The Russell Street Bombing

by Vikki Petraitis

  Wednesday 16 April

  On Wednesday 16 April the anonymous caller made one more call to the Chief Commissioner. This time, the police were ready. As soon as the man was on the line, D-24 sent out a call to all St Kilda detectives. They all drove around to as many public telephone boxes as they could on what was now a well-practiced routine. And sure enough, an alert local detective, Mark Caulfield, saw a man talking in a phone box. When Caulfield approached him and took the receiver from his hand, the Chief Commissioner was on the other end of the line. They had caught their anonymous caller.

  The man, was an industrial chemist called Vladimir Rhychta. It didn't take police long to see that he didn't have any real information. They charged him with hindering a police investigation. It was frustrating for the detectives - they couldn't have ignored his calls, but many hours had been lost chasing Rhychta that could have been more productively used hunting the real bombers.

  But with the connection between the bomb car and the bank robbery in Donvale uncovered two days earlier, the investigation had gained a new momentum.

  The Suspects

  While Crupi was the main suspect, he soon had another strong contender. With the spotlight on the connection between the stolen red Daimler and the Brock Commodore, it was imperative that police locate the driver who had crashed the Daimler and later hijacked another car at gunpoint. Detectives spoke to the traffic cop who had originally chased the stolen Daimler. He had caught a glimpse of the driver and picked him out of a group of mugshots. He recognised the driver as Peter Reed who had form as a car thief. Police began a massive manhunt to locate Reed who was also wanted for questioning in connection with a number of bank robberies.

  Head of the Taskforce, Daryl Clarke, left the Brock Commodore crew of detectives to follow up the Reed connection, while other crews devoted their time to the investigation of Crupi and other suspects.

  Detectives from the Armed Robbery Squad told the Taskforce that they were interested in Reed for some particularly violent armed robberies on banks. Indeed, the silver Brock Commodore had been used to crash through the front window of the bank in Donvale on the afternoon of the bombing.

  Covert surveillance teams began watching Peter Reed very closely. Again.

  Death and Funeral

  Despite the faint hope that she would survive her injuries, Constable Angela Taylor, died on 20 April. For 24 days, her family sat by her hospital bed as she slowly lost her battle for survival.

  Still in hospital himself, Carl Donadio had wanted to visit Angela but he had contracted a golden staph infection and decided to hold off. He didn't get another chance because she died before he'd recovered enough to see her. Carl's parents had met Angela's parents in the hospital canteen, and become friendly. They were united in their anxiety and bedside vigils for their children. Bev Donadio had even visited Angela. The dying policewoman was a sight she would never forget, but Bev had her own anxieties. There was a time that the doctors wondered whether her son would keep his badly injured leg, and the golden staph infection on top of his injuries was serious.

  Against the advice of his doctors, Donadio was determined to attend her funeral. He had received so much support and encouragement from the police force, and he wanted to give something back. He also wanted to go for Angela. He had only known her to nod to when they passed each other at work, but now they would be forever united as the two police victims of the bombing - the one who survived and the one who didn't.

  It wasn't until Donadio put on his police uniform that he realised just how much weight he had lost and the four weeks since the bombing. The young sports fanatic had lost most of his muscle tone and his ribs stuck out.

  Angela Taylor's funeral was held at the Victoria Police Academy and was attended by over 1200 people including Victorian Premier John Cain, Governor Davis McCaughey and the Chief Commissioner of Police Mick Miller. Such was the impact of her death, Angela Taylor's graduation photo became easily recognisable for most Victorians. Five hundred cops lined the route leaving the chapel on the way to the cemetery.

  For Taskforce detectives, Angela's death strengthened their resolve to find the bombers and charge them with her murder.

  25 April

  On 25 April, Anzac Day, Taskforce detectives met for a pre-raid briefing at the Nunawading police station at 4am. They had located Peter Reed and simultaneous raids had been planned for Reed and some of his associates. Working with the Taskforce were Wayne Ashley and a crew from the forensics lab. A number of detectives were nominated to initiate the raid, and the crime scene examiners would wait until they got the go-ahead before they entered the scene.

