Bad

by Michael Duffy

  Eventually they came up with a solution: Browne would move to the Gangs Squad, on Jubelin’s team, and bring Tuno with him. Jubelin would be the investigation supervisor, while Browne would continue as OIC. This was what happened, in February 2008, but only after a fairly heated argument between Jubelin and his superiors. He told them the Perishes were major criminals who had killed before and would kill again, and that in his view Tuno was within six months of arresting them, if only the investigation could be beefed up. The bosses had heard this before, and were again sceptical. Jubelin stormed out of the meeting, but eventually returned and was told the Gangs Squad would take the investigation. Browne moved across, on the condition that he first used his accrued leave, which was considerable. John Edwards was seconded to assist, and Jubelin was told he had either to finalise a brief for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) or prepare a report to the coroner saying police had been unable to solve the crime. Either way, after seven years the bosses were sick of Tuno and wanted it wrapped up.

  This arrangement enabled Tuno to survive, but it led to one unfortunate outcome. Compared to some investigation supervisors, Jubelin was a very hands-on operator, and Glen Browne—who had made major advances in the investigation in the years Jubelin was away from it—came to resent this. Eventually the two men fell out, although they worked together effectively to the end.

  Soon they received some good news: police Legal Services had considered Browne’s brief and thought that with the evidence of Daley and Taylor, there was enough to charge Anthony and Andrew Perish with conspiracy to murder. It wasn’t as good as murder, but it was a start.

  Jubelin was still engaged with Bowraville, although things didn’t look good on that front. In June 2007 the DPP had told the victims’ families that there was not enough ‘fresh and compelling evidence’ (as required by law) to apply for a retrial of Jay Hart, despite the overturning of the old double jeopardy law. The families, backed by Jubelin, embarked on a series of appeals to a succession of attorneys-general for a retrial, which have been unsuccessful to this day. As a result, the Bowraville murders remain one of the worst unsolved cases in New South Wales.

  At Campbelltown, Camille Alavoine’s cancer was in remission and she was doing more and more work for Tuno. Finally she came up to Parramatta and told Jubelin she was going to apply for a transfer back to homicide. He advised against it, pointing out that if she got there it was likely she’d be allocated other jobs, but she transferred anyway, and in the event it worked out well and she was able to do even more work than before on Tuno.

  One line of inquiry Tuno and the Crime Commission had been working on was the name Redmond, the man Taylor said was a close and violent associate of Anthony Perish who had been involved in the kidnapping of Falconer. But despite all their efforts, they still had no idea who Redmond might be.

  On 18 March 2008, surveillance indicated Anthony Perish was on his way to Mudgee, a town several hundred kilometres west of Sydney, on the far side of the Blue Mountains, to do a concreting job. Two detectives from the Gangs Squad were sent to the town, where they were to call on motels with a photo of Perish, trying to locate him. They arrived at the first motel, approached the counter and were just about to announce themselves when Perish walked in. Making themselves scarce, they followed him around. Eventually he headed out of town, along a road so remote it would soon have become obvious he was being followed. The detectives dropped off and returned to Sydney.

  Later a detective made the rounds of the local concrete companies, asking if they’d done a job for anyone in the area into which Perish had been heading. At one plant he was told, ‘We thought you guys would be coming to speak to us.’ A driver described how he’d delivered a load to a remote site on Aarons Pass Road, Carcalgong, east of the town. As he’d been backing the truck over the formwork, the rear wheels had started to sink. He’d seen a cavity, and been told by the two men at the site that there were storage tanks beneath the ground. But from the position of the hole, it was clear there was actually some sort of chamber beneath where the slab was to go. Presumably Perish’s intention was to cut a hole through the concrete into the space below once the slab was poured.

  Dectectives went up in a police aircraft and flew over the area, and it was easy to spot the property where a shed was being built on a big concrete slab. The obvious inference was that the place was intended for purposes of badness, possibly as a meth lab—there was no other reason to build a shed at such a location. The police learned that the property belonged to someone named Brad Curtis, a name that meant nothing to them.

