WEBVTT - They got the lot 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:05.080 It was real Hollywood stuff. No one hurt, no guns, 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:09.119 no fear, no horror, just a lot of money vanishes. 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:13.000 They make a hole just big enough for the local 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:16.479 police inspector to poke his head through. So it's a 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:18.760 hole about as big as of football and he pokes 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.000 his head in and he pulls it out and he 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:26.080 says these immortal words. They got the lot. This time 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:30.520 he realized that this would only have one ending. I'm 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.680 Andrew Rule. This is life and crimes. This month we've 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:38.560 got a couple of anniversaries, both for the same man. 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:43.200 That man is the monster. The late Graham Allan Kinneborough, 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:47.920 one of the most popular gangsters who ever breathed in Melbourne. 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:50.159 When he was shot twenty years ago on the thirteenth 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.680 of December two thousand and three, he was probably more 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:59.279 genuinely mourned by more people than any other well known 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:04.280 victims of the Gangland War. And this is because, over 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:09.560 a long life, a long and productive criminal life, Graham 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.720 Kinneborough had managed to make a lot of friends, and 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:17.120 he'd often been a peacemaker and a negotiator when other 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:20.280 people reached for their guns first. He had friends from 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.679 Little Italy in Carlton to little Chicago down on the waterfront, 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.759 and he was respected by old school police and old 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.800 time paters and dockers, and by people in the fight game. 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.039 In fact, he owned the city building. I think it 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.080 was Flinders Lane, I reckon I went there once where 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.880 Barry Michael trained for fights leading up to his world 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:46.880 title challenge in the early eighties, and the Munster bet 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:53.480 big on Barry in several of his winning fights. Barry 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.680 claims he never knew that the Munster, his patron and 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:00.800 landlord and very good friend, was a safe cracker. But 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.520 that's a matter for Barry. We're not in the business 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:07.800 of arguing with former world champion boxes. Man. They call 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:12.800 the Munster new politicians and priests, punters and publicans, bookmakers 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:17.959 and shoplifters. But he was especially fond of jockeys. Jockeys 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.920 are pretty handy in his line of work. And the 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.240 problem was no one knew exactly what his line of 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:28.480 work was. Once in a coroner's inquest, when he was 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:35.200 asked what his profession was, he said, um ah, and 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:36.880 he hummed and hard and he said, oh that's right, 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.520 I'm a rigger. I'm a rigger. But he'd forgotten what 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:44.600 he was saosed to be, But in fact he was 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:49.399 a career criminal. He was once and this is why 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.000 we're talking about him today. He was once one of 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:56.040 the finest safe crackers in the world. That didn't mean 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.520 he wouldn't dabble in other things, but safe cracking. He 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.760 was good. He wasn't the only good safe cracker. I've 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:05.840 heard the names of some other people who worked at 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.080 the same time, and some of them worked with him, 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:13.480 But he was part of a small group known as 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:18.959 a magnetic drill gang, who perfected a technique of cracking 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.920 safes that were regarded as fairly well impregnable to normal 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:28.000 safe cracking methods, and these things that you couldn't just 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.880 stick a stick of jelly knite under, these big chubb 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.040 safes that banks and other places started to put it 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.880 in the seventies because they were too big and too strong. 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:43.000 And what Graham Kinneborough and his closest allies came up 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:49.960 with was a mixture of medical and mechanical technology, and 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:55.000 they used a magnetic drill which could be clamped to 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:57.440 the wall of a safe or the door of a safe, 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:02.280 so that the drill would enter precisely where you wanted 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:06.000 it to without slipping or moving. And the other thing 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:11.480 they used was medical gear. They used a fluoroscope which 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:16.080 could be inserted in the whole adrill to detect any movement. 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:20.920 And a fluoroscope is like a portable X ray which 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:25.839 can show you in real time movements inside a solid object. 