Episode 62 - The Pettingills Part 1

0:15 Welcome back to Crime Besties. Here we are.

0:17 Another week, another episode. Meg, please tell me your week's

0:21 been a little bit better than the last few.

0:23 Yeah, it's totally been fucked up.

0:25 But you know, we're, we're here. We're.

0:28 Here I. Feel like again, I feel like it

0:30 was yesterday we were here. Because this week has gone.

0:33 Like lightning, but gone. And thank God it's gone.

0:37 I'm ready for a new week. Yeah, but a new year would be

0:40 good too. Yeah.

0:41 So we've got one more week of school and then you've got a

0:45 couple of weeks breaks and that probably can't come soon enough

0:48 I'm guessing. I'm really looking forward to

0:50 that. I mean, although I'll probably

0:53 head into work, but yeah, yeah. How about you?

0:56 Though at a slightly slower pace.

0:59 Yeah, exactly. Just take breath.

1:01 I can just need breath. Every teacher I've spoken to, we

1:04 had parent teacher interviews yesterday, and both of the

1:07 teachers we met with both said the same thing.

1:09 Like this has been a mental term.

1:11 There's been so much on, plus it's a short term.

1:14 So much has been crammed into it.

1:15 Yeah, I can't. Like, I think we said this last

1:18 week as well. The kids are exhausted and you

1:21 know we've got one more week to get through so.

1:24 Yeah, and even this week, like there's so much on this week.

1:27 Oh my God, we've like, we've got so many things at school.

1:29 Event, school, colour run. There's Football Day day today,

1:32 Yeah. Oh, there's I can't even think

1:35 of. That kids usually last day of

1:37 school have like free dress day as.

1:38 Well, that's day isn't? It Oh, I'm pretty sure you're.

1:41 Welcome. God.

1:43 We'll go through and we'll confer calendars at the end of

1:45 this, OK? I thought there was something on

1:46 on the Thursday. Yeah, I'm gonna need to.

1:48 Let's let's go through our calendars at the.

1:50 End. But this is what's killing me at

1:51 the moment. I'm someone who I know when like

1:53 everything goes in my calendar and I always say like if it

1:55 doesn't go in the calendar it doesn't happen.

1:57 Yeah, but I'm a week ahead like going right.

1:59 That's how my week is. And by this point I would know

2:02 exactly what's going on for next week and it's all in my head

2:04 anyway. No, no, I'm forgetting things

2:07 and that's telling me I'm too busy.

2:08 Yeah, yeah. But bring on the school holidays

2:12 and a bit of a break from all that my.

2:13 God, sleep, sleep. Yay.

2:16 Well, I've had a busy week personally as well because I

2:20 mean, not only have we had all of the kids activities like this

2:22 week, we had a curriculum day. I don't know Ollie had peer

2:27 mediation training yesterday. So he got he got they got to

2:30 wear free dress to school the grade fives I.

2:32 Saw a few of them wearing this, the free dress and was like

2:35 what's going on there? That's it.

2:36 It's only so few, like few of them.

2:38 And I'm like, it's not a whole no no, just the peer.

2:41 Mediators and they got a free Hot Chip lunch which was the

2:44 highlight. Chip lunch.

2:45 That's so. Isn't that gorgeous?

2:47 They loved it, but you know what they have to do as peer

2:50 mediators. I think this is so funny.

2:53 They wear vests at recess and lunchtime.

2:55 So there's a roster. Yeah.

2:57 And you wear a vest at recess and lunchtime.

3:00 And then if there's some kind of conflict in the yard, the yard

3:04 duty teacher will get them peer mediators to try and sort it out

3:07 first. Now, three things.

3:10 First thing, the vests. They're always like 3 sizes too

3:14 big for them. Second thing, having grade fives

3:17 and it goes into next year as well.

3:19 So they do it turn 1-2 and three for next year as well.

3:22 Yeah. You know, having grade fives and

3:25 grade sixes, mediating, I just think that's absolutely

3:28 gorgeous. Oh, could you imagine?

3:30 I I actually can't. I'm actually loving that.

3:32 I'm thinking, like, the sorts of things that Oliver might, you

3:36 know, instill in the children and also, like, get them to do.

3:38 Yeah, exactly. I'm like, this is quite

3:40 creative. This is.

3:42 Very creative, so I'm looking forward to hearing some stories

3:44 about about what comes with that.

3:45 Oh yeah, so. I bet you're the yard duty

3:47 teachers are like oh you fucking let them deal with it.

3:49 I just can't even. As a yard duty teacher, one of

3:51 my pet hates was the fact of like you'd get called over to

3:55 something that had already occurred and kids are like

3:58 already at each other but you had no context.

4:01 Like you did not see any of what went on and you're meant to now

4:04 make a decision of who gets the ball or whatever it is.

4:07 Like, you know and you know that no matter what, you're not going

4:10 to get it right because you just, you don't know what

4:12 happens. It actually.

4:13 Matters and so you no and so you're hearing the kids out kind

4:16 of going. I I don't know, I hated that.

4:22 Like, yeah, you want, you wouldn't have seen it to go

4:24 kids. Come up and they're just like

4:26 whiny and annoying like they're like, yes, such and such, said

4:30 this to. Me ultimate favorite that I

4:32 still refer to today was this little like I think must have

4:35 been a preppy sort of thing or grade one.

4:37 Actually, it might have been came running up to me going

4:39 miss. So once I just said the E word,

4:44 I'm like oh God, the E word. And I'm racking my brain like Oh

4:47 God. OK, so.

4:48 I mean, I know my swears. I know my.

4:50 Swears I'm pretty good with them and I don't think of an E1 E

4:54 word like E I'm not sure what do you mean how like I'm thinking

4:57 how bad could this be? Yeah, exactly that I do I need

5:00 to intervene Yeah. And then I'm like, OK, well you

5:03 can say the word, but just once, just so I can understand how bad

5:07 this like what I need to do here is and saddles up to me and

5:10 goes, he said. Idiot.

5:15 Oh, that's so cute. Oh.

5:17 OK, well look, not a nice word, but I think we can move on the E

5:24 word. That is so funny.

5:27 Yeah, that is so, so classic. I love it.

5:29 Love a preppy. You're innocent, kid.

5:32 But then also it would get annoying.

5:34 Can you imagine out you coming up just going I've said fuck

5:36 again. Never hear it at home so I don't

5:40 know where they get it from. No idea where that comes from.

5:43 No, no, no. So on account of my recent

5:48 significant birthday this week, I've had so many appointments.

5:52 So I'm like, this is a public service announcement to everyone

5:56 to get your shit checked. Because this week I had booked

5:59 in my skin check, which was due, and I have to actually have a

6:03 biopsy of one of my moles. God.

6:05 So I mean, I think it's fine. Yeah.

6:07 Yeah. But just to be 100?

6:09 Percent Are you sure far prefer to just Oh yeah, check and.

6:11 Be on. Yeah, it'll be fine.

6:13 And then I've got two more we're keeping an eye on.

6:15 And then I also had my breast screen this week because I've

6:19 got a family history of breast cancer.

6:20 So you can go and have breast screen from 40.

6:22 Another public service now. Get on it, ladies.

6:24 Have you who has checked? Yeah, uncomfortable for like 30,

6:28 30 seconds, you know, just do it.

6:30 Job. Yeah, I've got to bite the

6:31 bullet. I haven't done one.

6:32 Yeah, you need to do it. Yeah.

6:34 And then what else have I done? I just feel like I've had all my

6:37 appointments this week to like really get.

6:39 Myself, your old lady appointment.

6:40 Yes, I'm having an iron infusion this afternoon.

6:42 Jealous. I'm jealous of that.

6:44 Like. Literally just getting myself

6:46 into tip top shape because I feel like you, I feel so

6:49 depleted at the minute. So like, I don't know everyone.

6:53 We we were just talking before we started recording even.

6:56 Like you're just randomly talking to mums at school.

6:59 Yeah, everyone's exhausted. It's just so like, I cannot wait

7:02 for spring, the nice weather. Hopefully that'll bring us some

7:05 much needed energy. I mean.

7:07 That's the thing that doesn't even mean that bad.

7:09 The weather, like it's not terrible, it's not gloomy like

7:11 it's. Not but it I'd like a bit more

7:13 sun. Oh, look, I'll take the sun with

7:15 it. But it's not been horrendous.

7:16 No, I think so. The only thing I'm kind of

7:19 blaming on maybe like is that there's some sort of eclipse

7:22 occurring. Apparently I was.

7:23 Told there was a blood moon this week.

7:25 Oh, see, there you go. It's we're all becoming

7:27 werewolves. The last.

7:30 Time there was a blood moon was in was like 3 or 4 years ago,

7:33 right? So, you know, it's a, it's a

7:35 fairly, you know, significant event.

7:38 Yeah, OK. Right.

7:39 That's. Gonna be 1 calendar.

7:40 Oh. 'Cause my kids are feral.

7:42 Like I, I said think I said to you like last week.

7:44 I'm like, I swear to God, I thought I was getting my period

7:46 because I was like, I was an absolute she wolf.

7:51 And I'm like, why am I feeling like this?

7:53 Like I don't know why. I don't feel like wrong, like oh

7:56 God, it's got to be that, but it's not.

7:58 I don't know. I think it's just life at the

8:00 minute. It's crazy.

8:02 Yeah, yes, yes. But anyway.

8:04 But you've still got to make time to do all of those things

8:06 that you have to do and keep yourself nice and healthy.

8:08 Absolutely. Do it.

8:10 Yeah. We need time in our brains to

8:11 get the research done. So because we're here for the

8:14 people. Oh yeah, we are.

8:15 Although both of us this week were like, oh, could we have

8:18 done more? Some more I reckon, but the

8:20 thing I think with this one you could do endless amounts too.

8:23 Yeah. So it's probably worth saying

8:25 we're splitting this episode up into two parts, So you'll hear

8:28 the first part this week and the second part next week.

