Senior Constable Frank Bendeich had been with fellow
officer Darren Sherren when they observed Gary Silk and Rod Miller talking to
the driver of a car they had pulled over.
A
computer-created image of an unshaven slim man with shoulder-length black
hair and a "druggy look" was made under
instructions from Senior Constable Bendeich.
Bendeich said the image was about 70 per
cent of a likeness of a man he saw talking to Sgt Silk moments before the shooting.
Detective Inspector Paul Sheridan was
appointed head of the Lorimer taskforce established to investigate the police
murders.
Within days, experienced
investigators knew there would be no quick arrests; detectives on the taskforce
were told to expect a long haul.
Police chased down nearly 2000
tips from police, criminals and members of the public.
They travelled to Korea to the
headquarters of Hyundai to check the glass fragments found at the scene against the type used at
the production line.
This enabled them to reduce the
number of cars they had to check from 35,000 to about 2000.
During their investigation, Lorimer had
stick-up merchant, Billy Prideaux high on
their list of suspects.
He was known to hoard weaponry and nursed a
strong hatred of police.
In their book One
Down, One Missing, Det
Sen Cons D'Alo and David Astle wrote that Robert De Niro, playing Neil
McCauley in the crime flick Heat, may well have pinched a leaf from Prideaux's
book.
In January Prideaux had been the prime focus of a
police operation named Albers.
Albers was formed after a string of banks in
Melbourne's south-east were robbed netting the offender/s close to two million
dollars.
By then Prideaux had spent over tens years of his
forty-five behind bars, serving time for numerous armed offences ranging from
bank jobs to assault.
He was on parole and had apparently slipped into
his old ways.
Detectives believed Prideaux was running with a
second ex-con named Lee Torney and enlisting a
third top-drawer crook named Fatty Smith as the
getaway expert.
On August 25, 1998, Armed Robbery Squad
detectives, in league with the Special Operations Group, swooped on Prideaux's
household at day-break.
He lived a stone's throw from Cochranes Rd.
Prideaux was less than cordial as the place was
tossed for weaponry.
Cisterns were checked, air ducts, guttering.
Seized in a wardrobe cavity was a 9-millimetre
pistol, plus rounds, a serious breach for the convicted felon he was.
The suspect was interviewed and processed at
Moorabbin Police Station.
His alibi, later corroborated, would clear him of
the murders.
Ironically, while Prideaux would do time for
illegal possession of a firearm, he'd never serve a sentence on the Albers bank
jobs he was hotly suspected of committing.
On
September 16, 1998, Melbourne Remand Centre escapee, Peter
Gibb was pulled over by a large police SOG team while he was on his way to
his job on a city building site.
Within
days of the Silk
and Miller
slayings, Gibb
had been identified as a possible suspect.
A tip-off had
come from a registered informer known to the taskforce as J11.
Talk on the
street suggested Gibb and young gangster Colin Ribbands were the two Moorabbin
men.
Sgt
Silk
assisted in the recapture of Gibb
and lover, Heather Parker at Jamieson, in north-east Victoria on March 13, 1993.
Gibb was
arrested during a series of dawn raids across Melbourne.
Special
operations group police swooped on Gibb
as
he left his Bayswater home about 6.30 am.
Gibb,
then 44, was interviewed by homicide detectives from the Operation Lorimer
taskforce, which was investigating the murders.
Gibb,
released from prison about 18 months before, carrying convictions for
manslaughter, armed robbery and false imprisonment, was interviewed for several
hours before being released.
The
Herald Sun wrote that it believed police also questioned his fiancée, Heather
Parker.
Parker
was on parole at the time of the SOG arrest.
Up
to a dozen people were questioned after the synchronised raids on September 16.
These
included people from homes in Brighton, Bayswater, Knox and the Mornington
Peninsula.
Among
those arrested and questioned was Ian Richard Burtoft, a close associate of Gibb.
Burtoft,
34, was seized at 6.45 am in his car on the Western Ring Rd in Ardeer as shocked
motorists watched.
The
morning arrest of Burtoft caused traffic-chaos and was quickly reported across
the radio news and talk shows.
Det.
Chief-Insp. Rod Collins, head of the homicide squad, was on the scene as Burtoft
was loaded into the back of an unmarked sedan and taken to the St Kilda Rd
police complex.
