The Matriarch

by Adrian Tame

  They reckon Dennis murdered Jamie, got too big for his boots or something. He never. I’d seen him hours before he died. He was in aflat owned by one of his girlfriends in Northcote. By the time it came to the inquest [March 1986] I had to come from Fairlea, where I was doing time for smack, in handcuffs and everything. And I said just one thing to Hal Hallenstein the Coroner, and he knew what I was talking about. I said: ‘Your Honour,’ and Victor’s tugging at me coat, I said: ‘Your Honour, could you please tell me if there was anybody else in that flat?’

  Jamie wasn’t on his own, he couldn’t stick a needle in his own arm. Jamie was given an overdose. If it had been Dennis’s smack I would have killed Dennis meself. I’d only left Jamie hours earlier. There was no depression or nothing. I know it wasn’t an accident. Someone had a motive for killing him. It wasn’t Dennis with the motive, it was the others. I know what I know, I know what I know. I haven’t found out the ‘why’, but I know the ‘who’.

  Jamie was a heroin addict in the end. It was a man in prison that got him onto it. And that man was terrified for years. He’d sit in his cell and wouldn’t come out because he didn’t know which day was his. He was living in fear.

  Me and my selfishness when Jamie was murdered, and I will say murdered, I didn’t think about my other kids’ feelings, right? I had my own grief. Victor called round to see if I wanted to go to the flat where Jamie was found, and I thought it’d be like last time, the ambulance would save him. It hadn’t sunk in that Jamie was dead, because he’d only left me a couple of hours earlier. And I went to get up out of the bed, because the doctor came and gave me a shot. And I said to Dennis: ‘I’ve got to go to the morgue.’ And he said: ‘No, you don’t. Trevor’s going.’ So Dennis took that responsibility off me shoulders, which normally he wouldn’t have done.

  Jamie’s funeral was a major event, and saw the blessing of 35 Stephenson Street by Father Peter Norden, a Roman Catholic priest. The same priest also officiated at the funerals of Dennis, Sissy and Gladys.

  We had to make an amnesty with the police for Jamie’s funeral because none of us were allowed in the same street. That was part of our bail conditions. So the coppers said it was all right. I wanted, being of Irish descent, the funeral cortege to go down Stephenson Street, and we stopped the cortege, and Father Norden blessed the house, 35, where Jamie lived with me and Trevor and Jason.

  The bail conditions that barred family members from being in the same street meant that Dennis was prohibited from conversing with Kathy in any way, but no such restriction applied to Kathy. ‘I could talk to him, but he wasn’t allowed to talk to me. I had a lot of fun with that one.’

  The death notices published in Melbourne’s Sun newspaper immediately after Jamie’s death were testament to the number and variety of friends he enjoyed, and the regard in which he was held. Dennis’s message came first, typically cryptic and in an entire column by itself:

  From the one another.

  There could never be a better brother.

  There all the way, so will they.

  We love you always JAP

  You were there

  One million

  So will I

  DEN

  Kathy translated the ‘one another’ as brother; ‘there all the way’ as a reference to Jamie’s loyalty; ‘so will they’ is an obscure vow of revenge; JAP was Jamie’s nickname; ‘one million’ means one million per cent, and ‘so will I’ is another promise of vengeance.

  A joint notice from Dennis, Peter, Victor, Lex and Trevor read: ‘Dear brother, we know you had a message for those that won’t weep. We’ll deliver that, our promise we keep.’ Again Kathy believes this is a promise to track down and kill those (’that won’t weep’) responsible for Jamie’s murder.

  Other notices were less complex. Peter’s said in part: ‘I’ll walk with pride knowing you belong to our family.’ Jason wrote of having ‘an uncle as wonderful as you’. Perhaps most revealing of all was the note from Carmel Duke, a former girlfriend who had been with Jamie on the day he died, and who lived in the flat where he took the fatal overdose.

  ‘. . .in thirteen years there is not a bad memory of you. As I sit here on the bed where you took your last breath there is one of a million memories that come flooding back to mind: We were walking home from school and we were both freezing cold. You took your cardigan off for me to wear and swore you couldn’t feel the cold.’

