Speaker 1: And it's all about lazy crooks wanting to make easy money.
Speaker 2: And you don't even have to be in the country
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 1: I have to be in the country to do it.
Speaker 1: It's apparently being orchestrated. From a long way off.
Speaker 3: There was this rural sort of dirt road area next
Speaker 3: to this farming land, all flat land, and the body
Speaker 3: of the Point called woman, miss Mnaghani, was found in
Speaker 3: the bin. It's as grim as you can imagine.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrew Ruhle. Welcome back to Life and Crimes. We
Speaker 1: are here again with Anthony Dowsley, Olivia Jenkins and Reagan Hodge.
Speaker 1: There has been a year full of events. There's been
Speaker 1: crimes of all sorts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Andrew, it's been quite a year in crime. We
Speaker 2: talked about a few last week, but there's a lot
Speaker 2: we haven't touched on, like the tobacco wars or the
Speaker 2: missing campus trial. But one of the more chilling stories
Speaker 2: from earlier in the year was the body in the
Speaker 2: Wheely being case that you covered, Reagan.
Speaker 1: What's the really really true story about that one?
Speaker 3: So a Melbourne woman called Schwetze Mattagani from Point Cook
Speaker 3: was found in tragic circumstances. She was found in a
Speaker 3: bin out in a town called Buckley, which has just
Speaker 3: passed Geelong in the States West. She was found on Saturday,
Speaker 3: March nine. It was a stinking hot day. I remember
Speaker 3: I was out in Bananyong working on the Samantha Murphy disappearance.
Speaker 3: Somebody texted me that police had made a pretty grizzly
Speaker 3: discovery on this rural property out near Geelong. You're going
Speaker 3: to want to take a look at it. And in
Speaker 3: the hours after that the homicide squad were called out
Speaker 3: to Buckley. It was this rural sort of dirt road
Speaker 3: area next to this farming land, all flat land, and
Speaker 3: the body of the point cook woman, miss Mataghaney was
Speaker 3: found in the bin. It's as grim as you can imagine.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's horrible.
Speaker 3: And police over the next few days they worked too
Speaker 3: who find out any key suspects and they identified that
Speaker 3: her husband, Ashock raj Verkapula. I believe I've pronounced that
Speaker 3: career and apologies, no copy and paste job. Every time
Speaker 3: I write a story he's identified as having fled the country.
Speaker 3: It doesn't seem that way. He's jetted off to India.
Speaker 3: In the days after she was allegedly murdered and the
Speaker 3: days before suspicions about that well, it's hard to tell.
Speaker 3: At this stage. Victoria Police are still putting together a
Speaker 3: brief of evidence to hand to the Attorney General Mark Dreyfus.
Speaker 3: They do suspect as Shock may know something to do
Speaker 3: with this alleged murder, and at this point in time
Speaker 3: police are just working to get that extradition order to
Speaker 3: haul him back to Melbourne and then potentially question him.
Speaker 1: How do we go with extradition from India? They can
Speaker 1: be slow, can they not?
Speaker 3: They can be very slow and they may not lead anywhere.
Speaker 3: We've seen panite in that case that's well publicized and
Speaker 3: drawn out.
Speaker 1: It's India, urban nation with a lot of people living there.
Speaker 3: It is funny you say that the population is vast,
Speaker 3: and somebody told me that if you're wanting to hide
Speaker 3: in India, that's a pretty easy job.
Speaker 1: You're a chance. I would have thought so, well, that
Speaker 1: is an intriguing thing. When you got that text that day,
Speaker 1: did you think, oh, this could be Samantha Murphy.
Speaker 3: Funnily enough, it didn't click straight away, and it really
Speaker 3: should have because I was on the job looking for
Speaker 3: any clues of where Samantha Murphy might be. But it
Speaker 3: did eventually, and I thought, holy hell, have we just
Speaker 3: uncovered where she might be? But no, it was a
Speaker 3: separate case.
Speaker 1: Now, of course it wouldn't be a year in review
Speaker 1: if we didn't talk about tobacco was because they happen
Speaker 1: all the time. Every day we get up, we say,
Speaker 1: what's the news, and there's another tobacco place that's gone up.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, nightclub or god knows what what is going
Speaker 1: on here.