Police
allege a .38 calibre pistol with five live rounds in the magazine and one in the
breech was found under the front seat in Burtoft's Holden Calais turbo.
Police
later towed the car away for forensic testing.
One
witness who saw the black-clad policemen force Burtoft from his car to the
ground said: "There was a bloke hog-tied with a couple of the lads standing
over him. I thought it was a movie."
Another
stunned motorist said: "It was all over in a matter of seconds. They had
guns pointed at him. It was just amazing."
Crime
squad detectives also raided several properties belonging to associates of Gibb
and
Burtoft before bringing some of them in for questioning.
Burtoft
was subjected to a lengthy interview before detectives charged him with five
firearms offences.
Armed robbery squad detectives
who worked on the Restaurant bandits Silk and Miller had been trying to catch
had concluded in early 1990's that they lived in Dandenong or further east.
Their theory was based on the
fact that many of the 28 armed robberies committed between 1991 and 1994 were in
the Dandenong-Narre Warren region.
Police
believed the bandits exhausted local targets before moving on to other suburbs.
There were other reasons to
believe at least one bandit came from the area.
In one case, the getaway car was
stolen from Dandenong and dumped in Lysterfield.
In another, property from an
armed robbery was dumped from a moving car near Narre Warren.
In September, the phone rang at
the Lorimer office. A warden from Port Phillip Prison said that a prisoner had
some useful information on the case.
Detective Senior Constable Joe D'Alo
and a detective from the Armed Robbery Squad, Ashley Carlin-Smith, visited the
jail and spoke to Florin Dragoescu, a convicted drug dealer.
"Heard
a coupla Russians were planning to do a stick-up in Noble Park a few months
back. June or July. Crazy fucks," Dragoescu told the detectives.
"They
carry guns and don't care what cunt got in the road. Cops'd be a bonus, you know
what I mean. Apparently their car was packed to the gills with smack...sack of
the shit!...straight off the boat."
"Had
some business in the 'burbs and some silly pig stuck his snout in. That's where
youse blokes should be looking."
But
Dragoescu would not give any names or addresses and it was clear to the police
officers he was seeking a few more privileges for a few more facts., but D'Alo
opted out.
Meantime, another
Lorimer crew had fished out a crim by the name of Leon Feisch, a know
drug-dealer with possible links to the Russian mafia.
Tips
from the Drug Squad and elsewhere conjured up a story similar to Dragoescu's
yarn
One member, a likely
associate of Feisch, was Bora Alintas, an
Adelaide crook who made regular 'business' trips to Melbourne.
Alintas,
a convicted drug dealer and armed robber, was reputedly in Melbourne the weekend
of the murders- and left unscheduled the next morning.
Gamblers
at Crown Casino added fuel to the rumour a few weekends after the killings.
A
police informer over heard talk from a South Australian party who seemed to know
the case a little too well, boozing and talking about he killings in detail.
Again
the name of Alintas was mentioned.
He'd
been carrying heroin, so went the talk, and a semi-automatic on his hip.
Lorimer
detectives began doing their homework on Alintas.
But
before Det Sgt Sol Soliman could arrange a trip to Adelaide, Alintas
was shot in cold blood on Monday September 21.
Dying
in the street, the man was asked to name his killer, and refused, choosing
instead to implicate another underworld figure, George
Ibrahim, as a major trafficker in the heroin trade.
Ibrahim,
and Ken Tan, dubbed the Chinaman, were linked to Bora's killing, though no
charges would ever be laid.
The
motive for killing Alintas was said to be a
payback for a double-cross drug deal.
But
growing intelligence suggested Alintas was not
present when Silk and Miller were shot.
When
Lorimer detectives finally journeyed to Adelaide, they spoke to Alintas'
family and associates.
Alibi statements, mobile call charge
records and several reliable sightings of the Russian in Adelaide on the weekend
of August 15/16 exonerated the dead man.
Yet the trip wasn't wasted entirely;
the name of George Ibrahim would resurface
on the Lorimer radar in less than six months.
In late 1998 most suspicion fell
on Nikolai Radev.
Radev
was a former wrestling
champion in Bulgaria who had come to Australia in 1980.
The name of the underworld figure
became well known after he was gunned down in April 2003 during Melbourne's
gangland war.
Since his arrival in Australia he
had been a serial guest of Victoria's correctional system.
His latest stay at Port Phillip
Prison was sparked by an incident in Mount Ararat in central Victoria.
