0:01

And it's all about lazy crooks wanting

0:03

to make easy money.

0:04

And you don't even have to be in the country to do it.

0:06

I have to be in the country to do it. It's apparently

0:09

being orchestrated. From a long way off.

0:12

There was this rural sort of dirt road

0:15

area next to this farming land, all

0:17

flat land, and

0:20

the body of the Point called woman, miss

0:22

Mnaghani, was found

0:24

in the bin. It's as grim as

0:26

you can imagine.

0:30

I'm Andrew Ruhle. Welcome back to Life

0:32

and Crimes. We are here again

0:34

with Anthony Dowsley, Olivia

0:36

Jenkins and Reagan Hodge. There

0:39

has been a year full of events.

0:41

There's been crimes of all sorts.

0:43

Yeah, Andrew, it's been quite a year in crime.

0:45

We talked about a few last week, but there's

0:47

a lot we haven't touched on, like the tobacco

0:50

wars or the missing campus trial. But

0:52

one of the more chilling stories from earlier in the

0:54

year was the body in the Wheely being case that

0:56

you covered, Reagan.

0:57

What's the really really true story about that one?

1:00

So a Melbourne woman called

1:03

Schwetze Mattagani from Point Cook

1:06

was found in tragic circumstances.

1:08

She was found in a bin out

1:11

in a town called Buckley, which has just passed Geelong

1:14

in the States West. She

1:16

was found on Saturday, March nine.

1:18

It was a stinking hot day. I remember I was out

1:21

in Bananyong working on

1:23

the Samantha Murphy disappearance. Somebody

1:25

texted me that police had made a pretty grizzly discovery

1:28

on this rural property out near Geelong.

1:31

You're going to want to take a look at it. And

1:34

in the hours after that the homicide

1:36

squad were called out to Buckley. It

1:38

was this rural sort of dirt road area

1:41

next to this farming land, all

1:43

flat land, and

1:46

the body of the point cook woman, miss

1:48

Mataghaney was found

1:50

in the bin. It's as grim as you

1:52

can imagine.

1:54

Oh, it's horrible.

1:55

And police over

1:58

the next few days they worked too who

2:00

find out any key suspects and

2:02

they identified that her husband,

2:05

Ashock raj Verkapula.

2:08

I believe I've pronounced that career and apologies,

2:11

no copy and paste job. Every time I

2:14

write a story he's identified

2:16

as having fled the

2:18

country. It

2:22

doesn't seem that way. He's jetted off

2:24

to India. In the days after she was

2:27

allegedly murdered and

2:29

the days before suspicions

2:32

about that well, it's hard to tell. At

2:34

this stage. Victoria Police are still putting

2:36

together a brief of evidence to hand

2:39

to the Attorney General Mark Dreyfus. They

2:41

do suspect as Shock may

2:45

know something to do with this alleged

2:47

murder, and at

2:49

this point in time police

2:51

are just working to get that extradition

2:54

order to haul him

2:56

back to Melbourne and then potentially question

2:58

him.

2:58

How do we go with extradition from India?

3:00

They can be slow, can they not?

3:02

They can be very slow and they may not lead

3:04

anywhere. We've seen panite in

3:07

that case that's well publicized

3:09

and drawn out.

3:10

It's India, urban nation with a lot

3:12

of people living there.

3:15

It is funny you say that the population

3:17

is vast, and somebody told

3:19

me that if you're wanting to hide in India,

3:22

that's a pretty easy job.

3:23

You're a chance. I would have thought so, well,

3:26

that is an intriguing thing. When you

3:28

got that text that day, did

3:30

you think, oh, this could be Samantha

3:32

Murphy.

3:33

Funnily enough, it didn't click straight

3:36

away, and it really should have because I was on

3:38

the job looking for any

3:41

clues of where Samantha Murphy might be. But

3:43

it did eventually, and I thought, holy

3:45

hell, have we just uncovered

3:48

where she might be? But no, it was a separate

3:51

case.

3:51

Now, of course it wouldn't be a year in

3:53

review if we didn't talk about tobacco was

3:56

because they happen all

3:58

the time. Every day we get up, we

4:00

say, what's the news, and there's another

4:03

tobacco place that's gone up. Oh yeah,

4:05

nightclub or god knows what what is

4:07

going on here.