  Still, Mudgee was another step forward: in seven years, Tuno had not been able to link Anthony Perish to any contemporary crime, thanks to the wall of fear that surrounded him, but the concealed chamber clearly indicated serious criminal intent. With this development, Tuno was given more officers, and a major surveillance operation was launched and continued for months. Police identified one of the men working at Mudgee with Perish as a bikie and amphetamine cook recently released from prison.

  Officers would be dropped off along the dirt road several kilometres from the site at night, and walk in to conduct covert operations, often in the freezing cold. One night some of the detectives, along with members of the State Protection Group, went in to inspect the shed, which was almost finished, to try to work out the dimensions of the basement. This proved impossible with the equipment they had, in part because another slab had been poured over the original one. The doors had not yet been placed on the shed, so no access hole to the chamber below had been cut.

  The detectives hoped that if they kept the shed under surveillance, eventually they’d be able to catch Perish and others cooking meth there. Once they were arrested for that, Tuno might be able to put pressure on the colleagues to roll and tell them about the Falconer murder. This is one of the standard ways detectives get people into jail: by sacrificing smaller convictions to get greater ones.

  Things were looking up. Tuno was now engaged on the task of preparing the brief of evidence that would go to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who would make the final decision on whether to charge the Perishes over Terry Falconer’s murder.

  Tuno investigated the background of Brad Curtis, the man who owned the Mudgee property, but learned little. Much admired in his local community, he lived an apparently blameless life in Newcastle and had no criminal record. He taught boxing at the Police Boys Club and went cycling with friends on the weekend. The only hint that he might not be what he seemed was that he’d worked for some years in the security industry at Kings Cross, which was well known for its links to criminals. But that had been years earlier.

  Curtis clearly had some sort of connection to Anthony Perish, but maybe it extended no further than allowing himself to be used as a front for the property purchase. The police would ask him about this at some point, but decided not to do anything yet. If he was more involved than they knew, they didn’t want to tip him off that he was under suspicion.

  Now Tuno got another break, although this one, like the others, would require much patience and work before it bore fruit. In June 2008 a member of the public approached a police officer he knew and said he was willing to provide information about the Falconer murder. The man was Tony Martin, then in his forties, and detectives met him in a quiet spot in a car park in south Sydney. He told them Brad Curtis was the man who had been contracted by Anthony Perish to kidnap Terry Falconer. And there was more. Curtis, the detectives realised as Martin went on, was someone they knew already—Perish’s muscle, the man named Redmond. Martin said he’d done the kidnapping with two other men, Jake Bennie and Craig Bottin (aka Skitz, because of his violent mood swings). This was just about the final bit of the jigsaw.

  Martin’s story, much of which came out later in court, was that he’d first met Curtis in 1997 when they worked in security together at a bar in Kings Cross. The men were soon friends, with Martin becoming something of a big brother to Curtis, who’d been in the army
and had an interest in firearms. Around 1998, Martin was promoted to duty manager at the bar and a security company was hired to look after the door. They kept the old workers but paid them less, and Curtis resigned to start his own security business. In 1999 he and Martin went into business together and for a while did well, providing security at pubs and stores around Sydney. Jake Bennie was one of their staff.

  Not long after Terry Falconer was abducted in 2001, Curtis and Bennie were out drinking, and called in on Martin, who was working at a bar. Curtis said to him, ‘Did you hear about the bloke being abducted from the panel beater’s shop by the police?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That was Jake, Skitz and me that did it.’

  Curtis described how they’d stolen the plates off a real police car and replaced them after the job—he’d been hoping someone might have spotted the rego number while they were at Wreck-A-Mended, and reported the police number. When they got Falconer into the back of the car, Curtis said, he’d put up a violent struggle, and Curtis had hit him too hard and killed him. ‘I really fucked up. I was only supposed to take him to somebody else to be tortured. I fucked up.’