  From Nunawading, a convoy of police vehicles drove to Kallista around fifty kilometres east of Melbourne and assembled outside Reed's. As agreed, Wayne Ashley and his crew waited outside in their van while the initial raid took place.

  So much evidence had been uncovered in the bombing, detectives needed the crime scene examiners to check premises in order to find evidence that matched the bomb scene - drills that drilled 8mm holes in the chassis of the bomb car, terrier dog hairs - or indeed a terrier dog - with hair matching those found on the blanket in the bomb car, small bunches of wire, socket sets with tools missing, gelignite from the same batch as that stolen during the burglary at the Triconnel Mine or even the fence post that the block of wood had been sawn from that held the bomb clock in place.

  Detectives John Bradbury and Steve Quinsee from the Stolen Motor Vehicle Squad accompanied Taskforce detectives. Reed was connected to their stolen car investigation which carried links to the bombing investigation and the raid was a joint effort.

  As the police had stormed the house, guns drawn, shouting, 'Police! Don't move!' over and over again, Steve Quinsee entered with Taskforce detective, Sergeant Mark Wylie. While some of the detectives headed into a bedroom on the right of the central passageway, Quinsee approached a bedroom on the left. The house was in darkness, illuminated only by the hand-held torches carried by the police raiders. As Quinsee came to the doorway of the room, he reached around and when he found the light switch, he flicked it on. In the sudden light, a figure from the room was reflected in the bedroom window. Out of sight from the doorway Peter Reed, wearing pyjamas, was kneeling on the bed pointing a gun towards the door.

  For Mark Wylie, the seconds between the shouting, 'Police! Don't move!' and coming around the door is known as the 'tunnel of death' - in a raid, it is the moment of extreme vulnerability - the crooks knows where you are from your shouting, but you don't know where they are. The sight that greeted him was the same on that Quinsee could see in reflection - Peter Reed pointing a gun straight at him.

  As Wylie pulled back from the door, Detectives John Bradbury yelled out, 'Peter, I'm John Bradbury from the Stolen Motor Vehicles Squad. Put the gun down!' But the madness had started and Reed's response was to fire two shots at Mark Wylie's retreating figure. They swooshed past Wylie's nose and thudded into a plaster wall. As soon as shots were fired, the raiding police knew that Reed intended to shoot it out.

  Using Reed's reflection in the window, Wylie returned fire back into the room. He pointed his pump-action shotgun at the door and fired twice through it to where he though Reed was. Momentarily distracted by a jam in the shotgun as he reloaded, Wylie looked up to find that Reed was no longer on the bed where he had been. Wylie edged forward to take another shot at Reed. From behind the door, Reed could see the barrel of Wylie's shotgun coming around the door and fired twice through the door shooting the police officer. Bradbury dragged Wylie back down the passageway and Quinsee took his place. By this time, Reed had moved from behind the door and was standing on the window-side of the bed. He fired two shots at Quinsee, missing him completely. Quinsee returned fire, aiming for the central body mass and shot Reed twice in the stomach. The injured man fell to the floor and Quinsee ran to him and kicked the gun out of his hand and handcuffed him. They weren't taking any chances.

  Bleeding from the stomach, Mark Wylie st
aggered into the lounge room with the help of his fellow officers. He was wearing a parka with an elasticised band. When he unzipped the parker, the bullet, which had passed right through him, dropped from the band and landed at his feet. He was aware enough of what was happening to tell his men to mark it as evidence.

  Raids were always tense. Police at every entrance, bursting into premises shouting. And for those waiting outside, the worst thing was to hear guns go off followed quickly by urgent voices over the police radio: 'Member shot, ambulance required'. Something had gone terribly wrong. And the waiting crime scene examiners could do nothing but look on helplessly as ambulance arrived and attended to the wounded.

