← Australian True Crime
Loading summary
Transcript34 lines
- [00:00]
A
This is Australian True Crime with Michelle Laurie. And today we're joined again by former homicide detective Charlie Bazzina. Charlie's here to talk about some memorable cases from his 38 year long career with Victoria police. This is actually the second half of our conversation with Charlie. If you'd like to listen to part one, it's episode 737 and there's a link in the show notes of this episode to help you do that. We begin this conversation by chatting about Charlie's lack of ptsd. This is Australian True Crime Radio. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation and a warning. This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
- [00:46]
B
To me it was a challenge. I loved going to work and doing it. You are detracted from a lot because I was also a manager Looking after 10 detectives, nine detectives. Looking after their welfare and wellbeing, being engaging with their partners, making sure administrative staff. And I'm dealing with multiple victims, multiple offenders, multiple victims families, offenders families and the like. She's so overwhelmed and unlike the movies and I say to people, I say, well, we just don't do one homicide. There's one year there. My team alone did 14 homicides for the year. Multiply that by 14 families, 14 victims families. So you can't dwell on it. We get called, there's a young female in her early mid-20s. She's on the banks of a particular river. She suffered a gunshot wound to the chest. Just put the gun between her legs. Gunshot wound to the chest. The local detectives investigated it and rightly come up with a suicide. One of the deceased sisters was a lawyer and pretty well to do people and they were adamant. We want a full blown investigation. We want this, the incompetency of this. But the country detectives, how they're incompetent, this, that. We went up there and reviewed the investigation and it's difficult for me because I go to this country town giving my apologies, second guessing these detectives and they were experienced detectives. No good about it. No worries about it. So we do the examination, review the whole lot. The more you learn about women in particular who commit suicide, especially with firearms, still want to be found. Of appearance.
- [02:31]
A
Yes. I've read that that women are unlikely to use something violent to their face.
- [02:35]
B
Yeah. Or blow their head off like men do. Men do, yeah. But here we have a woman to the chest. So that ticked the box. Studies have shown that they want to be found Quite presentable. And the crux for that was. And the family was looking at, no, we want a full blown inquest. This is incompetency. It's this and it's that. Da da, da, da, da. And then we were able to show she put the gun between her legs. The butt of the gun rested on the dirt while she held the barrel and was able to reach the trigger either with her toe or whatever the case may be. The clincher where that was was recoil. There was two marks in the soil where it actually the gun sat. So the gun sat here, but there was another mark there because when the bullet, when the gun goes off, it went backwards for the recoil. And then they arrested back where it was. So definitely 2 marks. And based on that alone, it was clear we went back to the family and they then said, well, they went the opposite. We don't want this out, we don't want to conquest, we don't want this out. But we were able to give them the answers and ratify the findings of the local detectives. I had an investigation where this security guard was killed and this guy was attacked at a particular factory and an almighty physical assault took place. And there was blood everywhere. And I said, I want every piece of blood, a sample taken. And it was just a mess of
- [04:06]
A
it in case they were different sources in different sources.
- [04:08]
B
Because I didn't know who the offender was because it was such a horrific assault that as an offender left there, that's my Clue, you know, 98% the deceased. But this 2% here, unknown bang. I've got something. Cause there's nothing else.
- [04:24]
A
And cause offenders oftentimes do injure themselves when they're stabbing.
- [04:28]
B
Correct. So and it was a horrific thing. And then we eventually found out that it was a lover and this type of thing, he lay in wait in the bushes, he knew he was given his routine by the wife and set up this poor bugger of being ambushed by the lover. But that's the extreme you've got to go to to give no wriggle room to a jury person to say, well what if this and what if that and just building up at least you've
- [04:52]
A
got a motive in that case, without a motive. I find that frustrating too.
- [04:56]
B
People say motive's a good direction. Yeah, it's not a point of proof.
- [04:59]
A
I know you don't need to prove a motive. But I found it frustrating during the trial when people kept saying, but why would she, why would she do that? And I just thought, well, maybe it made sense in her brain. And not ours.
- [05:09]
B
And this is where the thing is. All these dumb coppers. I'm smarter than coppers, but I say to them, we do this for a living. We are good at what we do.
- [05:18]
A
I'm always astounded by people who think they're smarter than copies.
- [05:20]
B
Exactly. But that's good for us.
