On Wednesday 13 July, the packed courtroom awaited the Reed verdict. It came
around 6pm. The winter's day had been dark and ominous. As the crowd waited,
tension mounted. You could have heard a pin drop. And then the verdict was read
out. The jury found Reed guilty of the attempted murder of Steven Quinsee and
guilty of recklessly causing serious injury to Mark Wylie in the Kallista raid.
It was a surprise to most of the courtroom onlookers when the jury returned a
verdict of not guilty on all counts relating to the Russell Street bombing.
It was with great irony that Peter Reed was under police surveillance on the
day the bomb went off in Russell Street. He had actually been followed to Haros
Avenue where police believe the bomb was assembled. Because Haros Avenue is a
dead-end street, the surveillance crew waited for his car to reappear from
around a bend in the road. They were unable to park covertly and still have a
view of the house. The surveillance team would have taken little notice of the
two-tone Holden bomb car as it drove past. And if Peter Reed was in it, they
didn't see him. So it turned out that if they saw him go to Haros Avenue and
didn't see him leave, then they were his alibi of sorts for the bombing.
As soon as the bomb went off, the surveillance headquarters at Russell Street
was badly damaged, and all teams were recalled to the office. The team wasn't at
Haros Avenue to see just who returned later on. Pity.
While the Taskforce detectives were elated at the convictions the previous
day, the not guilty verdict for Reed was a crushing blow.
Taylor was sentenced to a life sentence, never to be released. Craig Minogue
also received a life sentence, but the judge set a minimum term of twenty-eight
years. Rodney Minogue was convicted of being an accessory after the fact but his
conviction was quashed on appeal. At a re-trial in February 1990, Rodney Minogue
was acquitted of being an accessory after the fact and was released from prison
immediately. Peter Reed served nine years for his part in the raid shoot-out and
was released in 1995.
The Jika Jika fire wouldn't be Craig Minogue's only difficulty
in prison. The year he began his life sentence, another inmate called Alex
Tsakmakis was found beaten to death with gym weights hidden in a pillow case and
used as a cosh. Minogue was found guilty of the killing and received a second
murder conviction in 1988 to run concurrently with his bombing sentence.
But aside from a fatal fire which killed five inmates, and the coshing death
of Alex Tsakmakis, Craig Minogue has used his prison time productively. In 2005,
he completed a Bachelor of Arts degree and has been accepted as a PhD student at
LaTrobe University. He is eligible for parole in 2016.
Looking back at the events surrounding the Russell Street
bombing twenty years after it happened, many police officers see it as a
starting point for an attitudinal change in the Victoria Police. For the first
time, they knew that there were people out there who wanted to harm them. A year
and a half later, on 12 October 1988, two police officers Steven Tynan and
Damian Eyre were gunned down in Walsh Street, South Yarra. If the police were in
any doubt that they were becoming targets, the cold-blooded shooting of Tynan
and Eyre proved the point.
Police armed themselves for the fight - in the next decade, officers from
Victoria Police would shot and kill 31 people, when in the same period there
were 28 police/civilian fatalities in the rest of the states in Australia
combined. A police taskforce in 1994 recommended retraining for all officers in
the use of alternative methods of self-defence and appropriate force.
And twenty years after the bombing, Detective Chris O'Connor
wonders whether the bombing was used as a decoy for the robbery in Donvale three
hours later. The bombers knew that police from everywhere would head towards
ground zero, while they headed 25km east to rob a bank.
And O'Connor believes that Stanley Taylor, at 71 years of age, is just as
dangerous now as he ever was.
Given his work to catch her killers, it was fitting when crime
scene examiner Wayne Ashley received the Angela Taylor Scholarship in 1995. He
had completed pioneering work in Australia compiling national databases on both
shoe and tyre impressions and used the scholarship money to travel to Finland to
attend an international conference on such databases. He went on to complete a
Masters Degree in shoe impression evidence, and make connections in the FBI with
similar experts. Ashley's work as a crime scene examiner had taught him to push
the boundaries of investigations. The Russell Street bombing and other cases
like it hinged around forensic evidence. No one would ever underestimate the
importance of a dedicated, highly-trained forensics team working alongside a
team of dedicated, highly-trained detectives.
A couple of years ago, Carl Donadio noticed a small bump on the
back of his right hand. When a doctor cut it out, it was a bit of shrapnel from
the blast eighteen years earlier. It wasn't the first time and probably won't be
the last time that shrapnel finds its way through his system and rises to the
surface to work its way out. It is a reminder of an event that he rarely thinks
about.
Having a naturally resilient nature, Donadio knows in some ways, he was
simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and was unlucky. But he has had
enough time to ponder the other side of unlucky. He was lucky to survive. He was
lucky to learn profound life lessons at such a young age. He was lucky to be
nineteen and to know how important family and friends where. He was lucky to
carry little permanent damage after such a cataclysmic event. And he was lucky
enough to discover that life was precious and that any day could be your last.
From this, he developed a philosophy of seizing the day and taking opportunities
outside his comfort zone.
He achieved his early ambition of joining the undercover and surveillance
unit and worked there for most of his policing career. When the opportunity came
to leave the police force to pursue a career in private security, he left after
fourteen years on the job without looking back. He had loved his time in the
police force, but took up the new opportunity with enthusiasm.
Donadio also learnt about the power of the mind and the body to heal itself.
Having suffered such severe injuries, he is certain that his desperate desire to
get back on his feet served him well and aided in his recovery. He reflects that
in the days of the bombing, the police force, to his knowledge, only had one
psychiatrist. He received no follow up psychological assistance to recover from
his trauma. About six months after the bombing, he was sent a questionnaire from
the police psychiatrist where he had to tick boxes to say how he was feeling. He
duly filled it out and sent it back but never heard anything in response. Things
would be very different today, twenty years down the track.
And what does Carl Donadio think of the men responsible for his injuries? The
truth is, he doesn't think of them at all. 'The bombing wasn't directed at me,'
says Donadio, twenty years later. 'It was directed at the Victoria Police. I
never took it personally.' And, he says, if he spent time and energy hating
Fatty Minogue then that would mean that Minogue is still winning. And Donadio
won't let that happen.
Donadio received the Victoria Police Star which is awarded to officers killed
or seriously injured in the line of duty. He still tries to make every day
count.
For Angela Taylor's parents, Marilyn an Arthur, not a day has
gone by in the past twenty years when they haven't thought of the daughter they
lost in the Russell Street bombing. Although nothing can replace her, they can
see that a lot of good has come in the wake of her passing. There are
fundraisers in her honour and the Angela Taylor Memorial Trust that funds
current police officers to further their training both in Australia and
overseas.
More recently, a rose has been names in her honour. The Angela Taylor Rose is
distributed by Garden Express who donates two dollars to the Victoria Police
Blue Ribbon Foundation from each rose sold.
First published in eBook form by Clan Destine Press in 2013
CDP Imprint: Crime Shots 2013
PO Box 121, Bittern
Victoria 3918 Australia
Copyright © Vikki Petraitis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-In-Publication data:
Petraitis, Vikki
The Russell Street Bombing
ISBN 978-0-9875538-1-2
Cover Design © Rae Cooper