From the Inside: Chopper 1 (20 page)

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OLD Horatio Morris taught me one important lesson: that a man’s enemy is his greatest teacher. Horatio was an old-time lone wolf gunman. I’m proud to say he was a good friend — and he taught me some valuable lessons. He taught me who was who in Melbourne, and who to worry about. The only person to really worry about, he told me, was myself— because ‘gun against gun’ evens everything up.

Horatio had faced them all down. Fred Harrison, Norm Bradshaw — even my old friend Billy Longley — would not go out of their way to upset old Horatio. He was by no means a big money crime figure, but he would put a bullet in you at the proverbial drop of a hat — and in a gun battle he was a dead shot.

I have a .22 calibre bullet hole in the left side of my back. Horatio’s girlfriend, the former lady friend of the late Norman Bradshaw, a lady in her 40s in 1972 or 1973, shot me in the back ‘by accident’ with her little five-shot single action American .22 handgun. She was a bit drunk at the time and ‘terribly sorry’.

Cowboy John Harris dug the slug out with a pocket knife, and he made a right pig’s breakfast of it, I must say.

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Horatio Morris once said to me: ‘Never grow to love anybody too much, because one day you might have to kill them.’ I never forgot that, and that motto has kept me alive. It also meant I knew where I stood with Horatio. We liked each other, and he liked my company, and we would go out together regularly until his death in early 1973. He was a very, very ill man in his last days, going a bit blind and an alcoholic. I liked him — but I never, ever trusted him. He taught me a great deal but his motto shook me to the bone. His outlook on life and people was harder than mine could ever be. I needed his old brain to teach me. He needed my strength to throw his punches.

Horatio was a great one for shooting battles behind the bar in pubs, and was still picking up several hundred dollars a week from SP bookies in South Melbourne before he died.

I could never really pick his age. He looked about 100 to me. Alcohol had pickled him. He was from the era of gun-carrying drunks — instead of the knife-carrying HIV-positive junkies that roam the streets of Melbourne today.

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Horatio was a great one for the races, and we had some good days at the track together. We met some interesting people. Every crim in Melbourne, half the coppers and most of the judges, barristers and TV stars — the posh from the south and the rough from the west — all mixing together, all friendly on the racetrack.

In the carpark at Caulfield one day I walked into one of Australia’s top judges taking a leak. He didn’t know me, but he knew Horatio Morris. Horatio said: ‘Put it away, or you’ll get us all pinched’. There was great laughter. The races are good like that.

A great knockabout, quiet and polite little gentleman was old Tommy Woodcock. I met him at the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups. I also met Derek Nimmo, although that’s no big deal. A few drinks and anyone can meet Derek Nimmo at the races.

Me and Horatio were standing, waiting to put on a bet. We had Lillian Frank in front of us talking to Andrew Peacock, Charlie Wootton standing in front of them, Tommy Woodcock talking to Horatio Morris, and behind us was Derek Nimmo talking to the TV star Abigail. The races are a true comical melting pot. Gang wars, political wars and all problems and troubles get left at the gate. I love the races, and the races in Melbourne are the best of all.

At one Melbourne Cup — I think it was about 1972 — Horatio introduced me to a well-known Brighton socialite, a very horny-looking blonde who’s always in the papers. Horatio didn’t even know the lady personally but she was talking to Jack Paccholi. Horatio walked up and said: ‘Piss off, Jack’ and Paccholi couldn’t get away quick enough. Then old Horatio started: ‘Dear lady, I thought I’d rescue you from the foul clutches of that gangster of the gutter press’. She giggled. Then he said: ‘Let me introduce myself and my young, thuggish-looking companion. I am Horatio Morris of the Port Melbourne Morrises, and this is Chopper Read of the Thomastown Reads. Now, if you would be kind enough to escort us to the Members’ Car Park I’ll allow you to buy us some champagne.’ She giggled some more and said, ‘I don’t think my husband would like that’.

Horatio said: ‘Then, my darling girl, this way up to the bar’, and off we went. I left Horatio to it. He could be an old smoothie with the ladies. I often wonder whether she polished his gun. But Horatio was an old gent. He wouldn’t kiss and tell, so I don’t know how he went . . . and I’m damn sure the lady won’t be telling anyone.