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:30.200 And fluoroscopes are used in medicine for doctors to poke 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.520 them into parts of your body to see what's happening 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:37.560 inside you, and are used in security applications at airports 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.440 and places like that to scan luggage to see what's 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:44.760 inside the luggage. And Kinnebar and his mates used them 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:50.440 to scan safes to see how the tumbler mechanisms worked 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.360 in the locking mechanism. And having done that bit, they 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:56.920 would take out a fluoroscope and then they would insert 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.800 a thing called a sistoscope. Now a sistoscope or surgeons 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:04.760 use it. It's a very fine, long, thin thing like 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.760 a worm, which can be inserted into various parts of 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:12.560 the human body to give the surgeon a picture of 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:16.920 what's happening inside your body. Classically used for bladder operations 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:22.760 and things like that. These guys adapted that medical equipment 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:25.120 so they could poke it in a hole in a 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:29.839 safe and look down it and see the tumbles that 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.800 they had to manipulate. And then they had tools that 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.960 they could use to manipulate the tumblers and get the 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:40.760 giant doors to open for them. And they'd learned to 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:43.440 do this. I was self taught, and they'd learned to 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:47.400 do it. They say this is unprovable, but it's widely 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:51.599 held to be true, by obtaining sophisticated safes at probably 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:55.920 great expense, and setting them up in an empty warehouse 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:58.359 or factory somewhere in Melbourne, and then they would go 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:02.719 there with all this equipment practice cracking these safes until 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.360 they got good at it. And this I find to 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.159 be a remarkable thing. I think these are the aristocrats 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:14.240 of crime. Safe crackers, a breed that is almost extinct 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:19.520 now because of technical advances that make safe cracking a 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:23.719 bit of a no go zone for crooks. But even 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:28.599 after most of his contemporaries decided that safe cracking was 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:33.320 too hard, Graham Kinneborough made a big thing of it 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.479 back in the late seventies and early eighties. I think 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:43.040 he and his mates pulled something like fourteen safe jobs, 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:47.200 or similar to safe jobs some of them were strong 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.160 boxes and safety deposit boxes, things like that, but they 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:55.359 did a total of about fourteen different raids in less 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:59.039 than two years in that era. Now, the big one, 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:03.080 the granddaddy of the mall, was the Murwillumba bank job, 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.520 and this is the one that happened on the twenty 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:10.720 third of November nineteen seventy eight, which is pretty well 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:15.000 forty five years ago. Murwillumbar in those days and to 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.080 some extent now, was one of those country towns that's 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:23.080 the hub of a farming district, in this case the 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:27.680 Tweed Valley area of the Northern Rivers region of northern 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:32.080 New South Wales. Pretty productive region, I think, probably dairy farms, 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:37.040 maybe some sort of subtropical cropping, a pretty productive area, 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.880 particularly in that era. A lot of smaller towns dotted 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:44.960 around the district. And in those days, of course, banks 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:49.200 were central to the lifeblood of any town, any district, 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:52.680 and all dealings were in cash, and that meant that 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:57.840 every fortnight, when government employees were paid and pensions were 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:02.160 paid fortnightly, there would be a big influx of money 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:08.119 fortnightly that would come in to Mwillumbar as the big 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:13.120 central town in that area every second Wednesday, and so 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:17.440 it was that on Wednesday, the twenty second of November, 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:21.040 a armored truck turned up and they unloaded quite a 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.520 bit of money, as they did every second Wednesday, but 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:29.080 because of the timing this is late November, there was 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.760 even more money than usual because there was holiday pay 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:37.240 loadings for all these public servants and government employees, and 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:41.600 there was extra cash being brought in as you'd imagine, 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:45.480 for banks and for businesses, shops and all the rest 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:49.000 of it to handle the Christmas rush, the Christmas shopping. 