Radev
had been sharing the driving
with a mate called Kostadin Pavlov, returning on a trip from Adelaide at 3 a.m,
when cops ran an intercept on the Western Highway.
Stashed in the boot was twenty-five
kilos of dope, three hand guns and two shotguns.
Charges amounted to a two month
sentence.
Importantly the prisoner was
released two weeks before the killings of Silk and Miller.
In fact, one hour before the
shootings in Moorabbin, Radev
and an associate, Loui
El-Sheikh, were sitting in a
McDonald's in East Bentleighh, waiting to complete a drug deal.
The pair arrived together in Radev's
Alfa Romeo and camped at a window table waiting for a third player, Azzam Ahmed,
to arrive with their merchandise.
(Ahmed would be arrested in 2003
after a bungled robbery in Oakleigh when
drugs and cash were stolen from a residential home which police had been
watching intently. Two police officer were arrested and charged over the
robbery. One was Paul Dale who was part of the team investigating the Silk
Miller shootings.)
Instead, Sgt Silk entered with a
folder.
Radev
knew straight away that Silk
was a cop, despite the unmarked car, the plain clothes.
He stayed calm as he watched Silk
talk to the girl behind the counter and the girl just nod.
He heard the phrase "Don't be
alarmed" and wondered what the hell was going on.
In fact Silk and Miller were
watching the Korean BBQ across the road, using the McDonald's carpark as their
vantage point.
Silk had noted the presence of Radev
but let the coincidence slide.
During that period Radev
had been
the subject of police scrutiny during that time but not in terms of the
restaurant raids Silk was investigating.
Operation Beirut related to an
amphetamine racket in general and Radev
in particular.
When Azzam Ahmed finally arrived,
Radev
pumped him on being surveilled.
"See those Jacks in the carpark
- the green Commodore - they follow you?"
Ahmed said no.
"you sure about that?"
said El Sheikh.
Ahmed said, "They got here
before me, din they?!"
"Who's in the car with
you?"
"A mate," said Ahmed.
Radev
glanced through the window.
The cops were focussed on some Asian
place across the intersection.
The crims felt off the hook, for
now.
Money and product changed hands and
the men left the scene near midnight.
Ahmed had called El-Sheikh the morning after
Silk and Miller were killed, telling him the cops were the same cops at
McDonald's.
"You and Nick do 'em?" he asked.
"No," said Loui.
Of the dozen weapons Nik Radev owned, his pet
gun, said informants, was a Bulldog .38 which ballistics considered as being
within the spectrum of Silk and Miller's murder weapon.
Radev
was arrested on December 12, 1998.
He was grabbed by the Special
Operations Group outside the Palace in St Kilda, along with fellow speed
merchant Phillip Sweeney.
A search of Radev's home in East
Brighton uncovered two pistols, one with a silencer, yet neither was the
Bulldog.
Special Response quizzed Radev
on a
violent ag-burg in Northcote, but he sat like a clam through the interview.
Only when detective Sol Solomon
chimed in, asking about his movements on August 15, did Radev have something to
say.
He wanted to make a deal.
Radev
promised solid information on
the Moorabbin shootings in return for all charges on the Northcote job to be
dropped.
Not that he was admitting anything -
Radev
was too cagey for that - just a quid pro quo.
When nothing looked on offer, Radev
went back to his clam impression.
Before too long the suspect was sent
back to his second home, Port Phillip Prison, on remand for the burglary.
One week into the new year, Radev's name crossed the desk again, this time through a gig attached to St
Kilda CIB.
The middle man was Detective
Sergeant Dave Waters.
He was under investigation by the
Ethical Standards Division at the time over his links and interests within St
Kilda's bars and brothels and was later charged, along with three other St Kilda
officers, over alleged drug trafficking.
Waters, a former close friend of
Silk, had been accused by insiders of relying on compassionate leave since the
police murders to forestall any questioning by the Ethical lads.
Before taking crook, though, Waters
produced, on January 6, a drug offender called Ilias
Bafas.
The man knew Radev
and El-Sheikh
intimately from underground networks.
Bafas said he was holding guns for
Radev, until Radev was nabbed and Bafas got jumpy.
He said Nik and El-Sheikh had done
the two cops in Moorabbin for sure.
He rattled off correct calibres to
detectives.
His timelines and locations added up
too, pointing the finger squarely at Radev and El-Sheikh for the double murder.