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In the early 1970s, I used to love gatecrashing other people’s parties. The night after the Melbourne Cup was the best time of the year. One year me, Dave the Jew, Cowboy Johnny Harris, Terry Tempest and a dead drunk Horatio Morris gatecrashed a very swank affair — very posh — in Kew, I think. It was a house owned by Prue Acton and her husband Mr Mike Treloar. No-one even knew we were gatecrashers — the house was half-full of other gatecrashers.

Prue Acton and Mike Treloar wouldn’t remember me, but I remember the night well. There was a Miss Australia there who was as pissed as a parrot — and more than friendly with all the boys.

It was the first time I’d tasted Veuve Clicquot champagne.

A GREAT DAY

Kings, Queens, knockabouts and crooks,
All in together,
Like a yard full of chooks,
The South Yarra ladies,
Out for a fling,
Getting dated by the roughnecks,
As they stand in the betting ring,
The fallen and the famous,
The wealthy and the poor,
All betting money,
And counting up their score,
Everyone’s relaxed,
No need to watch your back,
She’s a bloody great day,
At the Caulfield racing track.

Barry Quinn

Barry Robert Quinn was convicted of the double murder of two men during the armed robbery of the Car-O-Tel Motel in St Kilda in 1974.

He escaped from the Fairfield Infectious Disease Hospital in 1978 where he was being treated for suspected hepatitis. In the 69 days he was at large five people associated with him were murdered. They were Eve Karlson, Wayne Smith, Sheryl Anne Gardner and her nine-year-old son, Danny William Mitchell and Lisa Maude Brearley.

Quinn, with his long hair and history of violence, became known as Australia’s Charles Manson. He was later killed in Jika Jika by fellow inmate Alex Tsakmakis, who burned him alive on July 5, 1984. Quinn got out of his league and started to bait Tsakmakis in Jika Jika about the rape of his girlfriend.

After watching a video Quinn continued to yell insults to Tsakmakis. The next day Tsakmakis pounced, pouring model glue over Quinn and then flicking lit matches at the inmate. He caught fire and was injured fatally. But even in hospital before he died Quinn observed the code and refused to tell police the name of the man who had set him on fire, although there was no doubt it was Tsakmakis.

When told by police he was going to die he replied, ‘Yeah, I know. So what’s the drama?’

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IN relation to Barry Quinn, unlike a lot of people I didn’t like the little numbskull. He was a coward, a liar, junkie and a jail-cat, slang meaning he indulged in homosexual conduct behind prison walls. He had a longstanding love affair with a famous, now dead, Pentridge drag queen, Rhonda Rock Jaw, when the two of them were in B Division in 1975-76.

I would describe Quinn’s death as one of the more welcome fires Pentridge has had, and if Tsakmakis could be remembered for anything even closely resembling an act of Christian decency, then putting an end to Quinn would be it.

In relation to his first murders, the Car-O-Tel job, everyone who knew the men involved knew he didn’t pull the trigger, even though he bragged he did. The guys who did used to laugh behind his back. He had a bloated sense of who he was and how he wanted others to see him. He bragged of being a Painter and Docker. Whether he held a docky’s brief, who knows, but he did hang around with dockies.

No matter what could be said about his crimes and his so-called violence and his heavy crimes, he was, in reality, a weak gutted thing. He couldn’t punch his way out of a poofters’ tea party. I would describe him as a lace hankie with a Charles Manson fixation. He only attacked when he felt he was backed up by the pack. On the day he died he felt he had the numbers and he was, no doubt, in a state of total mental collapse to think he could try Alex on for size and survive the encounter. I mean, what more can I say. As for his murders, it was hardly the streets of Tombstone, Main Street at high noon.

It was square heads, women and kids, that sort of thing. The only thing he had in common with the Kelly gang was his beard and whiskers. His was cowardly violence of mindless nature directed against the weak, without courage, style or flair.

Whatever Tsakmakis was or was not, he did have a sense of style. Quinn was totally without style. If you were to set up quality control on acts of violence and murder then you would have to call Quinn a total retard. The only act of real stylish violence Quinn ever took part in was his own death. The only real true love he had in his life was a prostitute called Eve. Quinn had the words Eve tattooed all over his hands, feet and body. I believe he later was involved in her murder after he escaped in 1978.

He wasn’t any deep, dark complex master murderer, he was a two-bob cheap little arse-wipe.