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:53.920 So it was a bumper crop of cash, and it 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:59.760 was unusually large. And it appears that crooks like God 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.199 in mysterious ways, and that word of this big bunch 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.440 of cash going into the Bank of New South Wales 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:12.480 branch in Mcwillumbar had trickled down to little Old Melbourne 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:15.560 far to the south, where Graham Kinterbory and his merry 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.840 band of safe crackers were tipped off about it. Now 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.040 we'll get to how that happened a bit later, but 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:27.520 it is suspected that it was almost inside information from 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:33.640 a rogue police person possibly, but obviously they knew that 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.199 there was good money to be had there. They knew 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:40.079 that it was a country bank that was fairly easy 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:43.199 to break into, that did not have an alarm system, 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.800 and yet it had a big enough safe that all 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.800 the local money would go into that safe or strong 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:53.640 room before it went out to the smaller country towns. 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:58.440 It's a Wednesday night Thursday morning situation, and so on 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:00.760 that Wednesday night, there's a few drinkers across the road 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.040 at the Imperial Hotel, and down the road one hundred 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.160 meters is a police station that's supposedly manned all night, 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.520 but of course the probably one policeman in the doing 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.520 the crossword, having a sleep in the cells or something. 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:16.960 And I think there was an all night postal worker 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:20.199 at the post office on the other corner, sorting mail 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:22.960 or something. But you don't have to be told. No 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:27.760 one heard nothing. And what happened is that sometime that night, 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:32.800 let's guess around midnight would make sense, because they needed 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.560 most of the night to do what they did. Let's 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.680 say around midnight, when the last drinkers have probably gone 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:43.200 home and everybody's home in bed, someone has four door 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.880 opened the back door of the bank, a back door 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:49.840 of a bank in the bush, probably didn't present many 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.599 problems for expert safecrackers. They'd be able to open it 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:57.800 with a skeleton key or whatever, and they got access, 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.240 and then they set to work. I used, as I 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:05.199 listed before, the magnetic drill, which had a diamond tipped 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:09.880 drill bit which would go through really hard metal and 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.720 it would go in a precise spot, so they could 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:17.360 go exactly where they wanted and to the exact depth 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.520 that they wanted, so that they wouldn't actually screw up 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:25.280 the tumblers that work the lock mechanism, but get them 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:29.040 so close to it that they can manipulate the lock 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.839 mechanism the tumblers, and then of course they used the 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:36.280 fluoroscope and the cistoscope and did their trick. All this 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:41.439 takes time. It's very complex and exacting and precise work. 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:46.200 I suspect it's really much like surgery that the guys 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:50.040 doing this, we're doing something as complex and as delicate 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.080 as most forms of surgery when you think about it, 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:57.600 and that's not too den a great surgeon. So it 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:00.480 just shows you how good these guys were at what 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:04.160 they did. And in this case the operation was a success, 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.920 but the patient, in the form of the bank died, 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.679 the bank lost its money. The robbers were able to 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:15.160 empty the strong room, the vault, and they got one 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:21.120 point seven six and change a million, which in nineteen 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.440 seventy eight was a lot of money. It was the 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:29.560 equivalent in twenty twenty three of more than ten million dollars, 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:34.680 and it was in untraceable notes, mostly fifties and one interestingly, 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:38.959 and so they were able to load all this cash, 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:41.679 which would be a lot of cash, into bags or whatever. 