Most of the taskforce were
growing keen on the pair, but others maintained their cynicism.
Maybe Bafas was being spoon-fed the
relevant facts by an unknown party, they argued.
Maybe Bafas was a puppet, and this
so-called breakthrough was a ploy to avert attention from the puppeteer's own
illegal activities.
Detective Senior Constable Tim
Argall interviewed Bafas and asked him where he put the guns.
"I gave em to Mick," said
Bafas.
"Mick who?" asked Argall.
"Mick Tadic," replied
Bafas. "Don't tell him I told you but."
Tadic
was well known to police and had been arrested with the notorious Peter
Gibb (who was also arrested over the Silk Miller murders) on charges relating to the theft of $63,900 from an
Armaguard van in Sunshine in February 1991.
On January
21, 1999, at 6am, a search warrant was handed to Milan "Mick" Tadic.
Police found
the makings of a speed factory in his garage.
He later spoke
openly about the Silk-Miller case.
He said Radev
wasn't the man they were after.
If Nick'd seen
the cops that night in Bentleigh, said Tadic, then he'd never go near them a
second time.
And what about
that intercept in Ararat? Radev went quietly enough didn't he?
Nick was no cop
shooter. "Besides, he kinda likes jail. Nick's got a fair bit of clout in
Port Phillip. Why would he try to resist arrest for Chrissakes?"
Tadic said
the real bloke to look at was El-Sheikh.
Usually souped
to the eyeballs, said Tadic, and he carried the right sort of handguns.
Silly prick had
gone back to Cochranes Road, so went the story, aiming to pick up a drug stash
hidden in a laneway, and the rest made front-page news.
Since
their McDonald's tryst, Radev
and El-Sheikh had
experienced a falling out.
The
flow of second-hand cars that El-Sheikh gave to Radev
and his burglary pals slowly dried up.
Each
crim was out to frame each other, adding spin to
every information report.
If
anywhere, Tadic was on Radev's side, but Bafas had
moved closer to El-Sheikh.
If
that wasn't enough, the water was muddied further
by Detective Sergeant
Waters' ailing reputation.
Before
the search party was done, Tadic was led to a
concrete factory in Williamstown, a place that
surveillance officers had seen him visit more than
once.
A
second drug lab was found inside.
Peter
'Socks' Nicola, of Hopper's Crossing, was the
final member of the 'Lawn Mower Gang'.
He
was known to team up with Radev
in the past but
was lately trying to live the straight life.
But
his alibi checked out so police re-focussed their
investigations to El-Sheikh, Tadic and Radev.
Radev
was convinced El-Sheikh was the assassin.
He
spoke to Bafas in Port Phillip's visitor's room,
deliberately being vague with details in case
Bafas sold the story for his own ends.
Radev
promised hard facts if bail could be swung on the
burglary conviction.
He
told Bafas he knew where the killer's pistol was
hidden.
A
.38 calibre.
But
any more info would come at a price.
In
the meantime El-Shiekh was henpecking the
taskforce, swearing Radev was the mystery man of
Cochranes Rd, knowing full well that if Radev ever
beat his sentence, he'd have El-Sheikh on top of
the hit-list.
Some
weeks later, two guns showed up.
The
first belonged to Bafas, who was caught smuggling
speed into Port Phillip for Radev.
Prison
authorities searched the visitor's car, finding a
loaded hand gun under the driver's seat.
It
wasn't the Moorabbin weapon, but it fast-tracked
Bafas into jail.
In
conclusion only two facts were rock-solid.
One:
Nik Radev and Loui El-Sheikh met at McDonald's,
East Bentleigh, between 9 and 10.30p.m.
Two:
on the same night, Sergeant Silk dropped by.
Investigators
believe both Radev and El-Sheikh were armed with
revolvers on the night, intent to protect their
negotiations, but these guns were either not used
or not found.
Silk
and Miller, still posted in their Commodore
watching the Korean BBQ, would have seen the heads
leav the carpark sometime around 10.30p.m. but
took no active interest beyond that point.
No
radio call or evidence of pursuit was made.
They
might have made a mental note, but nothing more
concrete than that as Radev and co lay outside
their evening's brief.
What
the dealers did in the interval between their exit
in East Bentleigh and the time of the murders in
Moorabbin remains a mystery of hypothesis.