Speaker 3: So just recently, late in twenty twenty four, we've ticked
Speaker 3: over the one hundred fire bombings mark, which is just
Speaker 3: insane to think about. I think it was a milk
Speaker 3: bar out at Greenvale became the one hundredth fire linked
Speaker 3: to the illicit tobacco conflict. Now we would have spoken
Speaker 3: about this last year. Not much has really changed. They're
Speaker 3: still fire bombing each other's stores. It's all for control
Speaker 3: of the illicit market, which just has so many financial
Speaker 3: benefits attached to it.
Speaker 1: Well, really, and we've said this before, but it's like
Speaker 1: prohibition in America one hundred years ago, where politicians said, right,
Speaker 1: we're going to prohibit alcohol and there won't be any
Speaker 1: we're not going to sell it anywhere, And of course
Speaker 1: the gangsters went, you'll be beuilty. We're going to make
Speaker 1: it and sell it and speak easy to make a
Speaker 1: lot of tax free money. And in fact, that decision
Speaker 1: by the legislators back then, and I would argue Australia
Speaker 1: as well, meant that crooks, the old time mafia who
Speaker 1: used to corner the onion market and stand over the
Speaker 1: Italian lady on the corner and all that stuff. I
Speaker 1: turned them into the Five Families of New York, turned
Speaker 1: them into the greatest organized crime cartels in history prohibition
Speaker 1: because they could sell grog. And this tobacco business here
Speaker 1: has turned these sort of glorified panel beaters that used
Speaker 1: to steal a few cars and turned them into these
Speaker 1: cartels that are making million bucks a day or whatever
Speaker 1: from ilicit tobacco.
Speaker 3: And these cartels or syndicates as we call them now,
Speaker 3: they're making so much money because smokers every day of
Speaker 3: the week, they'll choose to buy a pack of smokes
Speaker 3: that's fifteen bucks instead of paying fifty sixty seventy dollars.
Speaker 3: With this tobacco excise that keeps increasing every few months.
Speaker 1: I know people in this building that by smokes for
Speaker 1: eighteen dollars instead of forty eight, And how could you
Speaker 1: blame them? No, if it's a no brainer, it's a
Speaker 1: no brainer.
Speaker 2: Well, the argument that chop shop is worse for you
Speaker 2: than quote unquote regulated cigarettes isn't going to deter Howell,
Speaker 2: who's already decided to go to the shops and buy cigarettes.
Speaker 1: And you know, you'd wonder whether that would be true.
Speaker 1: I don't think none of it's much good for you.
Speaker 1: It's certainly no good. The day will come awfully when
Speaker 1: a fire bomb will go up a little cook an
Speaker 1: entire family that we roasted children come out of this.
Speaker 3: I spoke to a mother in late November who told
Speaker 3: me that her daughter had to evacuate a big department
Speaker 3: complex out in the Western suburbs in early hours of
Speaker 3: the morning, half past one I think it was, And
Speaker 3: I was trying to get an interview.
Speaker 1: With the daughter.
Speaker 3: Obviously the below store had been firebombed that night, and
Speaker 3: the mother said, unfortunately, she's too shaken up, she's too
Speaker 3: sort of traumatized. She had to sort of grab her
Speaker 3: belongings in the middle of the night and just get
Speaker 3: out of there. Her belongings that she kept in the
Speaker 3: house or in the apartment above were ruined because of
Speaker 3: the smoke damage and the fire is put in the
Speaker 3: water on it. But that's the effect of having like
Speaker 3: she didn't even want to have a phone call to
Speaker 3: say what she heard. How she's feeling now, and she
Speaker 3: had to really run for her life.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's terrible and it will lead to death.
Speaker 1: It was just awful. And it's all about lazy crooks
Speaker 1: wanting to make easy money.
Speaker 2: And you don't even have to be in the country
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 1: Apparently I have to be in the country to do it.
Speaker 1: It's apparently being orchestrated from a long way off, is
Speaker 1: it not. That's right.
