Speaker 1: Andrew Fraser is a name you might remember if you're
Speaker 1: a longtime listener of No Another Crime podcast, or if
Speaker 1: you just listened to the Peter Dubas episode. Now. In
Speaker 1: that episode, I mentioned that the man who eventually took
Speaker 1: down serial murderer Peter du Pass for his third life
Speaker 1: sentence was once a prominent lawyer. This is his story,
Speaker 1: don't du.
Speaker 2: Scared.
Speaker 1: It is a tale of a man who flew too
Speaker 1: close to the sun, a man who was once one of,
Speaker 1: if not the top, or certainly most notorious criminal defense
Speaker 1: lawyers in Melbourne. Oh wow, and how Andrew Fraser ended
Speaker 1: up behind bars himself to be the one to whom
Speaker 1: Peter du Pass would confess? Wow? How much do you
Speaker 1: know about this story?
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about this story apart from what
Speaker 2: you already told me. You know in the Peter Dupats episode.
Speaker 1: That's what you call a little teas.
Speaker 2: Ah, you call it a little teas.
Speaker 1: Andrew Roderick Fraser was born in nineteen fifty one to
Speaker 1: a comfortable middle class family in Melbourne, Australia.
Speaker 2: Of it and roder wreck as well. That's such an
Speaker 2: interesting name.
Speaker 1: Isn't it. It feels very kind of old English. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: went to Wesley College and went on to marry and
Speaker 1: have two children.
Speaker 2: So Wesley College is quite a fancy school in Melbourne,
Speaker 2: isn't it very expensive?
Speaker 1: Yeah? It's a private griba Yeah, yeah, with boys and girls.
Speaker 1: He was a good student, but not a great one.
Speaker 1: He was one of those kids who was naturally clever,
Speaker 1: but he didn't put in a whole heap of work. Sure,
Speaker 1: he loved an argument, so becoming a lawyer seemed to
Speaker 1: fit absolutely. He also really loved the idea of money,
Speaker 1: and in particular having lots of it.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: He was described by the scriptwriter on what would later
Speaker 1: become a TV series about his life as being a
Speaker 1: man with a strong streak of narcissism. He was drawn
Speaker 1: to the law because it was a fast track to
Speaker 1: social and financial success.
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, were his parents' lawyers or anything as well?
Speaker 1: I didn't find anything on what his parents did, but
Speaker 1: they were, you know, well off enough that the kids
Speaker 1: went to private school.
Speaker 2: They were the Wiggles, that's.
Speaker 1: Right, their time before they gave birth in nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 2: Beautiful.
Speaker 1: Now, he obviously did get into law, because that's where
Speaker 1: this story is going. But he only passed by one percent,
Speaker 1: which did you know a pass is a pass? Just
Speaker 1: to how far he gets in law and how prominent
Speaker 1: he was, it's interesting that he just scraped through.
Speaker 2: Is that like ninety like you know something that people
Speaker 2: were quite high to get into.
Speaker 1: Law, to get into exactly now. His teachers and classmates
Speaker 1: probably didn't expect him to go on to become the
Speaker 1: big name in law that he inevitably would, all right.
Speaker 1: One thing he did have in spades was doggedness. He
Speaker 1: treated every client as the most important client he could
Speaker 1: or would ever have, and made sure he was available
Speaker 1: to them at any and every moment they might want.
Speaker 2: That's a pretty good It's a good quality to have
Speaker 2: in someone.
Speaker 1: It was very much. He was like, I mean, I'll
Speaker 1: do anything to make the most money that i can.
Speaker 1: So if I'm the most available, the more people will
Speaker 1: hire me. Now, this is how he became so popular
Speaker 1: and yes, very very wealthy. He would turn up to
Speaker 1: court to represent the pits of society. His words, not mine.
Speaker 1: He was truly representing some heinous people in a Mercedes
Speaker 1: Benz convertible at first, later to be replaced by a Porsche.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: He aligned himself to professional criminals and said, I'm in
Speaker 1: your camp. I make house calls twenty four hours a day,
Speaker 1: and I will get a magistrate out of bed at
Speaker 1: two am for you. If I have to right a magistrate.
Speaker 1: I am. But in doing this he very much alienated
Speaker 1: himself from the other side, the police, all right, and
Speaker 1: they ended up loathing him because he wasn't only successful
Speaker 1: in court, he also seems to carry it on outside
Speaker 1: the court. His attitude was that this was a game
Speaker 1: and he was able to win it. He wasn't just
Speaker 1: about justice, he was about winning. This will become quite evident.
Speaker 1: He would live by the line you never ask your
Speaker 1: clients if they're guilty or not sure, so.
Speaker 2: You don't know, you're not liable in any way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I ask, And I heard him say this
Speaker 1: many times in different interviews when I was researching. His job,
Speaker 1: as can be argued, of course, is the job of
Speaker 1: every defense lawyer, was presuming innocence and make sure only
Speaker 1: the cases with strong enough evidence proven beyond reasonable doubt
Speaker 1: would go down. But this often perhaps went a little
Speaker 1: too far. He had a lot of clients, obviously, But
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk today about the three or at
Speaker 1: least three of the most prominent ones for which he
Speaker 1: became infamous and inevitably led to his downfall.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay.
Speaker 1: The first is a name, a man by the name
Speaker 1: of Denni Allan, aka mister Death. Have you heard of him?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: He was a violent and depraved drug dealer who dipped
Speaker 1: into his own supply, becoming heavily addicted himself. This only
Speaker 1: made him even more erratic than he was already. He
Speaker 1: was the eldest son of criminal matriarch Caath Petting Girl,
Speaker 1: which I feel like anyone from Melbourne will recognize it
Speaker 1: is one of the most infamous and notorious names in
Speaker 1: Melbourne crime. Her family family, Her family is inarguably evil
Speaker 1: and very dangerous. And I'll go into some of this
Speaker 1: family a bit later on. Cath Petting Girl brought her son,
Speaker 1: her first son, Dennis Allen, to see Andrew Fraser when
Speaker 1: he was in his twenties and they had a lot
Speaker 1: of cash to spend, so spend it on Fraser they did.
Speaker 1: Alan was a major drug dealer in inner city Melbourne,
Speaker 1: mostly working around Richmond South Era during the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: You've got to have your beat. I feel like when
Speaker 2: you're working in the underground as well, you've got to
Speaker 2: have your beat. Like a lot of people know about,
Speaker 2: like you know the kind of the Carlton, you know,
Speaker 2: crimes around that time, and the carlt and crew.
Speaker 1: They will come up as well. It's a very meltpig story.
Speaker 1: No I like it. It's foreshadow foreshadowing. So one of
Speaker 1: the things, I mean, there's lots of stuff about this
Speaker 1: horrible man. One of the things that kind of comes
Speaker 1: up again and again is that he lived his house
Speaker 1: in Richmond backed onto the train line and back in
Speaker 1: those days, trains had windows that you could put up
Speaker 1: and down right, So he would have his drug runners
Speaker 1: throw the drugs out of the train window into his backyard.
Speaker 2: So this is doctor Deck, not Dea do to death,
Speaker 2: not Andrew Fraser.
Speaker 1: We're all on Dennis are yeah, yeah, And he would
Speaker 1: do that, so you know it was never seen going
Speaker 1: in and out of his friend.
Speaker 2: They pay their fare, I should say, pay their fare
Speaker 2: got fish.
Speaker 1: The money he made from drugs, he set up brothels
Speaker 1: and massage parlors in inverted commas and he paid off police.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of corruption around in these days.
Speaker 2: Also. Can I just say that massage parlors. A friend
Speaker 2: of mine went to a massage parlor the other day
Speaker 2: and the end got offered an extra service and went to.
Speaker 1: Like what he thought was just like a spa day
Speaker 1: spa or knew it was a.
Speaker 2: It was no, No, it was a massage place to
Speaker 2: get like you had like bad knees and got like
Speaker 2: a massage done and got offered an extra service at
Speaker 2: the end was like, that's so interesting because it is hard.
Speaker 2: I reckon, I don't. I've never really had a massage before.
Speaker 1: That's why he was offered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but also like yeah, I get that, and I
Speaker 2: like that. Can ye, I love that? Okay, I think
Speaker 2: what you did it was amazing then, because I think
Speaker 2: it is a thing that probably people know, like the
Speaker 2: unspoken thing of going oh I can go here. They
Speaker 2: call a happy ending. But how would you know, like
Speaker 2: if like.
Speaker 1: No, there's like an unwritten rules. Ones that have the
Speaker 1: flashing neon open signs, oh really that have like that
Speaker 1: you can't see through the windows covered with like the signage.
Speaker 2: Sure okay, and shoes hanging out the.
Speaker 1: Drug dealers like Dennis Allen. All Right, So I've got
Speaker 1: a quote here from Andrew Fraser talking about Dennis Allen.
Speaker 1: He would buy heroine and crush it and flatten it,
Speaker 1: then cover it in glad rap and hang it on
Speaker 1: the clothesline in the backyard with a doner over it
Speaker 1: like a quilt cover. He would then crank the line
Speaker 1: up high so it was well above any dogs that
Speaker 1: the police might bring in. So he was drying out
Speaker 1: his drugs in plain sight cover. His other treat this
Speaker 1: is still Phraser talking about him. His other trick to
Speaker 1: buy a heap of potted azaleas, pull them, pull them
Speaker 1: out of the pot, stick the gear in the bottom
Speaker 1: of the pot, then put the plant back in and
Speaker 1: bury the pot in the garden so it just looked
Speaker 1: as if it was growing in the ground. Sure, with guns,
Speaker 1: he would dig a hole up against the boundary fence
Speaker 1: and then go side like dig under sideways into his
Speaker 1: neighbour's yard to bury the gun that way. If police
Speaker 1: ever dug it up, exactly unders if the police, thank you,
Speaker 1: dig you Salia that could be the name of If
Speaker 1: police dug it up, he would prove that it wasn't
Speaker 1: on his property.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that's pretty clever.
Speaker 1: We're not giving advice here, we're just talking about the
Speaker 1: crimes of someone that's not advice. Now, one major crime
Speaker 1: he was convicted of, and there are so many, but
Speaker 1: one of the major ones was a rape in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, for which he served a ten year prison sentence.
Speaker 1: This hardened him significantly. After his release from this sentence,
Speaker 1: he was suspected of being involved in up to thirteen
Speaker 1: some reports says many as fifteen murders.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay.
Speaker 1: One of his most heinous crimes was the murder of
Speaker 1: former Hell's Angels Biky Anton Kenny. Dennis Allen had cut
Speaker 1: off his legs with a chainsaw to fit him into
Speaker 1: a forty four gallon drum that was dumped in the
Speaker 1: Arrow River.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: He's also believed to have killed his friend Wayne Stanhope. Now,
Speaker 1: whether Alan planned to kill stan Hope or did it
Speaker 1: on a whim is uncertain, But what happened was when
Speaker 1: he was invited. So Stanhope was invited over to Dennis
Speaker 1: Allen's home like straight on his release from jail.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's nice.
