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Gregory John Brazel

Born in Blacktown in the western suburbs of Sydney on November 17, 1954, Brazel has been known for years as "Bluey" because of his distinct ginger hair.

He has long been considered one of the most dangerous inmates in the Victorian prison system and is usually shackled when taken to court.

Brazel first entered jail in 1978 after being convicted of armed robbery.

He has only spent about four years outside since.

The former altar boy and son of a New South Wales detective has more than 75 criminal convictions and a prison record involving at least 25 violent offences.

These include stabbing three prisoners in separate attacks, breaking the noses of two prison officers, assaulting police, cutting off the tip of his left ear, threatening to kill staff, pushing a governor's head through a plate-glass window and using jail phones to intimidate witnesses.

Brazel once smuggled a knife out of jail during a trip to face charges and produced it inside Brunswick Magistrates' Court.

He has been caught at least three times with smuggled mobile telephones inside maximum-security divisions.

Brazel started numerous jailhouse fires and is a serial hunger striker.

He is pictured being taken to hospital after his mattress caught fire.

His criminal record also includes being in possession of a pistol and house-breaking equipment, burglary, forgery and receiving stolen goods.

Brazel has also got form for obtaining goods by deception, armed robbery, resisting arrest, bribery of a public official, false imprisonment, arson and making threats to kill.

In 1976, while in the army medical corps, he took five privates hostage during an exercise in Healesville. 

He fired shots during the siege before a captain persuaded him to give up. 

He was dishonourably discharged from the army.

In 1979 Brazel slit celebrity criminal, Mark "Chopper" Read's stomach open during a prison brawl.

Brazel claimed that he slashed Read in self-defence after Chopper was persuaded by Pentridge prison officers to do their dirty work for them.

Six weeks before the fight Chopper had cut off one of Brazel's ears.

Chopper burst his stiches the next day doing push ups to get fit enough for a revenge attack on Brazel.

Brazel has admitted to executing mother of two Mildred Hanmer, 51, in her hardware shop at 77 Warren Road, Mordialloc on September 20, 1982.

She was shot in the chest.

The hardware shop was a State Bank sub-agency and the bandit stole $2569 from two safes.

Both were opened with keys.

Mrs Hanmer raised the alarm by telephoning her husband at home and said: "Dick, I've been robbed and I'm dying."

Mr Hanmer said she was clutching the phone so closely that he could hear her gasping into it.

"She was moaning at the same time. I was shouting back to stay with me."

Mr Hanmer (left), who would have been at the shop but was recuperating from a hernia operation, rang police before going to the store.

"She was still alive and conscious and I wanted her to know I was with her," Mr Hanmer said at the time.

"I said to her: `Do you know I'm with you?'"

"She acknowledged me and said yes, she knew I was with her."

Mrs Hanmer, of Alison Rd, Mt Eliza, died in the Alfred Hospital two hours after the robbery.

Before she died, she was able to tell Sen-Constable Graeme Skipsey, of Mordialloc police, the bandit had ginger hair, was Australian and aged about 25.

She also told Sen-Constable Skipsey her attacker was armed with a gun that was "eight inches long and cut down".

An inquest was told 200 suspects were interviewed and that police spoke to more than 1500 people about the shooting.

The murder remained unsolved, despite a $50,000 reward being offered in 1984.

On December 3, 1982, only weeks after murdering Mildred Hanmer, Brazel committed an armed robbery on a bank in Whitehorse Road, Balwyn.

Disappointed with his $5000 haul he raided the bank again on December 21 that year.

He was arrested a month later.

Peter Reed, who had been convicted over the bombing of Russell Street Police Headquarters, claimed that in 1988 Brazel crept into his Pentridge cell and repeatedly stabbed him with a pair of scissors.

Brazel was charged with attempted murder, but Magistrate Brian Barrow later ruled there was insufficient evidence to send Brazel to trial.

Brazel once smuggled a knife out of jail during a trip to face charges and dramatically produced it inside Brunswick Magistrates' Court.

Mayhem ensued.

Brazel was later jailed for killing two prostitutes, Sharon Taylor and Roslyn Hayward in 1990. 

The women died within four months of each other.

Detectives believe he knew he was under investigation for the first murder and killed his second victim purely to taunt the investigators.

Although he pleaded not guilty to slaying Taylor and Hayward, he admitted to the Herald Sun that he did kill them.

He claimed he was paid $150,000 to murder them so they couldn't give evidence in trials.

The Supreme Court heard Brazel drugged and strangled Ms Hayward in September 1990 and buried her off a bush track near Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula.