Speaker 2: We've obviously heard of, you know, two of the main
Speaker 2: players who really sort of kicked off the conflict that
Speaker 2: we saw last year, and that has shown no signs
Speaker 2: of slowing down this year. And obviously, when I say that,
Speaker 2: I'm talking about because kaz Hamad and the Melbourne based
Speaker 2: fighting Hidara or the Hadara Klan, who have yeah, who
Speaker 2: have history going back a long time and they've yeah,
Speaker 2: they're inches, have obviously not stopped. But now what we're
Speaker 2: seeing is that people have seen how lucrative the market is.
Speaker 2: And we've got a number of major players now and
Speaker 2: not necessarily anybody well known, and maybe people who aren't
Speaker 2: even on our radar yet. But you've got has you know,
Speaker 2: ringing up the phone of the local shop in Pasco
Speaker 2: Bay or Green Value, you name it, saying you're going
Speaker 2: to listen to me, and here's what you're going to do.
Speaker 2: And you've got people not knowing which way to turn
Speaker 2: because they just wanted to make a bit of extra money.
Speaker 2: And now they've got oh yeah, now they've got a
Speaker 2: crime boss breathing down the phone.
Speaker 1: It is scary stuff, very bad. Now. That's one story
Speaker 1: that aroused a lot of attention. Another one, I think
Speaker 1: is one gatta the disappearance of the as we call them,
Speaker 1: the two campers or the pensioners, and the subject of
Speaker 1: Greg Linn the Jets, that Billot and of his the
Speaker 1: acknowledged victim, Missus Clay, and of let's say, alleged victim
Speaker 1: Russell Hill. Ye, Anthony Dowsley, talk to me about that,
Speaker 1: talk to us about that well.
Speaker 4: As was highly publicized back in June, a jury came
Speaker 4: to a split decision on the murders of accusations of
Speaker 4: Carol Clay and Russell Hill, who were killed at Bucks
Speaker 4: Camp in the one Gatt Valley in Victoria's High Country.
Speaker 4: It was somewhat of an odd decision or unexpected decision,
Speaker 4: they note, but not necessarily a terrible one, terrible for
Speaker 4: the Hill family because they found that that Lynn, that
Speaker 4: Greg Lynn, the Jetstar pilot, had not murdered, of course,
Speaker 4: but they did find that he had killed Carol Clay.
Speaker 4: It leads you to the assumption that they thought that
Speaker 4: his finger was on the trigger of the gun which
Speaker 4: shot her as she stood apparently watching a freck car
Speaker 4: between Greg Lynn and Russell Hill.
Speaker 1: Those elements of that might be true.
Speaker 4: It might be somewhat true, But obviously they did not
Speaker 4: believe Greg Lynn's story.
Speaker 1: He gave evidence.
Speaker 4: He said it was all basically one accident after the other.
Speaker 1: He did very long shots.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a fairly.
Speaker 1: A million to one or several billion to one shot.
Speaker 4: They would be two extraordinary, unlucky events.
Speaker 1: In matter of a minute, Yes, exactly extraordinarily.
Speaker 4: Since then, he's been sentenced, yep. He was given a
Speaker 4: thirty two year jail term, which was a decent whack
Speaker 4: was but deserving yes, and no one will be shedding
Speaker 4: a tear for him, not many. And then he has
Speaker 4: since appealed.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't want to speculate about appeals. But he does
Speaker 1: have a very fine defense barrister, does he not.
Speaker 4: Dermit Dan is one of the best, if not the best,
Speaker 4: in all of Melbourne at Victoria.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very interesting time, so next to you
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, we'll look forward to seeing what
Speaker 1: happens with that. I don't know that we can say
Speaker 1: a lot more about that case without, you know, arguing
Speaker 1: the toss with the lawyers and the judges and courts. Well,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't do it.
Speaker 4: It's a bit hard to explain. But one of the
Speaker 4: areas that will be agitated will be that I'm sure
Speaker 4: Dermit Dan will be saying that the conviction doesn't make
Speaker 4: sense because there's no motivation to kill Carol Clay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he would say that. And I suppose unless there was, yes,
Speaker 1: some might think, you know, if she was a witness
Speaker 1: to something else, to a very tragic death of her friend.
Speaker 4: But as it stands right now, Greg Lynn says that
Speaker 4: that is an accident, that the gun accidentally goes off
Speaker 4: and kills Carol Clay and then in the aftermath of that,
Speaker 4: there's another struggle and Russell Hill lands on his own knife.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing. Circums of events be very hard to choreograph.