8:31 Yeah. And that's because there is so

8:34 much to this family. So we're, we're discussing the

8:37 Pettingill family, mm, hmm. And all of the subsidiaries of

8:41 that. So we're gonna split this into

8:44 two because it and even then, even in two episodes, we're not

8:47 gonna cover. It no, there's no way there's no

8:49 way you can do through 4. You do a full series on them

8:52 just alone easily. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

8:54 But yeah. So we're gonna split it up and

8:55 we'll talk today about, you know, Kath Pettingill, the clan,

8:59 as they're kind of referred to by even by a lot of people refer

9:02 to the clan. The matriarch being Kath will

9:05 talk about her and probably her out and her eldest son Dennis a

9:08 fair bit today. But then and we'll really focus

9:11 next week on a particular crime linked to this family that were

9:15 that's they were put on trial for it, etcetera.

9:17 But is the Wall Street killings that happened in Melbourne.

9:20 So yeah, so we'll focus on that next week, but and that'll be a

9:24 key focus of that. And obviously the family members

9:26 that were linked to that. Yeah.

9:28 So, yeah. But this, this I think we'll

9:30 break it up in that they'll be very full episodes.

9:33 Yeah, a lot in both. Yeah, enough to sink your teeth

9:36 into, but there'll be a similarity in across both being

9:40 the same family involved in what we're talking about.

9:43 Absolutely. Just before we get started in

9:45 today's episode that I do have a few shout outs.

9:47 Oh. Definitely.

9:48 So oh, actually the other thing I've wanted to talk about, and I

9:52 think we should do it in this episode because this is

9:53 obviously coming out first, the mushroom verdict.

9:56 Oh my God, how did we not even get into this thing?

9:59 No. I know, Oh my God, so because I

10:02 loved I literally all weekend was like right Monday morning.

10:04 I know I can get done stuff at work.

10:06 I can sit in my office, put my earbuds in and have like, you

10:08 know, it running and I could listen to the verdict.

10:10 But, like, my morning was insane, as it always is at the

10:13 moment. And yeah.

10:14 So when I got your message, are you listening to the verdict

10:17 that I was like, shit, get back to my office.

10:21 Nobody talked to me, nobody interrupted me.

10:25 Like, Oh my God, to listen to it live was definitely valuable.

10:28 Like I, I, I liked being able to do that.

10:31 Yeah, me too. That was awesome.

10:32 That was really great. And it's something that we've

10:34 never been able to do in Australia before.

10:36 No, it's the camera to have been on it.

10:39 Wouldn't that have? Been great.

10:40 So you could only see Justice Biel.

10:42 Yeah, but the fact that you were able to hear every, everywhere,

10:46 he added, was amazing. Because I mean, you can read the

10:49 transcripts and things potentially afterwards, but to

10:52 hear them speak the words, I really do think it has a bit

10:55 different impact. Like I.

10:56 Definitely think that. And I, I thought the way he

10:59 spoke, I mean, he's just obviously a very respectable

11:04 man. And.

11:05 Very level headed. He had really good reasonings

11:08 and the way he structured the, you know, the delivery of it

11:11 was, was great. Yeah.

11:14 But then I also really appreciated the fact that he

11:16 used people's statements in his delivery of the verdict.

11:22 And like, he swore like, live on TV, like in a live broadcast.

11:28 I'm like wow. Yes, it.

11:30 Was very, very interesting. But for those, I mean, I think

11:33 everybody probably knows, but for those of you who don't know,

11:36 he was. Aaron Patterson was sentenced to

11:40 25 years for the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson and then

11:44 life imprisonment for the murders of GAIL.

11:50 Oh, my God. I've just had a mental blank.

11:52 Don and GAIL Patterson. Yeah.

11:54 And Heather Wilkinson. Yeah.

11:56 Sorry I just had a total mental blank.

11:57 There. Oh well, there's a bit of a man

11:59 in your brain at the moment. Yeah, there's other names that

12:01 are going around in my head. Yeah.

12:03 And then he was, he sentenced her to a 33 year non parole

12:08 period, which, OK, so when you and I were chatting back and

12:12 forth, yeah, what's going on? We were like, oh, that seems

12:14 woefully inadequate. Yeah, I would have liked to.

12:16 Have been minimum 40. But then I also, now that I've

12:20 read a lot more about it, I totally understand where he's

12:23 coming from because there is precedent for a 33 years for

12:26 three murders. Yeah.

12:26 And that is with the Farkwesen case.

12:29 So he got the same sentence. He got three life sentences.

12:33 Yeah, with a 33 year minimum term.

12:36 And I feel like if he hadn't have, if he had have sentenced

12:39 Erin to more than so that he so Farkwesen is serving the longest

12:43 prison sentence with a non parole period in Victoria at the

12:46 moment. Yeah.

12:47 If he had have sentenced Erin to more than that, it could have

12:50 opened up up because there's no precedent.

12:53 It could have opened up even more reason for a challenge or

12:56 appeal, which we don't know if she's doing that yet, although I

12:59 suspect she will. But I don't know, they didn't

13:02 appeal the the conviction at all either.

13:05 They don't. Have to appeal the conviction

13:06 until the sentences handed down OK, so they've got 28 days from

13:11 from Monday, right to appeal either the conviction, the

13:15 conviction or the sentence or both right OK so they've got

13:20 until I think it's early October, like the 6th of October

13:22 or something like that to in order to do that but.

13:25 They've not indicated prior to this like the any any.

13:29 But they only have to indicate by the 6th.

13:31 Yes, that's right. It doesn't mean that the no,

13:34 that's. It happened on that.

13:35 But there's been no talk prior to the sentencing that, you

13:39 know, like normally you'll hear like, you know, oh, they have

13:41 intentions of, you know, of, of appealing this.

13:45 You'll hear that pretty early on, like the minute they walk

13:46 out of the court and when they've got the conviction,

13:48 they'll be like, you know, we'll be appealing this quite clearly.

13:51 Like it's obvious. But in in this one, to me,

13:53 there's no obvious reason to be appealing.

13:55 And I think that that what the judge has done in this

13:57 sentencing has made this a little bit less likely to be

14:01 appealed even from here. For that reason, I do completely

14:03 get it. I agree with that, yeah, I

14:05 really do agree with that. However, she maintains her

14:09 innocence and so I don't think she can because even her her

14:14 defence barrister conceded in their final in their conviction,

14:21 yes. What was it the pre sentence

14:22 hearing? Yes, he conceded yes, she should

14:24 absolutely get life in prison for these.

14:26 But he appealed for a minimal non parole period.

14:30 Yeah, right. Yeah.

14:31 So he conceded that she you know, she's been convicted of

14:35 three murders. She should be getting life in

14:36 prison for those 3 murders. Yeah.

14:38 But what I think they might do is because she's still to this

14:42 day maintains her innocence, which also then added weight to

14:46 Justice Beal's sentence because he said she's shown no remorse

14:50 by still saying she's innocent. But then I'm like, are they

14:54 going to then use that? Because if she had A at at any

14:58 point gone, yeah, all right, I am guilty of this.

15:00 She might have received a a more lenient sentence.

15:02 This is it. I mean, she's she's admitted

15:05 that there was definitely death cat mushrooms in the mail.

15:08 Yes, she did that from the get go.

15:10 So, well, not from the get go. Well, no, no, no, like no, not

15:12 from the, I mean from the. Start of the trial.

15:14 Trial is what I meant like from the trial point she did

15:18 obviously still then thinking like in the the idea that then

15:21 it is manslaughter that she that they went in there but she had

15:24 no idea that's what they were I guess but her actions after.

15:30 Well, that's what that's why. Which is what is you know,

15:32 transpired. Yeah yeah.

15:34 So I think that though I just. It'll be interesting to say.

15:38 There's been a lot that's come out since that I know is not

15:41 part of this. Even no matter what comes out

15:43 now publicly, that doesn't affect what goes on in the court

15:47 hearings that she could be potentially brought, other

15:51 charges could potentially still be brought to her.

15:54 So do you want to, I don't know, do you want to roll the dice on

15:57 that? Do you know what I mean?

15:58 Like if they do go appealing this, I think that that's only

16:01 driving, you know, investigators and things to find other things

16:06 to get put on her because I think that she should see the

16:09 light of day. No, I mean, I think she's

16:11 dangerous. If she gets out, if she so at

16:14 the end of the 33 years, she can apply for bail, Yeah, or for

16:18 parole. But that doesn't mean she'll get

16:21 it. No, but she'll be 82 at that

16:23 point, yes. So.

16:26 And that's. Not for mushrooms.

16:27 That's exactly what I said. I said to her, like, are you 2

16:31 foraging for mushrooms? Yeah, I think she could again.

16:33 And I think you. Could.

16:34 And seriously, from what? We're just not that old.

16:37 No, I mean, you're not going over to her place to have a meal

16:39 and like or even like allowing her to buy you a drink at the

16:42 cafe. Like and I know I'll get my own

16:44 thanks. Like, there's no way I would

16:47 trust her in terms of coming out even at 82 and not doing this,

16:51 you know? What I think is going to be

16:52 really interesting because they're now saying like

16:55 obviously throughout the the trial there was there were

16:59 documentary crews, yeah, following it so much to come.

17:02 There's going to be a lot coming out.

17:03 I'm sure there's some more long form podcast.

17:06 I mean, Simon Patterson, I think he's writing a book and

17:08 producing a podcast and that'll be really interesting to see

17:14 what comes out there. Yeah, but I don't know.

17:20 I, I, I just, I feel as though she, she I agree with you.

17:24 She should never see the light of day.

17:26 Again, but I feel like she's the kind of prisoner who will behave

17:30 in jail, right? Because she's not going to be in

17:33 contact with anyone else as it is.

17:34 Like kind of she's going to be so isolated because she's now

17:37 notorious that without that opportunity in that time to be

17:42 in contact with other people, that she will in behaviour look

17:46 as though she's ready for parole.

17:49 But then she's, yeah, she's not a violent criminal in that sense

17:52 that she's not in like a prison where she's like, oh, shake the

17:55 crap out of this person. She's shanked that person.

17:57 Yeah. Like she's not.