Brazel claims he was paid to murder her to stop her giving evidence at an arson trial.

He stabbed Ms Taylor five times, four in the heart, then buried her naked body in a shallow grave near Colac - after first removing her teeth to hinder any future attempts to identify her.

Brazel told the Herald Sun that the motive was to prevent her from giving evidence against a bikie in a South Australian murder trial.

He murdered Miss Hayward while on pre-release after serving a sentence for armed robbery.

He stabbed Ms Taylor, who was on a witness protection program, while on parole.

Escort agency records showed Brazel was her last client.

He was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years with a minimum of 25.

Brazel has since claimed that he used some of the money he was paid to kill the prostitutes to ensure life inside was more comfortable for him in jail than it was for some of the other inmates.

He claims he paid a corrupt prison officer about $26,000 over a two-year period in the 1990's to supply him with three mobile phones and a steady supply of vodka and Kahula.

Brazel claims he used the phone to place bets on his TAB phone account.

Brazel held a Melbourne Remand Centre staff member hostage with a knife to his throat in November, 1991. 

He threatened to kill Gunther Krohn because of a decision to transfer him from the Remand Centre to Pentridge but finally surrendered after a three-hour siege.

Brazel told prison authorities he had a cigarette lighter and two oxygen cylinders and that: "When you guys come in here you'll find two corpses - this place will be blown off the face of the earth.

In 1994 Brazel's minimum term went up to 28 years.

A jury found him guilty of the attack on Krohn.

He was assessed as one of the state's highest-risk inmates and is kept in the Barwon Prison's top-security Acacia Unit.

Brazel counts Hoddle Street mass murderer Julian Knight and Russell Street bomber Craig "Fatty" Minogue as two of his closest friends.

Brazel claims Knight, who shot dead seven people and wounded 19 others in 1987, was just a child who went off the rails.

He described Minogue - who murdered Constable Angela Taylor in 1986, as an intelligent, articulate human being.

In October 1998, Brazel was bashed by a revenge-driven group of prisoners.

While in Brazel was Barwon Prison's maximum security Acacia unit, a group of prisoners broke into the exercise yard after spending considerable time breaking a window with a rowing machine.

Brazel's attackers were Sean Jason Sonnet, Matthew Charles Johnson and Jason Brian Paisley.

In 2004 Sonnet was arrested in Caulfield while allegedly waiting to murder underworld figure Mario Condello.

Brazel first admitted to murdering Mildred Hanmer soon after the death of his mother-in-law from cancer in August 2000.

He contacted the homicide squad through a friend, saying he had information about a murder.

Detectives heard his confession soon after and immediately re-activated the Hanmer case.

It is believed the middleman and the man Brazel alleges paid $30,000 to have Mrs Hanmer killed were questioned by the homicide squad.

Both men were believed to have denied any involvement.

The middleman, who was serving a 13-year term for slashing a woman's throat, was questioned in an interstate jail.

Detectives didn't consider Brazel's word alone was enough to have the other men arrested, but they were still being investigated.

Brazel claimed to have become concerned over the years about how the children of his three victims coped after he executed their mothers.

He believed his admissions might help them by removing uncertainty about the murders.

Detectives interviewed Brazel in the St Kilda Rd homicide squad office amid tight security and have also questioned him several times in Barwon Prison.

In a video-taped confession, he admitted he shot Mrs Hanmer and stole money from her hardware shop and bank agency to make it look like a robbery gone wrong.

"I have little remorse for most of the things I have done, but with Mrs Hanmer it was like killing your mum," Brazel said from inside Barwon Prison.

"I don't know exactly why I have been compelled to come forward. All I know is I think of that woman every day.

"Every day I see blood seeping from the body.

"I was a medic in the army and yet I could turn my back on this woman, knowing she was fatally injured, and walk out of those premises.

"To this day I don't know how I could do that. It was an act of evil. A shameful act . . . yet I went on to kill a couple more people."

Brazel said being diagnosed with a life-threatening pre-cancerous condition caused him to reflect on his past and prompted him to confess.

Brazel told the Herald Sun he would plead guilty.

The pathologist who examined the body said Mrs Hanmer was shot once at close proximity in the right side of her chest and that the shot exited through her back.

Brazel told the the pathologist got it wrong, as he shot Mrs Hanmer in the back as she was lying face down on the floor.

Brazel claimed he secretly taped the two people who organised and ordered the murder of Mrs Hanmer.

He said one of the men had named three Melbourne underworld figures as also being involved in planning her murder.