Speaker 1: He went. They were all doing drugs together and he
Speaker 1: went to change a record on Allan's stereo system and
Speaker 1: Alan shot him in the head. Oh he emptied two
Speaker 1: guns before cutting his friend's throat.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: His body was never found, so no charges were laid.
Speaker 2: Wow. Everyone just knew who was guilty, but he was
Speaker 2: never Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1: This is what has been said about what happened. Sure,
Speaker 1: in all of Allan's alleged crimes, Andrew Fraser essentially helped
Speaker 1: him avoid jail time by leveraging his knowledge of corrupt
Speaker 1: Victorian police at the time, and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of corruption, so essentially Andrew Fraser knew about the corruption
Speaker 1: and would use that to kind of not get him
Speaker 1: wow charged. He would get a lot of Allan's hearings
Speaker 1: adjourned time and time again, but one was particularly prominent.
Speaker 1: Dennis had asked Andrew Fraser to get in a German
Speaker 1: in a hearing at the coroner's court. So it was
Speaker 1: hearing into a woman who had died of a heroin overdose,
Speaker 1: but whose body had been found in a river with
Speaker 1: signs that had been put there after death. Dennis Allen
Speaker 1: came forward as the main suspect, but there wasn't enough
Speaker 1: evidence to arrest and charge him, so instead they did
Speaker 1: a coroner's inquired into her death and essentially into whether
Speaker 1: they could find enough evidence to charge Allan. Now, Fraser
Speaker 1: had kind of said, I can't get you out of
Speaker 1: this one, mate, it's the coroner's court. It looks really
Speaker 1: bad here. I can't adjourn this anymore. You weren't going
Speaker 1: to have to go in today. Andrew Fraser went and
Speaker 1: picked him up. They drove into the coroner's court together,
Speaker 1: and as they pulled up, they saw dozens of fire
Speaker 1: trucks because the coroner's court had been firebombed, so it
Speaker 1: was closed for the day. My god, Alan said, quote
Speaker 1: told you I'd get it adjourned.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this time this is such an extreme wi.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Now Andrew Fraser. Fraser was quoted as saying,
Speaker 1: Dennis was always polite to me, listened and took my advice,
Speaker 1: but his only redeeming feature to me was that he
Speaker 1: had a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Sure, clearly, this.
Speaker 1: Is still Frases quote. Clearly he was a dreadful person.
Speaker 2: Sure, okay. So he knew he was representing, you know,
Speaker 2: as he called us, what did he call them, not pests,
Speaker 2: but it was like pits, pits, the pits, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So he knew the people he was representing, but he
Speaker 2: was a really good criminally attorney. Yeah, my god, yess
Speaker 2: yeah yeah, yeah, wow, yeah, that's so interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean I never in all of my research, I
Speaker 1: didn't ever hear him talk about any specific cases of
Speaker 1: people he got off because he thought they were innocent.
Speaker 1: And he spoke a lot about the fact that he says,
Speaker 1: you never ask your client whether they did it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: Now, thankfully for Andrew Fraser and undoubtedly many many people
Speaker 1: who surely would have gone on to become more victims
Speaker 1: of Dennis Allen, or at the very least have horrible
Speaker 1: dire interactions with him. Dennis Allen died in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: seven at the age of thirty five. His heart gave out,
Speaker 1: almost certainly not helped by years of very heavy drug abuse, which,
Speaker 1: per my reading, caused pieces of his heart to literally
Speaker 1: break away.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, he's heartbroke.
Speaker 1: He's heart broke, heart failure because he was a piece
Speaker 1: of shit. Wow, only thirty five thirty five. Now I
Speaker 1: can't just say I'm not saying his pieceship because he
Speaker 1: did drugs hit.
Speaker 2: This man was a piece of yes, yeah, yea, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: He sawed someone's legs off. I think you're alloud to
Speaker 2: say that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Andrew Fraser has said openly that he was very
Speaker 1: happy to see the back of mister Death, but it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the end of his relationship with Dennis Allen's family.
Speaker 1: More on that later.
Speaker 2: A lot of money coming out of that family.
Speaker 1: The second of Andrew Fraser's notorious, well known clients I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk about today is Lewis.
Speaker 2: Moran, Okay, of the Moran family.
Speaker 1: One of the heads of the Carlton Crew, which you
Speaker 1: brought up earlier. Yeah, yeah, so very brief I'm just mentioned,
Speaker 1: not even background. Melbourne had very very prominent underworld gangland
Speaker 1: wars in the eighties, nineties, early two thousands. It was
Speaker 1: essentially kind of two gangs ended up turning against each other.
Speaker 1: One person started working with one to make ecstasy pills,
Speaker 1: then went off on their own was shot in the stomach.
Speaker 1: This kicked off the whole thing. One of the gangs
Speaker 1: was called the Carlton Crew, and Lewis Moran was the patriarch,
Speaker 1: or one of the patriarchs of this crew. His fat
Speaker 1: This is just to kind of paint a bit of
Speaker 1: a picture as to his life in crime and how
Speaker 1: he got started. His father was a bookie in a
Speaker 1: local pub who always cooked the books. And his mother
Speaker 1: was a quote unquote nurse for a prominent illegal abortionist.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, it wasn't a great family. Moran was an
Speaker 1: all rounder as a crime figure. He was a skilled pickpocket,
Speaker 1: something he never quite gave up, even when he was
Speaker 1: making plenty of cash in other ways. He and his
Speaker 1: brother Tuppence were tough street fighters and were said to
Speaker 1: use guns only when ness.
Speaker 2: And I think it's someone called Tuppets, I think tough.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, it was his nickname, but I don't remember
Speaker 1: why the family was heavily involved in illegal book making,
Speaker 1: race fixing, and opportunistic receiving of stolen goods. Now it
Speaker 1: was Lewis's son Jason and stepson Mark who moved the
Speaker 1: family into the lucrative business of drugs, the business that
Speaker 1: eventually cost both of them, or all of them, their lives.
Speaker 1: Lewis Moran, cunning and cautious, was always looking for an edge.
Speaker 1: He was looking for better legal advice and had heard
Speaker 1: about this guy called Andrew Fraser. He met Fraser through
Speaker 1: the respected barrister Phil Dunn at a lunch at the
Speaker 1: Flower Drum restaurant.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, quite a well known restaurant in it actually.
Speaker 1: Won in a war. I think it won Restaurant of
Speaker 1: the Year, or that might be wrong, but I think
Speaker 1: it's right this year in twenty two.
Speaker 2: Oh really Yeah, I've been around for a long time,
Speaker 2: long time, and institution.
Speaker 1: Really prominent in that era of you know, high flyers,
Speaker 1: whether they're underworld or above. So Moran asked Andrew Fraser
Speaker 1: for his card. Fraser gave him a handful and with
Speaker 1: that gesture it's wasteful, it is, but he was like,
Speaker 1: this is my inn. This is doubt as many as
Speaker 1: you are.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sure, with this gesture, his standing as the underworld's go
Speaker 1: to lawyer was consolidated.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: A quote from Andrew Fraser. I never charged Lewis assent
Speaker 1: because anything. He sent me so many blokes. Sorry, because
Speaker 1: he sent me so many blokes who did pay.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: He would sometimes ask for a favor for a good
Speaker 1: bloke who'd got in trouble, but he would tell me
Speaker 1: which ones had plenty and to charge them accordingly. So
Speaker 1: he knew, Yeah, he knew I was around with such
Speaker 1: a big player in the underworld that he was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to charge you ever, mate, you're all good.
Speaker 1: Just give me some more work and Lewis will kind
Speaker 1: of work with him to go charge this one.
Speaker 2: Yeah right.
Speaker 1: Fraser trusted Moran a lot more than he certainly trusted
Speaker 1: but even liked, Dennis Allen. But business is business. Moran
Speaker 1: paid him by referring, referring a stream of clients. Allan
Speaker 1: had paid with an endless stream of cash.
Speaker 2: Did you know if Andrew Fraser worked with a law
Speaker 2: firm or he was always out on his own?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because you think this sort of work, you'd
Speaker 2: have to work by yourself, you couldn't.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I'm thinking that, but I actually don't know.
Speaker 1: So over these years representing many dodgy and discussing criminals,
Speaker 1: the underworld's favorite lawyer got into a bit of a
Speaker 1: habit himself. He broke one of the iron rules of
Speaker 1: old time criminals. Don't get high on your own supply.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, okay.
Speaker 1: Fraser started using cocaine after a biky gang leader tossed
Speaker 1: him a bag of the drug as a gift when
Speaker 1: Fraser was going away for a weekend to the Adelais
Speaker 1: Grand Prix in the late nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: Is thrown through the window of a passing trap you.
Speaker 1: May have been.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: The reason I bring it up here is that Lewis
Speaker 1: Moran said, from very early days, that will get you
Speaker 1: into nothing but trouble, mate, stay out of it.
Speaker 2: Nice for him to warn him.
Speaker 1: Exactly if Louis Mirando's an, I was staying out of trouble. Now.
Speaker 1: This cocaine use, over time became less of a habit
Speaker 1: and more of a full blown addiction, a five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a week addiction.
Speaker 2: Or less five thousand dollars a week.
Speaker 1: In a podcast with him that I listened to, he said,
Speaker 1: a cocaine addiction is God's way of telling you you've
Speaker 1: got too much money. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's his
Speaker 1: addiction was a very poorly kept secret. But we'll get
Speaker 1: back to that. The third client I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: about today is Victor Pierce. While working with Slash representing
Speaker 1: Dennis Allen Andrew Fraser became inextricably linked to the wider family.
Speaker 1: As I said before, Dennis Allen's mother was Cath petting Gil.
Speaker 1: Two of her other sons were notorious gangsters, Trevor Pettingill
Speaker 1: and Victor Pierce. So there were two of Dennis Allen's
Speaker 1: half brothers. After Dennis Allen died, Andrew Fraser wanted out
Speaker 1: of the petting Gill family, but that was a lot
Speaker 1: easier said than done. They saw him as being on
Speaker 1: the books, even owing them. One of his brothers, Victor
Speaker 1: Victor Pierce, had been represented by Fraser years before and
Speaker 1: hadn't avoided conviction and was locked up for four years.
Speaker 1: He blamed Fraser, of course he was his lawyer and
Speaker 1: he hated him.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: But the rest of the family loved and trusted Andrew Fraser,
Speaker 1: so Victor Piers was willing to give the lawyer another go. Fraser,
Speaker 1: essentially feeling threatened and backed into a corner to continue
Speaker 1: working with the family. Victor Pierce was not someone you
Speaker 1: wanted to cross, right. His family was the only reason
Speaker 1: that essentially he didn't go and shoot him up. Now
Speaker 1: that Dennis Allen was dead, he was like, well, what
Speaker 1: have you done for the rest of us? The family
Speaker 1: was going no, no, no, caf petting Gal was going, no, mate,
Speaker 1: we trust him, let him represent you.
