How Chinese pistol helped police solve taxi-driver murder

A body in Dandenong South. A blood-soaked taxi at a Cranbourne KFC. Only teamwork and persistence would unpick this murder mystery.

Police search Cameron Rudd’s cab in the hunt for clues.

• Rowland Legg is one of Victoria’s most experienced murder investigators. In a new series he delves into some of his strangest and most challenging cases.

Teamwork is vital in homicide investigations and in fact in most aspects of policing.

Every member of every crew is responsible for the squad’s very high rate of success.

The squad is assisted by an array of vital support services and from time to time the direct contribution of other detectives and general duties police. This investigation provides an insight as to the extent of the joint effort.

At 3am on Wednesday November 15, 2000, I was woken by the dreaded beeps. My return call revealed a deceased male had been discovered at the end of Centre Kirkham Road in Dandenong South, an industrial area.

I then telephoned the detective sergeant on a night shift suburban crime unit initially called to the scene. He informed me the deceased was wearing a taxi driver’s uniform, appeared to be aged in his late twenties or early thirties and had sustained a severe head injury.

Police at the scene of the murder in Dandenong South.

The two security company patrolmen who had found the body shortly after 2am were at the Dandenong Police Station making statements. As usual, an assurance was obtained from the sergeant that a large area around the crime scene was being secured.

A log-keeper is appointed from the time police first arrive in order to record all attending the scene with times of individuals’ entry and departure. He said inquiries were underway with Dandenong Taxis, Air Wing members were searching for the taxi and police were visiting operating factories nearby to gain information regarding any sounds heard and whether anything relevant had been observed.

I then again contacted D24 to have the on-call Crime Scene Examination Unit member call me and the on-call video operator and photographer called out. Although the detective at the scene suspected a firearm was involved, I delayed calling out a firearms expert until I had seen the deceased. My crew colleagues were also contacted and briefed.

THE MURDER SCENE

At the scene, on briefly examining the body it was evident to us a firearm was involved, having inflicted a wound to the lower left rear of the head. After all those called out had arrived, the customary briefing was conducted covering everything known and what initial action had been taken by responding police, ambulance and exactly by whom.

For example, it is always important to ascertain whether a body has been, by necessity, moved or interfered with by paramedics.

By this stage it had been suggested the victim was taxi driver Cameron Rudd and we had obtained the description and number of the cab he had been driving since 4.05pm on 14/11.

The identity later proved to be correct. We discovered he had been seen by another taxi driver in Cranbourne at 9.55pm on the previous evening and the last contact with him was at 10.32pm. Inquiries were still being conducted in order to identify and contact his current partner and his ex-wife.

Homicide Squad detectives attended their addresses within several hours. He had two young children.

Cameron Rudd with wife Janeme on his wedding day.

Mr Rudd was a father to two young children.

Many inquiries of an investigative nature were also continuing, including all police radio channels and taxi companies’ communications broadcasting a description of the taxi.

We obviously wanted it found urgently and protected as a crime scene. There was the added consideration that the offender may still be driving the car.

Personnel were also arranged for a line search. Shortly after 8am the on-call pathologist and firearms expert attended at my request. The gunshot was confirmed.

THE SECONDARY SCENE

Just after 9am came the welcome news that the taxi had been located and detectives from Cranbourne were in attendance at that secondary scene. It had been abandoned in the car park of a KFC outlet at the intersection of High and Brunt Streets in Cranbourne. The local detectives had the car park secured, statements were being taken from KFC staff and “door knocks” were being conducted.

A line search was later arranged. Two members of the crew were then sent there along with the photographer and video operator. The fingerprint expert would follow to carry out exterior printing and the taxi then transported to the forensic science centre for a thorough internal examination.

Unidentified prints were revealed. One fingerprint was in blood, a palm print was on the rear driver’s side passenger door and another fingerprint was below it.

I arrived at Cranbourne shortly before 10am after arranging undertakers with police escort to the mortuary and appointing one of our crew and a photographer to attend the autopsy. It was immediately apparent the fatal head wound had been inflicted within the car. Rubber floor wells were awash with blood. It could be expected there would be obvious blood on the offender’s footwear.

A 9mm cartridge thought to be a Fiocchi, which appeared to have been dropped or ejected, was on the rear left side floor.

PIECING IT TOGETHER

At 12.40pm at the Cranbourne CIB office we all reviewed what had been established. Information such as all potential witnesses, the cab’s movements, the driver’s background, what personal items were missing, what else was missing from the cab and so on. Contributing also was our crew member at the autopsy. Further inquiries/duties were allocated.

