The gangland murders linked to Carl Williams
At the peak of the Gangland War Carl Williams had some of the most dangerous triggermen working alongside him, but that didn’t stop the crime boss from personally seeking revenge on his enemies.
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Carl Williams had many faults but procrastination clearly wasn’t one of them.
In a brief, murderous term as a Melbourne crime boss, the man who modestly referred to himself as The Premier was implicated in a dozen homicides.
“He put together more hits than Cold Chisel,” one source later mused.
From the 2000 revenge killing of Mark Moran to his role in the contract slaying of police informer Terrence Hodson and his wife Christine four years later, Williams was a wrecking ball through the city’s underworld establishment.
Revenge, greed and enemy extermination were all factors.
Sometimes, the killings were a cocktail of a number of those elements as Williams and his soldiers caused chaos.
Among the most deadly members of Team Williams were triggermen Andrew Veniamin, and Rodney Collins, along with a couple of characters who, for legal reasons, can only be known at The Runner and The Veteran.
More than a dozen others, including getaway drivers and other operatives who helped set up victims, were mixed up in the killings.
A number are now dead, others in jail for their involvement and several broke ranks and gave evidence against Williams.
This is how it unfolded.
RICHARD MLADENICH
In May, 2000, a man in sunglasses walked into a room at the seedy Esquire Hotel and shot Mladenich dead in the early hours. Close Williams associate Rocco Arico was to become a firm suspect, the working theory being that he was sent by his then-boss to kill the standover man after a nasty, money-related falling-out. Another Williams henchman was last year questioned over Mladenich’s murder but not charged.
MARK MORAN
Drug-dealer Moran has just arrived home in Aberfeldie when a gunman blasted him with two weapons on a cold night in June, 2000. There has only ever been one theory entertained. It went that Williams had Moran killed in revenge after being shot by Mark or his brother Jason in 1998 during a meeting at Gladstone Park.
Plenty more Moran blood would be spilt as Williams embarked on his revenge rampage.
NIK RADEV
The brutish drug trafficker had met Williams, his father George, and others on the day of his murder at a Bayside restaurant in April, 2003. Radev was persuaded to travel in convoy with them to the northern suburbs but, in Coburg, a shooter suspected of being Andrew Veniamin emerged and shot Radev seven times in the head and chest. He died at the wheel of his Mercedes-Benz coupe.
JASON MORAN AND PASQUALE BARBARO
Moran died in an act of revenge, Barbaro as collateral damage. The pair had travelled with a vanload of kids to a footy clinic at Cross Keys Reserve in Essendon in June, 2003. A gunman, known as the Runner, suddenly appeared and - before the horrified youngsters - used a shotgun and a pistol on Moran and his mate.
The Runner bolted from the scene but would later be instrumental in his master’s undoing when he was persuaded to help the Purana taskforce. Again, Williams’ lust to get square over the Gladstone Park shooting was behind the murder. He years later pleaded guilty to the murder of Moran.
WILLY THOMPSON
Thompson was a virtual unknown to the public but was extremely well-connected in the underworld. He was also a major mover of drugs and it is suspected that Williams decided to take his market share with the most hostile takeover. In July, 2003, as Thompson emerged from a Chadstone gym and got into his car, a hit team struck. The case remains under active investigation.
MARK MALLIA
It was curtains for Mark Mallia the moment he made clear to Williams during a meeting at Crown Casino that he was deeply angry at the death of his mate Radev.
Williams decided to eliminate any possibility of payback by engaging a group of his thugs to torture and murder Mallia, whose burnt body was found in a discarded wheelie bin at Sunshine in August, 2003. Williams pleaded guilty to his murder.
MICHAEL MARSHALL
Drug boss Tony Mokbel’s mail that Marshall organised the Willy Thompson hit was way off the mark. So, when Mokbel paid Williams $300,000 to avenge his mate’s death, he was actually handing over a fortune to the real killer. Carl got The Runner and his getaway driver mate on the job and Marshall was shot dead in front of his five-year-old son at South Yarra in October, 2003. It was to be the undoing of Williams.
An astute homicide squad crew led by detective Sen-Sgt Rowland Legg had put a listening device in the wheelman’s car. The killers were arrested that night. Cornered and heavily underpaid for his contract mischief, the Runner later gave up Williams to the Purana taskforce. Williams would ultimately own up to the killing.
GRAHAM KINNIBURGH
Kinniburgh was one of the most respected figures in the Melbourne underworld, but Williams didn’t too much for reputations. Kinniburgh was also closely linked to Moran and that was good enough for Williams to put a price on his head. Career criminal Steve Asling and his mate Terrence Blewitt took the job, making their move on Kinniburgh outside his luxury Kew home as he returned home late one night in December, 2003.
LEWIS MORAN
The father of Jason and stepfather of Mark Moran knew Carl Williams had painted a target on his back. But, as the bodies of family members and mates piled up, he still didn’t change his routine. When two armed men arrived in balaclavas at his regular watering hole of the Brunswick Club, Moran uttered one of the most famous quotes of the gangland war to drinking buddy Bert Wrout. “I think we’re off here,” the 58-year-old said to Wrout before being dispatched. Wrout was wounded but survived. Williams later pleaded guilty to Moran’s murder.
TERRENCE AND CHRISTINE HODSON
Murdered at their Kew home in May, 2004. Terrence had been caught red-handed with drug squad detective David Miechel in a bungled burglary on an Oakleigh drug house. He agreed to give evidence against Miechel and his colleague Paul Dale.
Williams later told investigators Dale had paid him to organise the Hodson murder, which he subcontracted to flint-hearted hitman Rod Collins. Dale was charged with murder but the case against him died with Williams in 2010.
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