Speaker 2: Wow. And also if you're owing them some sort of
Speaker 2: favor or they feel like you're on their books as well,
Speaker 2: that's going to be such a big thing.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah. Now, Victor Piers was loathed and feared in
Speaker 1: equal measure. He was hot headed, he loved guns and
Speaker 1: was a very heavy drug user as well as a trafficker,
Speaker 1: but at this stage he was fairly low on the
Speaker 1: rung of Melbourne crime figures until now. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go into this in super detail because I'm definitely
Speaker 1: going to do this story as its own episode, but
Speaker 1: the background is required to tinue Andrew Fraser's story. Victor Pierce,
Speaker 1: his brother Trevor Petting Gill, and Victor's best mate Graham
Speaker 1: Jensen were widely suspected of being part of a gang
Speaker 1: that was dubbed the Flemington Crew, a gang of violent
Speaker 1: armed robbers who carried out terrifying bank heists in full masks,
Speaker 1: often shooting up the place but leaving little to no evidence.
Speaker 1: Police were sure they knew who the men were, and
Speaker 1: they were surveilling all of those that they suspected to
Speaker 1: be part of the gang when something happened that is
Speaker 1: widely believed to have sparked one of the most notorious
Speaker 1: crimes in Victorian and in fact Australian history. Oh On
Speaker 1: October eleven, nineteen eighty eight, police were going to arrest
Speaker 1: Graham Jensen, so Victor Pierce's best mate. They were going
Speaker 1: to arrest him in connection with an armed robbery and
Speaker 1: a murder, a couple of murders going on in this
Speaker 1: but the ambush to arrest him was bungled by police.
Speaker 1: A chase ensued, during which Polissa they saw gents and
Speaker 1: brandish a gun and they shot him in retaliation. Victor
Speaker 1: Pierce's best friend had been shot dead by police. Thirteen
Speaker 1: hours later. At four thirty nine am on the twelfth
Speaker 1: of October, an abandoned Holden commodore parked on Walsh Street
Speaker 1: in South Yarra was reported to Victoria Police. Two young officers,
Speaker 1: twenty two year old Stephen Tynan and twenty year old Damienaire,
Speaker 1: took the call and they went to see what this
Speaker 1: car was doing, dumped in the middle of a quiet
Speaker 1: street with its lights on and its doors open. When
Speaker 1: these two young constables got out of their car to
Speaker 1: go and investigate this car on Walsh Street, they were
Speaker 1: shot dead in cold blood.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, this was huge. Yohs.
Speaker 1: Two completely innocent young constables out doing their jobs trying
Speaker 1: to protect the community killed for no reason, the victims
Speaker 1: of a war against police of which they didn't know
Speaker 1: they were a heart. I'm going to tell that full story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: The suspects for the Wolsh Street killings were immediately identified
Speaker 1: by police as suspects as Victor Pierce, Trevor Petting Girl,
Speaker 1: Anthony Lee Farrell and Peter McAvoy. Now, getting evidence and
Speaker 1: landing charges would take police two and a half years,
Speaker 1: but they got there. All four of these men were
Speaker 1: charged with murder. Again, it was a huge story. Still today,
Speaker 1: you can say Wolsh Street to anyone in Australia and
Speaker 1: they know about that story.
Speaker 2: Except for me. I didn't know about that story.
Speaker 1: But I feel like you're not know even the details.
Speaker 1: But you know two cops were shot down. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: guess who they got to represent them, Ah, Julian Burnside.
Speaker 1: It was Andrew. Yes, this story is about Andrew. Fraser
Speaker 1: says it was a messy investigation by police from the
Speaker 1: start and the charges were rushed. He said that police.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, Okay, we'll go into that another time.
Speaker 1: Fraser said that police straightway identified who they believed were
Speaker 1: responsible and then went about building a case against them.
Speaker 1: Which is the wrong way to do it. Yes, and
Speaker 1: he used that. Fraser used that in his defense. Again,
Speaker 1: I'll save all the details for another episode. But unbelievably,
Speaker 1: still to this day, all four men were acquitted of
Speaker 1: the street killings. They walked free, and Andrew Fraser was
Speaker 1: to thank police were in rape.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: In Fraser's own words, this is when he believed police,
Speaker 1: the police force first turned their sights onto taking him down.
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, it wouldn't be that hard.
Speaker 1: The next chapter of my script here is called Fraser's
Speaker 1: Undoing God.
Speaker 2: This is a chapter that I'm interested. I'm going to
Speaker 2: be interested the whole time, but I'm very interested in
Speaker 2: this chapter.
Speaker 1: So woll Street was in nineteen eighty eight. I left
Speaker 1: it to telling until last because kind of for the
Speaker 1: background on the families, but also that was the thing
Speaker 1: that really that's what a lot of people remember Fraser.
Speaker 1: Was he the one that represented the Wall Street guys
Speaker 1: got right, and then so from being known as a
Speaker 1: lawyer doing that to then going on and representing people
Speaker 1: like Dennis Allen and Lewis Moran. Police fucking hated you
Speaker 1: hated him.
Speaker 2: Do you know how long he kind of practiced law
Speaker 2: before he was to get a name like that. You
Speaker 2: imagine he was working.
Speaker 1: For a long time while Yes, he was fifty at
Speaker 1: the age of his undoing.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, right, all right, so he'd had a pretty
Speaker 2: big coreer.
Speaker 1: I mean to be hired by the acquitted Wall Street killers.
Speaker 2: And Paul Hogan. No, I don't think in his criminal case.
Speaker 1: It may have, but I like to bring it to that.
Speaker 2: There's no reason I brought Paul Hogan just like to
Speaker 2: bring up.
Speaker 1: Poor you always do. Yeah, So, like he was prominent
Speaker 1: enough by then representing them, right. So, as I said earlier,
Speaker 1: Lewis Moran had warned Fraser that doing drugs would be
Speaker 1: his undoing, something the kg old crook feared for his
Speaker 1: own sons, or his own son Jason Moran and his
Speaker 1: stepson Mark, which it was. They both fell victim to
Speaker 1: the Underworld War of the nineties and early two thousands.
Speaker 1: Fraser said, I looked in the mirror one morning and
Speaker 1: admitted it to myself. You've got a habit, I told myself,
Speaker 1: and I decided to give it up then and there.
Speaker 1: I kept that promise right up until lunchtime. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's like a serious yeah, addiction.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and you should only ever look in the mirror
Speaker 2: and say, God, you looked good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do think in this case it was maybe you know,
Speaker 1: I think it was fine for him to clock himself out, okay, sure?
Speaker 1: Or were you saying that just to me.
Speaker 2: Specific to you specifically in everyone listening, I think you
Speaker 2: should only ever look in the mirror and say, got
Speaker 2: you look good and wink if you want, If you want,
Speaker 2: you can add in if you want.
Speaker 1: Our listeners are good and god they look good.
Speaker 2: God they look good as well.
Speaker 1: So apart from the damage to his reputation, his law practice,
Speaker 1: and his family life phrases one thousand dollars a day
Speaker 1: cocaine habit made him.
Speaker 2: Vulnerable thousand dollars a day.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that must be business days only because
Speaker 1: I said five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, on the weekend.
Speaker 1: It also made him very vulnerable because it gave corrupt
Speaker 1: police something to threaten him with.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 1: And as we know, and you can imagine from his
Speaker 1: role in many criminal cases that didn't go police this
Speaker 1: way at all, Paul Hogan, but particularly exacerbated by his
Speaker 1: defrench of the Wall Street four. To put it bluntly,
Speaker 1: they fucking hated the guy and everyone.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry that she just went with that and swore
Speaker 2: like that, I'm not You're not. I'll say it again,
Speaker 2: No don't.
Speaker 1: I said I would not that I will.
Speaker 2: Just be careful what you do right now because there
Speaker 2: might be kids listening in the car.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I hope there's not.
Speaker 2: Well, how do we know now?
Speaker 1: And you're about about legs being chopped off and.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, mom and dad, if you got, yeah,
Speaker 2: have good, take a good hard look at yourself in
Speaker 2: the mirror and then say got you got?
Speaker 1: You look good. And Andrew Fraser hated police right back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was, and remained even all after all that's to
Speaker 1: come very vocal on police corruption, particularly in the drug squad,
Speaker 1: Drug Squad of the eighties and nineties. Andrew Fraser's saucers.
Speaker 2: Now he is a git A brand. But Paul Newman exactly.
Speaker 1: H he remained always he never ever ever threw anyone
Speaker 1: under the bus term even after his own downfall, he
Speaker 1: never chucked anyone else in it, which is why I've written.
Speaker 1: Fraser's sources suggested he never said who told him any
Speaker 1: of this information?
Speaker 2: When you said that before, did I say, did you
Speaker 2: have a brand.
Speaker 1: Yeah you did say that you did it as if
Speaker 1: it was like s a U.
Speaker 2: Yes, But.
Speaker 1: They suggested that rogue detectives were getting the precursor chemicals
Speaker 1: that were being made into ecstasy. They were getting them
Speaker 1: wholesale from a legitimate source. So so you are under the
Speaker 1: cover of an ongoing police sting operation. So police would
Speaker 1: get legitimate precursor drugs saying they were doing a sting
Speaker 1: on operation. They would then take these products to known
Speaker 1: amphetamine cooks and offer them the chemicals on the basis
Speaker 1: that half of the finished speed as finished ecstasy would
Speaker 1: be handed over to them as payment. Right, okay, Right,
Speaker 1: And this thing worked well apart from the fact as
Speaker 1: it turned out that the dodgy police sold much, if
Speaker 1: not most, of the drugs to street dealers.
Speaker 2: Sure okay.
Speaker 1: Andrew had a string of clients and contacts who told
Speaker 1: him police had robbed them, flogged them, and then arrested
Speaker 1: them as well. Yeah, well they were doing this dodgy
Speaker 1: business and then still arresting them at the end of
Speaker 1: the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah right.
Speaker 1: Fraser didn't believe he could speak safely to anyone in
Speaker 1: the Victoria Police Force, so decided to contact the National
Speaker 1: Crime authority as it then was, which is like the
Speaker 1: federal agency looking into police correstion.
Speaker 2: Ah, okay, right right.
Speaker 1: This is a quote from Fraser. A policeman I knew
Speaker 1: assured me that I could trust a particular guy in
Speaker 1: the National Crime Authority. He was wrong. The person I
Speaker 1: contacted called Strawn the same day and told him, Fraser
Speaker 1: is onto you. Now. Strawhorn was the head of the
Speaker 1: armed Drugs Squad, arguably the most crooked of all of them.
Speaker 1: So he was told Frases onto you. And so Fraser says,
Speaker 1: in his own words, his decision to blow the whistle
Speaker 1: on corrupt state police blew up in his face. From
Speaker 1: that moment on, he was in big as Fraser sees it,
Speaker 1: Strawhorn's sinister influence over the drug squad immediately swung all
Speaker 1: of its resources against Andrew Fraser to neutralize the threat
Speaker 1: that he posed. Crooks are not dabbing on him. But
Speaker 1: if there's this criminal lawyer that hates us, onto us,
Speaker 1: We're going to do something to take it. This is
Speaker 1: all Andrew Fraser's allegations. I mean, Strawhorn has been done
Speaker 1: for corruption, but that's not the story, he says. So
Speaker 1: Andrew says as part of this like sting operations that
Speaker 1: were going back and forth, he's as rogue police broke
Speaker 1: into Jason Moran to Lewis's Moran's son's house to retrieve
Speaker 1: five thousand ecstasy pills that they had earlier planted on
Speaker 1: him five thousand. Now that the rogue police wanted to
Speaker 1: concentrate on nailing Moran's lawyer rather than Moran himself, they
Speaker 1: wanted the pills back as potential ammunition in what I'm
Speaker 1: calling the war against Andrew. So they'd put allegedly five
Speaker 1: thousand ecstasy pills in the Moran's place to do one
Speaker 1: of these dodgy sting operations. They went back there and
Speaker 1: retrieved the pills, not in a sting operation, so they
Speaker 1: could try to use.