By 4pm we received most helpful timeline information from the taxi company, including the subject cab having been at a rank in Cranbourne at 9.51pm, logged unavailable at 10.32pm with the metre starting and the possible drop-off shortly after 11pm. Extensive taxi and telephone data examination, along with telephone tower tracking, continued to identify the taxi’s movements.

A later examination of the taxi provided a cartridge case on the rear parcel shelf. Our various forensic experts were satisfied the offender was positioned in the rear nearside seat of the cab when the driver was shot. Gunshot residue had been found on both front seat headrests and all were satisfied the driver had been pulled back and lodged between the front seats prior to being shot.

Late on the Saturday after the killing, a block slasher found the taxi driver’s empty VB money bag on a block he was clearing on the corner of Codrington and Bakewell Streets, Cranbourne.

This provided a likely direction of travel after the offender had abandoned the taxi. Further extended “door knocks” and searches were arranged for the following day with the added assistance of 30 members of the SES for the search.

THE BREAKTHROUGH

Over the weeks and months that followed there were media releases with new information, numerous suspects interviewed, telephone checks, addresses monitored, masses of information reports compiled leading to an array of other inquiries and long hours worked.

In early May 2001, I received a call from our firearms expert.

They had tested a 9mm Chinese pistol found in the possession of a man when he was intercepted in a stolen car after a pursuit in the eastern suburbs. It was the weapon used to kill Mr Rudd. Additionally, the cartridge found on the rear floor of the taxi he said had been chambered at some stage.

Former homicide squad detective Rowland Legg. Picture: Alex Coppel

The recovered firearm was difficult to fire and it was possible that if a shooter was having trouble discharging it, he may try re-cocking and thereby ejecting a cartridge. It failed to fire with normal pressure and required the trigger to be directed rearward and down. These facts should assist us in dismissing any claim the weapon discharged accidentally. Fiocchi cartridges were with the weapon when found.

Prints on Mr Rudd’s taxi were later identified as being those of the 34-year-old man found in possession of the firearm. Inquiries with arresting police revealed he admitted having stolen the car involved in the pursuit and other items recovered, however he claimed the firearm was in the vehicle when he stole it.

We then established he had worked at a bakery in Dandenong but had been sacked around October, 2000. At that time he was living in Cranbourne.

Several current addresses came up for him in 2001, however we finally confirmed he was living east of Melbourne with his parents. We also discovered he had an outstanding warrant. The surveillance unit was approved and briefed, as were the Special Operations Group and a canine unit.

Photographs were obtained as he had five siblings and there could be a similarity. The surveillance units suggested the possibility the man we were after could be residing at another address nearby from where there were movements. By late on May 10 we were confident our target was residing with his parents.

THE ARREST

At 6am the following morning we all assembled at the Heidelberg Police Station where I conducted a briefing. We were unsure how many people were in the house, where we understood grandchildren would be minded and hoped our suspect would leave, so not to cause distress to other family members if we needed to force entry.

He didn’t leave and a married sister arrived, so we had the policeman in possession of the outstanding warrant telephone the house stating he was tired of our target not responding to his messages and was coming to execute the warrant. The call had the desired effect.

A very short time later our man was on the move, believed to have left the house via the rear fence.

LISTEN TO ROWLAND LEGG (FIGHTING THE ULTIMATE CRIME) ON THE LIFE AND CRIMES PODCAST

Identity was confirmed with the surveillance members. He then boarded a bus and by this stage the SOG were in a position to arrest when he alighted. They were casually dressed and in an unmarked van. He alighted at the busy main entrance of Doncaster Shoppingtown, where he was immediately grabbed and placed in the rear of the SOG van and driven away. Of interest was that there was not one call to D24 reporting the apparent abduction.

On his being delivered to us at the Heidelberg Police Station he admitted shooting the taxi driver, stating he thought about it all the time. We then took him to the home of his parents to execute a search warrant for clothing he was wearing when he shot Mr Rudd.

I had asked him what he was wearing on that night. When it came to footwear he said, “the ones I’m wearing”. When examined, the victim’s blood, identified by DNA, was still in the stitching of those shoes.

During the later formal interview at the Homicide Squad office he made full admissions. He had parked his car on the South Gippsland Highway prior to hailing the cab and returned to his car along Codrington Street after abandoning the taxi.

The proceeds of killing a hardworking father were several hundred dollars, spent predominantly staying at a motel in East Burwood after the crime.

In 2002 in the Melbourne Supreme Court the offender pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 19 years imprisonment with a minimum of 14 years.

– with Mark Buttler

Rowland Legg is one of the state’s most experienced and respected murder investigators. By the time he retired in 2010, Mr Legg had worked for 18 years in the homicide squad, 15 of those as a senior-sergeant leading a crew of detectives. Mr Legg and his crew investigated some of the state’s biggest cases and others little known.