Hells Angels contract killer now a sad prison figure
The man who killed for the Hells Angels for a $10k bounty, which police believe led to the murder of his former partner as she slept next to their young son, now cuts a sad figure from his “s--thouse with a bed” prison cell.
Police & Courts
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The man who killed for the Hells Angels now cuts a far-from fearsome figure in the 19th century cell he calls his “Turdis”.
Gerald Preston took a $10,000 contract to carry out the execution-style slaying of Les Knowles and, in the process, his mate Tim Richards in Adelaide in 1996.
It was a course of action which almost certainly led to the murder of his former partner, Vicki Jacobs, in Bendigo three years later.
Ms Jacobs was shot dead as she slept next to her six-year-old son, Ben, who Preston had fathered.
The killer – with a minimum 32 years to lament his circumstances – has written online in recent years of his seemingly optimistic hopes of patching things up with Ben.
“I have an adult son, whom I’ve had no contact with throughout my sentence. I hope one day he finds his way to getting in touch with me.”
Preston is serving a life term for the brutal hit on drug dealer Knowles and his mate Richards at Knowles’ auto repair business in suburban Lonsdale in 1996.
His Supreme Court trial would hear Preston took a $10,000 fee from Melbourne-based Hells Angel Terrence Tognolini to carry out the contract, which investigators believe was sparked by friction in the drug trade.
Preston walked into the Lonsdale office and asked Knowles and Richards which of them was Les.
There was no right answer.
Preston simply shot them both before turning his attention to a third man, Kym Traeger.
Mr Traeger made the wise decision to bolt rather than fumble for 100 points of ID, otherwise he would have fared much worse than suffering a gunshot wound to the wrist.
South Australian major crime detective Gerry Feltus would later give a chilling assessment of the man who sits in an old prison cell with his regrets.
“He was a very cool, calm criminal. He was meticulous in planning his crimes and carrying them out,” Mr Feltus told the Sunday Mail’s Nigel Hunt.
“He was also remorseless. At Lonsdale, he was prepared to kill everyone in the workshop just to make sure his target Les Knowles was dead.’’
Vicki Jacobs was a prosecution witness at the Preston trial but later refused witness protection.
In 1999, a killer calmly walked into her home and shot her six times in the head and chest with a silenced weapon as little Ben slept beside her.
Detectives were in no doubt that the killing was precipitated by her decision to give evidence back in Adelaide a year earlier and that the Hells Angels were behind it.
No one has ever been charged over the Jacobs murder.
But, at a later inquest, Coroner Phillip Byrne determined that “the fingers of suspicion point squarely at Gerald Preston, Terrence Tognolini and his associates as implicated in the death of Ms Jacobs’’.
Preston, who does not hold Australian citizenship, will be deported to his native Scotland at the end of his term over the Knowles-Richards killings.
For now, he sits in a cell at Adelaide’s Yatala Prison, having failed in previous attempts to be transferred early to a United Kingdom prison.
“Locked down 19 hours, my ‘Groundhog Days’ are spent engaging in disciplined routine, obsessively battling the ravages of time and the dearth of challenging mental stimulation-hygiene, exercise, correspondence and self-education are my treadmills,” he wrote on the iexpress website.
“My current domicile is an 1860s gaol cell, retrofitted with lighting, electricity, intercom and exposed plumbing. The polished stainless-steel toilet dominates the space and make poignant statement – shithouse with a bed! Minimalist decor from the past with portals (radio and TV) to the 21st century- I call it my Turdis.”
As for seeing his son again.
“Hope springs eternal,” he wrote.
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