Speaker 2: Them against Hope.
Speaker 1: But in the end, Strawhorn's crew didn't need the ecstasy
Speaker 1: pills to be planted in Andrew Fraser's possession as throwaways.
Speaker 1: Fraser did their work for them. Oh my god, they'd
Speaker 1: been bugging him, and in doing so, he was recorded
Speaker 1: in several compromising conversationations, notably giving advice to a cocaine
Speaker 1: smuggler on how he could import five and a half
Speaker 1: kilos of the drug.
Speaker 2: Wow giving advice? That's nuts.
Speaker 1: This was blood on his hands. Andrew Fraser was organizing,
Speaker 1: or at least helping plan and organize the importation of
Speaker 1: a commercial quantity of drugs. He was arrested in his
Speaker 1: home with full lights and sirens and our version of
Speaker 1: the SWAT team like breaking.
Speaker 2: Into here of teams in Australia. Do you.
Speaker 1: So the Special Operations Group is SOGS. Is great because
Speaker 1: so it's for Special Operations Group. But the acronym is
Speaker 1: also like kind of colloquially called the sons of God God. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Andrew Fraser was not laughing about the acronym that night. No,
Speaker 1: not that night he was charged. While as a lawyer,
Speaker 1: you would think that he would have fought the charger's
Speaker 1: tooth and nail, but no, Fraser could not and therefore
Speaker 1: did not argue his innocence. He pleaded guilty to traffic
Speaker 1: in cocaine and to helping a client import two point
Speaker 1: seven million dollars worth of the drug from West Africa.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this was the early nineties. Was his
Speaker 2: late eighties.
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety nine that he was charged. Oh yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: I didn't say that anywhere it was nineteen ninety nine. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, that's so much money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so much drugs.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: His hearing went to court in two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: Now obviously he was strunk off the law register. It
Speaker 1: was never yeah, unfortunately. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's all it takes, is it.
Speaker 1: It's all it takes pleading guilty to importing five and
Speaker 1: a half killers of cocaine. He could no longer and
Speaker 1: would never be able to again work as a lawyer.
Speaker 1: But he had cooperated and he had pleaded guilty right
Speaker 1: at the start. This was always, and is always sorry
Speaker 1: a strong mitigating factor in judge's findings and sentences. If
Speaker 1: someone pleads guilty, they save the state a lot of
Speaker 1: money from going through a trial. Is had a lot
Speaker 1: of things, and also shows accountability and potentially remorse.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: His lawyer had submitted to the court that his addiction
Speaker 1: should lessen his culpability and therefore lessen the severity of
Speaker 1: his sentence. His lawyer stated once he said this in court,
Speaker 1: once cocaine took hold of him, the mix of that
Speaker 1: poison and his own personality disorder was quite deadly, he said.
Speaker 1: Despite the charges, mister Fraser was an extremely decent human
Speaker 1: being who was involved in a wide range of community activities,
Speaker 1: and who keenly felt the impact and shame he had
Speaker 1: brought on his family. That Fraser's wife had endured comments
Speaker 1: in innuendo, while his parents once saw so proud now
Speaker 1: averted their eyes from neighbors, and his children were suffering
Speaker 1: gibes at the school. Now, whether or not any of
Speaker 1: this played into the judges sentencing, we don't really know.
Speaker 1: But I want to add if police hated Fraser the
Speaker 1: way they did, so too did a lot of the
Speaker 1: justice system. He was seen as the man who got
Speaker 1: the Wall Street killers off, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: so a lot of the industry thought he made a
Speaker 1: mockery of their justice system. But of course judges don't
Speaker 1: employ bias or personal gripes in sentencing by the letter
Speaker 1: of the law. In November two thousand and one, fifty
Speaker 1: year old Andrew Fraser was sentenced to seven years it. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's funny that you say that's it, because then a
Speaker 1: lot of people also say seven years is a lot
Speaker 1: for a straight up guilty play, a one off trapped.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, ro that's so much Like the quantity was huge.
Speaker 1: Well, there I meet it somewhere in the middle of
Speaker 1: that is where the judge would have come to. Wow,
Speaker 1: And it wasn't going to be easy. Well, whether you
Speaker 1: think seven years is a lot or a little, it
Speaker 1: was his minimum term was five years, so five years
Speaker 1: without a doubt behind bars, and a portion of that
Speaker 1: time was to be served in maximum.
Speaker 2: Security maximum security.
Speaker 1: So yeah, whether he's seven years is a lot or yeah,
Speaker 1: that to me seems wild.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to be maximum security for something that would be.
Speaker 1: Murderers and rapists and like huge, big crime gang lords.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Peter to Paz.
Speaker 1: Correct, we're getting there.
Speaker 2: Okay, Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I just think that's wild. The unit that
Speaker 1: he was housed in in Port Philip Prison was he
Speaker 1: was housed with thirty eight of the most dangerous criminals
Speaker 1: in Victory.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So there were only thirty nine people in that whole
Speaker 1: unit and he was one of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because of the police. They didn't like him. Was
Speaker 2: that kind of what they were? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Perhaps, who know, Perhaps he didn't have an avenue for
Speaker 1: appeal either. He had pleaded guilty, so he didn't have
Speaker 1: an avenue to appeal his conviction. He could have he
Speaker 1: could have appealed his sentence but it was there is
Speaker 1: always a risk that they can turn around and give
Speaker 1: you more if you do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So he was kind of sitting waiting, wishing for something
Speaker 1: to happen, and waiting on the sidelines and kind of
Speaker 1: keeping up with what was happening in the outside world.
Speaker 1: And on March seventeen, two thousand and three, which is
Speaker 1: Saint Patrick's day.
Speaker 2: Oh good, okay, good, yeap correction, the deputy chief of.
Speaker 1: The Victorian Police Drug Squad, Wayne Strawhorn remember that name, Yes, yep,
Speaker 1: he was arrested for trafficking a commercial quantity of pure
Speaker 1: pseudoephrodrin to none less than Gangland figure Mark Bran. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: Moran's son. So the head of the drug squad who
Speaker 1: had had it in for Andrew Fraser, was then arrested
Speaker 1: himself on these charges.
Speaker 2: And pseudo effortron is quite an odd thing to be.
Speaker 1: As I was saying earlier about the precursor to like
Speaker 1: ecstasy and speed, that's the precursor that we're getting. So
Speaker 1: like when you go, this might not be thing for
Speaker 1: international listeners, but in Australia certainly if you want the cold,
Speaker 1: like the good cold and flu tablets from the pharmacy
Speaker 1: that have pseudoephritin in them.
Speaker 2: You have to say behind the counter police that's.
Speaker 1: Right, and that's why you have to give your ID.
Speaker 1: So they are logging who's buying pseudoepritn So people can't
Speaker 1: be buying heaps because that is part of one of
Speaker 1: the illicit drugs.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: And also by this time Mark Moran, who he had
Speaker 1: supplied the drugs to, had been murdered himself, so he,
Speaker 1: his brother Jason, and his father Lewis would eventually be
Speaker 1: killed in Melbourne's a gangland war. And as I said,
Speaker 1: Strawn had been the one behind Fraser's arrest. So Fraser
Speaker 1: thought bingo. He launched an appeal based on the fact
Speaker 1: that the cops that took him down will crook it,
Speaker 1: and he was granted a hearing. So when you launch
Speaker 1: an appeal, you put in the paperwork saying this is
Speaker 1: why I want to appeal. The appeals court can either
Speaker 1: say yes or no to that. If they say yes
Speaker 1: to that, they allow the hearing where all the evidence
Speaker 1: is presented. This is why I think my conviction should
Speaker 1: be quashed, my sentence should be changed, any of the above.
Speaker 1: So he was granted a hearing, and he and his
Speaker 1: lawyers were absolutely convinced he would win, Like this is
Speaker 1: this is absolutely you know, knock out of the park.
Speaker 1: The squad who took him down for trafficking are themselves
Speaker 1: all in custody for trafficking.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So the judge heard all the appeal evidence and denied
Speaker 1: an appeal. Really, Fraser would be spending at the very
Speaker 1: very least five years in prison.
Speaker 2: From when he was first in that yep, yep.
Speaker 1: So there was no chance he was going to get
Speaker 1: out earlier than the five years at the very earliest. Uh,
Speaker 1: there wasn't much more for him to do but kill time.
Speaker 1: He couldn't practice law obviously, he didn't know what the
Speaker 1: future held for him, and he had no more avenues
Speaker 1: of appeal to study up on. That had kind of
Speaker 1: kept him quite busy looking you know, doing his own
Speaker 1: kind of law legal stuff himself. So he just kind
Speaker 1: of lived with what he'd done and tried to take
Speaker 1: the time to change and get fit.
Speaker 2: Killing time.
Speaker 1: Yes that's not the name after Showy's, but I'm not going.
Speaker 2: To back now.
Speaker 1: So he wanted to What he wanted to do most
Speaker 1: is just avoid the unsavory types that he was housed
Speaker 1: with in this usual.
Speaker 2: My least favorite shape unsavory. All their savory you mean shapes.
Speaker 1: He thought savory was a shape say like we're.
Speaker 2: In a try yeah, yeah, yes, unsavory ship.
Speaker 1: That was an unsavory joke.
Speaker 2: Um.
Speaker 1: One of the most infamous unsavory types that he was
Speaker 1: housed with was a man named Peter Norris du Pass.
Speaker 1: He was in prison at the time for the gruesome, violent,
Speaker 1: heinous murders of two women, Margaret Maher and Nicole Patterson.
Speaker 1: And at this point, dear listeners, if you have not
Speaker 1: listened to our full episode on Peter du Pass, I
Speaker 1: would recommend to going back and doing so. You can
Speaker 1: get to the end of this if you want. But
Speaker 1: there are some spoilers for that episode. There are also
Speaker 1: was for this episode in that so spoil if you hear.
Speaker 1: Maybe just sit and go back. Peter du Pass was
Speaker 1: very publicly believed to be guilty of at least one
Speaker 1: more murder than these two, and that murdering particular, was
Speaker 1: that of twenty five year old Messina hal Vargas, who
Speaker 1: had been brutally murdered while tending to her grandmother's grave
Speaker 1: at fulkn Assent cemetry in Melbourne in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: but there simply wasn't enough evidence. Still, du Pass was
Speaker 1: in maximum security for life, never to be released. He
Speaker 1: was on two life sentences with no minimum time. But
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six an inquest was ordered into
Speaker 1: her death, which really was the police's way of being
Speaker 1: able to prove that it was due passed. They had
Speaker 1: no other suspects, All signs pointed to him. Taking it
Speaker 1: to a coronial inquest essentially was so they could work
Speaker 1: out whether they could gather enough evidence to charge him.