17:58 So that's not going to be the case where you kind of go, well,

18:00 yeah, they need to be still in jail.

18:02 She's going to look like the model prisoner and come out into

18:05 the society again and hold her shit together and be poisoning

18:08 people left, right and centre potentially.

18:10 Like I just, I don't know, I don't trust the system on this

18:13 one. Yeah.

18:14 And then the other thing is like the people who are responsible

18:18 for The Who, who'll be on the parole board in 33 years,

18:22 possibly haven't even been born yet.

18:23 So, but contextually, you know, there's a lot around that, isn't

18:29 it? Actually got my son, my eldest

18:30 son on that parole board there. Like he's, yeah, he'll be down

18:34 for this. He was the one that he heard

18:35 that there was an outcome and he came and asked me about it.

18:37 And I was like, well, yes, I can give you a little bit of

18:40 information and like something like talking about this stuff

18:43 with my kids. But no, he's really into it.

18:45 It's just. Been everywhere.

18:46 It has. And so we had a chat and he was

18:48 the one going like, well, I'm not going to her place for

18:50 dinner. Good boy.

18:53 Yeah. So he's onto it that yeah, she's

18:57 not someone to be trusted. I don't.

18:59 I really don't think that, but then do.

19:00 You think we're going to find out a lot more about crime,

19:03 potential alleged crimes past throughout whatever's going to

19:07 come out? Yeah, soon.

19:09 So I'm super super. Cute.

19:10 I'm just hearing all sorts of things.

19:12 Yeah, at the moment, yeah. That can't be proven and that

19:16 can be proven like you know with with investigations, so.

19:20 Yeah, wait and see. What's this space?

19:22 All right, we should probably. Oh, wait a minute.

19:24 I haven't done my shout outs yet.

19:25 I was about to say we should get in, but we have a massive thank

19:28 you to Fiona Wilton for Buy Me a Coffee.

19:30 Yes. Patreon's Esme Dixon and Claire

19:35 O'Sullivan, thank you very, very much for joining us over on

19:37 Patreon. We've then had a bumper

19:41 Instagram again. I think we had one last week.

19:44 Again, we've had a similar amount of engagement this week.

19:46 So thanks to everybody on any of our social platforms.

19:49 It's really, really helpful. We've got Lucy Morris.

19:52 I am Angela Joy and Alison Tan. Just thanks, ladies.

19:57 I just love it. Thank you very, very much.

20:00 Yeah. Should we get into today's case?

20:02 Let's get into this one. There's so much today.

20:06 So much. All right, well, we're talking

20:07 about the infamous Pettingill clan.

20:11 They are a Melbourne crime family.

20:14 We're talking pre gangland and then into the early sort of

20:18 early gangland time in Melbourne and they were just crims from

20:25 the get go, weren't they? Well.

20:27 Yeah, even going back prior to like this family that we're

20:29 talking about, you know, this insular family family, Yeah,

20:33 there's, you know, prior to that, you know, Kath, the

20:36 matriarch that we mentioned, like even beyond that they were

20:39 all they've, she's grown up in this.

20:40 This is yeah, yeah. Insane.

20:42 Let's start off by talking about Kath.

20:44 So Kath is the matriarch of the Pettingill family.

20:47 She was born on the 27th of March in 1935, and she had a

20:53 very interesting upbringing in and of herself.

20:57 Yeah. So her mother was a serial

21:01 bigamist. I didn't know this is this is

21:05 the stuff I didn't know a lot about Kath.

21:06 I've I've heard a lot about Kath and her than her kin, like her

21:11 family, that her offspring and all her children.

21:13 Exactly, but I didn't know much until.

21:15 This week when you go back to who she is.

21:18 You totally get it. It really makes.

21:20 More sense like of how this occurred and who she is like

21:23 well. Just wait, guys.

21:27 Yeah, She had a sister named Wilma and a younger sister named

21:32 Barbara who died when she was really young, when Kath was.

21:38 Kath was 6 and her sister was, I think, 4.

21:40 When she passed away, she actually had polio, her younger

21:44 sister. And apparently the the way in

21:48 which she died was incredibly tragic.

21:50 So they knew she'd had polio. And a family friend who had a

21:56 car, she was getting very, very much, you know, her health was

22:01 deteriorating. The family friend came to take

22:03 her to the hospital. And as he was carrying her out

22:06 of the house into the car, she died in his arms.

22:09 And Kath was there. She saw this all happen.

22:12 It's absolutely horrific. Then apparently, Kath said this

22:18 as this. It was all playing out, Kath

22:20 said to Wilma, her other sister. Step onto the road, Wilma, and

22:25 you could die too. Now Kath was six.

22:30 Yeah, Kath was six at the time. And this family friend who came

22:33 to take Barbara to the hospital couldn't believe it was

22:37 absolutely blown away, like what 6 year old said.

22:41 And it was apparently she was just deadpan.

22:43 Like. There was nothing there.

22:45 Oh my. God, yeah.

22:47 Oh, that's awful. Yeah, that's who she was from

22:51 very young. From very young, that was.

22:53 Born This Way, yes. She was Born This Way, yes.

22:56 So Kath was mostly brought up by her grandmother.

22:59 And a great grandmother. Yeah, great.

23:00 Grandmother because her mother was well, she was a teen parent

23:05 and was absolutely unable to cope with her three then two

23:09 daughters. I think the fact that Barbara

23:11 died was the sort of the end of it, although, as in the end of

23:17 any sort of extra contact she then had with Wilma and Kath.

23:21 Yeah, but they'd basically been living with their grandmother

23:23 and great grandmother for most of their lives, hadn't they?

23:27 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because so Kath's dad, she was

23:32 told, had gone off to war. And so then her mum was left on

23:36 her own with the kids, didn't cope and didn't cope.

23:40 But I believe that's not actually what happened.

23:43 So I believe her dad actually committed suicide.

23:46 That was after he came back from war.

23:48 No, that, no, no. Sorry, that was well, he was

23:50 over there. Yes, you're.

23:52 Right. Yeah.

23:53 You're absolutely right. Yeah, so she was told that he

23:56 died at war, but he didn't. Yes, sorry.

23:58 You're absolutely right. Yeah, he committed suicide.

24:02 Yeah, while he was at war. Yeah, that was because Kat's mum

24:05 was sending him all these horrific messes about how much

24:08 she hated him and how awful he was.

24:11 She really drove him to that. Like, he was apparently quite a

24:14 decent bloke. Yeah.

24:16 And, you know, so him coming home could have meant that they

24:19 could have had quite a good lifestyle together and raised

24:22 their family. Yeah, but she like relentlessly

24:26 just destroyed him in letters, like, and she was off with other

24:30 men and all these sorts of things too.

24:31 Yeah. So and she would send him

24:33 letters about all this and how he was telling him he was an

24:36 awful person, all that sort of stuff.

24:37 And yeah, yeah, ended up he, they sort of referred to it as

24:41 saying, you know, like, yes, he committed, he committed suicide.

24:43 But actually it was Kat's mum basically killed him.

24:46 Like from from a distance, from afar.

24:48 Yeah, I mean, he must have had some shit going on.

24:51 I mean, the fact that he was at war as well as just a really bad

24:54 sort of circumstances, Beth and Wilma, and I assume Barbara, up

24:59 until the point of her very young death, they didn't

25:02 actually even know that their mother was their mother.

25:04 They assumed their grandmother was their mother and their great

25:07 grandmother was their grandmother.

25:09 And their mum was their sister. Their mum was their sister and

25:12 the mum would their mum would come back and re emerge very

25:15 sporadically throughout their lives.

25:17 And Wilma was apparently deathly afraid of her.

25:20 She was a drug addict. She was really off the planet.

25:24 And Wilma never wanted to go with her.

25:26 Kath always wanted to go with her.

25:30 Yeah, Anytime she came, Kath would go.

25:33 So one day she came back and tried to take the girls for the

25:36 day. Wilma didn't go.

25:38 She stayed at home with her grandmother and great

25:41 grandmother. Yeah, but so they just took

25:45 Kath. So Kath's mom and her boyfriend

25:48 at the time took Kath and they went on a bus and then the

25:53 boyfriend hijacked the boss. Like the public boss.

25:57 Oh my God. He then, I think they did let

26:01 everyone off, but he then drove the bus over a Cliff in the

26:05 Dandenongs. Holy shit.

26:10 Yeah, and Kath watched it and thought it was the best thing

26:12 she'd ever seen. Oh my.

26:15 God. Like this is just a bit of an

26:17 idea of. What the lifestyle she was

26:19 living was in. Like, and that wasn't like, Oh

26:21 my fucking God. It was like, oh cool.

26:23 Yeah, so no wonder the you can understand the oldest like the

26:26 other. So the other sister going, oh,

26:28 I'm don't want to hang out with these.

26:29 I don't want to spend time with these people.

26:31 Like that's not safe and staying home.

26:33 But then but you can imagine this little calf going like give

26:37 me that. I want that that adrenaline

26:39 rush. I want that kind of feeling and

26:41 want to be with that. It's interesting then to say

26:45 like, you know, how it plays out, how that plays out.

26:47 Yeah. But everyone noted that she was

26:49 a very strange child and that she did very, a lot of very

26:54 unusual things, one being praying to Satan instead of God.

27:00 I mean, she, because apparently she, but they weren't overly

27:03 religious, the family, but they were like, you know, spent time

27:05 at church and things. But she read the Bible and

27:08 decided that Satan was more powerful than God, clearly.

27:11 And so I liked him. So I'll, I'll pray to him

27:14 instead. And I mean, not many kids would

27:18 have a forethought to do that. I mean, they, you know, they,

27:20 they, they played over their brains.

27:22 You can, you know, manipulate them how you like.

27:24 And no, she had her own thoughts on things very clearly and how

27:28 she was going to manage her, her life.

27:30 But she, yeah, apparently prayed to Satan that she would have to

27:33 have 10 children, which I find that really interesting, that

27:35 she wanted to desperately not even just be a mother, which

27:39 have a but have a massive family.

27:41 But to me, very minimal motherly instinct, by the sounds of

27:45 things, of the. Kind of.