  There were thirty-six notices in all, many of them revealing deep and sincere expressions of love and friendship. As Kathy observes, people in her world do not make a show of revealing their feelings to one another; most emotions are kept inside. The only occasion they are truly revealed and paraded for the world to see is at the time of death.

  The aftermath of Jamie’s death resulted in ugly family disputes, both at the wake and at the next New Year’s Eve party. At the wake at Cubitt Street a relative who was convinced Dennis had murdered Jamie put a gun to Dennis’s head and pulled the trigger. Dennis’s luck held out once again—the gun jammed and the incident went no further.

  At the New Year’s party Lex was questioning a woman Kathy believed had played a role in Jamie’s fatal overdose. Peter, during a rare spell of freedom from his almost permanent incarceration, was also present. Kathy had anticipated trouble and had hidden her gun earlier. Eventually Peter and Lex began arguing, and Peter ordered the bodyguard whom he had brought with him to fetch Kathy’s gun. At this stage Kathy intervened.

  The next minute I said: ‘Right, Peter hit me with your best shot.’ And he did, in this eye, the bad eye. But by this time Lex has kicked that woman straight down the passage, right onto the road.

  At the inquest into Jamie’s death on 11 March 1986, Coroner Hal Hallenstein recorded an open verdict saying Jamie had died from an overdose of dextropropoxyphene, oxazepam and morphine.

  ‘I am unable to say whether death was self induced, accidental, by misadventure or otherwise/ the Coroner added.

  Evidence was heard from sisters Carmel and Deidre Duke, both of whom had known Jamie since the family lived in North-cote fifteen years earlier. Deidre had had an affair with Jamie, and Carmel regarded him ‘like a brother’.

  The sisters stated that on 14 May Jamie arrived at Deidre’s flat at Hales Court, Northcote, at lunchtime when both were present. Jamie had been staying overnight at the flat intermittently during the previous three weeks, and because of his condition the sisters were starting to worry that he was using hard drugs. On the day of his death Deidre left the flat not long after Jamie arrived. He said that he was tired and wanted to lie down.

  Carmel checked on him frequently over the next three hours as he lay on Deidre’s bed. She noticed his breathing was irregular and his face was changing colour from purple to yellow. On her final visit to the bedroom Carmel realised Jamie had stopped breathing, and ran to the nearby flat of a friend, Lynn Williams, whom Kathy had known for twenty years. Williams called an ambulance while her boyfriend returned with Carmel to Deidre’s flat. Despite their efforts to revive him Jamie was dead by the time the ambulance arrived.

  In her statement Kathy acknowledged Jamie was using amphetamines on an irregular basis. ‘In my opinion Jamie could not self-administer himself with an injection because he has a fear of needles.’ She added: ‘I believe that he was being injected by another person, but at this stage I do not know who that is.’

  Kathy said Jamie had been renovating the house at 43 Cubitt Street to make a home for Deidre, her daughter and himself. ‘He had everything to look forward to in life with his girlfriend.’

  From evidence heard at the inquest it would appear that Jamie did not inject himself after arrival at Deidre’s flat. The police and ambulance officers who attended were unsuccessful in their search for any form of drug paraphernalia.

  The one piece of evidence that supports Kathy’s theory of Jamie having been injected ‘by another person’ was provided by ambulanceman Robert Bland, who said that while attempting to revive Jamie he had
questioned Carmel and Deidre. ‘They told us he had arrived at the flat three hours previously with an unknown female who had since left, and they [Jamie and the unknown girl] had just hit up on heroin prior to arrival at the flat.’

  Neither Deidre nor Carmel mentioned this woman, but said Jamie had arrived alone. Nor did they say anything about Jamie having used heroin, but gave the impression they didn’t know he was using hard drugs. The Coroner’s open finding left the circumstances of Jamie’s death a mystery that has never been solved.

  Whatever the truth behind his death, there is no doubt Jamie died on 14 May 1985, unwittingly providing Dennis with an alibi for his alleged involvement in the heroin deal with Roger Roger-son. For it was on that date that Dennis was said to have sent ‘Miss X’ to Sydney to collect heroin from the soon to be disgraced detective (see Chapter Five).