4:09

So just recently, late in twenty

4:11

twenty four, we've ticked over

4:13

the one hundred fire bombings

4:15

mark, which is just insane to think about.

4:18

I think it was a milk bar out at Greenvale

4:20

became the one hundredth fire linked

4:23

to the illicit tobacco conflict. Now we

4:25

would have spoken about this last year. Not

4:28

much has really changed. They're still fire bombing

4:30

each other's stores. It's

4:33

all for control of the illicit market,

4:35

which just has so many financial

4:37

benefits attached to it.

4:39

Well, really, and we've said this before, but it's

4:42

like prohibition in America one hundred years

4:44

ago, where politicians

4:46

said, right, we're going to prohibit alcohol and

4:48

there won't be any we're not going to sell it anywhere,

4:50

And of course the gangsters went,

4:52

you'll be beuilty. We're going to make it

4:54

and sell it and speak easy to make

4:57

a lot of tax free money. And in fact,

4:59

that decision by the legislators

5:02

back then, and I would argue Australia

5:04

as well, meant that crooks, the

5:06

old time mafia who used to corner

5:08

the onion market and stand over

5:11

the Italian lady on the corner and all

5:13

that stuff. I turned them into the Five

5:15

Families of New York, turned them into the

5:18

greatest organized crime cartels

5:21

in history prohibition because

5:23

they could sell grog. And this tobacco

5:26

business here has turned these

5:29

sort of glorified panel beaters that used

5:31

to steal a few cars and turned

5:33

them into these cartels

5:36

that are making million bucks a day or whatever

5:38

from ilicit tobacco.

5:40

And these cartels or syndicates

5:42

as we call them now, they're making so

5:44

much money because smokers every

5:47

day of the week, they'll choose to buy a

5:49

pack of smokes that's fifteen bucks instead

5:52

of paying fifty sixty seventy

5:55

dollars. With this tobacco excise that keeps

5:57

increasing every few months.

5:59

I know people in this building that by smokes

6:01

for eighteen dollars instead of forty eight, And

6:04

how could you blame them? No, if it's a

6:06

no brainer, it's a no brainer.

6:07

Well, the argument that chop shop is worse for you

6:10

than quote unquote regulated cigarettes isn't

6:12

going to deter Howell, who's already decided to

6:14

go to the shops and buy cigarettes.

6:16

And you know, you'd wonder whether that

6:18

would be true. I don't think none

6:20

of it's much good for you. It's certainly no

6:22

good. The day will

6:25

come awfully when a

6:28

fire bomb will go up a little cook an entire

6:30

family that we roasted children

6:33

come out of this.

6:34

I spoke to a mother in

6:36

late November who told

6:38

me that her daughter had to evacuate a

6:42

big department complex out in the

6:44

Western suburbs in early

6:46

hours of the morning, half past one I think it was, And

6:50

I was trying to get an interview.

6:51

With the daughter.

6:51

Obviously the below store had

6:53

been firebombed that night, and

6:56

the mother said, unfortunately, she's too shaken

6:58

up, she's too sort of traumatized.

7:01

She had to sort of grab her belongings in

7:03

the middle of the night and just get out of there. Her

7:06

belongings that she kept in the house

7:08

or in the apartment above were ruined

7:10

because of the smoke damage and the fire is put

7:12

in the water on it. But that's

7:14

the effect of having like she didn't even want to

7:16

have a phone call to say what she heard.

7:19

How she's feeling now, and she

7:21

had to really run for her life.

7:22

Oh yeah, it's terrible and it will

7:25

lead to death. It was just awful. And

7:27

it's all about lazy crooks wanting to

7:29

make easy money.

7:30

And you don't even have to be in the country to do it.

7:32

Apparently I have to be in the country to do it.

7:34

It's apparently being orchestrated

7:36

from a long way off, is it not. That's

7:39

right.

