Lead detective says Terry and Christine Hodson execution has ‘no chance’ of being solved

The lead detective in the murders of police informer Terry Hodson and his wife Christine says crucial information was kept from his crew while they investigated the execution-style crime.

The lead detective in the murders of police informer Terry Hodson and his wife Christine says there is no chance of the killing ever being solved.

It is 20 years this month since the Hodsons were shot execution-style at their Harp Rd, Kew, home, in a crime which still reverberates today.

Former homicide squad senior sergeant Charlie Bezzina said any prospect of justice being done for the events of May 16, 2004, was long gone.

Mr Bezzina said high-level police meddling, the secrecy of his superiors, the silence of those in the know and the deaths of key suspects meant there could never be a result.

There were elements that made the inquiry difficult and complex from the start.

Hodson was facing criminal charges over a 2003 burglary on a drug house at Oakleigh East, which he carried out with drug squad detective Dave Miechel.

He had agreed to testify that Miechel’s colleague Paul Dale was involved.

Hodson’s previous co-operation with police had become common knowledge in the underworld after the leaking of sensitive and dangerous intelligence reports outlining his assistance.

Terence and Christine Hodson.

“It was scattered around like confetti,” Mr Bezzina told the Herald Sun.

The former senior sergeant recalled interviewing high-profile criminal justice figures in the aftermath of the murders.

Among them was drug kingpin Tony Mokbel who, Mr Bezzina said, was linked to a fax machine used to distribute reports which exposed Hodson’s informing.

Mr Bezzina said Mokbel gave the appearance of being “nonplussed” when the evidence was put to him.

There have been subsequent attempts to persuade Mokbel to talk about what he knows of the events at Kew but he has declined.

Police suspect the Oakleigh East drug house, where $8.5 million in ecstasy was later found, was operated by Mokbel.

Miechel would ultimately be jailed and Hodson murdered before he could be prosecuted.

Dale was charged over the drug house burglary but the case was withdrawn after the death of Hodson.

He would later be charged with the murder of Hodson but the case was abandoned when drug boss Carl Williams – the star witness – was bludgeoned to death inside Barwon Prison in 2010.

Charlie Bezzina says 20 years on from the double murder there is no chance of it being solved.

Mr Bezzina also interviewed lawyer Nicola Gobbo, who had been co-operating with police.

He said she was “shitting herself”, concerned about her work with law enforcement being exposed, though this crucial information had been kept from Mr Bezzina and his crew at the time.

“There was no hope of us solving it,” Mr Bezzina said.

Gobbo was of interest to investigators to the point that the Petra Taskforce, which also examined the Hodson killings, put together a target profile on her.

“It is believed that Gobbo may have knowledge of intimate details of the planning of the murders of Terence and Christine Hodson,” was the document’s stated reason for her being under scrutiny when it was finally revealed in the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informers.

The Petra Taskforce put together a profile on Nicola Gobbo.

The leaking of the information reports on Hodson in the period after he agreed to testify over the Oakleigh burglary provided a challenging element to an already difficult gangland probe.

“That’s why our suspect pool was so large,” Mr Bezzina said.

Mr Bezzina said two men he was certain were principal players in the crime were dead.

He said there was no doubt feared gunman Rodney Charles Collins was the triggerman and that Williams had arranged the hit.

Police at the scene when the pair were killed in East Kew.

Collins died in jail from natural causes in 2018 and Williams was bludgeoned to death by prison heavy Matthew Johnson in 2010.

Mr Bezzina said there was no chance whoever paid for the hit would ever face justice.

The Hodsons’ daughter Mandy said the case was once solvable but that time had passed and it would always sit in a box.

“They didn’t want to divulge that she (Gobbo) was informing. We know who did it. It’s wrong. It’s an injustice,” she said.

Ms Hodson said her father would have turned 77 on Saturday (May 25).

She said on each anniversary of her parents’ deaths, she would play them songs and have a cry.

“Sometimes it seems like an eternity ago and sometimes it seems like yesterday,” Ms Hodson said.

Mr Dale, a former drug squad sergeant, has in the past made vehement denials of involvement in any wrongdoing.