In
separate statements, El-Sheikh and Radev claimed
to have driven to the lawn mower shop to cut up
more drugs, and from their they drove to a hotel
on Dandenong Road, Oakleigh, about five kilometres
from the crime scene, where they drank until 3a.m.
But
this didn't was with one of Radev's customers.
One of Radev's
speed clients, Danielle Lednar, later claimed to have made a rendezvous with him
at a Warrigal Rd service station around midnight.
(Mobile phone checks indicated the
pair had contact after 12.15 a.m on 16 August.)
Lednar said she was heading for the
meeting place only to be diverted by roadblocks at Keys Rd junction.
She recalled a million cops running
everywhere, sirens on, lights flashing, ambulances arriving.
Lednar had to go the long way round
to score the drugs.
She pulled into the petrol station
where Radev was waiting and they made the deal in less than a minute.
This implied that, if Radev was the
killer, he'd hung around Warrigal Rd to sell a handful of speed tabs five
minutes after executing two policemen. It didn't seem to stand up.
Radev was shot dead in 2003.
El-Sheikh moved to Queensland. Bafas was jailed for three months for running
speed. Tadic served time for fraud and drug related offences. Nicola, it is
believed, went straight.
Shortly after the Radev
investigatioon hit a brick wall, Lorimer detectives received information
that Lee
Torney, the side-kick of Billy
Prideaux, had a car at a country
property with a damaged tail-gate, the impact of a bullet according to the
informer.
Torney
kept his lair a secret.
Not
even his probation officer, Wendy Droney, knew his address.
The
pair would convene for scheduled meetings, only for Torney
to slip back into oblivion.
The
car in question was a dark green Subaru hatch which was one of several cars he
kept at his brother's property near Castlemaine.
The
car was ruled out but Torney, and his whereabouts climbed to a priority and
caused investigator Steve Beanland to break police etiquette.
He
tried to convince Torney's probation officer to tell him when she was next
meeting with Torney and asked her if he could come along to speak to him.
But
the best Beanland could wrangle was to entrust a business card with Droney.
His
crew's mobile number was on it.
"Tell
him to call me as soon as he can."
"I'll
do what I can," said Droney, shaking her head.
On
February 10, 1999, Beanland made another bid to track down Torney.
The
lead was Nat Fratino, a hot-car salesman who operated around Carlton.
Word
was Fratino had Torney for a client, or supplier, but the only crook to lob in
that period was an old-timer named Aubrey
Broughill.
Also known as
the 'Beanie Bandit', he and Fratino were in the business of pinching cars to
order but in terms of the Silk-Miller shootings and Lee
Torney, the avenue of investigation led nowhere.
In
the middle of all this runaround Beanland's mobile started beeping. "Betcha
thought I'd never ring," said a familiar voice.
"I
wasn't holding my breath, put it that way."
"What
the fuck you after?" said Torney.
Beanland
played it straight. "We're making inquiries about the Silk and Miller
murders."
"Why'd you
be asking me? Don't know nuffin' about it."
"Got
nothing to hide, Lee, why not tell us where you're living?"
"Dream
on pal."
"You're not
involved. Let's get your statement."
"I'll
think about it."
"How
'bout we put an end to all this chasing bullshit?"
The
line was dead.
In early
March 1999, Beanland and Detective Senior Constable D'Alo turned off
Ballarat Rd towards the old munitions factory.
They
were looking for an address in Maribyrnong.
The latest route to Torney's
door was via another crook, Thomas Hentschell.
Hentschell
would later be a man of extreme interest to Purana taskforce detectives
investigating Melbourne's gangland war.
A dangerous character, Hentschell
had not long been released from prison for a brutal rape.
Since jail, he'd been minding a
storage facility in South Melbourne that burnt to the ground in suspect
circumstances.
Now he was moving from flat to flat
to keep one step ahead of police.
His latest residence was reportedly
in Maribyrnong, in the one time apartment of Torney's
girlfriend.
But nobody was home. The two
detectives parked their unmarked car across the street.
The cops excuse to chat with Hentschell
was a large scale burglary on a second storage facility, again in South
Melbourne. Hentschell, it was said, had
retained the keys after his sacking.
A door opened. It was Hentschell
and the detectives approached and spoke to the professor looking criminal with
lank hair and thick spectacles.
He had a set of keys. One fitted a
car around the block, a brand new Ford ripped off from the very same burg in
South Melbourne.