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:46.000 And I think some took that there was a panel 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:49.720 van parked in the side street that night, somebody noticed one, 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:52.719 and so you'd think they probably did have a panel van, 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.320 and they loaded it with money and the way they went, 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.800 and no one knew anything until seven thirty next morning, 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:04.840 when a passing security guard noticed that the back door 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:08.480 of the bank was a jar. I think, and when 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.959 aarn had looked, I found that's interesting. And then the 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:15.920 bank people came in and they realized that there wasn't 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.199 much wrong. They didn't leave a great mess. They cleaned 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:23.200 up after themselves, they didn't leave any clues. There were 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:25.319 some things they looked up, and they saw there was 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:28.600 a square hole in the ceiling where they'd removed perhaps 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.920 tiles or something from the ceiling. Not sure why that was, 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.640 except it might have been a potential escape route if 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.079 they heard somebody coming. Maybe they thought they could use 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.920 some sort of rope ladder or something to get themselves 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:44.880 up into the roof and get out that way, which 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:49.559 would tell you, with their careful methodical way of doing things, 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:53.240 didn't leave tools lying around, didn't leave anything that could 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.920 be used as evidence against them. And what they also did, 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:01.120 and this bit is just delicious shebericking for the bank, 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:07.959 is that they close the door of the vault and 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.360 then they screwed up or removed a couple of the 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:15.360 tumblers so that the door could never be opened again. 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:20.600 They effectively sealed it shut. And so when the bank 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.840 people get there after the security guards called them, they 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.680 can't actually open the vault and check if the money's there, 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.120 so they don't actually know they've been robbed. They can 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:34.720 see that something's happened, that there's a little net hole 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.160 in it and there's been a little bit go on, 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.600 but they don't actually know they've been robbed, and so 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.320 they get local locksmith's there. They've got no chance. They 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:49.440 fly in four Chubb safe experts, Chubb being a brand 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:54.200 of safe from Brisbane, Brisbane to the local airport. They 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:58.640 bring them in, these guys and the locksmiths spend five 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:02.320 hours trying to open the safe, no chance. In the end. 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:07.320 In desperation, they get the local workmen from the tweed Shire. 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:12.200 These are the guys that use bulldozers and dynamite and 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.600 sledgehammers and chisels and all that stuff, and they get 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.360 in there with jackhammers. They break open the wall of 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:21.480 the bank, the actual wall of the bank, and they 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:23.400 get to the back of the strong room which is 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:27.760 reinforced concrete. We're still reinforcing in it, and they smash 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.560 it open and smash it open with machinery and then 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:34.640 with jackhammers, and then with oxy welding equipment to cut 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:38.440 the metal, and finally at four point thirty that afternoon, 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:41.880 Now this is about twelve hours after the crooks have left, 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.680 let's say, or eleven hours after they have left. They 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:49.640 make a hole just big enough for the local police inspector, 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:53.160 chief inspector to poke his head through. So it's a 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.200 hole about as big as of football and he pokes 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.240 his head in and he pulls it out and he 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:04.200 sees these immortal words, they got the lot. All the 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:07.920 money was gone. It wasn't one dollar left in the vault. 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.960 That phrase, they got the lot, became instantly famous because 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:14.840 it went out on front pages everywhere, not only around 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.680 Australia but overseas because it was just a great heist. 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.880 It was a magic story. It was real Hollywood stuff. 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:27.360 No one hurt, no guns, no fear, no horror, just 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:31.080 a lot of money vanishes. So it's the sort of 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.760 crime that people can't help being fascinated by and sort 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:40.760 of admiring. Really, that phrase then becomes quite well known 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:45.320 around the district because a local shop owner got straight 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:49.640 onto it and made details T shirts, caps, coffee mugs, 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.160 beer glasses. They used that phrase they got the lot, 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:56.600 and they had it everywhere and it became the souvenir 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.360 item former Willembar, much to the disgust of the local 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.600 mayor and other people like that, who thought it was 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.040 not a great way to promote the wonderful district. Meanwhile, 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.959 the boys with the money have vanished. Now