- [05:22]
A
Yeah.
- [05:22]
B
Cause they're the ones that make mistakes. They're not career criminals. They're not criminals, but they either get off on podcasts, seeing crime shows or they'll Google it a number of times. First thing you go to as an investigator, you go straight to their computer
- [05:34]
A
and you see search history.
- [05:36]
B
Yeah. You know, search history. So I think there was a particular family. How to get rid of a body or how do the police do homicide? And then straight indicator would start for an investigation. But again it becomes proof. What we allege we've got to prove. Because you work on the premise that our briefs of evidence could end up in the High Court in Canberra. And I got my name, I'm putting my name to it and I'll either send it back. Well, hang on, what about this particular avenue of. We didn't do that. Go and do it. Because if I don't pick it up, the defence will. I had another one, this lady again, an elderly lady. And it just shows you the inhumanity of certain people in families. Elderly lady. In the mid-80s, early in the mid-80s, fellow lady called Phyllis Hocking lived in Box Hill. She's been living in the lounge room, which was converted into a bedroom at her son's house in Box Hill. She'd been battered to death with a heavy blunt object. She'd been out to an elderly function and dropped off by the driver. Here we are. Who becomes a prime suspect. The driver son is working not too far away. She had a grandson who was in the carpet laying business. So we start looking at again, why would someone want to kill this person? She had a unit not far away and. And she was burgled. Someone broke into it and absolutely trashed the joint. Turned it upside down and water. And whatever the case, absolutely trashed it. She wasn't home. So the son come and relayed the carpet and did all this stuff. Looked after Nan moved back in within a month or couple of months. Someone driving past throws a Molotov cocktail through the front window of her flat. And I said, this has got to be the most unluckiest lady burgled. What's it make? Didn't make sense. Now she's Molotov cocktail. So the Joint burned. She was lucky enough to get herself out because of a feisty old lady. Got out and hence, whilst that's getting repaired, son does the right thing, Puts her in his house and converts the lounge into a bedroom. The son's alibi by the secretary said, no, no, no, he was there. And the grandson's alibi'd being home watching videos with his de facto. But I'm still not happy with it's not a burglary. So I'm looking more closely at the family. But I couldn't budge one way or the other. The son's alibi, the grandson's alibi. Why would someone want to kill this defenseless old lady? So that's where that particular investigation lay. And I'd been at homicide about seven years then. And then I couldn't get promoted within the squad. I then had to leave the squad to get promoted as a senior sergeant. So I went back to uniform. That's how the system worked. Went back to the uniform branch. That remains an unsolved. And I then transferred back to the homicide squad after 18 months. And within a short period of time, I get contacted by the de facto of the son. She's living in a state at that time. She said, I want to see you because my husband was the one that killed his grandmother.
- [08:55]
A
So she's the one who alibi'd him at the time. And now. Oh, okay.
- [08:59]
B
So I went and spoke to her and told us that the son had got the grandson to do the deed and kill his grandmother because they weren't getting the inheritance quick enough. It was all money driven.
- [09:13]
A
And did they do the previous attacks as well?
- [09:15]
B
And they did. The grandson did the burglary, trashed the joint, then repaired it. That didn't work. That didn't scare her enough and say, well, we'll kill her. So then they Molotov cocktail the unit. She's tough old bird. She said, no. It was all reported to local detectives. They investigated, and those days was $50,000 reward on it. So she came and gave a statement to me which blew him out, which made him the obvious suspect. Very soon after speaking to the de facto, he gave himself up to the local police station, interviewed him, made full admissions, and he said, well, my father put me up to it. So we couldn't corroborate his evidence. So we charged the son, couldn't charge the father. He was alibi. But even though just on the word of the son to say, well, dad put me up to it, it was only word of mouth. We couldn't support it in any way.
- [10:06]
A
Yeah.
- [10:07]
B
So the son ended up getting 20 odd years, whatever it was, 15, 18 years, couldn't charge the father. I had another investigation of again, another. An arson. And there's a deceased female. Naked. Deceased female. She's in a room that's been smoke affected, she's in front of a computer. We go into the lounge room and there's sex toys in the lounge room and stuff. And long story short, we then find out through our phone records that she'd been seeing a male escort. We tracked the male escort down, we knew petrol was used in the arson attack. He then came out and said, okay, they were having erotic sex in the lounge room and he asphyxiated her accidentally. Accidentally.
