Beyond redemption: The crooks who ran out of chances

Save articles for later

Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.

Some crooks, if you forget their chosen occupations, are a great deal of fun. They can be generous (with other people’s money), will kill (hopefully not literally) for a good time and aren’t slaves to their day jobs (because they don’t have them).

Some coach junior sports, walk their dogs and cry at romantic movies. Drug dealer Dennis William “Greedy” Smith would often give associates down on their luck a fistful of cash, with no expectation of it being repaid.

And then there are those who are just bad – the type that even fellow crooks hate. Their only redeeming quality is they spend most of their miserable lives in prison.

Here is a list of 10 of the worst, in no particular order.

Rodney Collins, aka Rod Earle, aka The Duke

Rodney Collins, also known as The Duke, after he was arrested for murder in 1982. Credit: Supplied

Collins loved his work, which for a fair percentage of his time was killing people for money. No one is sure of the exact number, but police say he had at least nine victims – twice killing women who could have been witnesses against him.

A loner, one of his only friends was his parrot, taught to squawk “I hate coppers” and “not guilty”.

In 2009, he was convicted of the 1987 murders of Roman Abbey and his wife Dorothy. He took Abbey to a shed and shot him three times. Police say before the victim died he cried out the name of his killer, leading Collins to return to the main house to kill Dorothy as her three children slept metres away.

In a carbon-copy crime, Collins took a $150,000 contract to kill police informer Terence Hodson in his Kew home in 2004. Terrence’s wife Christine was at home, and he killed her – the only witness.

He was almost certainly one of a two-man hit team who in 1982 killed standover man Brian Kane at Brunswick’s Quarry Hotel and was also part of a team that killed a guard during a Brunswick armed robbery in 1988.

Collins was usually kept in protection in prison and was bashed when he went into the mainstream population, allegedly for using another inmate’s toothbrush. Even in maximum security one must mind one’s manners.

He died in jail in 2018 of natural causes. He was 72.

Christopher Wayne Hudson

A former Finks bikie who patched over to the Hells Angels, causing a minor bikie war, Hudson took delight in bashing and humiliating his girlfriend Kaera Douglas.

On Monday, June 18, 2007, as city workers were walking to office, Hudson was in a strip club bashing a woman half his size. When Douglas arrived, as ordered, to drive him home, he told her: “Today is the day you are going to die.”

She ran but was easily caught. Solicitor Brendan Keilar, 43, a father of three, and Paul de Waard, a 25-year-old Dutch backpacker, tried to protect her. Keilar was shot dead near the corner of William Street and Flinders Lane. De Waard and Douglas were shot, seriously injured and survived.

Hudson ran from the scene and surrendered to police two days later with self-inflicted wounds to his wrist. He showed no remorse and was sentenced to a minimum 35 years’ jail.

Peter Norris Dupas

Dupas was 15, in school uniform, and armed with a small knife when he attacked and slashed his next-door neighbour, who had just returned from hospital with her newborn baby. It was his first known attack.

Very early on, police and psychologists feared he was on his way to becoming a stalker and murderer, with one detective warning: “He is an unmitigated liar … he is a very dangerous young person who will continue to offend where females are concerned and will possibly cause the death of one of his victims if he is not straightened out.”

He used a method of denial – as soon as he was questioned he would shut his eyes, then open them with a dead expression. It was if he withdrew into himself, refusing to confess and denying the undeniable.

He attacked women around Victoria for 31 years, was convicted of the murders of Margaret Maher (October 1997), Mersina Halvagis (November 1997) and Nicole Patterson (November 1997), and is the suspect in three more murders – including that of 95-year-old Kathleen Downes, stabbed to death in her nursing home.

Convicted criminals deserve a chance to reform. Dupas had exhausted his long before he killed, with experts such as prison psychologist Dr Allen Bartholomew urging he should remain in jail.

Despite Bartholomew’s warning in September 1978 that Dupas “was a danger to female society”, he was released a year later, going on to attack four women in 10 days.

Bartholomew wrote an “I told you so” note in the file: “The present offences are exactly what might have been predicted.”

Dupas is tragic proof that some serial offenders should receive indefinite sentences, requiring them to prove they are no longer a threat before they are ever considered for release.