7:39

We've obviously heard of, you know, two of the main

7:42

players who really sort of kicked off the conflict

7:44

that we saw last year, and that has shown no signs

7:46

of slowing down this year. And obviously,

7:49

when I say that, I'm talking about because kaz

7:51

Hamad and the Melbourne based

7:53

fighting Hidara or the Hadara Klan, who

7:55

have yeah, who have history going back

7:57

a long time and they've yeah,

7:59

they're inches, have obviously not stopped.

8:01

But now what we're seeing is that people

8:04

have seen how lucrative the market is.

8:06

And we've got a number of major players

8:09

now and not necessarily anybody well known,

8:11

and maybe people who aren't even on our radar

8:13

yet. But you've got has you know, ringing

8:15

up the phone of the local shop in Pasco Bay

8:18

or Green Value, you name it, saying you're going to listen

8:20

to me, and here's what you're going to do. And you've

8:22

got people not knowing which way to turn

8:24

because they just wanted to make a bit of extra money. And now

8:26

they've got oh yeah, now they've got

8:28

a crime boss breathing down the phone.

8:30

It is scary stuff, very bad.

8:32

Now. That's one story that aroused

8:35

a lot of attention. Another

8:37

one, I think is one gatta

8:39

the disappearance of the as

8:41

we call them, the two campers or the pensioners, and

8:44

the subject of Greg

8:47

Linn the Jets, that Billot and of

8:49

his the acknowledged victim,

8:52

Missus Clay, and of let's

8:54

say, alleged victim Russell

8:57

Hill. Ye, Anthony Dowsley, talk

8:59

to me about that, talk to us about that

9:02

well.

9:03

As was highly publicized

9:05

back in June,

9:08

a jury came to a split decision on

9:11

the murders of accusations

9:15

of Carol Clay and Russell

9:17

Hill, who were killed at Bucks Camp

9:19

in the one Gatt Valley in Victoria's High

9:22

Country. It

9:24

was somewhat of an odd decision or

9:26

unexpected decision, they

9:30

note, but not necessarily a terrible

9:32

one, terrible for the Hill family because they found

9:35

that that Lynn, that Greg

9:37

Lynn, the Jetstar pilot, had not murdered,

9:41

of course, but they did find that

9:44

he had killed Carol Clay. It

9:46

leads you to the assumption that they thought

9:49

that his finger was on the trigger

9:52

of the gun which shot

9:55

her as she stood apparently

9:58

watching a freck car between Greg

10:00

Lynn and Russell Hill.

10:03

Those elements of that might be true.

10:05

It might be somewhat true, But obviously

10:08

they did not believe Greg Lynn's story.

10:10

He gave evidence.

10:12

He said it was all basically one accident

10:14

after the other.

10:15

He did very long shots.

10:17

Yeah, it was a fairly.

10:19

A million to one or several billion to

10:21

one shot.

10:22

They would be two extraordinary, unlucky

10:24

events.

10:25

In matter of a minute, Yes,

10:27

exactly extraordinarily.

10:30

Since then, he's been sentenced, yep. He

10:32

was given a thirty two year jail term,

10:35

which was a decent whack was but deserving

10:38

yes, and no one will be shedding

10:40

a tear for him, not many. And

10:43

then he has since appealed.

10:46

We wouldn't want to speculate about appeals.

10:49

But he does have a very fine

10:51

defense barrister, does he not.

10:53

Dermit Dan is one of the best, if not the best,

10:57

in all of Melbourne at Victoria.

10:59

Yeah, it's a very

11:01

interesting time, so next to you in twenty

11:04

twenty five, we'll look forward to

11:06

seeing what happens with that. I don't

11:08

know that we can say a lot more about that

11:10

case without, you know, arguing

11:13

the toss with the lawyers and the

11:15

judges and courts. Well, we

11:17

wouldn't do it.

11:18

It's a bit hard to explain. But one of the

11:21

areas that will be agitated will

11:23

be that I'm sure Dermit Dan will be

11:25

saying that the conviction doesn't make sense

11:28

because there's no motivation to kill

11:31

Carol Clay.

11:32

Yeah, he would

11:34

say that. And I suppose unless

11:37

there was, yes, some

11:39

might think, you know, if she was a witness to

11:41

something else, to a very tragic

11:44

death of her friend.