- [11:04]
A
Supposed to be a sex.
- [11:05]
B
Exactly.
- [11:06]
A
Yeah.
- [11:06]
B
No crime.
- [11:07]
A
Yep.
- [11:08]
B
Concerning adults, but he's panicked. He then panicked, made it look like that she was having a fetish in front of the computer, left her naked, goes away, gets impeded, comes back, sets fire to the place. Now all he had to do is say, okay, this is what we were doing. The crime scene would have supported that and he wouldn't be weary, going to be charged with it. But the fact he then covered it up in that regard, it becomes then I suppose of making a decision. Well, how much? What can the evidence prove? Asphyxiation? Was it a result of a sex act or the fact he just lost it and choked her? Anyway, you can't prove it, but had he come forward would have given him more credibility. But by then doing anything further to conceal the crime, you know, you become more sinister and say you become less believable, let's put it that way. Get a report that a leg has been found at the Brooklyn tip. So we go down, yep, certainly it's been chopped off. And that starts the investigation. So we stop the tip operations. We bring a big swag of people in, start going through, looking for more body parts. We finally get a bit of a body part with the hand or the tattoo. We identify the person. We know this person's residing in Yarraville, he's a low level drug dealer. And then we get a connection and I still remember it. There's a house in o' Farrell street in Yarraville. He's got a connection. We build up a connection between him and these particular three people that lived in this place in o' Farrell Street. One thing leads to another. So we just knock on the door, it's opened up by one of the offenders. He tells us to have sex and travel. Okay, so it's a bit odd. Slams the door in our face. So we come back with a warrant, we're still finding all the body parts. We end up finding all the body parts at the tip except for the head as we're walking down the hallway and the carpet squelching, squelch, squelch, squelch, squelch. It's all wet. And saying, well that's odd. We then start bringing our forensic people in. They pull up the carpet and it's all diluted blood with water, etc. Etc. One particular hardhead and the other two offenders were there. They eventually turn. So yeah, this guy said he come to our house, he owed us money. One thing led to another. We ended up killing him with a, with a tomahawk. And then we got a angle grinder and cut up the body, the body parts in the bathtub. And they said, oh, what we did, we carry the body parts in bags and put them in garbage bins in the next street. I couldn't get over the fact we couldn't find the head. They said oh no, we did it in that street in the garbage bins. But amazingly we then find out on this side of the street where the garbage bins that went to the Brooklyn tip on that side of the street went to the refuse in Dinan Road.
- [14:15]
A
You reckon they've slung the head into it across the street, A bin across the street.
- [14:19]
B
So that put the head in that one. Maybe because all the bins were full on this side. That's the only excuse. But unfortunately, given the overlap in time, it was impossible, cost wise and manpower wise to be able to say, well okay, let's go look for it now. It was probably two or three weeks later and the garbage, just impossible. We found another dismembered body in a lake, but it was on the back of I think Latrobe Uni. And I said ah, this will be, I'm driving to the crime scene. I said this will be some prank that. Is there a medical unit attached to it? You know when they get body parts to do their own examinations on it and someone just been a joke. We then found other body, the body parts and we identified that deceased through a tattoo. Then we found the torso buried in the bushland some away. And it was all the smell got it because it was all bloated and stuff and all the limbs have been cut off for identification. But we're able to identify this woman. And this particular spot was actually in Heidelberg, the old Olympic village. And okay, it's Knockabout area. The Olympic Village, for want of a better word. So I said to my video guy, look, can you just videotape the crowd? Which he did. And then we go back and look at the videotape and in the background, some distance away, is two people not taking any notice. And on this, two other people sitting on a fence there. Everyone else, we've got 50 or 60 people looking around trying to find, because we're digging up this torso. And as it turned out, the people in the background, they were my offenders. They were connected. I then would find out who they were. It didn't make sense, just body language. And then one thing led to another. Same deal. We linked the deceased back to their houses. That's why they weren't taking any notice. They were sitting there, quite sheepish.
- [16:14]
A
Thanks for joining us on Australian True Crime. If you would like any more information about anything you've heard on the show today, or support numbers, just check out the show notes.
- [16:28]
B
The producers of this podcast recognise the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded. They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders, past, present and those emerging.