The Russell Street Bombing

by Vikki Petraitis

  In Craig Minogue's file, there was a notation about a car that had picked him up after a court appearance. The car belonged to Karl Zelinka. The connections were forming, but not only did Zelinka deny knowing Reed, he also denied knowing the Minogue brothers. Taskforce investigators canvassed Zelinka's neighbours in Haros Avenue. Several of them identified pictures of the Minogue brothers and Peter Reed as being regular visitors to the house. Detectives wondered again why Zelinka was lying to them.

  While the investigators hunted for the bombers, the crime scene examiners worked tirelessly to form connections with the evidence they had gathered. Wayne Ashley says that detectives are good at reading people and forensic examiners are good at reading evidence. It is the two sides of this investigative coin that get the results in the end.

  As Forensics staff processed the evidence from the Reed search, they began to see connections between Reed and the bombing. The khaki canvas bag containing the detonators confiscated from Reed's lounge room had identical buckles to that found at the bomb scene which meant that a similar bag could have been used in the bomb car. Wires on the detonators found at Reed's house had been cut with the same instrument that had been used to cut the bomb detonators. If the cutting instrument could be found with one of the suspects, that would further link them to the crime. Both the gelignite and detonators were the same as those found unexploded at the bomb site. Plastic bread crates identified as being stolen from a Braeside milkbar were found at Reed's house. These were identical to the ones that the bomb had been packed in. The silver Commodore accessories found in the spare room were identified by the owner as coming from the stolen Brock Commodore.

  Bob Barnes made another break-through. One night as he lay in bed, he had a Eureka moment when he realised that the strip of metal connecting the clock to the block of wood making up the circuit, was in fact the handle from a metal rubbish bin. The following day, he told the Taskforce detectives to be on the look-out for a metal rubbish bin that was missing a lid or a handle.

  14 May

  In light of Karl Zelinka's denials about knowing Reed and the Minogues, detectives from the Taskforce decided to go back to his house for another look on 14 May. The Minogue brothers had still not been located, and none of the other key players were talking.

  Firstly, Zelinka's metal rubbish bin was found to have no lid. Secondly, one of the handles on the bin itself, looked like someone had made an attempt to cut it off. Could someone have tried to cut this handle off, and then settled for the handle on the missing lid? Zelinka was vague about the whereabouts of his bin lid.

  And then came the discovery that many of the Taskforce investigators still consider their finest investigative moment. In the course of each of the raids, all fences had been checked to see if they were missing the block of wood that the bomb clock had been mounted on. There were no obvious anomalies in Zelinka's fence, but on this second examination, bomb expert Bob Barnes had an idea. He climbed up on the fence and jumped over into the next door neighbour's yard. Detective Bernie Rankin remembers hearing Barnes chuckling. Behind a large camellia tree was a sawn-off fence post on the neighbour's side of the fence. Holding the bomb block of wood in his hands, Barnes placed it on top of the fence post. Even to the untrained eye, there was no doubt they were a perfect match - faults that ran through the bomb block continued through the fence post.

  And from that moment on, detectives from the Taskforce regarded the house in Haros Avenue as being the bomb headquarters. All evidence pointed to the bomb being assembled at Karl Zelinka's house, which put the heat on the hapless young man. Up until the match with the fence post, Zelinka had been unwilling to cooperate with police. Now, with evidence to connect his house with the bombing, he quickly changed his mind.

  Bernie Rankin took Karl Zelinka back to the office for a serious chat. He laid out all the information that detectives had so far - how he'd lied about knowing the Minogues and Peter Reed, his missing rubbish bin lid, and the bomb block of wood matching his fence post.

  'Imagine you were in our shoes,' said Rankin, 'How do you think it looks?'

  Zelinka knew the game was up. He asked for police protection for his girlfriend Karen, and his family and agreed to tell police everything he knew. Interviews took place over the next couple of days.