27:46 Well, I actually disagree with that to a certain extent

27:49 because, yeah. But we'll get we'll.

27:51 Get into her motherhood in a minute.

27:52 But I actually disagree with that.

27:54 I think she she wanted to create this.

28:00 Family. She wanted to create an army.

28:02 Not to me, not a family. Oh, OK.

28:05 I don't know. Yeah, I think that's, oh, I

28:07 don't know. Is that circumstantial?

28:09 Is that just the way it panned out?

28:10 I mean, obviously she had, you know, her fingers in a lot of

28:15 bad pies. But anyway, let's let's get into

28:18 her kids. Maybe.

28:20 Yeah. So.

28:21 Well, actually, just really quickly.

28:23 Wilma, her sister, Yeah. Grew up to be a civil servant.

28:26 She lived in camp lives still to this day.

28:29 I believe in Canberra as a civil servant.

28:31 Wow. Very, very clean skin Life.

28:33 Never. Completely different to

28:34 completely. Different but I believe she and

28:36 Cath were are in contact and they still have an OK

28:40 relationship. I'm assuming Baluma doesn't ask

28:43 questions. That's the only kind of

28:45 relationship I think you'd want to have with her if you were

28:47 elated or know, yeah, or know of her.

28:49 Like I'd, I'd, I'd be very pleasant to her as well.

28:53 Yeah, move away. So when Kath was 16, yeah, her

28:58 first son, Dennis, was born to a father named Ryan Dennis.

29:03 Ryan. Ryan Dennis Ryan.

29:04 Sorry. Yeah.

29:05 So yeah, that's right. Sorry.

29:07 I've written Ryan because. Of Dennis, yeah to.

29:09 Distinish it, sorry. Yeah, and he didn't want to

29:13 marry her, but at the time pregnant 16 year old kind of had

29:18 no other choice. And given as you said, they

29:20 weren't religious, but I think the kids went to like Catholic

29:23 schools. And yeah, they were definitely

29:24 involved in the church. They just weren't that into it.

29:27 But they were definitely involved in the church.

29:29 Yeah, so they ended up getting married.

29:33 The first time they attempted to get married, he actually stood

29:38 her up at the altar. He didn't show up.

29:40 Yeah. And then they've obviously

29:42 reorganized the wedding again. And this time, she kept him

29:45 waiting, just to give him a taste of his own medicine.

29:48 Well, I think that that's the minimum that she should have.

29:50 Done. He got offline.

29:51 Yeah. He served in World War 2 and

30:00 they were only together for a couple of years.

30:02 They did have another child together and at the time Dennis

30:09 didn't actually know who his birth mother was.

30:12 So in the same way that Kath didn't really know that her mum

30:16 was her mum, thought her mum was her sister.

30:19 That exact scenario is what played out when Kath had Dennis.

30:26 Kath's grandmother actually brought Dennis up.

30:30 Yeah, yeah. And again, Dennis believed that

30:34 Kath was his sister, older sister who was in and out of

30:38 their lives. A bit like she wasn't always

30:40 around. Yeah.

30:42 Don't you think that's mental? I really do have.

30:44 You known the trauma of that. Yes.

30:47 And yet she's just gone and done that to her own, to her own

30:51 children because her second. So Dennis Bruce Allen, he was

30:56 born in 1951. Yeah.

31:00 Their second son was Peter Allen.

31:02 He was born in 1953. So I think they're only about

31:05 actually 18 months apart. Yeah.

31:07 And they both thought that their great grandmother was their mom.

31:15 Yeah. It's weird, but they were all so

31:18 young. Like the great grandmother

31:19 wouldn't have even been 60. No, she was still young.

31:22 Yeah. So yeah.

31:24 Just insane. Like it's just, yeah, I can't

31:27 get my head around those sorts of.

31:29 Things it really, it actually really does blow my mind.

31:31 Yeah, it really does blow my mind, yeah.

31:33 So yeah, Kath told the boys that she was their sister.

31:37 Like it was an Yeah, No, it wasn't just just.

31:39 You heard it was. Yeah.

31:41 Completely understood by them all that that's that's your

31:43 sister. Yeah, so the boys found out that

31:46 Kath was their mum when they were both in a in the Toronto

31:49 boys home. So they were both

31:51 institutionalized because they were petty crim.

31:54 Well, not petty criminals, they were criminal criminals.

31:56 Yeah, and they were in the Toronto boys home and she wrote

31:59 them a letter to let them know. Oh, by the way, I'm actually not

32:02 your sister. Yeah.

32:03 And apparently, like Dennis really took that pretty hard.

32:07 Yeah, yeah, he did not cope with.

32:09 That identity crisis, and he was a teen, so I think he was only

32:12 13 when he found out. Yeah, which I mean, that's old

32:15 enough to comprehend and understand.

32:17 It's also like. You are forming your identity at

32:20 13. Yeah, you know.

32:21 And I think. And The thing is that Kath did

32:22 it so heartlessly. Yeah.

32:25 Like that she thought that this was nothing but.

32:27 Oh, yeah, you're old. I don't know that I'm actually

32:28 your mom. Yeah.

32:29 I mean, but yeah, so I think she just thought it was just a bit

32:31 of like, oh, I'll let you know now.

32:33 But it actually had impact on. I just, yeah.

32:39 No thought process from her end in terms of the impact of that,

32:42 but definitely had impacts. Yeah.

32:45 Yeah. Oh man.

32:47 Dennis and Peter didn't really get along very well.

32:52 They there was a lot of conflict between them as brothers.

32:55 And one of the stories that really got me, and I think this

32:59 will get you if you don't know it already.

33:00 Yeah. So basically this was when they

33:04 were a little bit older, they had their own homes and Peter

33:09 had done something to really piss Dennis off and he so Dennis

33:15 went over to Peter's place to, I think, honestly, I think he was

33:17 going there to kill him, but Peter wasn't home.

33:20 So what he did instead is he Peter had two dogs.

33:25 He shot them up with hot shots of amphetamines and put them at

33:29 the bottom of the empty pool in the backyard of Peter's house,

33:33 right. And basically, when Peter got

33:38 home, he found that his dogs, because they'd had this massive

33:42 dose of methamphetamine, they had viciously mauled each other

33:47 to death, and they were just dead in the bottom of the pool,

33:50 blood everywhere. Oh my God, that's just awful.

33:56 It's. Fucked up.

33:57 And he would have. He would have known what he was

34:00 doing in that sense. He knew what the impact of that

34:03 hot shot kind of thing would do like.

34:05 They were, I, I mean, Dennis for sure, what was a methamphetamine

34:09 user? Oh yeah, yeah.

34:10 He would use he would use amphetamines to go days and days

34:16 and days without sleep. Oh, he was known to just

34:19 currently had a tourniquet around his his arm so that he

34:21 could just whenever he wanted one, have another.

34:23 Shot and friends of his or friends, acquaintances, whatever

34:26 people who hung around him said he would.

34:28 He would have a have a go every 15 minutes just to keep himself

34:32 going. There were periods of time where

34:34 he would be awake for two weeks at a time without having rest.

34:38 Apparently he was an absolute monster when he was on these

34:42 benders. Yes, he didn't know who he was,

34:44 where he was. There were times where he tried

34:47 to murder anyone and everyone around him.

34:49 He went to murder Kath one day because he didn't know who Kath.

34:52 Was on numerous times he would chase Kath around and stuff

34:55 thinking it was his, she was his girlfriend or whatever, which he

34:57 did not treat them well. And he either that he would.

35:00 Yeah. So like, yeah, she would have to

35:02 like, say to him. But Dennis, Dennis, I'm your

35:05 mother. I'm your mother.

35:06 Like don't. No, no, don't.

35:07 Kill me, kill me. I'm only I'm your mother.

35:09 Find someone else. Find your girlfriend to go and

35:11 do that too. Yeah.

35:14 So he would just completely black out in terms of what was

35:17 going on around him. He it was bad, yeah.

35:21 I think the fact that he, like, he was the kingpin of, of crime

35:27 in, in a suburban Melbourne in the 70s and 80s, yeah.

35:31 And Kath was even scared of him, which I think that's saying

35:33 something. But she's not scared by her

35:36 mum's boyfriend driving a bus off the cliffs in the

35:38 Dandenongs, but she's scared of her own son.

35:41 Oh, yeah. You know, I think that says a

35:42 lot. Yes, Dennis was clever in a lot

35:46 of ways. Yes, he built up a an insane

35:50 drug empire. At the peak of his earnings in

35:55 this space he was earning 70,000.

35:57 Now I'm talking this is back in the 70s and 80s.

36:00 He was earning $70,000 a week. Yeah.

36:03 So there was a calculation I saw of like that they worked as

36:06 about 3.3 to 5 million a year, which in today's money would be

36:11 about 21 mil a year. Wow.

36:14 Yeah. So he was raking it in and like,

36:18 so there's varying reports on it, but that was kind of like

36:21 the one that I heard more often than not.

36:24 Right. Yeah.

36:25 And he had a lot of police officers on the take as well.

36:27 So yes, I mean, we're talking. A very famous one at that.

36:30 Yeah, we're talking back in the 70s and 80s.

36:34 There was a lot of corruption within Victoria Police at the

36:36 time, many police forces across the country and across the

36:39 world. Things are very, very different

36:41 these. Days stuff that like you know

36:42 that yeah has taken place with the cops in this I I you got a

36:46 question both ends a little oh a lot maybe a lot a lot yeah, he

36:51 was. Paying.

36:52 There were two police officers in particular, I think one of

36:55 which that you were referring to before.

36:57 He was paying them $1000 a day per cop.

37:01 There were two of them for their essentially for their protection

37:05 and their silence. Yeah, $1000.

37:08 Now as a cop, what would you wear?

37:10 I don't know what their salaries were.

37:12 Back not $1000 a day. I'm tipping like that would be,

37:15 I think. You're earning an extra.

37:17 Five, I mean, at that time, that era, I'd say 1000 bucks a week.