Hentschell
was driven to South Melbourne CIB. He was granted bail and returned to the
streets - with a surveillance crew on his tail - police hoping he would lead
them to Torney.
Hentschell
kept busy through the night.
From midnight onward, he dropped by
several addresses.
While Torney
was never sighted the dogs obtained reams of fresh intelligence.
The log of addresses was checked off
the next day and Torney's crib was discovered, a battered weatherboard box in
outer Footscray.
A few more stolen cars were
scattered about the neighbourhood.
A full-time watch was placed on 3
Fontein St, Tottenham, for the next ten days.
A few days later the crew's mobile
rang.
"G'day, I'm on my way to your
place in Traralgon, I've been fishing."
The detective who took the call
recognised the voice. It was Torney. By mistake he
must have rang the Lorimer number he'd received during his probation visit, and
he quickly hung up.
On March 20, 1999, the Lorimer crew
were in the midst of arranging a raid on Torney's
home when they received a call from Sale CIB.
Earlier that morning the Special
Operations Group had swooped on Torney and his
pal, Matthew Stella, in a deep forest in Licola, where a $20,000 dope crop was
in full bud.
Torney
and Stella had arrived at the plantation while police were surveying the area.
"Get on the ground now!"
yelled the SOG sergeant, gun drawn.
Stella dropped like a stone. Not Torney.
His hand slipped to his waist.
Tucked in his pocked was a 9
millimetre pistol with a telescopic sight.
"Now," yelled the
sergeant.
Torney
showed his palms and dropped to his knees as SOG snipers in the underbrush aimed
at his head.
Computer prompts told the Sale
detectives that the Lorimer crew were looking for Torney
and the task force was contacted immediately.
Two Lorimer detectives drove to Sale
and returned with Torney the following day.
A formal interview was arranged once
Fontein St had been searched.
The ramshackle home contained a
shipping container load of firearms and stolen goods.
In every room lay a gun ready to
shoot at intruders.
Cradles above the shower recess was
an Uzi machine-gun, oiled and loaded.
There were three new motorbikes, a
brand new Toyota Rav-4, a Nissan Patrol, a Land Cruiser, Chesterfield lounge
suites, washing machines, computers, stun guns, radio scanners and fifty Persian
rugs.
Most of this haul was linked to the
South Melbourne warehouse job.
The inventory took up 36 pages,
including bomb recipes and diagrams of a gully in Licola - every treasure except
a signpost to the Silk-Miller killings.
In fact, Torney
refused to give a statement regarding Cochranes Road. Never trust nothing with a
cop, he reckoned, and that included the dotted line.
So with no alibi to test, the
taskforce were powerless to rule Torney out.
Not that they had anything concrete
in the first place.
The only hint was an informer's
opinion and he was the same snitch who had got it wrong with Peter
Gibb.
Torney
stayed stubborn, and Lorimer kept guessing.
The crew had no choice but to let
the Sale and South Melbourne boys deal with him, as one more homicide suspect
withered on the vine.
Torney's
body was later found in a disused mineshaft near Castlemaine.
Months
on, Detective Sergeant
Dave Waters produced a gun out of the blue.
The
gun was examined by ballistics and later dismissed
as the possible murder weapon.
In the ensuing
months Waters would be involved in an incident which would see he and several
other St Kilda detectives charged with drug trafficking.
The incident
also involved a Lorimer suspect, Nicholas
Ibrahim.
Ibrahim became a person of
interest after a man named Andrew Jordanou popped up.
Jordanou was a mechanic and is
described in One Down, One Missing as a short aggro customer of 26 who
was known to police.
On July 29, 1998, a couple of weeks
before the police shootings, Jordanou had strolled into the Moorabbin CIB with
news of robbery and extortion.
A few days before, five unknown men had allegedly entered his workshop in Cheltenham and threatened him with
violence.
The supposed leader of the group was
named "Nick" and he'd done most of the talking.
"If you don't pay up $90,000 by
the end of the week," he'd told Jordanou, "then I'll grab your fiancée
and fuck her in front of you. After that, I'll blow her away in front of you,
too."
"Ninety grand?" said Det
Sen Cons Mick Coughlan, who recorded the statement.
"They reckon I owe some guy
$110,000," said Jordanou.
"I didn't know what they were
talking about. First I thought they were joking."
But the men, said Jordanou, were
serious.