  The final footnote to Jamie’s life came a few days after his death when Kathy was asleep in bed at 35 Stephenson Street. She woke to find the room uncharacteristically cold. As she looked up from the pillow she saw Jamie’s familiar form in the doorway to her bedroom, the same doorway from which Dennis had summoned her downstairs to clean up Wayne Stanhope’s remains. Jamie was wearing the greatcoat Victor Gouroff traded for a cap of heroin. He said two words in a voice that she remembers as half threat, half plea. ‘Shut up.’

  To Kathy, by no means a superstitious person, the message was clear—stop asking questions, let it rest.

  * * *

  It was six months after Jamie’s death that the most publicised of all the murders in which Dennis was involved took place. The victim was Anton Kenny, a Hell’s Angel. To be precise Kenny was a one-time president of the Nomads, a club so closely affiliated with the Angels world-wide that they wear the same winged skull patch on the back of their jackets.

  During the 1970s and early 1980s I conducted interviews and wrote part of the script for a documentary film on the Melbourne Chapter of the Hell’s Angels, and got to know a number of members. There are Angels and there are Angels—some are far more approachable than others, and are good company. Anton Kenny wasn’t one of these. My memories of him are of a somewhat surly individual with an air of physical intimidation adopted by most club members to keep outsiders at a distance. At six feet and wearing his full colours, Anton was a daunting figure. But by the time he ran into Dennis in late 1984 much of that had changed.

  For a start he had been kicked out by the Angels—for making a statement to police in 1982 when apprehended on drug charges. Kenny didn’t implicate any of his brother Angels, but the simple act of making a statement was enough to cause his expulsion. Having witnessed first-hand the strength and permanence of the bonds that tie Hell’s Angels to one another, and the support system which exists within the group, it is not difficult to imagine the sudden emptiness of Kenny’s existence when he found himself on the outer. As their president Les Phillips used to say: ‘Everybody wants to be an Angel.’ And the only thing worse than not being an Angel is being an ex-Angel. So Kenny’s decline was rapid.

  He began using heroin, another offence that would have had him banned from the club. (Any use, except medical, of a needle is prohibited.) He lost weight and his appearance of physical strength gave way to a general sleaziness. Through his brother Wayne he met a convicted murderer, Peter Ian Robertson, and the pair began to spend time in one another’s company. Robertson, or ‘Robbo’ as Kathy knew him, had known Dennis for some years, probably from their time together in gaol. ‘Robbo’ introduced Anton to Dennis and the strange world of Stephenson Street. During the first half of 1985 the former Nomad became a comparatively regular visitor to one or other of Dennis’s properties.

  On 8 November 1985, the day after Dennis’s thirty-fourth birthday, Kenny became the latest in a growing list of people whose last breath would be taken in Dennis’s company. Five people—Dennis, ‘Robbo’, Kenny, a Peter Hastilow, from the outer suburb of Chirnside Park, and the ever-present ‘Miss Jones’, were all involved in a post-birthday celebration drinking session at 49 Cubitt Street when bullets started flying. Kathy believes the fracas was touched off by ‘Robbo’ catching Kenny in the act of ‘tampering’ with Dennis’s two daughters, Lindy and Jade, then living at Cubitt Street. While this is the type of incident that would have sparked Dennis’s temper to the stage where bloody murder was a favoured option, it is also unlikely.

  Hell’s Angels, despite their carefully cultivated repulsive image, do not welcome pedophiles into their ranks. While Charger Charley the Child Molester may have been a celebrated figure in the early history of America’s founding West Coast Angels, it is extremely doubtful that their Melbourne brothers of the 1980s would have allowed a man with a predilection for toddlers to rise to the exalted rank of president. And however far Kenny had fallen during the three years since his expulsion from the club, it doesn’t follow that he acquired such a taste along with his appetite for heroin. Kathy’s attitude to him may have been prejudiced by his indifference to her girls.

  Anton’d been round the bloody parlour, but I don’t think he had sex. I had a couple of towels with Mr D written on them. I said to Anton: ‘Will you take these round to Dennis?’ ‘cos it was Dennis’s birthday. And that’s the last time I saw him alive.

  The truth of what happened to Anton Kenny at Cubitt Street will probably never be known—there are too many conflicting accounts. Dennis’s brother Peter, for instance, told a Supreme Court hearing into unrelated matters that both Dermis and Robertson had fired the fatal shots that killed Kenny.