there's no 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:16.320 proof who did this. There is not actually any forensic 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:21.399 evidence that links Graham Kinneberg or Graham Kinniburg's tight knit 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:27.399 crew of safe crackers to this crime. However, it was 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:31.399 acknowledged by police that a gang they called the Magnetic 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:37.200 Drill Gang had pulled some fourteen jobs in quick succession, 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.399 pretty big job some of them, and this included a 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:43.919 massive jewelry heist in Lonstar Straight in Melbourne, and we 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:48.439 talked about that job before on the episode called mister Munster, 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.760 the very good Crook. All these different jobs, another one 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.600 with strong boxes, another one I think Bullion in Queensland, 0:17:55.960 --> 0:18:03.879 and interestingly and probably significant, inter Pol, when contacted about this, 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:10.520 stated that no other safecrackers in the world used that 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:15.359 modus operandi, that the use of the magnetic drills or 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.560 something that no other gangs were doing in the way 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:22.080 that this Australian gang was. And so it was fairly 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:25.720 clear to the police and of course to other crooks 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.280 who was responsible. No one else knew how to do this, 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:32.720 no one else was doing it. It didn't have their 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:37.280 fingerprints all over it, but it was their signature crime. 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.880 No one was hurt during the robbery, but the jungle 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:47.679 drums were beating right through the underworld, and the jungle 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:52.879 drums were saying, oh mate got one point seven plus 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:57.840 million that in nineteen seventy eight was a startling amount. 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.639 It was a time when you know, most people running 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.639 between one hundred and two hundred dollars a week, and 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.520 a time when a lot of houses could be bought 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:11.679 for between ten grand and fifty grand, depending where they were. 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.359 So it just was a lot of money enough to 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:19.239 set these guys up pretty well, maybe for life. And 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:23.080 this attracted the sort of attention of people that we 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:26.399 will call toe cutters. Now, toe cutters can take several forms. 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:31.360 One form would be jealous and violent criminals who are 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.800 not much good at pulling robberies themselves, but feel that 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:37.560 they could track down those who are good at it 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:41.520 and extract money from them by torture and other means. 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:46.919 It would also attract a particular brand of police, not 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:49.280 only legit police who want to catch the crooks and 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.520 arrest them, but rogue police who want to catch the 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.520 crooks and extract the money from them before charging them, 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.879 and so on, or maybe just extract the money and 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:04.120 bolt with it. So Graham Kinnibur and his mates were 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:08.520 very aware of these dangers because people they knew in 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:12.080 the Great Bookie Robbery in Melbourne of two years earlier. 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:17.000 Many of them had come to sticky ends. It did 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:19.640 not end well for a lot of the bookie robbers 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:24.120 because they became targets of these toe cuts as well 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.560 as of the police. Kinnebarrough was always a thinker and 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:33.440 well connected, and apparently he knew that a former associate 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:37.119 of his, a very well known all around crook and 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:42.119 pretty good crook, called Steve Sellers, that Stephen Sellers was 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:47.639 dirty on him for not including him in the big 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:51.840 mcwillem barr heist. And it would appear that Kinnerbarrough thought 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.680 that Sellers was a cop magnet. He was a cop 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:58.200 bita and a cop hater, and he was getting involved 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:03.439 in a lot of fairly public opposition to police and 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:07.800 prison officers and stuff like that, and had a very 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:12.520 sort of political twist to his activism this. Sellers, as 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:19.320 well as being absolute kruk and Kinniburough didn't agree with 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:21.840 any of that and thought it just attracted attention and 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:25.000 caused trouble, and so he left him well out of 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:33.159 this robbery. Sellers resented that and was deeply unhappy, and Kinniborough, 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:37.600 although he was usually a peacemaker, usually he played Kissinger 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:41.399 rather than Dillinger. This time he realized that this would 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:47.800 only have one ending. And early in the new year 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:51.600 