Slapping and punching him, they
forced him to write down the phone numbers of his parents and fiancée, plus his
own address and phone number.
In fear of his life he filled out a
job card authorising "Nick" to drive Jordanou's Honda Prelude around
town.
He surrendered the keys.
He gave the men $10,000 worth of
personal jewellery including an 18-carat gold necklace depicting a soccer
player.
Four days after the visit, an anonymous
caller rang the workshop and reminded Jordanou he was running out of time.
Jordanou was frightened for his life
and contacted police who opened a file.
The extortionists phone call was
traced to Oakwood Street, St Albans.
The house belonged to Nina Failia,
de facto of George Ibrahim, sister-in-law of
Nick Ibrahim, both men convicted thieves,
heroin users and pushers.
Nick
Ibrahim was later seen dealing speed with Jordanou which led to doubts in
the minds of police over the truthfulness of Jordanou's claims.
On August 3, 1998, when uniformed
cops called on the St Albans address, the found George
Ibrahim (who lied about his name and later scarpered through the backyard)
and Jordanou's Honda Prelude (which police commandeered).
A later visit by CIB uncovered an
indoor marijuana crop.
They also learnt that Paul Sawan, a
Roweville shopkeeper, was Jordanou's likely creditor.
Police believed that Sawan had been
dealing drugs from his store.
Sawan was once a member of the
Lebanese Tigers, a gang that specialised in gatecrashing partes in the early 80s
and lapsing into knife fights when the hospitality ran out.
Sawan drove a dark Land Rover that
matched Jordanou's description from the standover visit in July.
So where's the link to the Lorimer
investigation?
Turn the clock forward to the
weekend of the murders and the arrival of two hit men from Sydney.
Clearly Jordanou's tactic of taking
his complaint to police was not popular with the underworld and some of the
'debt-collectors' may have believed he needed fixing.
A hit man was called on. Two in
fact.
Remember that George
Ibrahim had a hit man reputation for is alleged gunplay in Adelaide after
Lorimer suspect Bora Alintas was gunned down,
though no charges were laid.
Instead other warrants were issued
by South Australian Police on Ibrahim's
arrest for numerous drug offences.
Already breaking parole in Adelaide,
the fugitive owed Her Majesty two years' jail even before his sundry charges
could be processed.
As soon as his name had rejoined the
Lorimer database, thanks to the Jordanou affair, Ibrahim
was a cornered man.
The flare-up with Jordanou had only
gone to blow his cover.
Another reason why the Ibrahim
boy opted for some out-of-town talent to do the deed on Jordanou; why one
alleged hit man hire two alleged hit men to remove a nuisance too close to home.
Peter Ayoub and Stavros 'Steve'
Rodarellis were drafted for the job.
Both had long histories and a talent
for violence.
Already that month, Ayoub, 28, had
been linked to the attempted murder of truck driver, Darren Hicks, in Liverpool,
Sydney.
Hicks, a known drug trafficker,
later fled to Adelaide where he refused to press charges against his assailant.
According to the grapevine, Ayoub's
other chore was rebirthing stolen cars and chauffeuring heroin by the kilo
around the Punchbowl area.
By contrast Rodarellis had no
priors.
There were rumours that the pair
flew to Melbourne on the night Silk and Miller were murdered.
Nicholas
Ibrahim was getting engaged.
In fact a guest at the Aurora
Reception Centre took a video of the party.
The tape would suggest that the two
Sydneysiders, both armed on the night, went missing shortly after dessert.
Other reports would emerge from the
party.
Namely that wads of cash were
exchanged between the hosts and their interstate visitors; that Rodarellis grew
abusive during the speeches and the men were asked to leave around 11pm.
Suspicions strengthened.
A party guest recalled the pair's
hurried exit from Melbourne. Margaret, an air hostess, recalled a loudmouth
gentleman answering Ayoub's description with a golden soccer player around his
neck. Another report told how Nick Ibrahim and his fiancée confiscated all
photos and negatives from the reception.
On April 14, 1999, Lorimer Det
Sgt Darren Humphries contacted the NSW Homicide Squad and requested a mugshot of
Ayoub.
Humphries stood by the fax machine
as the face came through.
He couldn't contain his excitement
as he watched the suspect's hair, then forehead, then caterpillar eyebrows. The
narrow face. The ponytail. The Punchbowl druggie matched the suspect described
by
Silk Miller Police
Shootings