But Brazel said he would not give the incriminating tapes to police.

Homicide squad detectives had searched for the tapes, but were unable to find them.

It is believed the two men Brazel claims he recorded discussing the murder of Mrs Hanmer have been questioned by police and have denied involvement in her death.

Police arranged for Brazel to speak to one of the five implicated men by telephone from inside Barwon Prison in the hope the man -- who was in an interstate jail -- would admit his involvement, but he didn't.

Brazel told the Herald Sun he had decided not to pass on the tapes as he feared those secretly taped might harm his family or friends.

A lawyer had the tapes.

"The police are aware that at that time I used to tape all my conversations," Brazel said.

"And they are aware that I have certain tapes, but I don't want to disclose them because I am fearful for my family."

On September 14, 2000, two detectives investigating Mildred Hanmer's murder spoke to John David Marshall in Moreton correctional Centre in Queensland.

Marshall was serving a 13-year term for slashing a woman's throat.

The next day Marshall wrote a statement which backed up Brazel's claims regarding Mrs Hanmer's death.

Marshall's statement said that he became involved in recruiting Brazel as a hitman through fellow prisoners Stephen Hughes and Victor Gouroff.

Gouroff, a long-time criminal, was an associate of Richmond drug dealer Dennis Allen.

He went missing in 1983 and is believed to be dead.

"Steve said this bloke wanted his wife to be knocked, that is killed, and did I know anyone who could do the job. Steve said there was money in it and we'd all get a bit."

"I told Steve that I could probably get someone to do the job and I'd let them know."

"About a week later I went to a flat in Carlton with Steve. Steve's girlfriend was there with Vic and Lynne Gouroff. Steve or Vic, I'm not sure who, asked me if I had found someone to do the job of fixing up this bloke's wife. I told them I still hadn't and thy were saying that I had better hurry up as this bloke wanted it done and I told them not to worry and I'd find someone."

"A few days later Steve rang me to say that he wanted to meet the bloke in Frankston who wanted his wife knocked."

Marshall claimed he met the man at the Grand Hotel in Frankston and the man promised to pay $2000 for finding a hitman to kill his wife."

"Two or three days later Steve rang me and said that he wanted me to pick him up and see this bloke again. Steve and I went to Seaford and met him in a car park on the beach."

"When we got there I saw this bloke siting in a car. I parked next to his car and he got into the back seat of our car. Steve spoke to him and he was talking about his wife playing around and he wanted her taken care of and I knew he meant killed."

"He asked me if I had got someone to do the job and I told him no but I would get someone. the man gave me a piece of paper with a phone number and name and this was to be passed on to the person who would kill her. I put the piece of paper in my pocket and was paid $1000 cash."

"Between four days to a week later, I was out the front of the Parole Board in Carlton. It was in the afternoon and I was walking up the street to see my parole officer when I ran into Greg Brazel. I had known Greg for about five years and had met him in D-Division in Pentridge Prison."

"We got talking, then I told him that I had a job for him and gave him the piece of paper which had the name and telephone number on it."

"Within two weeks after seeing Brazel, Steve told me that the job had been done. I recall that at this time it was reported on the news that a woman had been shot during an armed robbery that had gone wrong. I knew then that Brazel had killed this woman to complete the job I had given him."

In May 2001, Brazel was attacked by another inmate in Port Phillip Prison, this time with a broken bottle.

The prisoner was later found guilty of recklessly causing serious injury and jailed for two years and nine months.

On July 8, 2002, Brazel pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates Court, via a video link to Barwon Prison near Geelong to killing Mildred Teresa Hanmer.

At a filing hearing, before Chief Magistrate Ian Gray, Brazel gave a short address and said he was gravely concerned that a story leaked to the media by a homicide squad detective had contained "inadequacies".

He also said his prison privileges had been suspended as a result of him speaking, from prison, to a Herald Sun journalist about the case.

"The bottom line is that Gregory John Brazel appears before this court charged with murder, a murder he freely admits he committed and after many years of reflection has come forward," Mr Brazel said.

Earlier his lawyer Brendan Wilkinson told the court Brazel was sorry for the killing.

On October 15, 2002, the Herald Sun reported that a forensic expert was expected to back Brazel's account of how he killed Milderd Hanmer.

The newspaper had revealed the previous day that new evidence had cast doubt on original diagnoses of how the woman died.

Two doctors, including the doctor who performed the autopsy on her body, told coroner Hugh Adams in 1984 that Mrs Hanmer had been shot in the chest.