of nineteen seventy nine, either late January or early February, 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:56.920 doesn't matter which. Stephen Sellers is in the Domain motel 0:21:57.000 --> 0:21:59.800 in South Era and comes out to answer a phone 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:04.840 call in the lobby of this motel. And someone must 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:06.679 have known he was going to do that, because as 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.600 soon as he picked up the phone and bent his 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.480 head to talk, he was shot three times in the 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.800 back with a twelve guard shotgun. Now that would be 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:21.600 enough at point blank range to kill a buffalo, but 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:24.920 it didn't kill Stephen Sellers. He was rushed to hospital, 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:29.680 where he was joined by fearsome criminal defender and advocate 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.280 Robert Richter, among others, and various police who wanted to 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:36.879 ask him if he had any words of wisdom to 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:39.600 tell them about who might have shot him. He refused 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:43.160 to got anybody in or speculate about who shot him. 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:46.200 Wouldn't help the police because he was a police hater. 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:51.760 But it was widely held and indeed has never been 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:58.240 really denied specifically by anybody, that Graham Kinneburough had pulled 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:03.960 the trigger in order to ongoing bloodshed and violence and 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:07.000 troubles for his own family, which showed that when it 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:13.120 came to the point that this technical and analytical and 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:17.640 tactical genius of a crook, a bloke who probably could 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:22.000 have made a very fine commanding officer in the military, 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:25.280 or probably could have made some sort of captain of 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:30.560 industry in business, that he had made a decision that 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:34.199 Sellers was going to be dangerous for him and for 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:40.320 his family. And interestingly, I draw this conclusion because we 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:45.160 can get away with it. It's interesting to note that Sellers 0:23:45.680 --> 0:23:48.040 had upset a lot of police over the journey in 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:53.639 Victoria and notably in Sydney, and perhaps the police didn't 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:56.600 chase it as hard as they might have. That's possible. 0:23:57.480 --> 0:24:00.280 As it turns out, more than twenty detectives from three 0:24:00.320 --> 0:24:04.600 states worked on the Murwillembar case, but they got exactly nowhere. 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:08.119 No one claimed the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:11.200 reward on offer a lot of money in those days, 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:17.000 and the robbery became part of folklore, criminal folklore. Of course, 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:22.439 in more recent times, most of our listeners recognized Kinnerborough 0:24:22.840 --> 0:24:27.199 because of his association with the big players in the 0:24:27.280 --> 0:24:30.399 underworld war. He was a guy that knew most people 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:33.639 and was on good terms with most people in the 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:37.679 Melbourne underworld. He was a figure who bridged the old 0:24:38.160 --> 0:24:43.920 fashioned waterfront painters and dockers crime times when organized crime 0:24:43.960 --> 0:24:46.840 in Melbourne was run out of Port Melbourne pubs by 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:52.399 old guys wearing braysom bib overalls. And he linked that 0:24:52.520 --> 0:24:56.280 world with the world of Lygon Street and the smoothies 0:24:56.359 --> 0:24:59.280 driving around in black Mercedes and all that sort of stuff. 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:03.920 And he was respected and to some extent loved by 0:25:04.040 --> 0:25:07.400 a lot of people. Alfonse Gangitano, the old Marand brothers 0:25:07.440 --> 0:25:10.120 and the younger Morand brothers. He knew them all and 0:25:11.200 --> 0:25:16.480 was widely liked. Even some of the old time police 0:25:16.720 --> 0:25:21.480 couldn't help liking him, because there was always that grudging 0:25:21.520 --> 0:25:26.320 admiration for a safe cracker. He was an old fashioned 0:25:26.320 --> 0:25:29.480 sort of bloke who loved a bit of opportunity and 0:25:29.520 --> 0:25:31.720 if he got a chance to fix a race to 0:25:31.840 --> 0:25:36.800 shorten the odds on his way through, you know, cultivating jockeys, 0:25:36.800 --> 0:25:39.320 he would do that. He was sometimes seen at places 0:25:39.359 --> 0:25:43.800 like Choice out in Hawthorne talking to a favorite jockey 0:25:43.880 --> 0:25:48.480 or two, often seen at the Flower Drum, the expensive 0:25:48.600 --> 0:25:52.720 Chinese restaurant in the city, favored by wealthy people, but 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:57.080 particularly by crooks. And famously somebody said to him, once 0:25:57.320 --> 0:25:59.679 you know all that money you made over the years, Graham, 0:26:00.480 --> 0:26:03.200 what you do with it? And he said, well, you know, 0:26:03.359 --> 0:26:05.000 a lot of it gets wasted. He said, I reckon, 0:26:05.000 --> 0:26:08.320 I've eaten fifty grands worth of fried rice at the 0:26:08.359 --> 0:26:10.439 Flower Drum. He kept his eye and he kept his 0:26:10.520 --> 0:26:13.120 hand in. He had an associate that will call Byron. 0:26:13.280 --> 0:26:16.240 He's dead now, so it's fine. And what they do 0:26:16.280 --> 0:26:19.920 they'd load up with a bit of hot stuff from 0:26:20.000 --> 0:26:24.320 the boutiques and shops. This would be high end clothing 0:26:25.640 --> 0:26:28.000 that had been stolen to water, a lot of it, 0:26:28.640 --> 0:26:34.719 and the thieves would get I think half its ticket 0:26:34.800 --> 0:26:38.600 value from the receivers, and then the receivers had sell 0:26:38.640 --> 0:26:40.960 it out at something like two thirds of its ticket 0:26:41.040 --> 0:26:45.040 value to clients. And I know people who should be 0:26:45.040 --> 0:26:49.600 ashamed of themselves who can recall going to a motel 0:26:49.920 --> 0:26:53.480 I think in Port Melbourne or South Melbourne and there'd 0:26:53.520 --> 0:26:56.840