11:46

But as it stands right now, Greg

11:48

Lynn says that that is an accident,

11:52

that the gun accidentally

11:54

goes off and kills Carol Clay

11:57

and then in the aftermath of that, there's

12:00

another struggle and Russell Hill lands

12:03

on his own knife.

12:04

Yeah, it's amazing. Circums of events

12:06

be very hard to choreograph. If you were making

12:09

a film about it, be very hard to get that sequence

12:12

correct.

12:12

Well, you'd have to almost lost several sequences,

12:14

several versions of.

12:15

The event astoning. Of

12:18

all the people you've ever covered in

12:20

many years, is there anyone

12:22

that would be more calculating in your estimation

12:25

than Greg Lynn?

12:27

Well, given what we watched his record of interview

12:29

with police and his evidence

12:32

when he got in the witness box, I

12:34

would say no. He's

12:37

completely an utterly cool in

12:39

a crisis.

12:41

The other big story was the mushroom

12:43

case. And I sometimes appear

12:45

at hotels and things and talk to people, and

12:47

I see this always a big response

12:51

to the mushroom case. It sort

12:53

of makes people laugh for some reason. I don't know

12:55

why people funny about it. It's

12:57

nothing funny about it, but the fact

12:59

that to mushrooms people find somehow

13:03

comical. Mushrooms are comical in

13:05

a way that you know, perhaps hand

13:07

grenades are not. Now this happened in South

13:09

Gippsland, it did,

13:12

and near curran Borough and

13:14

Lean gatherin.

13:15

Up there, and I

13:17

learned a little something when the

13:20

media packs were going down to Lean

13:22

and Gather every day and to current Borough

13:24

to find anyone associated with

13:26

this case, anyone who might know anything. It's

13:30

quite religious. There are religious

13:33

parts of these towns and I

13:35

never knew any of that. You're from down that way.

13:37

I'm known from East Gippsland, which is about

13:40

the same distance as from oh

13:43

Moscow to Paris probably something

13:46

like that. Not that far, but it's

13:48

a fair way.

13:49

And you know, as

13:52

we move forward in this case, which

13:54

at the moment will be heard

13:57

at the courts in Morewell, which is pretty

13:59

un new usual for a big murder case, there

14:02

will be media from all

14:05

over the world descending on this town really

14:08

to a smoke, to a small court with

14:10

facilities in it that are not up

14:13

to date for something of this magnitude.

14:15

What I want to know is that when reporters

14:18

coming from London, Paris, New

14:20

York, what they're going to think of

14:23

the coffee shops of Mare. It's

14:27

going to be interesting.

14:28

It's going to be a brew ah and more well

14:30

for the best coffee shop, that's for sure.

14:32

It's a great place for steak sandwich. I

14:35

know that for a fact. So what goes

14:38

on there? Mushroom lady.

14:41

Well, at the moment, so Aaron Patterson

14:43

is remanded in custody,

14:46

I can tell you she's the Dame Phillis

14:48

Frost Center, which is a funny name for

14:50

a prison. It is, but

14:52

that's when.

14:53

Not unless if you knew Dame Phillis Frost,

14:55

you wouldn't think it was funny.

14:56

I don't know her history.

14:57

Actually, wonderful woman. I think you probably

15:00

owe her more respect.

15:01

Well, I just said it's a funny name from prison, right.

15:04

I don't know much about Dame Philus Frost, but

15:08

it's going to be It's

15:10

going to be the most anticipated trial

15:13

of the year in twenty twenty five, without

15:15

a doubt.

15:17

Is that true. Members of the jury, well,

15:20

the younger people here might have a different view, I

15:22

would.

15:23

I would say given the worldwide media

15:25

attention and the attention it's

15:28

gained not only in Victoria but in

15:30

wa in Queensland.

15:32

You don't have to agree with him.

15:34

I do on this case. It's going to be huge.

15:36

We will have so many of our reporters down

15:38

in the lovely More well town

15:41

and Latro Valley. Nothing wrong

15:43

with the Latroe Valley that's in between

15:46

our sort of hometowns.

15:47

It is indeed a wonderful place. Latro

15:49

Valley used to sell more beer than anywhere

15:51

else in Victorim? Is that right? One

15:54

pub? There? Which one? The LV?

