Deadline: High country killer’s charity blue aired in court

When high country killer Greg Lynn’s history of donations were laid bare in court last week, one of his acts of charity raised eyebrows.

Greg Lynn leaves the Supreme Court last week. Picture: Jason Edwards

Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with the latest crime buzz.

Charity begins at home — but ends in jail

IT’S possible that high country killer Greg Lynn will revise his charity donations in future. One reason being that his future is likely to be limited to a prison cell for a long time.

As part of a sentencing plea for the murder of Carol Clay, Lynn’s barrister Dermott Dann outlined various charitable donations made over the years by the former Jetstar pilot.

Mr Dann, doing his level best for his client but scratching for material, pointed out that in the material seized by police during their searches, bank records showed that one of the debits was for “a contribution to the Blue Ribbon Foundation,” Justice Michael Croucher said in the Supreme Court last week.

The Foundation exists to remember fallen police and “to show all serving members of Victoria Police that their work and commitment are valued by a caring community.”

Friends in the big house

Prison can build unexpected friendships between all kinds of people.

Word has filtered beyond jail walls that crime matriarch Judy Moran and femme fatale stripper Robyn Lindholm have become good buddies over the years behind bars.

Moran has been back on the wrong side of the razor wire at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Deer Park for months after a spell in hospital. She is reportedly in good spirits, optimistic about a new freedom bid.

Our corrections sources say she and Lindholm, regarded as influential and well-behaved inmates, have been close mates for some time as they serve out long stretches.

Lindholm with Wayne Amey.

A young Lindholm. Picture: Supplied

Of course, Moran and Lindholm have some things in common. They both orchestrated the murders of men they knew, for a start.

Judy had her brother-in-law Des “Tuppence” Moran shot dead in an Ascot Vale cafe back in 2009.

Lindholm persuaded Wayne Amey to murder her lover, George Templeton, at Reservoir in 2005.

Amey took over as Lindholm’s beau. Right up until she persuaded two other men to kill him in northern Victoria in 2013.

Lindholm is led into court in 2019. Picture: AAP

Judy Moran leaves the Supreme Court after she is found guilty of murder.

One observer tells us Lindholm and Moran would also have shared a long-lost connection with slain gangster Alphonse Gangitano.

Lindholm was reputedly one of Big Al’s many lovers in his heyday and Moran was linked to him via her family’s Carlton Crew crime activities.

In June, the Herald Sun revealed Moran’s plan to make an extraordinary bid for freedom via a petition of mercy.

He made it out, with a bullet in his back

The 2004 murder of security guard Jason Gully outlined at the weekend by Deadline’s colleague Olivia Jenkins reminds us of one of the state’s most bizarre court applications.

Gully was shot dead at the Freccia Azzurra Club in Keysborough when three armed bandits barged into the venue 20 years ago.

Jenkins’ Sunday Herald Sun story explained how his widow, Olive, had recently gone inside prison to meet the man who fired the fatal shots, one Wally White.

The events of that night led to an unorthodox attempt at evidence gathering from the torso of one of White’s accomplices.

It seems that Gully, who had been called to work after an earlier holdup attempt, also managed to pull the trigger during the chaos.

Olive Gully’s husband, Jason, was murdered in November 2004. Picture: Tony Gough

Jason Gully, with his son and wife Olive.

Homicide squad detectives wanted Tame Kohunui, then 25, to be forced to undergo surgery to have the bullet removed from his back.

They were convinced the slug had come from Gully’s gun and that ballistic tests would prove Kohunui’s part in the crime.

Video footage gave some compelling indicators, showing Kohunui being shot, falling over then dashing from the club.

“He has a round hole in his back and there’s no exit wound,” detective Sgt Steve White said at the time.

The Office of Public Prosecutions eventually abandoned the surgery request after receiving advice it would exceed the provisions for the gathering of intimate samples.

As it happened, it didn’t matter and Kohunui was jailed for his role in the robbery and homicide.

For the avoidance of doubt, as lawyers like to add, Sgt White is not and has never been related to the aforesaid felon Wally White. Whose full name is most likely Walter White, which figures when you consider his choice of occupation.

A fare old belting

A Melbourne taxi driver has learned the hard way not to underestimate the guile of the elderly.

One of our ever-vigilant contacts has informed us of the case of the driver, who was driving home an “old duck” (his description, not ours) and started to put on undue pressure for a tip.

The passenger said she didn’t have any cash on her but she would be able to get some once they arrived at her home.

The cabbie then accompanied the vulnerable little old lady inside, which was his big mistake. Because waiting for him there was her son, who was not at all vulnerable and very fond of his dear old mum.

Our source said the driver was given an old-fashioned lesson in manners and mistreatment of the elderly before being sent on his way, sadder and wiser.

Farewell to the king of Flemington

A lot of nice things are said about the departed at funerals, not all of them strictly true. But when racing priest Fr Joe Giacobbe fronted a huge crowd of mourners in the Flemington mounting yard on Monday, it made a change from his days as the go-to clergyman for various casualties of the gangland wars.

For once, Fr Giacobbe didn’t have to gild the lily or sugar-coat the truth, because the loved one really was exactly that: much loved. The man in question being the “king of Flemington”, legendary clerk of course John Patterson, known throughout the horse-speaking world as “Patto”.

There were racing people there, to be sure, from suited VRC members and officials right through the ranks to bow-legged track riders, retired jockeys and strappers. But there were also hundreds from the wider horse world: stock horse breeders, harness enthusiasts, show riders, saddlers, ex-drovers — and horse breakers.

Patto, who led in a record 44 Melbourne Cup winners in a clerk-of-course career that started in the early 1960s, broke in thousands of horses over more than 60 years. One of them was a horse which (it can now be revealed) he’d also quietly helped to train, Gala Supreme, the 1973 Cup winner ridden by his great mate Frank Reys.

Flemington’s longest-serving clerk of course John ‘Patto’ Patterson.

Fr Giacobbe found the memorial service on the sun-kissed Flemington track much easier going than having to gloss over the evil doings of evil doers in gloomy churches.

Apart from many others, the punters’ priest did a heap of Moran family funerals when they were wiped out in the first four years of the century. He made a comeback appearance to the gangster church of choice, St Mary Star of the Sea in West Melbourne, for the funeral of alleged gangland lawyer “Pino” Acquaro in 2016.

It’s possible that the odd retired scallywag turned up to see Patto off on Monday because he treated everyone the same, from Prime Ministers to primary school kids.

There were certainly some retired jockeys there whose unedited exploits would make interesting reading. One being the legendary money rider Mick Mallyon, a tiny man who attended with his great mate, enormous former VFL ruckman Peter “Crackers” Keenan, one of several speakers in a two-hour service.

Another ex-jock was “Group One Gavin” Eades, who was wearing the complete Al Capone outfit, right down to his fedora hat. All that was missing was the violin case for the machine gun.

Eades, father of handy jockey Fred Kersley, and his brother Travis “The Albino” Eades have been in occasional bother over the years.

The police came knocking on their doors when colourful racing identity Les Samba was shot dead in Beaconsfield Pde, Middle Park, in February 2011. And again when Des “Tuppence” Moran was shot at in his Mercedes in Langs Rd next door to the racecourse, not long before he was shot dead in a cafe, as outlined in the first item above.

It was subsequently shown that neither Eades brother was involved in either killing.