  According to Zelinka, Craig and Rodney Minogue had lived with him at Haros Avenue and Peter Reed would often visit the house. Two days before the bombing, Zelinka had seen the two-toned Commodore later used at the bomb car being driven into the garage. He had also seen the stolen Brock Commodore at his house. Earlier, he had seen a case of explosives in the garaged and when he asked about them, Craig Minogue told him to forget he's seen them.

  Zelinka admitted to committing a burglary with Craig Minogue and Peter Reed on the milkbar in Braeside. It was during this burglary that the milk crates had been stolen. He also said that Craig had a bull terrier puppy who slept on a blanket similar to the blanket found it the bomb car.

  As well as Reed, the Minogues had another regular visitor, an older man they referred to as 'Stan the Man'. Zelinka didn't know his full name.

  Craig Minogue had bought Karl and Karen tickets to Sydney for Easter. They had left on Wednesday, the day before the bombing, and when they returned, the Minogue brothers were moving out of the Haros Avenue house. It was at this point, Zelinka was told to get rid of his rubbish bin lid. He tossed onto a pile of rubbish that was bound for the tip.

  Using police intelligence sources, and checking known aliases against the description Zelinka gave of Stan the Man, Taskforce detectives soon identified him as 50-year-old Stanley Brian Taylor. Taylor's prior convictions dated back to 1949. He had first been arrested and charged with stealing fish when he was just 12-years-old. Stan Taylor did time in Pentridge Prison's notorious H-Division and was dubbed 'Wild Man' for his part in the 1972 prison riots. He was paroled in 1978 and by 1979 he had been given a job with the Youth Council of Victoria working with troubled teens. He had even played bit-parts in a couple of long-running Australian television series including Cop Shop and Prisoner.

  So the big question for the Taskforce was: why had Stanley Brian Taylor visited the bomb house? Was he trying to talk the bombers out of their task, or was he involved?

  Acting on information from Karl Zelinka's statement, Wayne Ashley was sent back to Haros Avenue on 20 May. The white weatherboard house had a full concrete driveway beside it which led to a garage at the rear of the property. The entire concrete floor of the garage was swept for evidence. Apart from the lounge room which was carpeted, floors in the house were either floorboards or tiles. These too were swept and the dirt was bagged for later examination.

  A Chux Superwipe similar to that found on the bomb timing device was located in the kitchen, and another found under the house.

  Two days later, Ashley and his team of crime scene examiners would be back examining the garage floor again. This time each crack in the concrete was examined, swept and diagrammed. Most of the evidence was handed over to Bob Barnes. In the search, they found rivets that could have been removed with the identification plates were ripped from the bomb car and the Brock Commodore. These were taken to the forensics lab for examination and comparison.

  On the concrete in one of the corners of the garage, was an area where something had been spray-painted and the overspray had hit the concrete wall of the garage. This area was measured and photographed. A sample of the paint was taken for analysis. When compared, the overspray pattern was similar to the front grille of the Brock Commodore sitting in the police compound in Port Melbourne. The grill had been sprayed with silver paint.

  Another connection between Zelinka's house and the bomb was found in a packet of 50mm nails. These had identical tool marks to the nails hammered into the block of wood to set the timing device in place.

  On 27 May, Peter Reed and his brother Steven Komiazyk were charged with the bombing of the Russell Street police headquarters and the murder of Angela Taylor. Both wer
e remanded into custody. The charges against Komiazyk would later be dropped.

  In an investigation like this, one breakthrough leads to a domino effect. Taskforce detectives received information that the Minogue brothers were hiding out in the township of Birchip about 300km north-west of Melbourne.

  All bomb-related raids after the Anzac Day shooting of Mark Wylie, were carried out by members of the Special Operations Group. The Taskforce would take no further risks with its members, and left the captures to their highly-trained SOG colleagues.

  On 30 May, at 2am, Taskforce held a briefing at 2am at the St Arnaud police station and planned the raid carefully. Intelligence put Stanley Taylor at home with his de facto wife at his house in Watchem Road, Birchip. SOG members assembled outside the house ready to go. Other SOG operatives waited outside a house in Lockwood Street that belonged to Craig and Rodney Minogue. They patted a bull terrier guard dog which surrendered playfully. These middle-of-the-night raids were designed to catch the suspects, hopefully asleep, if not off-guard.