Garry David

Garry David is the criminal who forced the Victorian Government to enact special legislation to keep him in jail.

He is a psychopath, a self-mutilator and, according to police, one of the most dangerous men in Australia.

He has cut off his ears, nipples and penis as well as eating razor blades and glass. He has spent most of his life in institutions.

He was due to be released from Pentridge in 1990 after serving a sentence for shooting a policeman and a shop owner in Rye.

While in jail he threatened to make the mass murder of Hoddle Street ‘look like a picnic.’

He has repeatedly made threats that he would murder people on his release.

The Government passed the Community Protection Act to keep David in jail after he had completed his jail term as he was considered a danger to society.

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I’VE known Garry David ‘Webb’ since I was 20. He is related to a well-known and respected Melbourne business family. The wrong side of the family, it would seem. I knew one of his relatives who spent most of his life in jail. He was a bisexual and a sexual pervert.

When Garry was 16 or 17 he found himself, don’t ask me how, in C Division, and the relative chased Garry with a knife, trying to have sex with him. The old bloke is dead now.

My old Dad used to say to me that we complain about having no shoes until we see a man with no feet. If I was born with no shoes, Garry was born with no feet. From what he has told me of his childhood, mine was a happy one by comparison.

In our younger days, Garry looked up to me and did me a lot of good turns. I would not allow the homosexual elements within jail to pick on Garry, as he had been attacked in boy’s homes as a small kid and in jails as a 17 and 18-year-old.

I feel guilty about Garry, as he cut his ears off after I did and then he went one better and cut part of his private parts off. I wrote to him and said, ‘Garry, I am no longer the head of the Van Gogh Club in Pentridge. You are. When the dickie birds start dropping to the pavement, that’s enough for me. I might be mad, but I’m not stupid.’

I don’t feel sorry for many men, but Garry’s hopeless situation makes me feel sorry. His life seems to have no answers. He is not a friend, but we have been friendly.

He was given a piece of a large estate when a relative died. He gave it to people who he thought had less than he had. I wonder who they were.

Garry David is not a real criminal. He is just another sad and lost soul in the sewer of hell. Is he dangerous? Physically, not at all. Mentally, yes. But considering his life, whose fault is it?

Joe Ditroia

Joe ‘The Boss’ Ditroia was one of Read’s main allies inside H Division. Like most of Read’s friends he was no stranger to violence. Between crimes he was a cleaner and a pizza maker. He has been involved in assaults, escapes, firearm offences and armed robberies.

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‘JOE the Boss’ Ditroia is a top man with a knife. For anyone who has seen the movie
Goodfellows,
the Tommy character played by academy-award winning actor Joe Pesci is a dead ringer for Joe the Boss.

Joe is a South Australian Italian, and is doing time now in Yatala Prison. He found it hard to stay out of trouble, but he and his family have shown me great kindness and friendship.

Joe was Alex Tsakmakis’s arch enemy on the card table, as he acted as boss of the manila table. No matter who he played Joe was never beaten at cards. That’s how he got the name ‘Joe The Boss’. Joe was my right hand man in H Division in 1988 and 1989.

He was acquitted in court over the ice pick stabbing of Melbourne underworld figure and massage parlour boss Sandy Macrae. Joe was acquitted on grounds of self-defence. Some unkind people, including Macrae, hinted that I ordered the stabbing. However, this is yet another case of ‘foul slander and gossip’.

A court of law found that poor Joe the Boss was the victim of a cowardly attack — and replied to the attack by planting an ice pick into Macrae’s back twice. I should know: I was a witness. And let me tell you, it was a clear cut case of self-defence.

JOE THE BOSS

From South Australia, came a fellow,
With an Italian temper, hardly mellow,
With gun in hand, he was quite quick,
He’d put one in you, nice and slick,
And with a blade, he was very handy,
Just ask a Melbourne hoon named Sandy,
But cards he loved to play,
He’d beat the boys every day,
Yes, with a deck of cards, he was never at a loss,
The King of the table, Joe the Boss.

Michael Ebert

Michael Ebert was a man with a reputation. A convicted killer, Ebert was a high roller in the Melbourne massage parlour scene. Ebert, Keith George Faure and Hans George Obrenovic were found guilty of manslaughter over the killing of Shane Dennis ‘Jock’ Rowland, who was gunned down in a North Fitzroy house in May 1976.