  In May 1987 Robertson told the jury during his trial for Kenny’s murder that he had heard four shots and seen Dennis come out of the lounge with an automatic pistol. Robertson walked into the room where he saw Kenny kneeling on the floor holding his chest. ‘I didn’t call him [Dennis] a rat,’ were among his last words.

  Peter Hastilow gave a completely different version. In November 1986 he told the South Melbourne Coroner’s Court he was in the kitchen at number 49 with Dennis when he heard four or five gunshots. He and Dennis entered the lounge where Kenny was lying motionless. Hastilow claimed he was told by Robertson: ‘Get out of here, and keep your mouth shut.’

  ‘Miss Jones’ made an initial statement in which she said she had seen Robertson fire the fatal shots at Kenny. She later changed this story, saying the statement had been made on Dennis’s orders. Her second version had her playing with Lindy and Jade in a room of the house in Cubitt Street. Dennis came in, she told the Coroner’s Court, and ordered her ‘to get out with the kids, because things are about to happen’. As she was leaving the house she heard four or five shots, she said.

  Dennis summoned Kathy to the scene not long after the shots were fired. He had a special telephone code for letting his associates know when he needed help in disposing of a body. According to The Enforcer he would use the acronym MIA— missing in action. In Kathy’s case he was more to the point.

  And then I get a phone call: ‘Get your arse around here, cunt.’ There was an arch [in the house at Cubitt Street] so I’ve walked down and Dennis has said: ‘Don’t come any further.’ But I did. And I was fucking mystified. If Anton’s shot there was no blood. And I think: ‘How can he be shot if there’s no blood?’ It was all internal.

  So I start to see his eyes roll back a bit. Now I know a lot about bodies. And I put a fan on him, thinking he’s about to die, and he looks feverish. Dennis says: ‘What are you fucking doin’?’ I said: ‘Well, I know what I’m fucking doing, Dennis. What happens if rigor mortis sets in?’ Right? ‘Cos it comes and goes. Right? I don’t dispute that Dennis cut his legs off. No, no, no, I don’t dispute that. There was no need to do that if they’d listened to me when I had the fan on him, but they didn’t. Rigor mortis comes and goes after so many hours.

  So with that he says: ‘Get him in the fucking car.’ Meaning his station wagon. ‘And dump him outside Prince Henry’s Hospital.’ How could I’ve pushed him out the fucking car?

  So then I see them take the
bluey jacket off him, you know those workmen’s blueys? Then I see Dennis undo Anton’s pants, and I think: ‘Aah what the fuck’s going on now?’ There’s the bag of speed stuffed down his trousers. But then they put the bluey back on him to keep him warm. And I’ve got the fucking fan on him. So I leave, and that’s the end.

  So how the hell could I have got him in the station wagon? I mean, I knew we were under surveillance. This Robbo, he’d just got out after a murder blue.IV I said: ‘Who fucking shot him?’ just like I’m talking to you Robbo said: ‘He tampered with the kids.’

  What happened over the next few days represents a nadir of depravity even for Dennis and his circle. It began with Robertson’s description of Kenny’s final moments of life. This description was made in a statement to police on 21 October 1986 which was read to the inquest the following month:

  He was on his knees with his hands holding his chest. Anton collapsed on the floor on his back. I could see only spots of blood on his chest area. Dennis said: ‘Give me a hand/ and we dragged him out to the kitchen. He was still breathing. He said: ‘Am I going to die?’ I told him: ‘Don’t be a weak cunt.’ I grabbed him on his wrist and he was all cold and clammy.

  Dennis then ordered him to pick up spent shells from the lounge-room floor, Robertson said. When he returned to the kitchen he found Dennis removing $900 in $100 bills and a bag of speed from Anton’s person. ‘I didn’t realise, but Anton was dead by then.’

  In an earlier interview with Detective Senior Sergeant Ian Dosser of the homicide squad on 19 March 1986, Robertson had provided gruesome details of the disposal of the body:

  Robertson: ‘We carried him down the back lane to another of Dennis’s houses [on Cubitt Street] and left him there. We boarded the house up.

  Dosser: The body had its legs chopped off. Where was this done?