Speaker 1: If you were making a film about it, be very
Speaker 1: hard to get that sequence correct.
Speaker 4: Well, you'd have to almost lost several sequences, several versions of.
Speaker 1: The event astoning. Of all the people you've ever covered
Speaker 1: in many years, is there anyone that would be more
Speaker 1: calculating in your estimation than Greg Lynn?
Speaker 4: Well, given what we watched his record of interview with
Speaker 4: police and his evidence when he got in the witness box,
Speaker 4: I would say no. He's completely an utterly cool in
Speaker 4: a crisis.
Speaker 1: The other big story was the mushroom case. And I
Speaker 1: sometimes appear at hotels and things and talk to people,
Speaker 1: and I see this always a big response to the
Speaker 1: mushroom case. It sort of makes people laugh for some reason.
Speaker 1: I don't know why people funny about it. It's nothing
Speaker 1: funny about it, but the fact that to mushrooms people
Speaker 1: find somehow comical. Mushrooms are comical in a way that
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps hand grenades are not. Now this happened
Speaker 1: in South Gippsland, it did, and near curran Borough and
Speaker 1: Lean gatherin.
Speaker 4: Up there, and I learned a little something when the
Speaker 4: media packs were going down to Lean and Gather every
Speaker 4: day and to current Borough to find anyone associated with
Speaker 4: this case, anyone who might know anything. It's quite religious.
Speaker 4: There are religious parts of these towns and I never
Speaker 4: knew any of that. You're from down that way.
Speaker 1: I'm known from East Gippsland, which is about the same
Speaker 1: distance as from oh Moscow to Paris probably something like that.
Speaker 1: Not that far, but it's a fair way.
Speaker 4: And you know, as we move forward in this case,
Speaker 4: which at the moment will be heard at the courts
Speaker 4: in Morewell, which is pretty un new usual for a
Speaker 4: big murder case, there will be media from all over
Speaker 4: the world descending on this town really to a smoke,
Speaker 4: to a small court with facilities in it that are
Speaker 4: not up to date for something of this magnitude.
Speaker 1: What I want to know is that when reporters coming
Speaker 1: from London, Paris, New York, what they're going to think
Speaker 1: of the coffee shops of Mare. It's going to be interesting.
Speaker 4: It's going to be a brew ah and more well
Speaker 4: for the best coffee shop, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: It's a great place for steak sandwich. I know that
Speaker 1: for a fact. So what goes on there? Mushroom lady.
Speaker 4: Well, at the moment, so Aaron Patterson is remanded in custody,
Speaker 4: I can tell you she's the Dame Phillis Frost Center,
Speaker 4: which is a funny name for a prison. It is,
Speaker 4: but that's when.
Speaker 1: Not unless if you knew Dame Phillis Frost, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: think it was funny.
Speaker 4: I don't know her history.
Speaker 1: Actually, wonderful woman. I think you probably owe her more respect.
Speaker 4: Well, I just said it's a funny name from prison, right.
Speaker 4: I don't know much about Dame Philus Frost, but it's
Speaker 4: going to be It's going to be the most anticipated
Speaker 4: trial of the year in twenty twenty five, without a doubt.
Speaker 1: Is that true. Members of the jury, well, the younger
Speaker 1: people here might have a different view, I would.
Speaker 3: I would say given the worldwide media attention and the
Speaker 3: attention it's gained not only in Victoria but in wa
Speaker 3: in Queensland.
Speaker 1: You don't have to agree with him.
Speaker 3: I do on this case. It's going to be huge.
Speaker 3: We will have so many of our reporters down in
Speaker 3: the lovely More well town and Latro Valley. Nothing wrong
Speaker 3: with the Latroe Valley that's in between our sort of hometowns.
Speaker 1: It is indeed a wonderful place. Latro Valley used to
Speaker 1: sell more beer than anywhere else in Victorim? Is that right?
Speaker 1: One pub? There? Which one? The LV? There you go?
Speaker 1: I don't think it's even open now.