Speaker 1: In gathering their evidence, Andrew Fraser had been in so
Speaker 1: this is two thousand and six and Fraser had been
Speaker 1: in jail for very nearly five years at this point.
Speaker 1: In gathering their evidence, police wondered if the serial killer
Speaker 1: du Pass could have made friends on the inside and
Speaker 1: maybe may have opened up to them. He was there
Speaker 1: in life, there may not have been much else to
Speaker 1: talk about. Sure, you also don't have people like that
Speaker 1: brag to others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm the kind of bigger criminal serial killer as well.
Speaker 2: You think maybe they are bragging.
Speaker 1: So police booked up picked up the phone to Fulham Prison,
Speaker 1: which at this time was a lesser security facility where
Speaker 1: Andrew Fraser had finally been moved to. He did over
Speaker 1: three years in maximum security and then was moved to Fulham.
Speaker 1: Police asked to speak to the lawyer that they had
Speaker 1: put in prison.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: When police told him they wanted to ask about Peter Dupasz,
Speaker 1: Fraser said, I wondered when you'd.
Speaker 2: Call Wow, it's wild that he didn't go straight away
Speaker 2: and I'll get into that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so he fucking hated police.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll go into it.
Speaker 3: Why.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, do you think as a lawyer you would
Speaker 2: probably know that maybe you'd get some sort of leniency
Speaker 2: if you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but also think about where he is and what
Speaker 1: people in prison due to so called dogs.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's true. Yeah, goddamn dogs and pigs and rats, animals.
Speaker 1: Pigs are what they call the police.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's what they call the police.
Speaker 1: And they would do that to the too, I guess, so,
Speaker 1: Fraser said, Well, house together at Port Phillip Prison. In
Speaker 1: a very unexpected turn for no one more so than
Speaker 1: Andrew Fraser himself, Juwpass really warmed to him and he
Speaker 1: didn't talk to anyone. Jupas had become an accomplished gardener
Speaker 1: and tended to the jail vegetable patch. Fraser, who'd been
Speaker 1: an athlete at school, was determined to regain his former
Speaker 1: fitness after you know, really spiraling and becoming a cocaine addict.
Speaker 1: He was like, right, while I'm here, I'll get fit,
Speaker 1: I'll get healthy again. So he would run and train
Speaker 1: outdoors daily. Jupas started to walk with him and would
Speaker 1: start to ask questions about the law. He was really
Speaker 1: intrigued by the law, which I suppose you would be
Speaker 1: if that was what your whole life kind of came
Speaker 1: down to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, put you behind us, he got nothing else do
Speaker 2: you may have asked some questions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Also the Lord didn't put him behind us. His
Speaker 1: murderous rag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Lord doesn't kill people. People kill people.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I ought. Yeah, that hay fever today.
Speaker 1: So if I'm sniffing, I really do apologize.
Speaker 2: So you're talking too much about cocaine.
Speaker 1: Phantom cocaine. And over time he started to kind of
Speaker 1: treat Fraser as like his own private counsel. I would
Speaker 1: start to open up to him a little bit, ask
Speaker 1: him lots of questions that sounded like they were pointed yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: and eventually he began to talk about Messina hal Vargas.
Speaker 1: Fraser told police that he had once found a homemade
Speaker 1: knife like a shive, concealed among weeds at the prison,
Speaker 1: and Dupas walked over and picked it up and inspected it,
Speaker 1: which is when the confession, according to Fraser, occurred. So
Speaker 1: this is this is now a quote from Andrew Fraser.
Speaker 1: We regularly used to find stuff hidden in the garden, drugs,
Speaker 1: weapons and other stuff. I once found a homemade knife
Speaker 1: and jew Pass came over. I called you passover to
Speaker 1: show it to him. He took it off me and
Speaker 1: started handling it, was caressing it in a sexual way.
Speaker 1: Dupass then started saying Mersina, Mersina, Mersina, with a strange
Speaker 1: look on his face. I was certainly left in no
Speaker 1: doubt that Dupass murdered Mersina. Quote continues. This wasn't some
Speaker 1: sort of jailhouse confession where someone has gone in and
Speaker 1: sat Inness Ell one night and had a brew with
Speaker 1: another prisoner and somebody has allegedly said something. It's a
Speaker 1: lot stronger than that. Dupas and I spoke regularly, just
Speaker 1: the two of us. This was over months and months,
Speaker 1: and he was talking to me and confiding in me.
Speaker 1: There was one occasion when another prisoner came up to
Speaker 1: us and when we when we were gardening and started
Speaker 1: abusing Dupass. The prisoner was yelling at Dupass saying you
Speaker 1: killed Mersina. I know you killed Mersina. After the other
Speaker 1: prisoner had gone, Dupass turned to me and said, how
Speaker 1: does that c U and T no, I did it.
Speaker 2: In end of phrases quote I remember that from the
Speaker 2: picture Pass episode that that was. Yeah, that was the
Speaker 2: way that he got him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, it's overtimes as scouts of things. He never
Speaker 1: said I did it. Kind of this is what I did,
Speaker 1: I know, But yeah, it started with him caressing this knife,
Speaker 1: saying messina, messina message free to do yes, and and
Speaker 1: a phrase I think I got says he was terrified
Speaker 1: of Peter d Pass. There nothing kind of endearing about
Speaker 1: him at all. He was like a horrible, terrifying man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that he kind of confided in
Speaker 1: him and treated him like his lawyer, Fraser felt a
Speaker 1: bit safer because he kind of confided in and trusted him.
Speaker 1: He would talk to him, but he would not go
Speaker 1: out of his way to do so, but he would
Speaker 1: talk back to him because he thought that's not someone
Speaker 1: I want to know on their bad side.
Speaker 2: No, and also, you know both in maximum security. I
Speaker 2: guess a lot of the time you kind of go, oh,
Speaker 2: they're not going to write on me because we're both
Speaker 2: in maximum security. I guess they were just both killing time.
Speaker 1: Very clever. It's almost like you came up with it.
Speaker 1: So Fraser, total of this two police, he had said
Speaker 1: nothing before. They weren't exactly mates. Andrew Fraser and the police.
Speaker 1: He didn't trust them, and they certainly didn't trust him
Speaker 1: until they called. They said, would you be willing to
Speaker 1: get up on the stand and testify against Peter Dupatz,
Speaker 1: And he said, under no circumstances while I am in jail, no,
Speaker 1: I will be killed without a doubt. There is no
Speaker 1: way I know how the law works. I'm coming close
Speaker 1: to the end of my minimum parole sentence. At least
Speaker 1: you get me out of here and I'll testify.
Speaker 2: He's also terrified of him as well, like imagine going
Speaker 2: back to prison and just being of.
Speaker 1: Him, but then of also everyone else. They find out
Speaker 1: there's a rat in there, like he wouldn't survive as
Speaker 1: we've seen this one example of there's been he's found
Speaker 1: a hidden knife point.
Speaker 2: In that petting zoo.
Speaker 1: So he said absolutely no way I'm putting back to
Speaker 1: that prison. You've got absolutely nothing from me unless you
Speaker 1: get me out of here. So in September two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, Andrew Fraser, five years old, were very quietly
Speaker 1: freed from Fulham Prison two months before he's listed earliest. Now,
Speaker 1: when it gets to the end of your minimum sentence
Speaker 1: and when it got to the five years for him,
Speaker 1: you have to apply to the parole board and then
Speaker 1: they may grant you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sure, So it's not a kick that he would have
Speaker 1: got out then anyway. But it is also pretty wild
Speaker 1: that he was sitting on this information as someone who
Speaker 1: knows the law, understands the law and wanted desperately to
Speaker 1: be out of there. He still didn't come forward with
Speaker 1: it because that you just don't do that. You just
Speaker 1: don't do that. He was terrified for his life. He
Speaker 1: had agreed to give sworn evidence against Dupass. He was
Speaker 1: taken out quietly for his own safety. If they saw
Speaker 1: him getting out any word God that he was getting released,
Speaker 1: there was no way he would You just you do
Speaker 1: not dog on former crooks, no matter how violent to
Speaker 1: prave they are, you just don't do that.
Speaker 2: And he worked with crooks a lot, so you will not.
Speaker 1: I think that's all part of it as well. You know,
Speaker 1: he wasn't just some suit wearing lawyer who was kind
Speaker 1: of going, oh, I don't want to be in here,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll use my legal smart He knew some of
Speaker 1: the worst of the worst of crime in Victoria. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: he knew what they did to each other. Within hours
Speaker 1: of Fraser's release, detectives traveled to Port Philip Prison and
Speaker 1: charged Peter du Pass with his third murder. They discovered
Speaker 1: that Dupass tried to recruit Fraser as his unpaid legal
Speaker 1: advisor when they were in the unit together at Port
Speaker 1: Phillm Prison, So he'd actually kind of said to him,
Speaker 1: I want you to work as my solicitor. Wow, I
Speaker 1: want you to give me advice as a lawyer would. Now,
Speaker 1: if Fraser had been Dupass's lawyer, he would not have
Speaker 1: been legally allowed to give any evidence because any information
Speaker 1: would have remained privileged and confidential. But given he was
Speaker 1: convicted criminal, he had been disbarred.
Speaker 2: From the legal Oh yeah, right, I meant that.
Speaker 1: None of the conversations between the pair could be considered privileged.
Speaker 1: Fraser was nothing more than a fellow in listening to
Speaker 1: do pass yapping.
Speaker 2: Oh that's great, okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In du Pass's murder trial, Andrew Fraser was the key
Speaker 1: star prosecution witness, which the irony. Yeah, like I feel
Speaker 1: like the members of Victoria Police who were kind of
Speaker 1: using him for that. I wonder what the guilt levels
Speaker 1: or like maybe not even guilt, but like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, but I guess yeah, they would have hated him.
Speaker 1: So much to be like to be like, only that's
Speaker 1: the person we've got to use. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 1: He gave very over the top dramatic evidence, as was
Speaker 1: always his style. It was just that this was the
Speaker 1: first time he flounced about the witness box. He did.
Speaker 1: At one point he was asked to he said that
Speaker 1: Dupass had done a pantomime type action with a knife
Speaker 1: or like pretending to have a knife, and he actually
Speaker 1: said to the judge, may I step.
Speaker 2: Out of the witness box, Oh my god, And he
Speaker 2: made the audience creat he's behind you.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, not audience, jury, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he actually like walked in front of the jury box
Speaker 1: and was like had his arms up as if he
Speaker 1: was holding a knife and was doing stabbing motions like
Speaker 1: yelling out Messina's name, to which like this is in
Speaker 1: front of the full court. Messina's parents are there sobbing,
Speaker 1: they're weeping. The jury was shocked and appalled. But I
Speaker 1: think it did have a really impact. It seems like
Speaker 1: a really crazy, depraved thing to do. If that's not
Speaker 1: actually what he wasn't actually re enacting it, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah. He was always big and over the top
Speaker 1: and dramatic in court as a lawyer. Now he was
Speaker 1: being that as a witness.