  By the time Wayne Ashley and his team made their way up the steep driveway to the country property, he was walking past ambulances with their lights flashing parked among the police cars.

  Bomb expert Bob Barnes joined Wayne Ashley and the other crime scene examiners at the house. Because he and Kiernan had spent the last month examining the bomb car and the evidence directly connected with the bomb itself, his knowledge was needed to spot evidence that others might miss. When the crime scene crew entered the house in Kallista, ambulance officers were still attending to Mark Wylie in the lounge room and Peter Reed in the bedroom. When the injured men had been taken to hospital, and the house cleared, they began their examination. The shooting had turned the house into two different crime scenes - one for potential bomb links and the other for the shooting. Each had to be processed separately.

  The Kallista house was the equivalent of a crime scene examiner's gold mine. Ashley collected a Smith and Wesson .45 calibre Magnum revolver from Reed's bedroom. Its serial number had been drilled out in the exact same manner as the bomb car and the Brock Commodore. Under a pillow in the laundry, Ashley found a sawn-off Winchester 1500 shotgun. The serial number had been drilled out too.

  In the lounge room, several items of interest were scattered around the floor. There were old and new pairs of overalls, car registration plates, VIN and compliance plate numbers. Near the fireplace, Ashley collected Mark Wylie's blood-stained parka and bagged it for evidence. Learning against the northern wall of the lounge room were two Remington shotguns. On the floor near the shotguns, were items of clothing, and a canvas bag. On top of the canvas bag were two detonators with very short white and blue wires. In among the weaponry were two sawn-off Browning shotguns. Three of the shotguns had their serial numbers drilled out in the now familiar caterpillar of joined holes.

  Also in the lounge room were four sticks of gelignite individually wrapped in sheets of newspaper. Bob Barnes carefully removed the gelignite from the newspaper and gave the wrappings to a sergeant from the Fingerprint Branch.

  In the end, police collected a veritable arsenal from the home of Peter Reed: shotguns, pistols, ammunition, gun holsters, detonators, a hand grenade, and gelignite. It all made the knuckle-duster Reed kept in a drawer by his bed seem almost innocuous.

  In one of the other bedrooms, crime scene examiners found a plethora of automotive parts. There were even white and silver moulded panels - the silver panels were similar to the Holden Commodore currently residing in the Stolen Motor Vehicles compound. They also found scanners capable of monitoring police radio frequencies. It appeared that Reed had been following police progress.

  The day after the search and shooting, Wayne Ashley returned to the Kallista house and supervised the removal of several cars parked at the rear of the property. One, a Holden HQ sedan was taken to the Crime Scene section at Macleod, while others were taken to the Stolen Motor Vehicles compound.

  It was Ashley's job to make sure that all the collected evidence went to the appropriate sections of the police and that all possible bomb-related evidence went to Bob Barnes and the post-blast team from MRL. All firearms and associated ammunition went to the Firearms division, and anything else of value was handed over to Detective Chris O'Connor for the Taskforce.

  Back at the Taskforce office, members not present at the Kallista raid were shocked at the Wylie shooting. Another of their officers downed. Luckily, the prognosis was for a good recovery, but nonetheless, it was another reminder that police were dealing with people who were prepared to shoot it out with them.

  Until Peter Reed fired on police, he had been viewed mainly as a petty car thief. His actions at Kallista put him in a whole different category. Why would a petty car thief shoot it out with police? Had he supplied the bomb car? And did the fact that Reed was seen driving the red Daimler with the Brock Commodore numberplates in its boot, connect him to the bank robbery in Donvale? Or was shooting at police the actions a more heavily involved man?

  The fingerprint search hit pay-dirt. Found on the newspaper that had been wrapped around the gelignite, were fingerprints belonging to one Rodney Joseph Minogue. Prints lifted from the toilet door of Reed's house belonged to Rodney Minogue's brother, Craig 'Fatty' Minogue.

