‘We would never give up’: Family of slain Terry Black still desperate for answers 25 years after his brutal killing

Terry Black’s siblings are clutching onto the last hope of uncovering who murdered their brother 25 years ago — but say the case slipped through the cracks while the nation was gripped by Melbourne’s underworld killings.

Pam Garamszegi says she doesn’t call the Cold Case unit for updates on her brother’s brutal murder anymore.

The last time she dialled their number three years ago, a detective told her: “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

From the moment two young children discovered Terrence Black’s battered body in Gladysdale in 2000, homicide detectives told Pam and his brothers Steve and Lindsay that his murder would go cold.

The detectives’ prediction has rung true to this day — Terry’s killers have never been caught.

“If you’re a decent, honest person, you’re not as newsworthy as Carl Williams,” Terry’s brother Steve Black says.

Terry Black's murder has remained unsolved since his body was discovered in the Little Yarra River in June 2000. Picture: Supplied

Terry’s brother Lindsay reported him missing to police on May 18.

Two children playing at the back of their rural property found Terry’s body caught up in some shrubbery in the Little Yarra River in Gladysdale on June 16.

By the time investigators began looking into Terry’s murder, more than a month had passed since his death.

The Britannia Ridge Caravan Park in Yarra Junction.

Little Yarra River where Terry's body was found

He was murdered when Melbourne was in the grips of the latest wave of brazen gangland killings.

Terry was 59.

He loved cars, fishing, the Australian bush and spending time outdoors.

He drank too much, but the only person he harmed with that habit was himself, Pam says.

He enjoyed a quiet, reclusive life living at the Yarra Junction Caravan Park.

He had never once been in trouble with the law and he got on well with people.

He had been married and divorced and had a son and daughter.

His ex-wife and partner at the time of his murder would later sit next to one another at his funeral.

Two children found Terry’s body a month after he was reported missing.

The day before the children found Terry, now slain gang boss Carl Williams shot Mark Moran to death as he climbed out of his white Holden Ute outside his Aberfeldie home.

At the time Moran was shot, detectives were already chasing down career criminal Richard Mladenich’s killers after he was killed with a single bullet in the Esquire Hotel in St Kilda in May.

Carl Williams.

Mark Moran.

And just a week before that, Frank Benvenuto was shot dead in the driveway of his Beaumaris home.

Droves of detectives were seconded to Victoria Police’s Purana taskforce in a bid to end the underworld war, which would rage on for another decade.

“Because he wasn’t a gangster or he wasn’t in the drug trade, he wasn’t a so-called Melbourne identity, he was just ignored and it has been that way for the last 25 years,” Pam says as she opens up about Terry’s murder on the 25-year anniversary of the day his body was found, softly thumbing through an A5 photo album full of pictures of Terry throughout his life.

Terry was living a reclusive life before his murder. Picture: Supplied

Little was made of Terry’s disappearance when Lindsay first raised the alarm with police, who believed the reclusive older man had taken off from the caravan park, which neighbours today recall was also used as a sort of halfway house among recent parolees.

It is understood that inmates at Pentridge Prison used to pass the park’s phone number throughout the cells ahead of a prisoner’s release.

Before its ownership changed hands in the early 2000s, Terry was living his quiet existence in a cost-effective hideaway alongside people often relegated to the fringes of the community, surrounded only by dilapidated cabins, tall scrub and a handful of neighbours who had been dealt the same rough hand in life.

But Terry was different.

He was a cleanskin — he had no criminal record — and at one stage had run a tyre business with Lindsay.

The pair knew late race car legend Bob Jane from when they ran their shop in Brunswick up the street from Jane, whose namesake has become one of the most successful tyre retailers in the country.

Terry would see Lindsay regularly and write to Pam.

He had visited Steve in Sydney who had been living in NSW for work.

But by June 2000, Terry had not touched his bank accounts for weeks.

Detectives concluded that the last reliable sighting of Terry was between 9 and 10am on May 5, when he was spotted in the car park of the Yarra Junction Safeway.

The Yarra Junction toilet block where Terry Black may have been murdered.

His killers had beaten him to death across the street, inside a toilet block at the Yarra Junction Football Oval that day, before they threw his body into the Little Yarra River.

Terry showed no signs of having drugs or alcohol in his system when he died.

A detective told Pam that Terry had been found dead over the phone.

“I just started screaming … I dropped to my knees,” Pam says.

“They just threw him into the creek like rubbish.

“They (suspects) don’t deserve to sleep at night. You wouldn’t do it to a dog, what they did to Terry.”

It then fell to Pam to deliver the tragic news to the siblings’ elderly father, who later died still aching for answers about who killed Terry, and why.

“You never expect that you’re going to be telling your father that his oldest son’s body has been found. He was never the same after that,” Pam says.

Pam had to deliver the tragic news about Terry’s death to her father.

For long-term Yarra Junction locals, Terry’s name has become synonymous with his horrific end.

“It is a terrible thing hanging over you all the time. It’s just a dark shadow that you’ll never, never get rid of,” Steve says.

Steve says the delayed start of Terry’s murder investigation could be why his killers have remained free.

“They (police) did a terrible job … the early part of it ... because of all the gangland killings,” he says.

“They make out everybody’s equal, but they’re not.”

Pam says Detective Senior Sergeant Peter Trichias’ visit to her home in 2018 was the first time a detective had come to her door to discuss Terry’s case face-to-face in 17 years.

“It was the first time there’s been any kindness,” Pam says.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman told the Herald Sun that detectives carried out an “extensive investigation” into his death and had interviewed several people.

Steve says he was not one of those people, and called for detectives to speak with him about Terry’s death.

“They dropped the ball and by then it was too late,” he said.

In the two decades since Terry was slain, police have narrowed down their hunt to three people, among them Carl Toivonen, who lived in the same caravan park as Terry.

Speaking to the Herald Sun, Mr Toivonen declared his innocence, saying he had no idea what happened to Terry.

“I just want the truth known, that’s all,” he said.

Suspect Carl Toivonen.

When asked why Terry’s siblings and the police believe he may have been involved in Terry’s death, Mr Toivonen took aim at the grieving sister and brothers, urging them to “get their facts straight”.

Police posted a $100,000 reward for information about Terry’s murder in 2004.

That amount was raised to $1m in 2018, but like many other rewards on offer for unsolved cases, the money has not prompted any breakthroughs.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said Terry’s case remained open.

“Our thoughts remain with Terrence’s family on this anniversary,” she said.

“Any new information provided to police will be thoroughly investigated.”

More than two decades later, Terry Black’s siblings know their time to fight for answers is running out.

Terrence Black's siblings Lindsay, Pam and Stephen talk to media when the million-dollar reward was announced. Picture: Ellen Smith

Pam is 75, Steve is in his late 60s and Lindsay, 81, has suffered several strokes that have rendered him too sick to visit Terry’s grave.

Terry would have been 84 this year.

Pam fears that once she, Steve and Lindsay are gone, he will lose his only anchor to justice, the only way the Cold Case unit will remember his name.

His murder is one of more than 200 cold cases in homicide squad archives.

“We would never give up on this, ever, but there will come a day when we’re all gone and there won’t be any memory of him,” Pam says.

“Someone’s got to know something.”

The $1m reward remains on offer for information that leads to the conviction of Terry’s killer, or killers.

Anyone with information should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report at www.crimestoppers.com.au.