Speaker 2: My god, it's so funny, is both you thought I
Speaker 2: was so showby? Is that I call the jury my audience,
Speaker 2: my audience, like all the all world my audience.
Speaker 1: So Fraser said in the witness box that Dupatz confessed
Speaker 1: telling him no one would know he did it because
Speaker 1: he no forensic evidence behind. Now, from what I've read
Speaker 1: and understood, he never actually referred to it, like he
Speaker 1: never said no one will know I killed Mersina. How
Speaker 1: far guess he spoke about the thing at Faulkner.
Speaker 2: Sure, okay.
Speaker 1: And one of the things was Fraser was asking him
Speaker 1: one day about so Peter du Pass was going to
Speaker 1: him when I said, he was kind of using him
Speaker 1: as his counsel. He was going to him with all
Speaker 1: their evidence documents and the sentencings and everything from Margaret
Speaker 1: mar and Nicole Patterson's murders. They're kind of saying to
Speaker 1: Fraser like, what can we do with this? Can we appeal?
Speaker 1: And in talking about one of those who Pass said
Speaker 1: they won't know about Faulkner or something about okay, right, no,
Speaker 1: not in Faulkner, and Fraser went, Faulkner, she was killed
Speaker 1: in Preston and he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, Preston. And
Speaker 1: so then Andrew Fraser went and.
Speaker 2: Looked, oh wow, okay, so when you were a bit
Speaker 2: about it or yes, yep, he.
Speaker 1: Spoke about the time he found Dupass cradling the knife.
Speaker 1: So this is all in the witness box. Whispering was
Speaker 1: in his name, and while he stated he was absolutely terrified,
Speaker 1: he did carefully probe for more.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: He said that the thing about a Dupass with the
Speaker 1: stabbing motions, and Fraser got up and did this in court,
Speaker 1: as I just said, Dupass's defense lawyer trying to argue
Speaker 1: that Fraser's whole story was a lie in order to
Speaker 1: win attention, to redeem himself, and primarily to provide material
Speaker 1: for a novel. He was writing about his jail experiences, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, he did write for Killing Time no
Speaker 1: called Court in the middle Speed. It plays that when
Speaker 1: you open the book exactly, it's like those birthday cards.
Speaker 2: Beautiful, beautiful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the defense lawyer said, this guy has been
Speaker 1: a show pony as long as we've known him. He
Speaker 1: wants his time back in the media. He wants to
Speaker 1: redeem himself. So he's now remo, but as the person
Speaker 1: that took down a murderer, not as the disgraced cooked layds.
Speaker 1: Sure rebrand, yes, but the jury believed Andrew Fraser. Dupass
Speaker 1: was found guilty in August two thousand and seven and
Speaker 1: sentenced to his third life sentence. There had been a
Speaker 1: one million dollar reward on offer for Dupass's conviction, so
Speaker 1: information that led to the arrest and conviction of Messina
Speaker 1: hal Vargas's murderer there would be a one million dollar reward.
Speaker 1: Now Fraser has said that he did get some of this,
Speaker 1: but it's never been revealed how much. Right, Okay, And
Speaker 1: it was a recommendation by Victoria police that he deserved
Speaker 1: the reward. Oh right, They stated unequivocally that they would
Speaker 1: not have got a conviction without evidence.
Speaker 2: That's true because that was the reason. Yeah, wasn't it completely?
Speaker 1: So what do you think about that that it was
Speaker 1: vic Pole that actually said, yep, he should get the reward.
Speaker 2: I think it's called egg on their face. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think up am I right, Oh, you're so right, got
Speaker 2: a pig but it would.
Speaker 1: Have been I don't think we're allowed to call the police.
Speaker 2: My old friend of mine that is like the most
Speaker 2: by the book person ever and never never does anything
Speaker 2: bad in his life. He always always anytime he sees
Speaker 2: a police cargo, thought it smelt bacon. Oh yeah, it's hilarious.
Speaker 1: There was a there was a cafe in the town
Speaker 1: where my sister has a holiday house. There needs to
Speaker 1: be a cafe in the town called Piglets, And there
Speaker 1: was a sign leading into the town that said piglets
Speaker 1: five hundred meters ahead. And one day, then police Chief
Speaker 1: Commissioner of Victoria, Christine Nixon, was driving into town to
Speaker 1: do an opening of something in this little town and
Speaker 1: saw the sign saying piglets ahead, and she thought they'd
Speaker 1: put that up to take the piece out of her like,
Speaker 1: and then she went to the cafe and was like,
Speaker 1: oh wait.
Speaker 2: It's not about that. No, I think I would think
Speaker 2: have been quite That's that's a lot of of swallowing
Speaker 2: your dignity, I think, you know, for them to do that.
Speaker 1: I think it's actually quite admirable. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It wasn't any of the detectives who had anything to
Speaker 1: do with him directly, No, that's true, getting him behind
Speaker 1: bars and stuff. I don't know if some of them,
Speaker 1: because obviously would have been the homicide squad. Yeah, some
Speaker 1: of them very well, may have worked on some of
Speaker 1: the some cases that he had defended, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: like the doctor death and stuff. I don't know if
Speaker 1: there was any crossover with them, but I do think
Speaker 1: it's quite admirable for them to say to not try
Speaker 1: to fight the reward money. They're like, no, if we
Speaker 1: put out a reward for.
Speaker 2: This and he got the convictions, and you kind of see,
Speaker 2: like you know, in those kind of older TV shows
Speaker 2: of cops back then, you kind of see them as
Speaker 2: people that just hate the crims so much. They're so
Speaker 2: mad about it. It's actually quite.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but they hate the crim's defense lawyers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So after Andrew Fraser's release from prison in two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, he rebuilt his life from scratch as an author,
Speaker 1: a documentary maker, and public speaker. Now, I say from scratch.
Speaker 2: He was signed by Maxim Sparks. Is that right?
Speaker 1: I don't have that. You think everyone is.
Speaker 2: I think everyone should be signed by Max and Sparks.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I say it's rebuilt his life from a scratch
Speaker 1: in terms of money. His wife, who had stayed with
Speaker 1: him throughout his prison sentence, towards the end said when
Speaker 1: you get out, you're not going to be coming back.
Speaker 1: Split up. He had two children who you know, he'd
Speaker 1: missed five years of their lives. He was living in
Speaker 1: housing that was provided by you know, the parole board.
Speaker 1: He was threatened multiple times in the lead up to
Speaker 1: Dupass's trial. Oh okay, right, I received anonymous threats, yeah,
Speaker 1: saying you know, don't dog all of this.
Speaker 2: Imagine like the Underworld people would have been quite scared
Speaker 2: as well and been like don't you because I guess
Speaker 2: one it's a domino effect, isn't it exactly?
Speaker 1: And the Underworld gat walls were I think they were
Speaker 1: pretty much all like the main part of Melbourne's underworld
Speaker 1: Ganglane war was kind of wrapped up by two thousand
Speaker 1: and six.
Speaker 2: But have you met Sushi Mango? They are killing the
Speaker 2: world with comedy right now?
Speaker 1: Don't you get defamation? Gas? That was a joke everybody
Speaker 1: for them not killing them with comedies. I kay to say,
Speaker 1: there are the people were the people that kind of
Speaker 1: in the Gangland world that got away from ever being
Speaker 1: convicted or weren't then, that were still around, it'd be
Speaker 1: pretty terrifying. Sure, although he represented some of them, he
Speaker 1: also represented the enemies of some of them. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a pretty terrifying way I would think to go
Speaker 1: back into life, especially absolutely so loud and proud and rich.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and kept making a scene of kind of
Speaker 2: saying you just I just never asked them if they
Speaker 2: did it all, you know, like that the way he
Speaker 2: kind of paraded himself.
Speaker 1: And he was given a lot of flak for the
Speaker 1: fact that he was the style witness for Peter du Pass.
Speaker 1: People that were very thankful for it, but there was
Speaker 1: also a lot that kind of tongue in cheek or
Speaker 1: role in the idea he has to be the center
Speaker 1: of attention again. Of course he has to redeem himself
Speaker 1: and then you know, I say he rebuilt his life
Speaker 1: from scratch, is an author and public speaker and stuff.
Speaker 1: It was about his life and his time, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't starting from scratch finding a whole new career and everything.
Speaker 1: He used his life story to then get success of
Speaker 1: some form. Yeah, this conviction as well.
Speaker 2: Well, it's good that he kind of went for a
Speaker 2: like under the radar publicist Marx and Sparks Off has
Speaker 2: said Max and Sparks before, but Marks and Sparks and
Speaker 2: I would like to put on the record Sushi Mango
Speaker 2: have never.
Speaker 1: Killed that we know of that.
Speaker 3: We know.
Speaker 1: He phrasedes Whears that from the moment he was arrested.
Speaker 1: He has never ever touched an illicit drug again, and
Speaker 1: I think I would believe him from that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: literally sobering wake up call.
Speaker 2: Also, can I just say, real, real quick, have you
Speaker 2: ever found out why they're called sushi Mango? No, And
Speaker 2: it's not spelled it's very weird for like an Italian
Speaker 2: and it's not spelled sushi as the Italian sketch group. Anyway, Please, you.
Speaker 1: Don't know you were just no I'm just asking, okay,
Speaker 1: if anyone.
Speaker 2: Knows, if you no one's called sushi Mango, if no one.
Speaker 1: Knows what we're talking about the Australian comedy trio Andrew
Speaker 1: Fraser did almost become a star witness in another murder case,
Speaker 1: again against Peter Dupass Wow. In twenty thirteen, police reopened
Speaker 1: the murder investigation of a ninety five year old Kathleen Downs,
Speaker 1: who had been killed in a very similar manner to
Speaker 1: Dupass's other known victims. So when they reopened to the case,
Speaker 1: they again called Fraser in, who said that Dupas had
Speaker 1: opened up about Kathleen's death, mentioning it three times. He
Speaker 1: said Dupas referred to the ninety five year old as
Speaker 1: the old sheer light down the road. He lived in Pascoval,
Speaker 1: near the unsolved murder in Brunswick, which Wow Dupass had
Speaker 1: once told him, quote, I reckon, I'm going to end
Speaker 1: up wearing the old shiler as well, meaning Fraser interpreted
Speaker 1: he would be implicated in miss Down's death as well
Speaker 1: as help arcas. Yeah, sure, he said he could so.
Speaker 1: Fraser said he could do without further publicity relating to
Speaker 1: du Pass, but he did feel when police asked him
Speaker 1: he needed to speak up, so he held onto this
Speaker 1: for years. It was also only three mentions of the
Speaker 1: old shiller down the road. It was far less convincing
Speaker 1: to Fraser as a lawyer, as evidence and what he
Speaker 1: went through in defense, in speaking out and being a
Speaker 1: witness against du Pass the first time. I'm not this
Speaker 1: man is behind bars for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I don't need to get him, help get
Speaker 1: him convicted of a fourth murder. I don't have enough
Speaker 1: evidence on my own. I don't need to do this.
