It was always going to end in tears but this one seemingly began with crocodile tears. “Dessie, Dessie, Dessie, Dessi,” cried the frail old woman on Monday as she rushed to the scene of the crime as though drawn by providence. A little birdie told The Age the frail old woman “just screamed and ran off,” wearing a black shawl and Gucci sunglasses.
Providence — being the foreseeing care and guidance of God or nature over the creatures of the earth — was also driving a wicked car, with a squirrel in it, back to the humble abode the frail old woman shared with the little birdie and the squirrel.
Later that night it wasn’t providence that drove the wicked car far from the humble abode. Last night the humble abode spontaneously burst into flames because it was so ashamed of the wicked things that allegedly had been planned there and stashed there.
Then the frail old woman was charged with being an accessory — not for the Gucci sunglasses — but as an accessory, after the fact, to the murder of her brother-in-law, Tuppence. The little birdie was charged with the same thing. The squirrel was charged with murder, bloody murder.
The frail old woman will appear in court this afternoon (2pm) and is expected to plead not guilty.
But what possible motive could the frail old woman have doing the things she is alleged to have done to the really nice Mr Tuppence? The Age opined today it was buried treasure: “Before Lewis died it was said he had buried large amounts of cash to hide from an asset check. But when he was shot no one knew where the treasure was buried. For more than a year, Judy rang her brother-in-law asking whether there were any secret business interests involving Lewis or if he knew of hidden money.”
The Kooka Brothers fail to see how allegedly killing Tuppence brings the alleged buried treasure any closer to the frail old woman’s grasp. In fact Victoria’s Chief Plod, Simon Overland, said today the story was so bizarre a television scriptwriter couldn’t possible make it up.
“Fact is almost stranger than fiction with what we’ve seen,” Simon Overland told ABC Radio. “If you were a scriptwriter and sat down and wrote this stuff you’d probably say, ‘look, no, it’s a bit far fetched no one will believe it’.”
We believe you Simon, but you are dealing with here are some very, very stupid people – people who appear to have broken every rule in the perfect crime book.
Speaking of books, the frail old woman wrote one called My Story. It told the tale of her life in the midst of the Moran criminal dynasty. She claimed Lewis Moran bashed her for years and she denied many of the crimes attributed to her sons over several years.
“But her disparaging comments about former senior Victoria Police detective Fred Silvester,” said the Herald Sun “led to the pulping of several thousand copies of the book.” Interesting name that…
Oh, in case you missed it, Big Mick Gatto and Roberta Williams are also writing books about the gangland wars. Chopper Read and Billy “The Texan” Longley contributed absolutely nothing to the sum total of human knowledge with their contributions to the Herald Sun today.
Crikey is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while we review, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.