on the very bench he got shot.
“He was born a few months after my dad’s death. I named him Marley, because dad was a big Bob Marley fan,” he explains.
Hundreds of people “lined up” to attend Mr Gasio’s funeral, including dozens of former martial arts students, he says.
“We had people telling us, your dad saved my life.”
Damien, who broke down in Bunnings when he got the call, says his dad was always his “protector” and would always “light up the room.”
Jeorja agreed, smiling. “It was all about love with dad.”
Tibor Laszlo
Unlike Mr Gasio, Mr Laszlo, a jeweller and impressive linguist, was killed thousands of miles from his family back home in Hungary.
But his memory will always live strong between the residents at the unit block.
Mr Teear, who was a good friend of Mr Lazlo, said the grandfather had only come down stairs because of the heat.
“Otherwise Tibor would still be here today.”
“I read the eulogy at Tibor’s funeral,” he says, holding back tears.
“It was the hardest thing I ever did.”
In the Supreme Court of Victoria earlier this year, Lee’s lawyer, Andrew Waters, said his client had “snapped” when the hose to his vegetable garden was switched off.
But Mr Teear says the senior citizen’s supposed love for the garden was complete “bulls — t”.
“He didn’t even have a veggie patch. All he did was chop wood. He didn’t care for the garden,” Ms Bateman adds.
“He left the garden hose on all day and night just to spite us”
Victorians homing in on haunted hotspots
Home prices are surging in the Melbourne and Victorian suburbs connected with some of the state’s most-haunted locations. And more of us could soon be sharing our property with a phantom.
Man arrested after woman’s body found in South Morang
A man is in custody after a woman was found dead in a home in Melbourne’s northeast on Monday morning.