Speaker 1: But then when they reopen the murder investigation, he went,
Speaker 1: there are these three things, he.
Speaker 2: Said to my god, the way you're gonna have to
Speaker 2: read about it in my book exactly, and Maxon just
Speaker 2: gives him the thumbs up, sucks.
Speaker 1: And smucks Jupas felt he needed then to speak up.
Speaker 1: He was also spurred on by a cancer diagnosis that
Speaker 1: made him recess a lot. So you think that a
Speaker 1: lot when when someone has, of course it's a near
Speaker 1: death experience or in illness, they go, Okay, what could
Speaker 1: I what's my legacy here?
Speaker 2: Well, I wish it happened with criminals that have killed
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying where the fucking body is? And
Speaker 2: I'm sorry to swear like that.
Speaker 1: No, I do it. I swear all the god you're
Speaker 1: cool man, think youll Yeah, we say that all the time.
Speaker 1: People murderers who are on their death bed, they just confess.
Speaker 2: You have those Paul victims family some sort of opportunity
Speaker 2: to bury their loved one or grieve properly.
Speaker 1: So Andrew Fraser agreed to be prosecution witness again. However,
Speaker 1: the case would end up falling over once again because
Speaker 1: of Andrew Fraser never to be the one who wasn't
Speaker 1: the center of attention. By the time the case would
Speaker 1: be heard, Fraser was too sick with cancer to give evidence.
Speaker 1: Police were forced to abandon hopes of charges in this murder.
Speaker 1: But Kathleen Down's family hold no resentment towards Andrew Fraser
Speaker 1: for not speaking out earlier. They have peace knowing to
Speaker 1: pass was the killer and then he would never be released.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure, it's so hard imagine just not knowing one
Speaker 2: but also being.
Speaker 1: Like well, they they said, the justice, the legal system
Speaker 1: in it would just be about having it on paper.
Speaker 1: They say they know one hundred percent it is him
Speaker 1: and one again and really thanked Andrew Fraser for telling
Speaker 1: them that he about these other things, so they at
Speaker 1: least knew. So I said he had cancer. He was
Speaker 1: getting more and more sick and was too sick to
Speaker 1: be able to even be a witness in a case.
Speaker 1: So on Andrew Fraser's death, I'm going to steal the
Speaker 1: words here of crime reporter from the Age newspaper, Andrew Rule,
Speaker 1: who is one of the most brilliant writers in the world,
Speaker 1: and get him on the podcast. He's got his own podcast.
Speaker 1: I don't think you want to come on out, but
Speaker 1: we can try. He is also one of the I believe.
Speaker 1: Hang on, I'm going to google this before I say
Speaker 1: the wrong thing.
Speaker 2: Okay, I will say something then about Max Markson. If
Speaker 2: you're listening to the podcast, we think you represent some
Speaker 2: of the greatest acts currently living.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 2: I think you know what you did for Bill Clinton
Speaker 2: with his book. So we're in Australia's the answer, and
Speaker 2: I was right.
Speaker 1: It's always good to check though. Andrew Rule was one
Speaker 1: of the writers of the original books named Underbelly, then
Speaker 1: turned into the incredible TV series in Australia See Change,
Speaker 1: Sea Change. I've been talking a lot about the Melbourne
Speaker 1: gangland War. In this episode, listeners, I implore you to
Speaker 1: find under Belly's season one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder where it's available, but yeah, we watched it.
Speaker 1: It's probably on stand or like one of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: look wherever you are in the world. Look if you
Speaker 1: can find it under Belly season one. There are many
Speaker 1: seasons and they're all good, but the first season is
Speaker 1: one of the best austrolling TV shows with Goton ground
Speaker 1: at the airport is around Vince Colossimo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't see the airport.
Speaker 1: And there's also other Roger Corser.
Speaker 2: Our friend Jane Harbor, Beautiful Jane Harbor, we love.
Speaker 1: Perhaps she's not listening to this episode. We thought of
Speaker 1: three other people before.
Speaker 2: She came to my housewarming, and and she every single
Speaker 2: time someone would bring some sort of presence or something,
Speaker 2: you know, beautiful housewoman gives you go that's from all
Speaker 2: of us.
Speaker 3: To do.
Speaker 2: Every single time, that's from all of us. It just
Speaker 2: shouts to get across the place. That's from all of us.
Speaker 1: So Under Belly season one. Jane Harbor is the girl
Speaker 1: in the first episode who's wearing the slippers when she
Speaker 1: goes out driving. You'll know that it's a fan tas
Speaker 1: to show and a lot of these characters are in
Speaker 1: at the Morans. Yeah, watch it. It's great anyway. One
Speaker 1: of the writers of it was Andrew Rule. The other
Speaker 1: John Sylvester, another very famous Melbourne crime writer. So I'm
Speaker 1: stealing Andrew Ruhle's beautiful words here about Andrew Fraser's passing.
Speaker 1: The man who lived life on his own terms, though
Speaker 1: not always wisely left it the same way. On Wednesday,
Speaker 1: August nine, twenty twenty three, after a lengthy cancer battle,
Speaker 1: he called friends from his palliative care bed to say goodbye.
Speaker 1: I'm pulling the plug, he told one friend. Just before
Speaker 1: eleven am. He waited for his son Lachlan to arrive
Speaker 1: at his bedside to join his second wife. At his
Speaker 1: own request phrases, oxygen supply was turned off and he
Speaker 1: died around one thirty PM. And I just use his
Speaker 1: wording in that because I absolutely adore how he said,
Speaker 1: the man who lived life on his own terms, though
Speaker 1: not always wisely left it the same way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because that to me sums.
Speaker 1: Up Andrew Fraser. I have been obsessed with this story. Now, First,
Speaker 1: I say three kind of sources or just recommendations if
Speaker 1: you want to know more about this. The TV show
Speaker 1: Killing Time, which is an Australian television show as well.
Speaker 1: It stars our favorite David Wynham playing Andrew Fraser. You
Speaker 1: love that guy. I think it is a brilliant show.
Speaker 1: I reach at the time. I rewatch it again. It's
Speaker 1: from like twenty ten or something. It's brilliant and you
Speaker 1: really kind of get a look into the unravelings life.
Speaker 2: Got to see what's written by because there's this. There's
Speaker 2: quite a few Australian writers that write everything, and what
Speaker 2: they do is brilliant.
Speaker 1: It's not an Underbelly season.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, but it's Killing Time, so is it a
Speaker 2: few seasons?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: No, no, it's just his story. It's just his story.
Speaker 2: And that David Wenham, he is so so good, like
Speaker 2: in everything. He's recently in Fake as well, which is
Speaker 2: oh Asha Eddy and oh my god, the way he
Speaker 2: is able to play someone so likable but unlikable at
Speaker 2: the same time. I think David Wenham just has his
Speaker 2: uncanny ability to get lost in whatever part he's playing.
Speaker 2: Having said that, I.
Speaker 1: Do call him Dan of course he did. Written by
Speaker 1: Ian David mac gudge and Catherine Thompson and Sean Grant.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I've heard. I've heard of those. They had
Speaker 2: a lot of Australian television.
Speaker 1: Okay, they wrote Killing Time. It's right.
Speaker 2: I think they're on Rake as well, those people. Yeah right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel as right as were.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, And if you're going to watch it, they
Speaker 1: go into the Walls Street killings a lot, which I
Speaker 1: have not gone into depth about here because I keep
Speaker 1: saying I'll do that. It's a story. Caught in the
Speaker 1: middle is Phraser's book.
Speaker 2: And CEO You are two, that's right.
Speaker 1: And Andrew rules podcast. He's got a podcast, but there
Speaker 1: is a kind of like an offset side podcast he's
Speaker 1: done called Cops, Crims and Cocaine.
Speaker 2: Oh okay.
Speaker 1: He interviews Andrew Fraser over the three episodes, and a
Speaker 1: lot of this I got from yeah, his own words
Speaker 1: listening to that. He spoke a lot in media after
Speaker 1: his release. He spoke a lot about what happened, a
Speaker 1: lot about Louis Moran and Deadis Allen. I didn't speak
Speaker 1: much about Walsh Street. I my interpretation of that is
Speaker 1: perhaps the again I'm going to use the word guilt,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if it's the right word around
Speaker 1: his involvement in getting them off. He says quite openly
Speaker 1: that he knows Victor Pierce was okay, at least Victor
Speaker 1: Pierce was guilty.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's really interesting. The episodes with him are
Speaker 1: like a chat with him. It's not kind of explaining
Speaker 1: history and depth. But they're the sources. I hadn't thought
Speaker 1: you guys might be interested in listening to a watching
Speaker 1: I've just I think I first.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, of course.
Speaker 1: So I was going to say I think I first
Speaker 1: heard about it watching Killing Time. That's not true at all.
Speaker 1: I was there. I said this in the PDDO Bassett episode.
Speaker 1: I was doing work experience in with Channel ten News
Speaker 1: doing a court story. So we were in court one
Speaker 1: day when all the court reporters phones started going mental,
Speaker 1: and it was when it had come out that Andrew
Speaker 1: Fraser was not even that he was, that Messina hal
Speaker 1: Vargas's murderer had been charged. Wow, and so that was
Speaker 1: a huge, big news day. And then of course it
Speaker 1: came out from that. It was because they received new
Speaker 1: evidence from Andrew Fraser from so that was for my
Speaker 1: nerdy little journal brain, especially at work experience age. I
Speaker 1: was like, this is so exciting. This is something in history.
Speaker 1: There's going to be closure for a family who's been
Speaker 1: looking for a killer for years. There's a lawyer involved
Speaker 1: who's been disgraced himself. This is so exciting. So that
Speaker 1: made me really excited about crime reporting, but also made
Speaker 1: me really quite obsessed with this du Pass and Andrew
Speaker 1: Fraser cases. And it's one of those stories that I
Speaker 1: just find It's got everything right. It's got a disgraced lawyer,
Speaker 1: it's got a lawyer that people fucking hated. It's got
Speaker 1: one of the most infamous police shootings in Australian history.
Speaker 1: It's got two of the most infamous drug lords and murderers.
Speaker 1: It's got Jay l it's got another murderer. It's just
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's fascinating, especially to happen in Melbourne as well.
Speaker 1: It feels like a TV show.
Speaker 2: It absolutely does. It is called Killing Time.
Speaker 1: Yes, just when I was giggling, then who wrote it?
Speaker 1: The number one question that came up was is it
Speaker 1: based on a true story? It should be, It's like
Speaker 1: that wild.
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you a story next week for
Speaker 2: our Christmas A week of episodes. I'm going to tell
Speaker 2: you a story that you will not believe. He's already
Speaker 2: not a TV show or a movie trademarket TM. I
Speaker 2: would also like to ask you the question, is Andrew
Speaker 2: Fraser related to Dorm Fraser.
Speaker 1: Well you pronounced Frasier wrong, then don't know. But I
Speaker 1: have not seen.