But Brazel claimed to have shot her in the back after forcing her to lie face down.

On October 14 Prosecutor Jack Vandersteen told Melbourne Magistrates' Court Brazel wanted to cross-examine forensic expert Peter Ross to confirm what he had told police in his record of interview.

Brazel's lawyer, Brendan Wikinson, said he wanted to question Mr Ross to show that Brazel's admissions about the murder were sincere.

It is believed that Mr Ross's analysis of the bullet holes in Mrs Hanmer's clothing supports Brazel's claim.

On January 6, 2003, a Herald Sun story stated that Brazel had sweet-talked an elderly woman into putting up to $30,000 into his TAB telephone betting account.

The benefactor was Brazel's religious counsellor before she retired from volunteer prison duties.

The "donations" happened while Brazel and the woman maintained their friendship in a series of phone calls the murderer made from Barwon Prison.

Brazel, a convicted double killer awaiting sentence over a third murder he has confessed to, is said to have received up to $30,000 from the woman over four years.

The TAB account is operated by another female friend.

It is believed the killer told his former counsellor he needed the money for his imminent release.

But Brazel's first opportunity for parole comes in 2020.

It is believed Brazel used the cash to bet on horses through his other female friend and to send her on shopping sprees.

Brazel befriended the religious counsellor about 10 years ago while she was working for the Prison Fellowship at the maximum security Barwon Prison.

He stayed in touch with the woman after she retired from prison duties about five years ago.

Brazel's phone contact with the woman was cancelled after authorities were alerted to the cash transactions.

The woman was finally convinced to stop donating to the cunning killer.

Police and Corrections Minister Andre Haermeyer was on leave but a spokesman said the minister's office was made aware of the woman's link to Brazel by worried family members.

"Prison authorities immediately cancelled all phone calls to the woman. The prisoner is no longer permitted to contact the woman," the spokesman said.

"We did everything within our power to stop this. We acknowledge it is difficult to prevent contact when the woman had consented to the contact taking place. The matter was referred to the armed offenders squad. They have since determined no offence has been committed."

The spokesman said Mr Haermeyer's office approved the release of sensitive information about Brazel - including his earliest possible release date and court status - to prove to the woman he has a long jail term ahead.

"There is no evidence of any more exchanges of money," the spokesman said.

In 2003, the supergrass who promised to give evidence against several underworld figures before disappearing overseas, was the target of a murder plot.

It involved poison being smuggled into Barwon Prison for Brazel to administer to him.

Brazel was later interviewed about the attempt but refused to name those who asked him to kill the informer to stop him testifying.

On June 2, 2003, Brazel castigated a Melbourne magistrate as he faced court on charges of assaulting a corrections officer.

Brazel represented himself in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on four charges relating to the assault of a corrections officer in the Port Phillip Prison hospital on July 24 the previous year.

After formal procedures, magistrate Lisa Hannan asked Brazel, who is ineligible for parole until 2030, if he wished to apply for bail.

"Do you know who I am?" Brazel answered.

Ms Hannan said "Yes" and Brazel replied: "Well don't ask silly questions then."

Later, when the magistrate excused Brazel from the court, he retorted: "So are you".

On leaving the docks, Brazel said he was irritated by the inconvenience of the filing hearing.

On March 28, 2003, Brazel pleaded guilty to murdering Mildred Hanmer.

Justice Phillip Cummins jailed him for life, setting a minimum time to be served of 27 years.

That means Brazel is not eligible to be release until at least 2030 by which time he will be 75.

On October 7, 2003, the Herald Sun reported that Brazel was suing for hefty compensation for being bashed twice behind bars.

Brazel claimed prison officers deliberately or negligently exposed him to the risk of assault after other prisoners had threatened him.

His lawsuit exposed taxpayers to a potentially hefty payout, despite Brazel not being eligible for parole until 2030 when he will be 75.

In the first assault, at Barwon Prison, Brazel was beaten with a sandwich maker, an exercise bike seat and a vacuum cleaner pipe after prisoners broke down a window to get at him.

During the trial of the five maximum security prisoners charged with bashing Brazel, the County Court heard it took them 45 minutes to break the window, using a rowing machine as a battering ram.

The second assault happened after Brazel was transferred to Port Phillip prison, after several weeks in hospital.

There he was slashed with a broken bottle.

Personal injury lawyers said if Brazel's claim was successful he could win a payout of up to $100,000.

Four prisoners had been found guilty over the assaults and sentenced to extra jail.

In a County Court writ, seen by the Herald Sun, Brazel was seeking compensation for extensive injuries.