  Simultaneously, the SOG raided both houses. Operatives burst into Taylor's home and made the arrest without incident. Taskforce detectives followed them in after the house was secure. Detective Chris O'Connor found Stan Taylor stark naked and handcuffed in his bedroom. He certainly had been caught with his pants down.

  With the six-hour interview rule in Victoria, detectives had to get Taylor to the nearest police station and begin interviewing him without wasting any time. Back at the St Arnaud police station, detectives used a portable tape recorder to tape the interview. The only way they could interview their suspect for more than six hours, was to get an extension by a magistrate.

  Stanley Taylor was a softly spoken unassuming man who had fooled a lot of people in the small town where had had settled. He had invented a respectable past for himself and few of his new friends imagined that he had spent most of his adult life in prison - and no one questioned the LOVE and HATE tattooed across his knuckles. He was well-spoken and if you ignored the prison tattoos, fit right in to his new community. Taylor used his ill-gotten gains to flash around the local footy club. Along with the Minogue brothers, Taylor spent a lot of time at the club. Craig Minogue even played a couple of games for them.

  In his talkative mood, Taylor volunteered the name of the motel in Swan Hill where the Minogue brothers were hiding out. An SOG raid at 5am netted them without incident.

  When news filtered through of the arrest of the Minogues at Swan Hill, the detectives used the police Air Wing helicopters to fly Stan Taylor to Swan Hill so that the three suspects could be questioned, at the same location. That way, detectives could compare notes in the break. The Swan Hill police station was conveniently located next to the courthouse. At the court, a magistrate asked Taylor if he agreed to an extension, and Taylor said he did. The interview continued in the Swan Hill CIB offices. Over the course of the interview, two extensions were granted by the magistrate.

  Detective Chris O'Connor was mildly surprised that Stan Taylor spoke to them at all, he'd fully expected 'no comment' replies. But Taylor knew the drill and O'Connor knew crooks, and once the suspect started talking, the cop knew what would come - he would admit to as much as he had to and try and blame everything on everyone else. Sure, Taylor said, he'd been at the Haros Avenue house on the day of the bombing, but he'd left before the bombing and driven straight back to Birchip. He implied that Peter Reed and Craig Minogue were the ones most responsible for the bomb.

  Perhaps the rough stuff had taken its toll on Stanley Taylor, and he decided to play the game. If he had have 'no commented' the interview, he was wily enough to know that it would have made him look guilty. Best try and minimise his involvement at this early stage. He also knew that penalties are usually lighter for those who cooperate with police. There was enough forensic evidence to link them all to the bombings.

  Later on that morning, the Minogues appeared in the Swan Hill Magistrates' Court. In the interview room Craig, aged just 23, gave detectives his name and address, and otherwise sat silently with a half-smile on his face. He was charged with nine offences in total including the murder of Angela Taylor and the attempted murder of Carl Donadio and Magistrate Iain West.

  Rodney Minogue, aged only 20, was held for further questioning. Unlike his brother, Rodney made what police referred to as a 'full and frank confession'. He told detectives that the bombing had been planned by Stan Taylor.

  While the suspects were in custody being questioned, Wayne Ashley and his team of crime scene examiners were searching for evidence at the two Birchip houses. Beginning at Watchem Road, the crime scene examiners searched inside and outside the neat white weatherboard house. Even though it looked like the house of a respectable middle-aged man, Ashley found small things that marked Taylor a crook. The number on the compliance plate of his Ford LTD parked under the carport, didn't match the chassis number. Along with the car, other items were taken and handed on to either Chris O'Connor or Bob Barnes.