37:20 If they were earning 1000 bucks a week as a cop, that would earn

37:22 a lot of money. I highly.

37:23 Doubt it was a month. Exactly.

37:25 Exactly. Oh.

37:26 It's just an extraordinary amount of money, Yeah, it's just

37:31 insane, yes. So at this time, when you know

37:34 Dennis is going around, he's the kingpin of this inner suburban

37:37 Melbourne. Kath was actually running a

37:40 brothel at the time and they had a little nice little setup where

37:44 Cats brothel was right next door to Dennis's drug house.

37:48 Which purposely he had done that set that up because basically

37:52 the brothel is a legal place to. Run.

37:54 It wasn't at the time. Oh, at the time they weren't

37:56 legal. It was a rub and tug.

37:57 It was a massage part. Oh, that's right, Massage it was

37:59 too. So basically the cops would raid

38:01 this place though. So what?

38:03 They would operate their things out of there, but what they

38:06 would do is have from the building next door, they would

38:08 literally, you know, shift everything from the other door

38:11 or something. They built all these trapdoors

38:13 and things to get things around so that basically when the cops

38:16 would come in and raid, they'd find nothing.

38:18 They knew knew this stuff was going on.

38:19 They'd come in and get it, but it wouldn't be there because

38:21 they would take split seconds for them to just remove it as

38:24 they saw the cops arriving through these trap doors and

38:27 windows, etc, into the building next door.

38:29 Yeah. I mean, and the cops didn't seem

38:31 to catch on to the fact that to go on like, I mean, they

38:33 couldn't get a warrant then to do the next door house, you

38:35 know, and things like that. So, yeah.

38:37 And it's insane. And then I would assume that,

38:40 you know, given how much money was involved, they probably had

38:43 some people higher up who they were paying off as well.

38:45 Who you know, we're like, no, no, no, we're not going to do

38:48 that. No, don't worry about them.

38:49 We'll leave them alone because. Other than what they do too is

38:52 like they would have weapons, they'd have guns.

38:54 I mean the kind of level of guns they would have was insane.

38:58 I mean, this is prior to our gun reforms too, so that you know

39:01 wasn't they weren't legally obtained though in anyway.

39:04 So what they would do is they would actually attach these guns

39:07 to rope so that they would could then just put them hang them

39:11 over the fence so that because if it was was not in your on on

39:16 your land and in your house, it was no longer your possession.

39:20 So you they couldn't get done for having the possession of

39:23 these these weapons because it was it literally would have a

39:25 rope and you would be able to see the rope attaching it.

39:28 But because the actual weapon was on the other side of the

39:30 fence no longer. So the cops could literally see

39:33 this but couldn't arrest them for it because legally it was

39:36 not in their possession. That blows my mind, but I mean,

39:40 that just goes to show sometimes the law can be absolutely

39:43 ridiculous. Totally.

39:44 But then the level of like and this what gets me with these

39:46 sorts of things, with these criminals, they're not stupid.

39:50 Oh no, they're intelligent people.

39:52 Like, I would never think of this shit.

39:55 No. And because my brain doesn't

39:57 work that way, then I go, I'm intelligent person, but there's

39:59 no way I'd think of this. They found every loophole

40:02 possible. Yeah, insane.

40:05 Yeah, so they they were involved in so many other illicit

40:12 activities as well. It wasn't just the drug trade.

40:14 Well, one particular thing we probably should mention I think

40:17 around Cath is that it was in 1978.

40:20 I believe there was a reason that her daughter I was bail

40:25 money her daughter, which we should mention.

40:27 So Vicki, Vicki Brooks, she was born in 1954 to her next partner

40:33 from who we she was the next eldest in line.

40:35 So she she was born to Billy, Billy or William Pierce.

40:40 She had, yeah, been to jail and she owed bail money for of $300

40:45 roughly. And another person had put that

40:48 money up because Kath, they didn't have the money at the

40:50 time to pay for it. So the idea was that Vicky would

40:54 then come out of jail and would pay this guy back.

40:57 But she didn't. She kept not paying it back.

40:59 So Kath being someone who did not want this on them, them that

41:02 they owe this money to someone, hated owing that money, people

41:04 money, she decided to go around to pay this money back to this

41:07 guy. So she rocked up at this guy's

41:09 house with the cash ready to pay.

41:11 Like it's not that she wasn't going to give him the money,

41:13 knocked on his door. The guy saw that it was Kath at

41:17 the door and shot a shot towards her.

41:21 Through the door. Through.

41:22 The door even opened the door through the door hit Kath in the

41:26 eye it her eyeball dislodged flung out and landed on Dennis

41:34 standing next to her at the door vomit.

41:37 I just can't. So she to this day has a glass

41:43 eye in for that, in that socket her her words.

41:47 And this is you can go online and hear her say this getting

41:51 shot doesn't hurt you, just you don't feel anything.

41:55 You're just going to shock. Yeah.

41:57 There's no pain, Yeah. Cool.

41:58 Cool, Cool. Cool, cool, cool.

41:59 For that cave, yeah, but her, her now eye is this glass eye

42:02 and it doesn't blink either It's.

42:05 She's lost all of the nerves and everything.

42:07 Yeah. But what I think is really

42:09 interesting is the police were called to the scene.

42:12 Yeah. I mean, Kat's been taken off to

42:13 hospital and having all that dealt with.

42:15 Yes. And so they charged this man and

42:17 his wife, I think it was with attempted murder.

42:20 Yeah. So they go to court, it goes to

42:22 trial because they plead not guilty, It goes to trial.

42:25 And Kat being their * eyewitness, that just came to me

42:32 as I was talking that. Was fucking wild.

42:34 Oh God. She refused to testify against

42:38 them because criminals they they stick to their code, she.

42:41 Yeah, You do not snitch. You do not snitch that.

42:43 Snitches get stitches. Absolutely no.

42:46 So she absolutely denied it, you know, any of it and said.

42:50 No. And so they got off.

42:51 They were acquitted. Yep.

42:54 So just really quickly before we get into, I was going to talk

42:57 about some more of Dennis's crimes, but I just want to

43:00 quickly mention about Kath as well.

43:02 She has we think 10 biological children.

43:07 Yeah, we don't know for sure because three, we think three of

43:11 them were adopted out when they were babies.

43:13 Yes, so. From what everywhere reports

43:16 that I've read is that there was.

43:18 So we're just talking about George.

43:20 Sorry, William. Billy, otherwise known as Billy

43:22 Pierce was she had she had to him Vicky Brooks.

43:27 She ended up becoming. Then she had a child who she

43:33 adopted out and then in 1957 she had another child that she

43:38 adopted out. After that she had Victor,

43:41 Victor Pierce who we will talk about at length next episode.

43:45 He was born in 1958. After that she had Lex Pierce,

43:50 who was born in 1960 and following that she had another

43:54 child in 1961 who again was adopted out.

43:57 So a total of 6 children to Billy Pierce, but only kept

44:03 three of them and three were adopted out.

44:06 That we know of. That we know of, yeah.

44:08 And even that's there's a little conjecture around one of the

44:12 boys born to her right? Because, yeah, there's, there's

44:16 no paperwork, Yeah. Right.

44:20 God only knows what. Actually, I have to say, as we

44:23 were saying that Kath, she was born like, you know, odd in this

44:28 and interested in crime, that adrenaline rush, all these sorts

44:33 of things. She was like born that way.

44:35 I would desperately we'll never find out.

44:37 You can't find out. But I would love to know if

44:40 those three, if any of them took up a life of crime or did they

44:45 go on to have amazing lives? Are you sure two of them have

44:48 reestablished contact with her? Oh.

44:50 You're. Kidding.

44:51 They found her. Yeah.

44:52 Right. When they were in like adults,

44:55 young adulthood. Yep.

44:56 And did they appreciate I? Don't.

44:58 I don't. Know because there's nothing no

45:01 out there about. No, I'm just nature versus

45:04 nurture situation. Like her sister, her and her

45:06 sister and how they turned out. I really intrigues me.

45:10 I mean, oh, psychological study on that.

45:13 Oh. My God, I just, I don't think

45:15 there'd be enough time in the rest of life to figure that.

45:18 That one out. No, I just, I think this is a

45:21 family where you could, I don't know, get some pretty decent

45:24 information on nature versus nurture maybe.

45:26 Yeah, like really just because out of, I mean.

45:29 Because there's so many of them. Yeah.

45:31 I mean, there's seven children that were raised by her.

45:33 Yeah, out of this 10 and three that weren't just statistically,

45:38 where are they at? Where are they at?

45:39 Because I mean, the seven that stayed with her, what is it?

45:43 Six of them have died. Well, but six of them have

45:46 criminal records and died and yeah, is.

45:49 It six. Yeah, No, 55 have died, have

45:52 they? Oh yeah, no, you're right.

45:54 It's 55 have died. Yeah.

45:56 So I just interesting to know whether the other three, what I

46:00 don't know, just what's their lives like I would love.

46:04 To know, Yeah, I would love to know, Yeah.

46:06 So let's get back a bit. Oh.

46:07 Sorry, just before, we'll just finish up in terms of then after

46:11 having David, sorry, after having the final one that she

46:13 had adopted out, she met a man by the name of Jimmy Pentagill.

46:17 Now she never married him, but that is the name that she goes

46:21 by and that her children go by because she never married him

46:25 because he already had a wife. And they she the other wife knew

46:29 about Kath and and and another girlfriend that he had.

46:31 And Kath didn't care either that there was more than her.

46:34 But she loved him that much that she took his name and her kids

46:37 took his name. So she has two children to him.

46:41 Jamie Pettingill, who was born in 1963 and then her youngest

46:45 child, Trevor Pettigill, who was born in 1965.

46:49 Sorry. Sorry, Yeah, no, it's 1960.

46:51 Three sorry, 1963 was when Jane Jane was born and then 1965

46:56 Trevor was. Born.

46:56 That's right. We'll talk about Trevor a lot

46:58 more next. Week.

46:58 Yeah, absolutely. Next week's episode as.

