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Liborio did not
consider his son Frank a worthy successor and on
his death bed anointed Alfonso Muratore, his son-in-law.
But in a shock move,
Muratore declined the offer and the next year left his wife, and Liborio's
daughter, for mistress Karen Mansfield.
Alfonso had carried a .22 pistol
since mid-1991.
He had been told that a contract had been taken on on his life.
In July 1992,
fellow-fruiterer and associate, Orlando Luciano, met with Coles-Myer executives.
Discussions focused
on corruption problems at the fruit and vegetable markets and to make a
sales pitch on their own behalf.
In the weeks
following the meeting, Muratore had acid poured over his car and he was
assaulted at the market, leaving him with a blackened eye.
He
was soon dead.
On August 4, 1992,
Alfonso, then 39, was shot dead in Hampton as his father Vincenzo
had been 28 years before.
He had left his
Storey Avenue house at 1.30am to drive to the market with friend, and workmate Ron Lever, the step father of his
de facto wife.
A hooded gunman
fired at close range as Muratore was about to climb into his car.
Lever was shot in the legs to immobilise him but Muratore was
shot twice in the head and died instantly.
At least three other
major fruit and vegetable merchants immediately employed armed security guards
after the murder because they were told their names were on a death list.
A relative of
Muratore received death threats and eventually moved after his house was
vandalised.
A 1995 inquest heard allegations
that Frank Benvenuto took out a contract on
Muratore's life for snubbing the Honoured Society and his family but was never
charged.
Benvenuto took over Muratore's fruit
stall at the market after Alfonso was shot dead.
Ms Mansfield said at the inquest
that Frank Benvenuto had tried to hire someone to kill Muratore.
He had been trying to regain
control of the market stall when he was shot dead.
He had also told investigators
about corruption involving supermarket buyers and fruit and vegetable
wholesalers only two weeks before being executed.
Frank Benvenuto
told the inquest
he had no idea who had murdered Muratore.
Another man
police saw as a suspect in Muratore's death was truck-driving fruiterer, Guiseppe
'Joe' Quadara.
Represented by
jailed criminal lawyer, Andrew
Fraser, it was speculated that Quadara eluded a payback hit when a man of the same name was shot dead in Toorak on
Friday 28 May 1999.
In 2006 Herald Sun revealed
that a police supergrass known only as 166 had been investigated over allegations he was the
hitman in an unsolved murder.
The murder allegation, made by a
relative, was that 166 had shot dead Alfonso
Muratore.
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