  Martin was surprised by this—at that stage Falconer’s body hadn’t even been found—and he didn’t know what to say. The conversation petered out and Curtis and Bennie left. In a later conversation, Curtis told Martin he’d done the abduction for Steve (Anthony Perish), who Martin knew as a customer in one of the bars he’d worked at. Curtis said he’d been worried about Steve’s reaction when he learned Falconer was dead, but all he’d said was it didn’t matter as Falconer would have ended up ‘like this’ anyway.

  When the body parts turned up in the Hastings River, Martin had another conversation with Curtis, who said, ‘Yes, Steve asked me if I’d ever chopped a body before.’ Curtis explained he was still working for Steve, and was about to go up to Queensland for him. He took his car and had the upholstery replaced at a cost of $7,000. When he got back he told Martin what he’d done.

  ‘Are you mad?’ Martin asked.

  ‘It just had to be done.’

  Not long after this, Curtis sold the Commodore and bought himself a Saab.

  A few years later, Martin met Perish and Curtis for a meal, and heard Curtis say to Perish, ‘You couldn’t even get rid of the body parts.’

  Thanks to Martin’s information, the relationship between Anthony Perish and Brad Curtis now assumed a central place in Tuno’s thinking, more important than the relationship between the Perish brothers. Anthony was the dominant personality, smart—he often stuttered because his mouth couldn’t keep up with his brain—and with no conscience. He could be charismatic, and had the ability to get his claws into people and hang on. Curtis seemed attracted to the dark side Anthony represented, and excited to be given the chance to use his army skills for criminal purposes.

  Where Daley’s motive for rolling had been redemption and Taylor’s fear, Martin’s was, at least initially, a desire for reward money, even though no reward had yet been offered for information leading to the conviction of Terry Falconer’s killer. He thought all he had to do to get a reward was provide information, but it was explained to him that he would have to sign a statement and perhaps give evidence in court. He said he didn’t want to go that far—he believed Anthony Perish would kill people close to him if it was known he’d talked. For months the detectives tried to persuade Martin to speak on the record, without success.

  Tuno had some new officers: Senior Constables Mario Rubelj, Nathan Surplice and Stephen Brown. As a group they were young and keen, and helped inject some more enthusiasm into the investigation. And as well as Martin, for a while it looked like they had another informant—in August 2008, someone told Tuno that Andrew Perish had admitted to killing Falconer. Unfortunately, this source of information never provided enough to be used in court, but, like all the fruitless leads they’d chased over the years, it required a great deal of work.

  Overall the case was gradually strengthening: the detectives were further heartened when they obtained a photo of Brad Curtis and showed it to David Taylor, who confirmed this was the man he knew as Redmond. It was another link in the long chain that Tuno was uncovering, which stretched from Terry Falconer’s murder to Anthony and Andrew Perish.

  6

  TUNO 2

  Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, wither thou goest.

  In August 2008, Tuno found a possible link between Brad Curtis and the attempted murder of Raniera Puketapu in JB’s Bar and Grill in 2002. They learned of a conversation between Curtis and a newspaper photographer regarding publicity Curtis was after for youths he was training at the Police Boys Club. Curtis said, ‘Now make sure there’s no photo or mention of me, okay? I don’t like any notoriety whatsoever.’

  ‘Front page,’ the photographer said, joking.

  ‘Nah, nah.’ Curtis laughed. ‘Been there before. No thanks.’

  That got the detectives wondering when Curtis might have been in a newspaper before, which led their thoughts to the photograph on the front page of the Daily Telegraph showing the shooter running away from JB’s Bar and Grill. What they needed was Curtis’ DNA, to see if it matched that found in the vans near the Puketapu and Davies shootings. A sample was obtained by covert means and, sure enough, it matched. This made everyone very happy. Apart from having solved two major crimes, it was now clear Curtis was not the clean-cut family man he looked like from the outside. He was a killer, probably a hitman—just the sort of individul to have been involved in the death of Terry Falconer.