47:00 Well, unfortunately, Jamie passed away from a heroin

47:02 overdose at the age of 21. So he's, there's not a lot of

47:05 information know about him because he didn't make it very

47:07 far. No, Yeah.

47:09 It's pretty pretty. Sad.

47:10 Yeah. Pretty sad, yeah.

47:12 So, yeah, out of all the all of her children, obviously I think

47:15 Jamie had some minimal convictions prior to his heroin

47:18 overdose. But the other one would be Lex

47:21 Pierce that we won't really hear about it all in the next two

47:23 weeks because again, Lex has a very minor criminal record.

47:26 Yeah, but he sounds like one that kind of got away from from

47:30 the rest of it. But out of so he.

47:32 Had some petty crimes, it was nothing.

47:34 Yeah, only petty crimes. There's nothing major on him at

47:36 all. But yeah, so he didn't get away

47:37 from it entirely. I'm not saying, but yeah, Lex

47:40 isn't one who's met worth mentioning again.

47:43 Yeah. So out of the seven children

47:44 that have been raised and lived with her over their lives, two

47:48 of them don't have much for a criminal record, but the other

47:53 five of them, let's get into that.

47:57 So we were talking about Dennis. I mean, I guess Dennis probably

48:00 was the most notorious of her children.

48:03 Well, actually, no, that's not true.

48:06 The era In the era, Yeah, in that era, Yeah.

48:08 In the 70s, like earlier on in in the reign of the family, I

48:13 suppose. He certainly was the most

48:14 notorious of them. And he was a bad, bad dude.

48:19 Yeah. He would.

48:22 So there was, there are stories of him.

48:23 So he was involved with like bikie gangs and all of that sort

48:26 of stuff. He cut off the legs of a dead

48:29 bikie with a chainsaw, put his body in a barrel and threw it

48:32 into the Yarra. That was the one that kind of

48:34 got him in the end. Yeah.

48:36 He ended up, that was the one, the one murder that he's linked

48:39 to that he actually had charges being put to him against.

48:43 Yeah, Yeah. So that's an interesting Kath.

48:45 Was the one who just said in. In that case, he was trying to

48:49 fit this body into the barrel and apparently, Kath said to

48:51 him, you've just got to wait for the rigor mortis to stop.

48:54 You know it doesn't last forever, doesn't last.

48:56 Forever. Just wait and then you'll be

48:58 able to get him in. No, no, I'll just cut his legs

49:00 off with the chainsaw. Do.

49:03 You know who he made cut his legs off with the chainsaw.

49:06 No. Yeah, he's young nephew Jason.

49:10 Oh my. God.

49:12 Yeah, so Vicky son, poor boy Jason, he got, he would have

49:15 been 13 I think at the time. Oh my God.

49:19 Oh, that's horrific. Oh yeah.

49:26 Oh my God. So evil piece of shit it it

49:30 doesn't cover. To get Dennis 13 year old

49:33 nephew. Yeah, Oh my.

49:36 That just oh, I can't believe that.

49:38 So he also had he would have girlfriends like kind of thing.

49:42 And I use that word kind of loosely.

49:44 Like they were prostitutes he was paying.

49:46 No, not necessarily, no. So there was one particular girl

49:49 in this who what would happen is they would have these massive

49:52 parties. Obviously they would love their

49:53 parties, but there was one particular and like, she was a

49:57 model at the time and doing very well in her modelling.

50:00 So she was at this party and she was introduced to Dennis and no,

50:03 that's all fine. And then the party was ending

50:05 and she was about to leave and he just stood in front of her

50:08 and said, well, you're not going anywhere.

50:10 And she was, well, no, I need to go.

50:12 I've got to get to a job tomorrow.

50:14 You know, like I've had a great time, you know, like thanks for

50:16 the great party, but no, I'm, I'm heading home.

50:18 You're not going anywhere. She didn't she couldn't leave.

50:21 He wouldn't allow her to leave. So he kept her prisoner in his

50:26 house, tied her up, kept her in the bedroom, did horrendous

50:31 things to her, raped her, sodomized her, beat her,

50:35 everything known to man. She ended up being there for two

50:38 years. Over the course of those two

50:41 years, she would attempt escape. One notable time she did get out

50:46 the front of the that was in Richmond, in the house in

50:49 Richmond and she got out to a main road and flagged down a

50:52 cabbie and was about to get in the cabbie in the cab when she

50:56 had three guns being pointed at her head by minions of Dennis

51:01 who had chased her down. To which the cabbie knowing

51:05 because I mean, that was so notorious, like who was around

51:07 the area. The cabbie looked at this and

51:09 went I do not want to be involved in this and took off.

51:14 And then so then she was taken back to the house and started

51:17 all over again. She did survive, but she to this

51:21 day, when in interviews that she's done, talks about the fact

51:25 that she believes she's the only one of Dennis's girlfriends to

51:28 have survived. Yeah, I know of one girlfriend

51:32 who I believe was a prostitute, but it was a similar situation

51:36 where he essentially kidnapped her and she somehow died.

51:42 I don't know the manner of her death in particular, but Dennis

51:45 wanted to get rid of her body, so he had.

51:47 I think it was actually his nephew.

51:49 He sent his nephew down to the Yarra.

51:50 I know. So that wasn't a girlfriend,

51:51 That was just a worker at the brothel.

51:53 Oh, was it? Yeah.

51:54 Yeah, She was one of their girls at the brothel.

51:56 That worked for Kath, right? So she'd overdosed and Kath had

52:00 called Dennis to come and help her.

52:02 Right. So in all of this, because there

52:04 was so much drugs around, like all of this, obviously Dennis

52:08 had actually that he'd concocted his own method of bringing them

52:14 back to life, having an overdose.

52:15 And so it was like a combination of alcohol and heroin, I want to

52:20 say. Yeah.

52:21 And basically, he would inject that through the jugular, right?

52:25 Yeah. To bring them back.

52:26 So give them a jolt to come back right when they would overdose,

52:29 which sounds like what the fuck. But he had taught Kath how to do

52:33 this and everything. And but this girl had, you know,

52:36 overdosed and he. So she's calling Dennis to come

52:38 and help. So she's not dead, though.

52:40 Like they were like going to, she was like getting Dennis to

52:42 come and help her, like carry her out to her to somewhere to

52:44 get her to a hospital to get help.

52:46 That was her. She loved her job and she loved

52:48 the girls who worked for her. They all said that she was

52:50 actually a very great Madam or whatever.

52:52 You, you know, they they really did like her in that sense that

52:54 she protected them. But yeah, Dennis came in, took

52:57 one look at her and went, Nah, Nah, not going to help.

53:01 So yeah, he sent Jason down to the Yarra River, run down there

53:05 and grab a bucket of water out of the Yarra and come back.

53:08 And he brought that bucket back. And Dennis then slowly filled

53:13 this into his like, opened her mouth up and made her swallow

53:16 all this water and then drowned her in the bucket with the

53:20 remaining water. So that yeah, and killed her.

53:23 Well, then they tossed her body in the Yara so that when she was

53:26 fished out, they whoever the autopsy autopsy would show that

53:29 she had water in her lungs. So they would assume the cause

53:32 of her death was drowning. Yeah.

53:34 But then he would also give heroin overdoses to other people

53:37 and just leave them in the streets with the with the needle

53:40 hanging out of their arm. Yeah.

53:41 So that, again, when they were found, they'd be like, oh, well,

53:44 they've overdosed. It's innocent, but it's not.

53:46 He'd actually killed these. People.

53:48 Yeah, Hotshot. Yeah.

53:50 So but it's interesting, like, why he did that to that girl at

53:53 that point, Like other times he would revive people from that.

53:55 Like, he concocted a way to revive people.

53:57 Yeah, like, kind of thing that he didn't think, oh, well, we'll

54:00 do that. There's something not quite

54:02 right in his brain of like, I'll give this a go.

54:04 I wanna try that out. Very sadistic.

54:06 Very much so, yeah. To give another right, another

54:09 sort of story with Kath, Kath was there one day when Dennis

54:14 was killing somebody, an associate of theirs who had

54:17 obviously done wrong by them in their eyes.

54:19 And Kath basically said to Dennis, oh, hold on a minute

54:23 before you get him too messy. Can I just take his pants

54:25 because I think they'll fit Jamie, Yeah.

54:31 Let's. Take his pants.

54:33 Off. Oh, she's such a good mother.

54:34 Yeah. Well, waste not, want not.

54:38 God, Oh, they're just whole other level.

54:43 I have to say another thing that I did sort of find, and it links

54:46 back to another case that we have covered on this podcast

54:49 before. Yeah, so obviously being in this

54:54 crime world, you need a damn good lawyer, right?

54:57 Who was Dennis's lawyer? Andrew Fraser, you may remember

55:02 that name being. Mentioned Yes, you've spoken

55:04 about Andrew Fraser. Before, in the case of Peter

55:07 Falconio, he was the lawyer who took up Bradley Murdoch's case

55:13 of saying that he was actually innocent and not and shouldn't

55:16 be in prison. Now Dennis's lawyer was Andrew

55:20 Fraser of all people. Now I just can't with that.

55:25 He he does. He does a short clip I've seen

55:28 on YouTube. Yes, I've seen this and runs.

55:30 Through some, you know, stories that he has around being his

55:34 lawyer and the sorts of things that he witnessed.

55:37 And I get it that as a lawyer, like you're, yeah, you're a

55:40 witness to these things. But then there's client lawyer

55:42 privilege, all these things that you're not going to go

55:44 necessarily running off to the cops, but I just can't

55:48 understand how you would want to be involved in all of that and

55:51 and defend these people. I really can't come at it.

55:55 He seemed to really, he was pleasurably telling people about

56:00 these incredible stories of Dennis gunning down people in

56:06 the street, you know, and another one where he had come

56:09 out, he'd been, he'd rocked up to Dennis house and then Dennis

56:13 had come out going, there's cops watching us.

56:15 So he'd gone back inside and grabbed out an AR15 and come out

56:19 to the street and just started shooting down this very fairly

56:23 Main St. in Richmond. And so this day you can find gun

56:28 like bullet holes in buildings down the road.