  Simultaneous raids had been carried out on the same day as the raid at Reed's house. Surveillance teams had identified people who he had spent time while the police were tailing him. They too were raided. Reed's brother, Steven Komiazyk lived in Olive Grove in Boronia. While his brother's house was being raided and his brother was shooting and being shot by police, Komiazyk's raid went more smoothly.

  Among other items collected by police were a PVC chamois, two tracksuit tops, a red-handled screwdriver, a Stanley screwdriver set and a tow rope. These were identified by the owner of the bomb car as being in his car when it was stolen. Searchers also found a drill-bit with paint fragments identical to the bomb car and a rivet which investigators believed came from the removal of the identification plates on the bomb car. Like his brother, Steven Komiazyk had his own guns. Their serial numbers had been drilled out too.

  Another address raided was one that Peter Reed had visited a number of times in the surveillance period. The house in Haros Avenue, Nunawading belonged to a friend of Reed's called Karl Zelinka who lived there with his girlfriend, Karen.

  Karl Zelinka was taken in for questioning by members of the Taskforce and he denied knowing Peter Reed. The investigators knew this wasn't true because Reed had been seen visiting the Haros Avenue home a number of times. They wondered what Zelinka had to hide. He was a cleanskin with no prior convictions, and it was obvious that his connection in the bombing investigation did not sit easily with him. The only items found in the initial sweep of his house were cigarettes and confectionery consistent with that taken in the Braeside milkbar robbery. Zelinka also had a sawn-off shotgun.

  At each of the raids, police checked fences and fence posts for a match to the block of wood that the bomb clock had been nailed to. They didn't find anything.

  Still in hospital for his injuries, Carl Donadio wanted to prove wrong the doctors who said that his recovery could take six months. Three weeks after the bombing, he had started physio. On the first day of his rehabilitation, the physiotherapist came into his room, pulled him out of bed and got him to walk three or four steps. Then she put him back to bed. The minute she left the room, Donadio begged his watching family to help him out of bed again. Behind the physio's back, he repeated the exercise and walked five steps. He did this every day until his muscle conditioning slowly started to return.

  By this stage, boredom was a major contributing factor to Donadio's cabin fever. Not only did he hate the hospital food, he hated the daily soap operas which were the only thing on TV, and most of all he hated hospital full stop.

  Much to the surprise of his doctors, Donadio recovered enough to return to light duties five weeks after the bombing. He wasn't able to put his uniform on because rather than a skin graft, doctors had decided to repair the gaping wound in his leg by inserting a surgical balloon under his skin and inflating it daily so that the skin stretched out around it. When there was enough skin, it would be used to close the wound in his thigh once and for all. Until this procedure, surgeons had to leave the wound open. It wasn't a pretty sight for visitors and some of his
more squeamish squad mates had fainted during their visits.

  So Donadio started working at the Carlton North District office, happy for at least his mind to be active, even if his body wasn't quite there yet. Loose casual pants hid the balloon in his leg.

  On 3 May, Peter Reed had recovered sufficiently from his gunshot wound. He was brought in for questioning, dragged by detectives from Russell Street police headquarters to the Magistrates' Court, doubled over, screaming his innocence in a high-pitched voice. The media filmed his performance.

  Reed denied all involvement in the bombing, and he was charged, for the time being with the attempted murder of Mark Wylie and remanded into custody. In the meantime, taskforce detectives were investigating the link between Reed and the Minogue brothers whose fingerprints had been found at his house. It turned out that Peter Reed and Rodney Minogue had served time in prison together. Craig and Rodney were small time crooks. The question was, were they involved in the bombing. Craig's fingerprint on the toilet door may have been coincidence, but it would be more difficult for his younger brother to explain how his fingerprints came to be on newspaper wrapped around gelignite which was from the same batch used in the bombing. More damning was the fact that the newspaper, the Border Morning Mail, with Rodney Minogue's fingerprints on it, was also the same newspaper dated the same day that the surviving bomb gelignite was wrapped in. And the fact that the brothers had left town right after the bombing, didn't make them look like they were men with nothing to hide.