  After the dawn examination of Taylor's house, the crime scene examiners went straight to the Lockwood Street home of the Minogue brothers which had been secured and guarded since the unsuccessful pre-dawn raid. The Minogues had two suspected stolen vehicles at their house. Inside the house, the crime scene examiners found ammunition, a shotgun cartridge of the same brand found at Reed's house, and a loaded shotgun in one of the bedrooms. In the same bedroom, it was obvious that the brothers had been doing it rough. A sleeping bag lay on top of a mattress on the floor. Next to the bed was Cold Power detergent box. Inside it, were three multi-frequency scanners. All three were connected to a power-board which in turn was plugged into a wall electrical outlet. In a nearby chest of drawers, they found two more scanners. The Minogues too had been listening in on police frequencies. Since the scanners found in the raid on Peter Reed's house, radio silence had been adopted prior to all subsequent raids. If the bombers were listening in, the police would remain silent.

  In another drawer was a book on Bull Terrier dogs. At the Lockwood Street house, the crime scene examiners noticed the bull terrier dog that the SOG had being playing with as they surrounded the house earlier that morning. The rug found in the bomb car had terrier-type hairs on it. This dog and its hair could provide another important forensic link between the Minogues and the bomb car. Ashley gently removed some samples from the dog. The hairs would later prove to be consistent with the ones found on the bomb car rug.

  It was in the kitchen that Wayne Ashley found what investigators had been looking for all along. Plugged into an extension cord and resting on the old kitchen bench was a high-speed engraving device. The spinning end of it looked to be the same size as the drill that had drilled out all the chassis numbers of the stolen cars and the serial numbers of the firearms found at other raids. It would have to be tested, but it looked promising.

  Not only did the Minogues have evidence at their house, but police found out that Craig Minogue had rented a storage garage in North Albury. The day after the Birchip raids and the arrest of the Minogues in Swan Hill, the crime scene examiners travelled from Swan Hill where they had spent the previous night, to Albury to examine the storage unit. Police photographers caught the contents on film before it the forensic examination begun. The photographs captured the clutter of furniture, boxes and tool boxes. During the subsequent search, police found detonators and an explosives handbook. They also found tools that were of particular interest. A pair of blue-handled tin-snips was later found to have been the same ones that cut the wires on the bomb detonators as well as the detonators found at Peter Reed's house.

  Sockets missing from a socket set located in the storage garage, were later found to have been used as shrapnel in the bomb.

  Back at the forensic laboratory, Ashley used the engraving tool found in the Minogues' kitchen to drill into old firearms. He made casts of the patterns which he later proved were consistent with the other firearms, the Brock Commodore and the bomb car.

  While the
forensic team matched the evidence, detectives located a friend of Stan Taylor's. The friend admitted to taking part in the theft of gelignite and detonators from the Triconnel Mine in Blackwood back on the 6 October 1985 and described how the Craig Minogue and Stan Taylor had tested the stolen detonators on a country property. He said he had also heard Craig, Taylor and Reed talk about blowing up the Russell Street police headquarters.

  While awaiting trial in 1987, Craig Minogue joined seven other prisoners protesting against conditions in the maximum security Jika Jika division of Pentridge Prison. The prisoners sealed their doors and further blocked them by stacking their bedding against the doors as well. Windows were covered in paper so that the warders couldn't identify the trouble makers. The men started a fire and ripped plumbing from the walls with the intention of breathing fresh air through the pipes. They badly miscalculated and five of the protesters perished in the fire. Craig Minogue emerged as one of three prisoners to survive the Jika Jika fire. The section was quickly closed down.

  The Trial

  The committal hearing began in January 1988. There was so much forensic evidence, that crime scene examiner Wayne Ashley spent four days in the witness box. Standing in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court, a stone's throw from the scene of the crime, Ashley had a chance to study the four accused. Craig Minogue's hatred of the police was almost palpable. He was tall and of large build and his size was intimidating. Ashley reckoned that of the two brothers, Craig wielded the power, and Rodney was more the master's apprentice. Peter Reed looked like the typical crook that he was. Stan Taylor was harder to read. Occasionally, while he was giving evidence, one or other of the accused would yell out, 'Liar!' The seasoned crime scene examiner tried to focus on the evidence, rather than the men accused of the Russell Street bombing.