56:31 And they were, the cops were sitting in that building

56:33 watching him. But he shot at it, you know,

56:36 randomly with these and yeah, these gun, the bullet holes are

56:40 still in the building. Insane.

56:43 He could have killed anyone. He was in that drug fueled state

56:47 of just gonna fire a gun around everywhere and that and your

56:51 lawyer's standing right there with him and witnessing this.

56:56 Oh, interesting character. It was a completely different

56:59 time as well, I think. You know, he was almost

57:02 untouchable, wasn't he? Yes, but his lawyer made him

57:06 that way too. Like he, he manipulated.

57:09 That, But everyone fed him to him in that way.

57:11 Yeah. Everyone he associated with and

57:14 all of the interactions he had, the people he surrounded with

57:17 himself with, all were in that. All were as culpable.

57:22 Yeah. Of those things.

57:22 Yeah, I just, I find it this Andrew Fraser to me is a

57:25 character who took great, great pleasure and to, you know, to

57:29 the day of his death, basically loved to sort of shout from the

57:32 hilltops of how much, how good a lawyer he was for keeping a very

57:36 guilty person out of jail and finding every loophole possible

57:41 to keep him out of jail. Exactly like it's that doesn't

57:44 make you a good guy, you know, sorry, that just makes you to me

57:47 just as culpable. He's witnessed.

57:49 It makes you a big piece of shit.

57:50 Total piece of shit. He's witnessed the crimes that

57:53 his clients committed and and he's probably been.

57:55 Really. Incredibly dangerous person,

57:59 yeah. That's it.

58:01 Another one is so it is thought it is maybe thought to be known

58:07 that Dennis killed between 6 and 13 people.

58:10 I've heard it in 15. That we know of, yeah, right.

58:13 Yeah, I think, think about all these overdoses of people.

58:16 This is in the streets in Melbourne.

58:17 Mm hmm. It's, I think the number is.

58:19 It's, I mean it is, it's quantifiable. 10's and 10s of

58:22 thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people if you look

58:25 impacted distribution. Yeah, absolutely impacted.

58:28 By him. But I mean, even his his

58:30 cronies, you know, offering whoever pissed them off or there

58:33 wasn't pay the bill or didn't whatever.

58:36 One particular stage he was he'd got some really, really good

58:39 quality heroin, right? So he'd given it to his cronies

58:42 and he literally did have like this group of people that he

58:45 like called them like his army or his something as well to like

58:47 this minions that he had like that would work for him.

58:50 And he said he passed it off to them to cut basically so that

58:54 it's now, so it becomes like a break it down.

58:57 And I don't fully understand the drug system, but basically cut

58:59 it down something so that it doesn't, it's not something

59:01 that's going to kill you like so you can actually.

59:03 Yes, so you're able to get pure heroin from somewhere that

59:06 needed to be cut. Yeah.

59:07 And so, yeah, he got them all to cut it, but they didn't do it

59:10 enough. And so literally then following

59:14 day, there were five people in the surrounding area of their

59:20 house where they'd cut it out, who were found dead from

59:23 overdoses. Yeah.

59:25 So you can't tell me that he's not like, culpable for that.

59:28 Absolutely, Yeah. So there's just five people in

59:31 one day. Yeah, dead.

59:32 So that's not that's not included in this time.

59:34 No, that's not that. That's it.

59:36 So he's. Done that he's done publicly,

59:39 and he did a lot of his murders publicly.

59:41 Oh, absolutely. So he killed a man by the name

59:43 of Wayne Stanhope. Yes.

59:45 They were at a party at their home in Richmond, and he asked

59:49 Stanhope to go and change the record on the record player.

59:52 Yeah. And as Stanhope got up and was

59:55 walking towards the record player, Dennis shot him in the

59:58 back. Yeah.

59:59 He then, excuse me, He then shot another 5 bullets into his head

1:00:04 at point blank range. Yeah.

1:00:06 He then goes. And gets Jamie, his nephew to

1:00:10 get who who was a teenager at the time and had a gun, another

1:00:14 six rounds from Jamie's gun into into Stanhope's head.

1:00:21 He then slit his throat just for good measure.

1:00:25 Now he was dead, as dead. Could be before that.

1:00:27 Too. Like, truly.

1:00:28 Yeah, I think the second shot killed him right it.

1:00:31 Was way overkill. Yeah, way, way well and truly.

1:00:34 But he was fucking off his nut and.

1:00:36 This is in front of a a room full of people.

1:00:38 Yeah. And that was that was Kath's

1:00:40 biggest concern about it. Like, you know, that's.

1:00:42 Biggest concern was that he went to get went next door, 'cause

1:00:45 Kath was living next door obviously at the time and he

1:00:48 went and got a vacuum cleaner to like vacuum up all the bristle

1:00:51 like a. Little bit of brain.

1:00:54 So Kath was just pissed off 'cause that was a brand new

1:00:56 vacuum cleaner. Ruined it, ruined it.

1:00:59 He had to get rid of it 'cause it had, you know, evidence in it

1:01:01 then. He had to burn it.

1:01:02 MMM yeah, it's a brand new vacuum cleaner.

1:01:04 For fun. Oh, why ruin the vacuum cleaner,

1:01:06 Dennis? Oh my God, they're just the most

1:01:12 bottom feeders. I just can't he.

1:01:15 He was really bloody awful. So I don't think he was.

1:01:20 He was never convicted of that because no one would speak.

1:01:22 There's, you know, it's the rule of all of this that you don't

1:01:25 then go running to the cops because then you're dead, too.

1:01:28 Like, that's literally how this works.

1:01:29 They would keep people quiet for the fact of they just literally

1:01:32 had that much power that if it wasn't Dennis who killed you

1:01:35 because he was sitting in a cell, there was plenty more

1:01:37 Penny Gills to come. That's it.

1:01:39 Yeah. There was that many of them that

1:01:41 you had no chance one of them would pop you.

1:01:43 And they really did rule, particularly Richmond as a

1:01:47 suburb in Richmond alone, with all the money he had come in

1:01:50 from the heroin, it's thought that he owned about 40

1:01:53 buildings. Yeah, he in out of these

1:01:56 buildings. He either would just, he'd run

1:01:58 his, you know, heroin trade out of 1.

1:02:00 He had a whole, his whole street.

1:02:01 He'd buy up all the properties out of that street sort of

1:02:04 stuff. So God, you wouldn't want to

1:02:05 live there if you'd be moving out anyway if they started

1:02:07 moving in Cath. Tells a story of one day she

1:02:10 sent him out to the shops to get something and he came back and

1:02:14 he'd been gone for like 3 house, but that was just because he'd

1:02:16 bought a house. Yeah, God bought another house

1:02:19 in the street. Yeah, yeah.

1:02:21 I wonder like, yeah, you would be more than willing to sell if

1:02:25 you were living. In that wouldn't want to be

1:02:27 where he was wanting to be. No way.

1:02:29 No. If nothing more, you could

1:02:31 potentially you would more than likely be collateral damage.

1:02:34 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yuck.

1:02:37 Horrible. So one of the cops that we were

1:02:39 talking about earlier in terms of were on the take with him was

1:02:42 a very famous cop in Australia being Roger Rogerson was also

1:02:46 linked to Dennis at a time he was actually charged with being

1:02:51 with Dennis's heroin ring in terms of taking.

1:02:56 He was involved in the import of the heroin.

1:03:00 The the charges were dropped eventually, but his name was is

1:03:04 definitely linked to his as well.

1:03:06 Yeah. We need to do Roger Rogerson.

1:03:10 I think he's on our list. He's on the list.

1:03:11 It's one we keep kind of, I think going, oh, it's a big one.

1:03:13 It's a big. One, it's so many facets.

1:03:15 Where do you start? So many facets.

1:03:17 But yeah, Roger Rogerson, if you don't, if you haven't heard of

1:03:19 him before, like look him up. But we'll get to him too.

1:03:22 Like, there's a lot on him. A lot.

1:03:24 Yeah. And I couldn't work out whether

1:03:25 or not because I wasn't, didn't have the time to like, look up

1:03:27 dates and marry it up. But I don't know.

1:03:29 He could have potentially still been a cop whilst that was going

1:03:32 on. I believe so.

1:03:32 Yeah, I believe so. Yeah.

1:03:34 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I guess where's Kath now?

1:03:38 Like what's happened to her in her later life.

1:03:41 Yes. So she actually lives down in

1:03:44 Venus Bay, which. Is like sort of coastal.

1:03:47 Town coastal town in Victoria. She's got ordinary 3

1:03:51 grandchildren who she often babysits so I think they're

1:03:54 Vickies kids. Her daughter Vicky's kids also.

1:03:57 Well, they'd be fairly grown now.

1:03:58 They are now, but I think back, you know.

1:04:01 In the early, Yeah, You know, she probably moved there in the

1:04:03 90s. Did she?

1:04:04 Well, she was aged 58 when she sort of got out of this, right?

1:04:08 Yeah, Probably. Yeah.

1:04:11 Yeah. So she was, you know, involved

1:04:13 in her grandchildren's lives like most nice, nice

1:04:15 grandparents. She's still picking around down

1:04:18 there in Venus Bay and well known by the locals and they,

1:04:20 they steer clear but say that she lives a very fine, fine

1:04:23 life. And they, they, you know,

1:04:25 actually to the point of she's been given an award by the

1:04:29 Victorian Government for, for her community work.

1:04:34 Yeah, she does. Like helps that old like old

1:04:36 age. Yeah, she drives them to drive

1:04:39 bingo games and stuff, and she's been given a community award for

1:04:43 Can You? Even believe.

1:04:44 That I'm sorry, I can't. Comment I just think that's a.

1:04:47 You've got to take it all. Out some prior effect.

1:04:48 That's right. The prior offences preclude you

1:04:51 from a community award. Yeah.

1:04:53 I mean, good on Earth for doing it.

1:04:54 You know, that's great. And, you know, giving back,

1:04:58 that's a good thing. I mean, because we should say,

1:05:01 like, Kath has spent time in jail.