Roger Caleb Rogerson

Bent detective and murderer Roger “The Dodger” Rogerson. Credit: Fairfax Media

“The Dodger” probably didn’t join the NSW Police force to be a crook, but when he did turn bad, he excelled at it.

Winning police awards for bravery and investigations, he green-lighted crooks, copped bribes, helped plan crimes and was up to his neck in the attempted murder of colleague, undercover cop Mick Drury, who was shot in his own home and survived.

The crime that resulted in Drury’s near fatal shooting? He refused a Rogerson bribe.

If Rogerson, 82, had just stuck to being a good cop he would be retired and living a comfortable life on his police pension.

Instead, he murdered student Jamie Gao, allegedly after a drug deal went wrong, and was sentenced to life. And so instead of playing with his grandchildren he is playing the piano to long-term prisoners suffering dementia.

Paul Charles Denyer

Over seven weeks in 1993, Denyer stalked and killed three females: Elizabeth Stevens, aged 18, was murdered on June 11; Deborah Fream, aged 22, on July 8; and Natalie Russell, aged 17, on July 30.

Denyer shows Detective Senior Sergeant Rod Wilson the homemade gun he used to abduct women.Credit: Victoria Police

He would later tell police he had wanted to kill women since he was 14 and had stalked hundreds since he was 17.

Originally sentenced to life with no minimum, it was later reduced to a minimum of 30 years on appeal. His first application for parole earlier this year was rejected, with insiders saying he wasn’t even close to reaching the release threshold. Family and friends of the victims and the state opposition are supporting a law to make sure Denyer can never be released.

Julian Knight

The Hoddle Street killer, who in 1987 fired 200 rounds in a rampage through Clifton Hill, killing seven people and wounding a further 19. He was sentenced to life with a minimum of 27 years, largely due to his age: He was 19 at the time that he killed.

While he has largely been an obedient prisoner, the government passed a special law banning him from parole.

Just the other day Knight wrote to Daniel Andrews pointing out that while the Premier was happy to throw away the key to Knight’s cell, he had not done the same for Denyer.

He has a point, but does that mean he should be released? No.

Craig Minogue

One of the Russell Street bombers who set a car bomb with 60 sticks of gelignite outside police headquarters in 1986, killing police officer Angela Taylor and injuring another 21 people.

He was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years. Inside he bashed to death fellow inmate Alex Tsakmakis, yet was given a concurrent sentence.

Minogue completed multiple tertiary qualifications and now likes to be called doctor. He, like Knight, one of his close prison buddies, has been subjected to a government law banning him from parole.

Is that fair? No. Should he be released? Absolutely not.

Paul Steven Haigh

By the age of 21 he had killed six people, including a mother and her nine-year-old boy.

I asked him once why he had stabbed his girlfriend, Lisa Maude Brearley, 157 times. He said: “I lost count.”

Inside prison, he “assisted” inmate Donald Hatherley to suicide, slipping the noose around his neck and pressing down on his shoulders. Haigh wanted to attend his murder trial in a Grim Reaper costume.

Serving six life sentences, plus 15 years for the Hatherley murder and a further 15 for armed robberies. Another destined to die in jail.

Christopher Dale Flannery

Nobody is quite sure how many professional murders Flannery committed, but he didn’t get the nickname Rent-a-Kill from running a rodent disposal business.

Christopher Dale Flannery (second from left) is led handcuffed into Melbourne’s City Watch House in October 1981 to be charged with the murder of Roger Wilson.Credit: Fairfax Archive

In 1980, he was contracted to kill Melbourne businessman Roger Wilson, whose body was never found. One witness, Debra Boundy, 18, disappeared a few months later. Her body was not found.

He moved to Sydney, shooting and wounding undercover policeman Mick Drury. He only accepted half his fee, having failed to complete the job.

After killing various Sydney crooks, he was considered too dangerous and in 1985 he too went on the permanently missing list.

Dennis Bruce Allen

Unhinged Melbourne drug dealer linked to Roger Rogerson and sundry other cops, “Mr Death” was suspected of 11 murders. Repeatedly charged then bailed because he paid bribes and dobbed in fellow crooks. Died in 1987, aged 35, of heart disease. The only surprise was that he had one.

Most Viewed in National

From our partners

Source: Read Full Article