Carl’s revenge: How Melbourne’s gangland war began

Lying in a hospital bed with a bullet in his stomach, Carl Williams told police he had no idea how it happened. He wasn’t interested in their brand of justice — he had his own plans.

The Moran’s attack on Carl Williams led to the downfall of the family.

As he lay wounded in hospital, Carl Williams tried to convey the impression of being bewildered about being shot.

Williams – whose lust for revenge would spark an era of gangland carnage – did not report the matter but police soon got wind of what was going on after x-rays found a bullet inside him.

Coburg Detective Greg Bliss and two other investigators dropped in to John Fawkner Hospital on the night of October 13, 1999, to ask him what he knew.

Williams, who should have been celebrating his 29th birthday, made the situation sound as innocent as possible.

He had been walking along a street in Broadmeadows when he was hit on the head, but did not see or hear anything, he said.

Williams had been wearing trackpants and a black and yellow windcheater but, oddly, those clothes had already been washed.

Carl Williams outside The County Court.

“He states that he saw his stomach and thought it was a graze,” Senior Constable Bliss wrote.

Williams told the police he was walking towards Broadmeadows shopping centre and woke up on vacant land near the TAFE after being unconscious for about five minutes.

“He stated nothing was stolen from him and that he still had $35 with him. He stated that he did not see or hear a car. He stated he then walked home’’ Sen-Const. Bliss said.

After arriving at home, he told his parents he had been hit, took a shower and treated the injury with Betadine.

They took him to hospital at 4.15pm after he became woozy as he tried to stand up.

“Williams at the time he was spoken to was coherent, however was experiencing discomfort due to the injury he had received,’’ Sen-Const. Bliss said.

“He was dazed and slow to reply. It was difficult to obtain detailed information from Williams. It was not possible to obtain a formal statement from Williams at that time as he was due to be operated on.’’

The truth was that Williams had been shot in the guts during a meeting with Jason and Mark Moran at a reserve in Gladstone Park.

Jason Moran.

Mark Moran.

A nearby resident heard someone say, “I promise, I’ll have it to you soon,” before shots.

That they were in some kind of drug dispute, possibly over a pill press and a related $400,000 debt,was not something Williams needed to tell the police about.

He just needed to get well, then get square.

And it was that thirst for revenge that triggered Melbourne’s gangland wars,which saw both Moran boys murdered among more than 30 tit-for-tat executions.

Jason had taunted Williams – who back in 1999 was considered far lower on the criminal tree – that he wanted his bullet back.

During a July 2004 police visit to Mick Thorneycroft – a cousin of Williams and a member of his gang – inside Port Phillip Prison, much of the discussion surrounded his recollections of Williams’ various run-ins with the Morans.

Mark Moran lies dead in his care outsdie his Aberfeldie home.

The Strathmore murder scene of Jason Moran, who was executed in a van in ront of his children.

Briefs detail how the prisoner told investigators that Williams had claimed the Morans had followed him to hospital after the 1999 Gladstone Park shooting.

One of them shouted something like “We want the bullet back, you f---ing dog,” Thorneycroft recalled his cousin saying. He then told the detectives that after the shooting of Mark Moran, Williams had said to Jason – while they had a short stint in prison together: “I got that bullet out and had it put in your brother.’’

Williams also told Thorneycroft one of the Morans kicked his wife Roberta’s car at a service station, in a separate incident.

Williams’ father George pulled out a gun at a boxing match and went to shoot one of the Morans, but the weapon jammed.

Lewis Moran, the father of Jason and stepfather of Mark, was also killed as Williams worked to wipe out the family.

It took the man known as “Fatboy’’ a little over four years.