1:05:02 She's never done massive time, but she's been in and out of

1:05:06 jail for short stints over, you know, smaller things the cops

1:05:09 have been able to get her on. Yeah, you know, stabbing people

1:05:12 or whatever along the way, just stabbing things.

1:05:16 So, yeah. But she's, oh, she's an

1:05:17 interesting character entirely. And one thing I I love this.

1:05:22 So there's a movie, Animal Kingdom.

1:05:23 And if you have not seen that movie, go and see it like it's

1:05:27 on. I think it's on Prime at the

1:05:29 moment. I think it's on Prime.

1:05:30 Yeah. So check it out if it's a very

1:05:32 good movie. And she is depicted in it.

1:05:36 So it's not it's not factual in that it doesn't.

1:05:39 They'd name different things there.

1:05:40 But it's very loosely based around the this, the Pettingill

1:05:44 family. Yeah.

1:05:46 And God, now I'm a mental blank of who played Jackie Weaver.

1:05:49 Thank you. Plays Kath.

1:05:52 She won an Academy. She won an Academy Award for it,

1:05:54 but Kath doesn't think that she played her very well at all now.

1:05:59 I think she did a did a complimentary, yeah.

1:06:02 I know she did a yeah, she did a no, I did.

1:06:05 She did her a solid. I think so too.

1:06:08 Catherine said that the only the only similarity between the two

1:06:10 of us is we have both have blonde hair.

1:06:13 But the movie is kind of from the her grandson's perspective.

1:06:17 Yeah. And it's a really interesting

1:06:19 take on well, I mean, it's based on it's there are loosely based.

1:06:23 Yeah, there's a lot of, there's not factual things, right?

1:06:26 Yeah. And yeah, but.

1:06:27 You kind of get a gist. Of you do get a gist of.

1:06:29 Lives must have been like. Definitely it does.

1:06:31 It definitely depicts a a realistic version of what living

1:06:36 in this house, in this in this family could have looked like

1:06:39 Yeah, but Oh well. And and I think the the

1:06:44 attitudes. Come across.

1:06:45 Yeah, I think that's what it is. It's a.

1:06:47 Yeah, it's a two yeah, but there's definitely non factual

1:06:50 and they kind of combine characters into one like because

1:06:53 there's Yeah, it's an interesting take, but definitely

1:06:56 well worth a watch. Very, very good movie

1:06:59 regardless. Yeah, worth a watch for.

1:07:02 As we said at the start of this, there are untold numbers of

1:07:05 stories that involve these people.

1:07:07 So if you want to know more about it, I know again, we we

1:07:10 mentioned this every, almost in every Australian case, but

1:07:14 Andrew Rule his life and crimes podcast covered this in several

1:07:18 different episodes from several different angles, which was

1:07:20 really, really well done. Yeah, him and Sylvester's God.

1:07:25 What's his name? Jesus.

1:07:26 John Sylvester. Sylvester.

1:07:27 Thank you. Yeah, the two of them read wrote

1:07:30 a book together, Lead Belly, which is a very good read, and

1:07:33 the Pennygills are mentioned quite thoroughly through that.

1:07:36 That's it. And there's a book called The

1:07:37 Matriarch who was written by a man named Adrian Tame.

1:07:42 And he actually had Cath's input in this book, Yes.

1:07:45 So he's kind of really good friends with Cath these days,

1:07:49 and he's a really interesting guy and very interesting to

1:07:53 listen to, Yes. But if you wanna know more about

1:07:55 things from Cath's perspective, I suppose with the right amount

1:08:00 of overtone in terms of the severity and just how impactful

1:08:04 all of these crimes were to people, have a read of his book

1:08:07 too. Yeah, that's a good one.

1:08:09 I've only read excerpts from it through that, getting this

1:08:11 through this process because. But it's definitely a book I'd

1:08:14 go back and read from beginning to end, to be really honest.

1:08:17 It's it's fabulous. Me too.

1:08:19 I guess what we should also talk about then is Dennis's demise in

1:08:23 this. So we, we get to a time for him

1:08:26 where his health declined pretty rapidly.

1:08:31 He was, as we said earlier, he there was a particular death

1:08:35 that he was linked to. Now he was already talking to

1:08:41 cops and what he was, he was an informant, it turned out, with

1:08:44 the cops, but he doesn't. Believe.

1:08:46 No. And The thing is the way he

1:08:48 would inform with the cops was that he would like murder

1:08:51 someone and then he would go to the cops and say, I know who did

1:08:54 that. That would have been so and so

1:08:56 'cause this they, they didn't like him and This is why that

1:08:59 would have happened. And but the person he was

1:09:02 pointing the finger at was someone else he wanted to get

1:09:04 rid of. So, but he would do it so well

1:09:07 that these, this other bloke could end up getting done for,

1:09:09 for murder. Yeah, that he didn't do.

1:09:11 And it was Dennis who did it, but it took the eye off of him.

1:09:14 The cops would follow every lead that he would give them.

1:09:16 And and look, worked both ways for them.

1:09:18 They were, they were taking a crim off the street.

1:09:20 They knew he was a crim. They knew he didn't really do

1:09:22 it. They'd know it was Dennis like

1:09:23 kind of thing, but they'd get that that guy off the street.

1:09:26 So there was a lot of murders where he and and other crimes

1:09:30 that he would point at other people that he actually did.

1:09:33 So yeah, this he was informing to the cops, which is a no no in

1:09:35 cats world big time. So that's why, yeah, she would

1:09:38 be adamant he never did that. So.

1:09:41 She is, although I think eventually she did concede that

1:09:44 he did it, but yeah, and she wasn't happy about.

1:09:47 It no, that would really not go well for her.

1:09:49 Like she just would not appreciate that totally.

1:09:53 But then we did get to a point where there was enough evidence

1:09:56 to point to the fact that he did kill this guy that we talked

1:09:59 about earlier. And I know that his name is

1:10:01 again on my brain is a sieve. He was linked to the Hells Angel

1:10:06 bikie gang and well, actually he was the ex president of the

1:10:09 Hells bikie gang. And so he'd been kicked out of

1:10:12 Hells out the Hells Angels. He was no longer the president.

1:10:14 But yeah, he had, Dennis had definitely killed him.

1:10:17 He'd put him in the barrel, all these things.

1:10:18 And there were enough witnesses and things that they had had

1:10:20 him. So they were charging him with

1:10:22 that. So finally he was going to go

1:10:24 down for it. He was definitely going to get

1:10:26 get time for this. However, his health declined

1:10:30 rapidly all and so he was on so many drugs.

1:10:33 He was taking speed with his actual drug that he took over

1:10:36 the heroin. And So what happened was he

1:10:41 ended up dying of heart failure. But it was so bad that, I mean,

1:10:45 I've heard things of like, hit bits of his heart were literally

1:10:47 crumbling into his chest cavity. Like that's how bad it was.

1:10:52 That too and and like some of the heart tissue was found in

1:10:55 his arteries and was clogging his arteries.

1:10:57 And he ended up dying stroke, wasn't it like at first, first

1:11:00 he had a stroke and then so he was in hospital with that.

1:11:02 So he was only 37 at the time. Yeah.

1:11:06 And this happened in 1987 when he died.

1:11:09 Yeah. He was awaiting trial for that

1:11:11 murder. Yes, the time.

1:11:12 But he did go to jail. He committed a heinous, heinous

1:11:17 rape, yes, in 1973 that he was convicted for.

1:11:21 And yeah, I think he only. Served.

1:11:23 He only served four months, four or five months.

1:11:26 Years No 4. Years.

1:11:27 No, he did do 4/4 to five years, OK, roughly.

1:11:30 He did get sentenced 10. That's right, but.

1:11:33 He got out after four or five years, yes.

1:11:35 Yeah, Yep, you're. Right.

1:11:36 He actually, that was another one where he had kidnapped

1:11:39 multiple women. I want to say him and Peter

1:11:42 Allen at the time. It was his brother at the time

1:11:44 the two of them were convicted. Peter did far more time because

1:11:48 there was something else linked to his charges.

1:11:50 But yeah, but Dennis did do only about four to five years for

1:11:55 that, which was so woefully not. Enough for what he did,

1:11:59 Absolutely. Yeah, so he, he got out pretty

1:12:01 early on that one. So yeah, they all, they've all

1:12:03 done time, but just not extensive time because.

1:12:08 Aside from Peter Allen. Yeah, he did like he.

1:12:10 Did the most amount of time. He did 28 years. 28 Sorry, yes.

1:12:14 28 you're. Right.

1:12:15 And out of all of the Pettingill clan, he's the one who spent the

1:12:21 most amount of time in jail. Yes, he did some.

1:12:24 He did a lot, actually. He did a lot of armed robberies

1:12:26 I think was his shtick. Right.

1:12:28 Armed robbery was his shtick and he was considered one of

1:12:30 Victoria's most dangerous men. But they all.

1:12:35 Though, But this is it. I'm kind of going, well, what

1:12:37 about tennis? But this is it.

1:12:39 I mean, they were all this. I mean, I mean the level of the

1:12:45 crime that they were committing is just out of hand.

1:12:49 And I'll say it here because we'll repeat this again and the

1:12:51 next one again. They would definitely gangland

1:12:55 people like this was, you know, they are gangsters.

1:12:58 That's the a way to describe them for sure.

1:13:00 Sure. We'll get into why that's

1:13:02 relevant next. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:13:05 Oh, wow. Crazy.

1:13:07 Oh, yeah. Anyway, should we leave it here

1:13:09 for now? And we'll pick up again next

1:13:12 week. We'll focus more on the Walsh

1:13:15 St. Yeah shootings and really,

1:13:17 Victor Pierce, Victor. Pierce is 1. 20 Oh, she's an

1:13:21 interesting one. Oh yeah.

1:13:24 All right, stay tuned for next week.

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1:13:55 We're starting to wrap that up a bit more, so come and join us.

1:13:58 Absolutely. Thank you everyone for joining

1:14:00 us. And we'll stay curious, crying

1:14:02 besties. Bye.