Speaker 2: Anywhere derogatory because she came to my school. So I
Speaker 2: was I was a big swimmer in school and she
Speaker 2: was a I was a large her. I just took
Speaker 2: up the whole pool and I uh yeah, Dorm Fraser
Speaker 2: came to do a speech at our school, and she
Speaker 2: was an Olympic star. She was incredible and everything, and
Speaker 2: she told me to go away. I try to speak
Speaker 2: to her.
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
Speaker 2: I want to speak to her after It's like, hi, Dawn,
Speaker 2: I I would love to be a swimmer one day
Speaker 2: of all kind of loves. When she went go away?
Speaker 1: No she did?
Speaker 2: Yeah she did? Yeah? Yeah that's awful.
Speaker 1: Was she the one that stole the flag or something
Speaker 1: got in trouble?
Speaker 2: Yea, yeah, she's she had a lot of controversy which
Speaker 2: to do that is it? Well, it's so funny. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Frase will be great for that. As well as rex
Speaker 2: Hunt is the other one that I really want to do,
Speaker 2: but I.
Speaker 1: So rex Hunt is such a dangerous name to.
Speaker 2: Oh my god quickly. But yeah, so I anytime that
Speaker 2: Dawn Fraser later had any public speaking things where she
Speaker 2: would say something awful, my friend, one of my best friends,
Speaker 2: always message all that is, you'd be happy about that
Speaker 2: just because of praise it down. It's like Margaret Court.
Speaker 2: Every time I hear something bad about Margaret Court. I
Speaker 2: think Dawn and Margaret Court are kind of the same
Speaker 2: person derogatory. But come at me.
Speaker 1: This is the funny thing, right, Just because someone is
Speaker 1: an incredibly gifted athlete does not mean they're going to
Speaker 1: be going to be a good person.
Speaker 2: No, I will. I think you've done speeches at schools.
Speaker 1: Put all your minds back to our episode on Oscar Pistorius.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. People not always good people. That
Speaker 2: is so fascinating about Andrew Fraser. Though I I didn't
Speaker 2: know the story, and when you talked about it in
Speaker 2: the pe Do Pats episode, going this is going to
Speaker 2: be a whole story, I was like, do you like how?
Speaker 1: I was like how because I was like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: the lawyer was in jail and then got another guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that is fascinating.
Speaker 1: There's so much more to it. I also didn't go
Speaker 1: into it all the fact that he was Alan Bond's lawyer.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know about that. If you're listening, give a quick
Speaker 1: google an Australian businessman who lost a lot of people
Speaker 1: a lot of money.
Speaker 2: That would be a great America's cup That'd be a
Speaker 2: great episode as well.
Speaker 1: Phraser was his lawyer as well, like he was. He's
Speaker 1: going to be some crossover stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's going to be some crossovers episode one day. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all about all the Drew phrase. Look, I before we
Speaker 2: go to the mail bag today, g Love. We have
Speaker 2: had quite a lot of messages this week about Joe Chinkway,
Speaker 2: the episode that was this week, and a lot of
Speaker 2: people have actually sent through messages about the jo jin
Speaker 2: Quay episode. Some people sent through an interview that was
Speaker 2: done with a new Oh after sixty minutes one. No,
Speaker 2: it was an interview on a podcast on ABC, and
Speaker 2: it was someone that went to meet with her and
Speaker 2: had a discussion And I would like to just play
Speaker 2: a little bit of that when was here to be
Speaker 2: pleased the interview. So this was released in twenty sixteen. Okay, yep,
Speaker 2: so this was on ABC on a podcast called Life Matters.
Speaker 3: State this wouldn't have happened? Is one my mother who
Speaker 3: across his team a number of times try to be
Speaker 3: offense occurring and you know, I fell through the cracks, as.
Speaker 1: A lot of women do.
Speaker 4: So that's kind of true, Like there's your individual responsibility.
Speaker 4: But at the time when this happened, you told a
Speaker 4: lot of people what you were thinking about, and nobody
Speaker 4: helped you. Nobody he told Joe, nobody told the police.
Speaker 4: So how much fault do you place on the people
Speaker 4: around you?
Speaker 3: I don't want to put the fold is mine, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. I don't want to put the
Speaker 3: fould is mine for not listening to people and seeking out.
Speaker 1: The mental health support that I should have. Writ it.
Speaker 1: So you take responsibility for it, absolutely?
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: So the film that's currently been made, what's in post
Speaker 4: production of Helen Garner's book Jating Ways Constellation?
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you feel about that?
Speaker 4: Very soon, within the next six months or so, there's
Speaker 4: going to be a film where you are the lead character.
Speaker 3: It's very confronting again to have to relieve all of that,
Speaker 3: and I do fear that because it's based on Helen's book,
Speaker 3: that it won't adequately explore the mental health aspects. I
Speaker 3: guess there's a sense of I don't know what the
Speaker 3: what what's going to happen, So I have a kind
Speaker 3: of uncertainty.
Speaker 1: Have you been attacted by the filmmakers?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: Do you wish that you were contacted by them so
Speaker 4: that you could participate in some way?
Speaker 3: Well, on that point of female evans being talked to
Speaker 3: rather being brother than being talked about, it would have
Speaker 3: been nice if they's kind of talked to me and
Speaker 3: I don't know, gained some understanding about where I was
Speaker 3: at that in that at that time. Why do you
Speaker 3: think they haven't because I guess they're not interested. I
Speaker 3: haven't seen the film, so I don't know what it's
Speaker 3: what it's how I'm going to portrayed. But I guess,
Speaker 3: like Helen's book, there's a particular angle I assume that
Speaker 3: they're going to base it on, and so mine wouldn't
Speaker 3: be relevant to that, especially if you want to paint
Speaker 3: me is evil rather than mentally ill or as no
Speaker 3: need to talk to you.
Speaker 4: Do you see yourself as mentally as opposed to evil,
Speaker 4: you know, if not right now, but looking back at.
Speaker 3: Twenty years yeah, absolutely off the planet mentally meant well,
Speaker 3: this is saying that, you know, evil's rare, but mental
Speaker 3: illness is real. You know, having been treated now adequately,
Speaker 3: I can see just how I'm really unwell I was.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: That is a thirty minute interview. I found it fascinating.
Speaker 2: I think it's a few listeners sent it to us
Speaker 2: Chris audio. I mean, you can some of the great audio,
Speaker 2: but it's recording on.
Speaker 1: To been around very long. No, no, no, sixteen that's
Speaker 1: probably good for a podcasting, but yeah, it is.
Speaker 2: It is a really, really difficult interview. She says that
Speaker 2: she was prescribed zoloft and that made everything better. She
Speaker 2: realized that if she had been prescribed zoloft earlier, none
Speaker 2: of this would have happened. She blames it all on
Speaker 2: the doctors that misdiagnosed her, which is heinous in.
Speaker 1: Itself because an antidepress.
Speaker 2: And disat Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: She was claiming far more than oh.
Speaker 2: My god, it was it was a severe mental health issue,
Speaker 2: like she was in crisis mode. She was meant to
Speaker 2: be committed quite a few times. By her parents. She
Speaker 2: didn't end up going that interview is wild. It is.
Speaker 2: It's just a fascinating, fascinating interview, and I think it
Speaker 2: is really interesting the way that she talks about Obviously
Speaker 2: she doesn't blame the other people, but to ask the
Speaker 2: question were you mentally ill or evil? Is such a
Speaker 2: such an interesting line of questioning. I find it really interesting. Firstly,
Speaker 2: she didn't sound like I thought she would sound a
Speaker 2: lot older. When you when you kind of paint a
Speaker 2: picture of someone, you go, oh my god, they yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And then now she is doing her well. She used
Speaker 2: to actually finished her PhD on the women in in
Speaker 2: I don't know what it was called, but it was
Speaker 2: like women are incarcerated. And she talks about this now
Speaker 2: and she's saying, yep, but there's there's more issue. She
Speaker 2: continually says in the podcast, there are more issues at stake.
Speaker 2: It's about women who are incarcerated, it's about the numbers
Speaker 2: that are increasing. Why are they doing this? And there
Speaker 2: is at no point she goes, I killed Joe Chinkwe
Speaker 2: there is nothing about that. It is just her continually saying,
Speaker 2: why are we're not going to the wider issues, the
Speaker 2: bigger issues. It's like, because the big issue is you
Speaker 2: murdered your boyfriend at the time.
Speaker 1: What angered me about that snippet there is that she said, well,
Speaker 1: if they're basing it off Helen Garner's book, then they
Speaker 1: won't want to speak to me because they just want
Speaker 1: to portray me as evil. But you read the book
Speaker 1: and came out of that saying I have a totally
Speaker 1: new view.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, because.
Speaker 1: I understood through reading the book about her mental health struggles.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's fascinating for her to go, well, she
Speaker 1: just wants to blame me. Yeah, yeah, fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And thank you to all the people that had
Speaker 2: sent me that, Like that is so interesting as just
Speaker 2: a point of I guess after you do it. I
Speaker 2: did not listen to it before I did the episode,
Speaker 2: which shows what great research I do. But but you know,
Speaker 2: but it would be not but but yeah, but it
Speaker 2: was really interesting. And we've had, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of letters that have come after that as well, like
Speaker 2: a lot of beautiful, beautiful internet letters, and we're going
Speaker 2: to go soon to the letters. But I just wanted
Speaker 2: to kind of read this one from a wonderful listener, Renee.
Speaker 1: Is this not us going to the letters now then
Speaker 1: kick it off with this.
Speaker 2: Well, you know it's a lot more ating for me,
Speaker 2: but yeah, sure, Hey Sammy and g it's Renee again.
Speaker 2: Just a quick note. In the Joe Chinkway episode, you
Speaker 2: talked about that terrifying moment of having to call Triple
Speaker 2: zero without knowing the exact address. Not that that was
Speaker 2: her issue, but it's such a real world fear. So
Speaker 2: I want to share a handy tip I learned during
Speaker 2: my first aid course. Thought you might want to share
Speaker 2: it with your listeners. You never know when it Matt
Speaker 2: might save a lot. In Australia, there's an app called
Speaker 2: Emergency Plus that uses a system called what three Words,
Speaker 2: which breaks the entire world into tiny three meters squares,
Speaker 2: each identify by a unique three word address. If you
Speaker 2: call Triple zero through the app, you can simply read
Speaker 2: out those three words and the operator will know your
Speaker 2: exact location instantly. If you can also use a three
Speaker 2: word address even if you don't call, oh sorry, you
Speaker 2: can also use the three letter word address even if
Speaker 2: you don't call through the app. By using the Emergency
Speaker 2: Plus makes it easier because it combines GPS location What
Speaker 2: three Words and calling Triple zero all in one go
Speaker 2: more info here, and she's she's put the the yeah,
Speaker 2: the dress below, which I'll put in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Stay horrendous. Love you guys, right, But yeah, but I
Speaker 2: thought that was interesting. Yeah. What interesting thing though was
Speaker 2: a you know when when you think about how long
Speaker 2: that call talk, well, that's.
Speaker 1: As she said, she was putting.
Speaker 2: It wasn't her, that wasn't her.
Speaker 1: She was her, she knew the address.
Speaker 2: But yeah, just an interesting thing. And you know what,
Speaker 2: now we're going to go to the Amount mag