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In
1979 Tsakmakis - out on bail for the murder and possibly looking for
money for anticipated legal fees - robbed a Hawthorn Tattslotto agency
of $1,500.
Before
fleeing, he ordered owner George Kartsounis and
wife Ivy to lie face down on the floor, then
leaned over the counter and blasted each in the
head with his handgun.
His
victims survived. The
method of attempted execution of the Kartsounis
couple was similar if not identical to the way in
which a bandit shot dead jewellers Paul Pace,
Robert Wartman and Keith Hyman in the Manchester
Unity Building on St Patrick's Day 1978. The
jewellers were executed for $3,000 worth of
diamonds. All
were shot in the back of the head at close range
with a small calibre weapon. Tsakmakis
was jailed for the murder of Walker and the armed
robbery and attempted murder at the Hawthorn
Tattslotto agency. He
became one of a motley bunch of prisoners -
including Mark
'Chopper' Read - to bang heads in Pentridge
Prison's Jika Jika wing. According
to Read, in an article published in the Herald Sun
in 1991, Tsakmakis confessed to the Manchester
Unity triple murder as well as the slaying of a
prostitute named Margaret Clayton and then
National Gallery curator Brian Finemore. It
was the actions of another man, a police informer,
that triggered a chain of events that led to
Tsakmakis taking another life, this time inside
jail. The
informer suggested to police that Tsakmakis was
their man for the Manchester Untiy slaying and
diamond heist. In
an effort to prove his case, he put the hard word
on Tsakmakis's girlfriend. Angry
at the loyal woman's silence, the informer raped
her. Other
prisoners learned of the rape through the criminal
grapevine and used the incident as a tool to goad
the powerful Tsakmakis. |
