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SOURCES:

Why I lied to protect the Walsh Street killers
By John Silvester
The Age
October 1, 2005

Dirty Dozen
By Paul Anderson
Published by Hardie Grant Books (2003)

Connections in crime
 Herald Sun 
May 5, 2002

Jedd Houghton

On November 17, 1988, Houghton, then 23, was shot dead by two members of the Special Operations Group at Ascot Lodge Caravan Park in Bendigo.

Police wanted to arrest him for questioning over the October 1988 Walsh Street police shootings earlier in the year.

Houghton had been named by police witness Jason Ryan, a brother and nephew of two of the other accused.

Knowing police were searching for him, Houghton had been hiding out in a cabin with his girlfriend.

A forced entry raid was conducted and Houghton was shot three times, dying almost immediately.

All three shots were fired at close range, an injury to his chest being caused by a shotgun blast at a range of within 100 mm.

SOG members Sergeant Paul Carr and Senior Constable Anthony Currie had stormed his rented cabin to arrest him when he threatened them with a .357 Ruger hand gun.

Police said that they had fired in self-defence.

Police later found five hand guns and a police scanner in the cabin.

Houghton, Victor Peirce and Graeme Jensen casing an armed robbery target
From: Tough - 101 Gangsters

Houghton's girlfriend, who was in the cabin at the time of the shooting, claimed that Houghton was asleep when the police burst in and would not have had a chance to threaten them.

The two members of the Special Operations Group who shot Houghton refused to give evidence at the coroner's court on the grounds that it might incriminate them.

The coroner found Houghton contributed to his own death by "obtaining and attempting to use a hand gun against police lawfully seeking his arrest."

The coroner said the SOG officers "instinctively and fatally fired their shotguns with legal justification."

On October 1, 2005, The Age published a story in which Wendy Peirce said she lied to save her husband from a life in prison.

The star witness who refused to testify against four men charged with the Walsh Street ambush murders of Constables Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre admitted that Victor Peirce was guilty as charged — 17 years after the murders that changed the way police around Australia perform their duties.

She said the murders were carried out as as a payback after detectives killed Peirce's best friend, Graeme Jensen, during a botched arrest in Narre Warren a day earlier.

Mrs Peirce said her husband showed no remorse over the police killings.

"He just said, 'They deserved their whack. It could have been me.'

"It (Walsh Street) was spur of the moment, we were on the run. Victor was the organiser," Mrs Peirce told The Age.

She said she was staying in a Tullamarine motel with Victor but he left during the night to join members of his gang to set up the Walsh Street murders.

Mrs Peirce named the shooters as Jedd Houghton and Peter McEvoy.

She also said the car abandoned in Walsh Street was stolen by Gary Abdallah, who was shot dead by police in a Carlton flat.

Mrs Peirce said her husband always believed police would never prove he led the ambush team. "He covered his tracks and he didn't think he'd get pinched," she said.

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