Alleged killer Rodney Collins afraid of being "dobbing" in

A MAN accused of brutally murdering a Victorian couple while their children were in the next room allegedly made a jailhouse confession that he shot the pair because he was worried they were going to "dob" him into police.

A MAN accused of brutally murdering a Victorian couple while their children were in the next room allegedly made a jailhouse confession that he shot the pair because he was worried they were going to "dob" him into police.

The Melbourne Magistrates Court heard that Rodney Collins, 63, told another prisoner he thought Ramon and Dorothy Abbey had informed police about an armed robbery he and Ramon did on a meat works factory.

"Rod told me that he got raided by the police some time after the armed robbery and he was convinced that Ray and Dot and had sent the police around," the witness - who cannot be identified - said in a statement tendered to the court. "Rod said, 'F..k the dogs, I wasn't going to take any chances so I just shot them in the back of the head'."

Prosecutors allege Mr Collins was one of three men who killed the couple on July 28, 1987. The pair's three children were in the house at the time of the murders.

The 63-year-old was today committed to stand trial on two charges of murder and one charge of possessing an unlicensed firearm. Mr Collins yesterday pleaded not guilty to all three charges.

He was charged last June with the couple's murder after a break in the 21-year-old case. Another man, Mark Andrew McConville, was convicted of the murders in 1989 before being acquitted in a retrial two years later. He has since died.