Rod, at 13:39 on Mon, Feb 20 1995, you wrote to Bill Grimsley ...

(Continued from previous message)

RS> I've spoken to him again the other night since I wrote that and it 
RS> certainly looks like some of the cops are attempting to ride him 
RS> hard enough get him to react and then shoot him.  Tho he claims 
RS> they have been told to lay off by the chief inspector.

BG> True, why kill the goose that lays the golden egg?  I'd really
BG> love to see this Chief Inspector's bank accounts (all of them!).

RS> I doubt there is any of that. I think he can basically see 
RS> what the kiddy cops are up to.

What's their game then?  Are they chasing Brownie points for knocking off
the arch crim, or what?

BG> Makes you wonder about some ambos and firemen too, I guess. In fact, 
BG> this new program on Channel 7 (Fire) has a pyro running around 
BG> Brisbane (a bloody good idea too, IMO), and it looks like it might 
BG> turn out to be a fireman.

RS> Yeah, there has always been a trickle of those.

As an aside, Lyn's BIL is a firey with the local (South Coast) fire
brigade, and we were appalled at the manner in which this program portrayed
firemen in general.  And Sunday's paper carried a scathing response from
the Commissioner as well.  If you ever watch it (and I wouldn't bother if I
were you), you'll have a ball picking it to shreds.  Dunno why they did
that either, unless they have plans to flog it overseas, maybe even in the
US.

BG> I'm not convinced there's any easy way to weed these weirdos out 
BG> either, not until their peculiarities become evident at least.

RS> Yeah, having watch some people literally go mad, I'm not convinced 
RS> that you can pick it coming.

Certainly not a complete over-the-top breakdown, I agree.

RS> My next door neighbour was like that, people made snide remarks 
RS> about say his work history, which looked at the time like just 
RS> willful sillyness, giving up a perfectly good job for no sensible 
RS> reason. And a few remarks along the lines of 'yeah, Gary is a 
RS> bit funny like that'. 

Yeah, I remember your earlier posts re this strange fellow.  Sure it wasn't
your dog shitting on his lawn which sent him over the edge?  |-)

RS> Turned out he was actually coming completely off is trolley and 
RS> that became unmistakable later when he did the more dramatic stuff 
RS> that no one could miss. Like bailing up the entire highschool 
RS> across the road from his house with a fucking great knife and 
RS> stabbing holes in the door of one of the teachers cars with the 
RS> teacher inside it |-)

DIdn't he eventually top himself as well?

RS> Corse after the event its easier to look back on the earlier 
RS> stuff and realise it was just the early symptoms.

Yeah, ain't hindsight a wonderful thing?  |-)

RS> Dunno, it will be interesting to see how all the Neddy Smith
RS> stuff pans out. Wouldnt surprise me in the slightest if it
RS> all comes gloriously unstuck ala the way the QLD stuff did.

BG> Well, you had Askin, Wran, Farquhar, and a few others whose
BG> names escape me right now,

RS> And a couple of police commissioners too |-)

True, but I wanted to keep my reply to 150 lines or less.

BG> so political corruption is endemic Australia-wide

RS> The people who know claim that the NSW police have always been by 
RS> far the worst. Just concealed it a bit better. Sounds plausible.

As part of my misspent youth (~1969), I used to "sit" for half a
dozen hookers working out of an apartment block above the arcade in
Darlinghurst Rd, where Sandra Nelson's Club used to be, and more than once
I personally saw the head of the Vice Squad, Vic Green, taking the weekly
protection money from the girls.  In fact, I pissed of up here the day
after he saw me watching this happen.  I later found out that just 2 days
after he'd seen me, the place was raided and the new sitter (bouncer, if
you like) was arrested and charged with living off the earnings.  Each
night, before the girls hit the streets, at least half a dozen Vice and 21
Div coppers used to have a bit of a piss-up (on duty, of course) in one of
the rooms, an event which I studiously avoided like the plague.  Fuck me, I
could write a book about that!

RS> In some ways NSW has always been worse with attempted executions of 
RS> other cops by cops. Let alone ACT police commissioners becoming ex 
RS> police commissioners as JC would say.

BG> Was anybody ever indicted over the Colin Winchester 
BG> assassination?

RS> Nah, they thought the public servant dun it, but I doubt it.

So do I.

RS> Never managed to prove it and since it was a classic mafia
RS> style execution, and Winchester was personally involved in
RS> the pot growing on purpose, looks awful mafia like to me.

Yeah, it sure looks that way.  There were so many conflicting stories doing
the rounds, not all of which painted Col in the best light, that I doubt
the truth will ever be made public now.

BG> I wonder to what extent the police were involved in MacKay's
BG> killing though,

RS> Like I say, the cops accidentally on purpose allowed the evidence 
RS> that Don Mackay had reported one of the biggest local pot growing 
RS> schemes to the cops to come out in the trial. 

Bent coppers, presumably.

RS> Don was kicking up a big stink about how the local mafia were 
RS> getting off almost completely scot free even if caught on pot 
RS> growing. As a result of that someone told him of that massive 
RS> Colyambally crop. 

Ae you suggesting that he may have been set up by this person?

RS> He told the cops. During that trial, the cops notebook accidentally 
RS> allowed the defense lawyer to see who the informant was the cops 
RS> had heard about it from. Bye bye Don.

I get the impression that you suspect this was intentional too.

RS> The senior cops were even having a big dinner at the biggest of the 
RS> restaurants in town that night, with the local mafia names like 
RS> Trimbole and Tony Sergi on the night he was executed, a Friday 
RS> evening. Provide the name, provide a cast iron alibi, great service 
RS> what ?

I wonder if my ex-wife would enjoy a holiday in Griffith then?  If so, I'll
buy two tickets forthwith, one return, and one single.  |-)

RS> It remains to be seen if the one who got locked up for it even 
RS> actually did it. Extremely suspicious that no body was ever found, 
RS> he literally vanished. 

The most commonly espoused theory is that he ended up being mixed with
kangaroo meat in cans of dog food, courtesy of some processing plant on the
river near Griffith.  As bodies have a nasty habit of eventually turning up
at the most inopportune times, I'd say this was likely.

Regards, Bill

--- Msgedsq/2 2.2e