Speaker 2: And what do you think I think given the amount
Speaker 2: of what we were talking about earlier, while conspiracy theory,
Speaker 2: speculation about a woman, I think being at the center
Speaker 2: of a case like this, let alone in Australia, just
Speaker 2: tells you how much interest they'll be, not just from
Speaker 2: people like us. I think people who have a fixation
Speaker 2: with true crime here and around the world will tune
Speaker 2: and follow every step.
Speaker 1: It's got elements to it. It's like Midsimber murders and
Speaker 1: it's got a little bit of Bigger of Dipley in it.
Speaker 1: It's something slightly comical about this middle class lady that's
Speaker 1: accused of terrible things and she may not have done.
Speaker 2: Them, and it's good.
Speaker 1: That's what makes it interesting.
Speaker 2: That's right. It's got a bit of everything. As you mentioned.
Speaker 2: You know, a family sits down for lunch and nobody
Speaker 2: thinks that that's going to happen to them, and it's
Speaker 2: something that people do all the time every day, and
Speaker 2: you know, it's of course shouldn't be lost here that
Speaker 2: you know, some kids here have lost their grandparents Andou's
Speaker 2: lost their dad and it's awful. But the speculation for
Speaker 2: this poor family in such a small town when we
Speaker 2: all descend on it in twenty twenty five, will be massive.
Speaker 1: No doubt about it. Yeah, you're right, it's nothing funny
Speaker 1: about it at its core, and particularly for those who
Speaker 1: have lost loved ones. But you can see why people
Speaker 1: are fascinated by it because it's happening to respectable folk,
Speaker 1: not to you know, the criminal classes, which always makes
Speaker 1: it more intriguing.
Speaker 4: So Aaron Patterson, that is the woman accused of three murders,
Speaker 4: two teas, and as we speak, she's still accused of
Speaker 4: attempted murder as well of her husband several counts of that.
Speaker 4: As we move forward, we don't know what the jury
Speaker 4: will actually be told. For example, charges may be severed
Speaker 4: as we move along this process, witnesses are going to
Speaker 4: be very interesting, especially her ex husband.
Speaker 1: I'm sure, because he had his own problems with things.
Speaker 1: He's eaten. Yes, he's had tummy eggs.
Speaker 4: He's had he's had some hospital visits.
Speaker 1: And did they brought the dogs your Olivia, the dogs
Speaker 1: that came to Ballarat. I think they had a bit
Speaker 1: of an outing in South Kipstan, did they.
Speaker 2: They've had a busy year, not only in Baloti.
Speaker 1: Good dog will do that.
Speaker 2: And so before we got to the point that we're
Speaker 2: at now and as we wait for the trial, there
Speaker 2: was a day when the AFP and VIC Pole descended
Speaker 2: on her property in Leongatha Wals. She was with the
Speaker 2: dogs while she was inside, scouring it and sniffing the ground,
Speaker 2: and they did unearth some items there and I think
Speaker 2: they did include USB's and a laptop.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that some witnesses will talk to that Anthony.
Speaker 4: I think the electronic footprint here will be central to
Speaker 4: this case. I see be very important part of it.
Speaker 4: A lot of evidence will be built around it. And
Speaker 4: we have no idea what is on those computers, if
Speaker 4: anything at all could be anything could be anything that'll
Speaker 4: certainly be a big part of this case. All we
Speaker 4: know is that she used to be on the Currmborough Flyer,
Speaker 4: which was a newsletter and before that she had a
Speaker 4: bit of a job as an air traffic controller. She
Speaker 4: was involved in church activities, She loved to travel, who
Speaker 4: loved travel and camping well.
Speaker 2: As Reagan said, the mushroom cookcase is going to be
Speaker 2: one of the biggest things we'll cover in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: but it's not going to be the only one. There's
Speaker 2: arson attacks, Middle East crime, gangs and biking activity and
Speaker 2: none of them are going away anytime soon, and maybe
Speaker 2: we can talk about them in more detail next year.
Speaker 1: Andrew, thank you for coming along. Ladies and gentlemen of
Speaker 1: the jury. You've been the most informative again. Thanks Andrew,
Speaker 1: Thanks thanks for listening. Life in Crimes is a Sunday
Speaker 1: Herald Sun production for True Crime Australia. Our producer is
Speaker 1: Johnty Burton. For my columns, features and more, go to
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