The injuries include multiple fractures, concussion, scarring, shock and anxiety.

In prison, he has a long reputation as one of the system's most dangerous inmates and is awaiting trial for assaulting a prison guard.

In his writ, Brazel claimed that on October 1, 1998, while in Barwon Prison's maximum security Acacia unit, a group of prisoners broke into the exercise yard after spending considerable time breaking a window with a rowing machine.

Asked during the prisoners' trial what his state of mind was after the bashing, Brazel said: "They did well. I was quite stunned and I was hurting. They did well."

He claims guards should have been alerted to the prisoners because of the noise generated by the battering ram.

A guard on duty at the time of the assault said during the prisoners' trial he only heard a single loud "bang".

Brazel was segregated at the time of the assault while being investigated for bribing a prison guard to supply him with mobile phones and alcohol.

The guard was later jailed for smuggling mobile phones and CD-ROMs into the prison.

Three prisoners were found guilty of the assault during a rowdy trial.

In May 2001, Brazel was attacked by another inmate in Port Phillip Prison, this time with a broken bottle.

The prisoner was later found guilty of recklessly causing serious injury and jailed for two years and nine months.

Brazel says in his writ the guards should have known he was at risk of assault because of threats he received leading up to the attacks.

Lawyers for Brazel refused to discuss the lawsuit.

Spokesmen for Corrections Minister Andre Haermeyer and Corrections Commissioner Kelvin Anderson said it would be inappropriate to discuss the case as it was before the courts.

On February 23, 2007, it was reported that an elderly widower had denied Brazel's claims that he paid to have his wife murdered because she had cheated on him.

Mr Hanmer said claims by Brazel and associate John Marshall that he paid Brazel $30,000 to "take care of" Ms Hanmer were lies.

"There was no reason why I would want to get rid of my wife," Mr Hanmer told the court.

"I never met him or saw him or know anything of him. These people should be writing novels, I think."

Mr Hanmer told the court an unknown man had tried to extort money from him 18 years after his wife's death, claiming he "had a job done".

At the inquest into Ms Hanmer's death, Det-Insp Paul O'Halloran said Brazel had told police he murdered Ms Hanmer after meeting a man named "Ray" who owned a hardware shop and wanted him to kill his wife.

Brazel claimed that "Ray" said his wife, a psychiatric nurse, was having an affair with a doctor and other men, and he wanted her murder to look like a robbery gone wrong.

Det-Insp O'Halloran said "Ray" had planned to be home from work that day, citing a hernia injury.

Brazel claimed he was paid $15,000 cash before the killing and $15,000 later.

John David Marshall told police he had been paid $2000 to pass Mr Hanmer's phone number on to a hitman.

Mr Hanmer denied Brazel's story, saying he had loved his wife -- mother of his daughters, then 13 and 11.

"We were together everywhere we went. We were never separated."

Mr Hanmer said his wife had never had an affair, had never worked as a psychiatric nurse and, while he had a hernia operation before her death, it had been her idea that he stay home on the day of her death to work on their taxes.

Coroner Paresa Spanos adjourned the inquest and will hand down her findings on a date to be set.

On March 7, 2008, Brazel won the right to see sensitive documents about the high-security unit in Barwon jail where he was savagely bashed 10 years before.

The Court of Appeal ruled that Brazel's damages lawsuit against the State Government raised serious issues about the safety of prisoners.

The court said there was no public interest in denying Brazel access to the documents and rejected claims security of prisoners and staff might be compromised.

Brazel, 52, said he needed a diagram of the Acacia Unit and a security review report to help his claim the Government failed to protect him from assault by other inmates.

Court President Justice Chris Maxwell and Justices Peter Buchanan and Frank Vincent ruled the documents went to the heart of the issue.

"Courts should be slow to uphold claims of public interest immunity where to do so will have the effect of inhibiting the investigation of allegations of negligence or maladministration by public officials," the judges said.

Brazel is suing the Government claiming that in 1998 in Acacia prisoners bashed him after using a rowing machine to break into the exercise yard.

He also claims that in May 2001 a Port Phillip Prison inmate attacked him with a broken bottle.

The Government appealed against a County Court judge's release of the documents.

In an affidavit before the appeal judges, the deputy commissioner of prisons, Paul Delphine, said floor plans of the Acacia Unit should never be made public and the security report identified vulnerabilities and covert security measures.

But Brazel said he had been given similar documents in earlier proceedings.

A government lawyer told the judges he could not rule out a High Court appeal.

His earliest release date from his three life sentences is 2023.