  Curtis was now under surveillance, and the police became aware of a planned meeting between him and his associate Jake Bennie. On 4 September 2008 Jubelin and a few detectives from the Gangs Squad headed up to the Caltex service station and McDonald’s on the F3 expressway between Sydney and Newcastle, hoping this was the intended meeting place. They arranged for surveillance police to be there too, and were glad to see Curtis turn up. He met with a younger man, presumably Bennie, and another fellow identified afterwards as Michael Christiansen. The latter was a big man, one hundred and twenty kilos of solid muscle; they later learned he used steroids.

  A sheet of paper was handed around the small group and the detectives grew worried. Tuno now suspected Curtis was a contract killer: what if the paper was the photo of a target to be killed that night? Should they move in and arrest the men? But if they did and they found nothing incriminating, they would have alerted the crooks—and the Perishes—to the fact they were under surveillance. Jubelin decided not to move, and later the police followed the men back to their homes.

  The F3 meeting, following all the information provided by Martin, was something of a defining event for Tuno. The detectives now had firm evidence that the Perishes and people with whom they were closely linked were major criminals who seemed to be planning further serious badness. In other words, they posed a grave danger to the community. Jubelin met with Assistant Commissioner Dave Hudson, the head of State Crime Command (which had replaced Crime Agencies), and put this to him, and Hudson agreed. It was decided to beef up Tuno and give it formal responsibility for a number of other unsolved murders possibly linked to the Perishes. The new strike force would be called Tuno 2 and have about twenty officers.

  At this stage Tuno still had little idea of the structure of Anthony Perish’s organisation. They knew he referred to it as a ‘company’, but the impression they’d built from what they knew was that it was not a formal hierarchy but more like a fluid network in which people were hired for individual jobs. This—plus the fact that Perish’s base remained unknown—made his operation frustratingly hard to track down. But from what they did know, they were certain it was significant and it was dangerous.

  The new officers included Joe Doueihi, Glen Morfoot, Kaan McGregor, Andrew Tesoriero and a number of others from various squads at State Crime Command who brought with them a wide range of ex
perience. Jubelin needed a group capable of taking on the type of criminals they were pursuing, and that’s what he got.

  Detective Sergeant Joe Doueihi was an experienced homicide investigator who’d worked the tough Kings Cross beat. Glen Morfoot and Kaan McGregor were homicide detectives who had worked with many of the Tuno team before: Morfoot was known for his good legal knowledge and McGregor had a reputation as being a very focused analytical type. Tesoriero came highly recommended by Andrew Waterman, who’d worked with him before. He was glad of the chance to be part of such an unusual type of case: ‘Organised crime murders are few and far between in New South Wales, and it’s a privilege to work on them. I like the focus on crooks, the offence is not opportunistic or personal. They wake up each day to be criminals, and we wake up each day to be police. That’s interesting and rewarding.’

  The disappearances and killings under active investigation by Tuno 2—in a few cases involving assistance to Queensland police—were those of Ian Draper, the witness from Andrew Perish’s murder trial, and Terry Falconer in 2001; and of Michael Davies, Benita Forster and her young son Tana Taui in 2002. These last two had been found at the foot of a waterfall on the Gold Coast, their deaths at first classified as suicide. The attempted murders Tuno 2 was looking at were of Gary Mack, an ex-bikie shot in 2001, and Raniera Puketapu in 2002. In the background, as it were, were the murders of Anthony and Frances Perish in 1993, and bikies Greg McDonald and Paul Wheeler in 1991. (Police refuse to give details about some of these murders as they remain unsolved and investigations are continuing. But all were suspected of being linked to the strike force’s targets.)