15:56

There you go? I don't think it's even open now.

15:59

And what do you think I think given

16:01

the amount of what we were talking about earlier, while

16:03

conspiracy theory, speculation about

16:06

a woman, I think being at the center of a

16:08

case like this, let alone in Australia,

16:11

just tells you how much interest they'll

16:13

be, not just from people like us. I think

16:15

people who have a fixation with true crime

16:18

here and around the world will tune and

16:20

follow every step.

16:21

It's got elements to

16:23

it. It's like Midsimber

16:26

murders and it's got a little bit of Bigger of Dipley

16:28

in it. It's something slightly comical

16:31

about this middle class lady

16:33

that's accused of

16:36

terrible things and she may not

16:38

have done.

16:38

Them, and it's good.

16:40

That's what makes it interesting.

16:42

That's right. It's got a bit of everything. As you

16:44

mentioned. You know, a family sits down for lunch

16:46

and nobody thinks that that's going to happen

16:48

to them, and it's something that people do all the time

16:50

every day, and you know,

16:53

it's of course shouldn't be lost

16:55

here that you know, some kids here have lost

16:57

their grandparents Andou's lost their dad and it's awful.

16:59

But the speculation for this poor family

17:01

in such a small town when we all descend

17:04

on it in twenty twenty five, will

17:06

be massive.

17:07

No doubt about it. Yeah, you're right, it's nothing

17:10

funny about it at its core,

17:13

and particularly for those who have lost loved

17:15

ones. But you can see

17:17

why people are fascinated by it because

17:19

it's happening to respectable

17:22

folk, not to you know, the criminal classes,

17:25

which always makes it more

17:27

intriguing.

17:29

So Aaron Patterson, that is the

17:31

woman accused of three murders, two

17:33

teas, and

17:36

as we speak, she's still accused

17:39

of attempted murder as well of

17:42

her husband several counts of

17:44

that. As we move forward, we don't

17:46

know what the

17:48

jury will actually be told. For

17:51

example, charges may be severed as

17:53

we move along this process,

17:56

witnesses are going to be very interesting,

18:00

especially her ex husband.

18:02

I'm sure, because he had his own problems

18:05

with things. He's eaten. Yes,

18:08

he's had tummy eggs.

18:09

He's had he's had some hospital visits.

18:12

And did they brought the dogs your

18:14

Olivia, the dogs that came to Ballarat.

18:17

I think they had a bit of an outing in South Kipstan,

18:19

did they.

18:19

They've had a busy year, not only in

18:22

Baloti.

18:23

Good dog will do that.

18:25

And so before we got to the point that we're

18:27

at now and as we wait for the trial,

18:29

there was a day when the AFP and

18:31

VIC Pole descended on her property in Leongatha

18:34

Wals. She was with the dogs while she was

18:36

inside, scouring it and sniffing the

18:38

ground, and they did unearth some items there

18:41

and I think they did include USB's and a

18:43

laptop.

18:44

I'm assuming that some witnesses will talk

18:46

to that Anthony.

18:48

I think the electronic footprint here will be central

18:51

to this case. I see be

18:53

very important part of it. A lot of evidence

18:55

will be built around it. And

18:58

we have no idea what is

19:00

on those computers, if anything at all

19:03

could be anything could be anything that'll

19:06

certainly be a big part of this case. All we

19:08

know is that she used to be on

19:10

the Currmborough Flyer, which was a

19:13

newsletter and before that

19:15

she had a bit of a job as an air

19:17

traffic controller. She was

19:19

involved in church activities, She

19:22

loved to travel, who loved travel and camping

19:24

well.

19:24

As Reagan said, the mushroom cookcase is going

19:26

to be one of the biggest things we'll cover in twenty

19:29

twenty five, but it's not going to be

19:31

the only one. There's arson attacks, Middle

19:33

East crime, gangs and biking activity

19:35

and none of them are going away anytime

19:37

soon, and maybe we can talk about

19:39

them in more detail next year.

19:41

Andrew, thank you for coming along.

19:43

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. You've been

19:45

the most informative again. Thanks

19:48

Andrew, Thanks thanks for listening.

19:51

Life in Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production

19:54

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19:56

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