The Russell Street Bombing (7 page)

Acting on information from Karl Zelinka's statement, Wayne
Ashley was sent back to Haros Avenue on 20 May. The white weatherboard house had
a full concrete driveway beside it which led to a garage at the rear of the
property. The entire concrete floor of the garage was swept for evidence. Apart
from the lounge room which was carpeted, floors in the house were either
floorboards or tiles. These too were swept and the dirt was bagged for later
examination.

A Chux Superwipe similar to that found on the bomb timing device was located
in the kitchen, and another found under the house.

Two days later, Ashley and his team of crime scene examiners would be back
examining the garage floor again. This time each crack in the concrete was
examined, swept and diagrammed. Most of the evidence was handed over to Bob
Barnes. In the search, they found rivets that could have been removed with the
identification plates were ripped from the bomb car and the Brock Commodore.
These were taken to the forensics lab for examination and comparison.

On the concrete in one of the corners of the garage, was an area where
something had been spray-painted and the overspray had hit the concrete wall of
the garage. This area was measured and photographed. A sample of the paint was
taken for analysis. When compared, the overspray pattern was similar to the
front grille of the Brock Commodore sitting in the police compound in Port
Melbourne. The grill had been sprayed with silver paint.

Another connection between Zelinka's house and the bomb was found in a packet
of 50mm nails. These had identical tool marks to the nails hammered into the
block of wood to set the timing device in place.

On 27 May, Peter Reed and his brother Steven Komiazyk were charged with the
bombing of the Russell Street police headquarters and the murder of Angela
Taylor. Both were remanded into custody. The charges against Komiazyk would
later be dropped.

In an investigation like this, one breakthrough leads to a domino effect.
Taskforce detectives received information that the Minogue brothers were hiding
out in the township of Birchip about 300km north-west of Melbourne.

All bomb-related raids after the Anzac Day shooting of Mark Wylie, were
carried out by members of the Special Operations Group. The Taskforce would take
no further risks with its members, and left the captures to their highly-trained
SOG colleagues.

On 30 May, at 2am, Taskforce held a briefing at 2am at the St Arnaud police
station and planned the raid carefully. Intelligence put Stanley Taylor at home
with his de facto wife at his house in Watchem Road, Birchip. SOG members
assembled outside the house ready to go. Other SOG operatives waited outside a
house in Lockwood Street that belonged to Craig and Rodney Minogue. They patted
a bull terrier guard dog which surrendered playfully. These middle-of-the-night
raids were designed to catch the suspects, hopefully asleep, if not off-guard.

Simultaneously, the SOG raided both houses. Operatives burst into Taylor's
home and made the arrest without incident. Taskforce detectives followed them in
after the house was secure. Detective Chris O'Connor found Stan Taylor stark
naked and handcuffed in his bedroom. He certainly had been caught with his pants
down.

With the six-hour interview rule in Victoria, detectives had to get Taylor to
the nearest police station and begin interviewing him without wasting any time.
Back at the St Arnaud police station, detectives used a portable tape recorder
to tape the interview. The only way they could interview their suspect for more
than six hours, was to get an extension by a magistrate.

Stanley Taylor was a softly spoken unassuming man who had fooled a lot of
people in the small town where had had settled. He had invented a respectable
past for himself and few of his new friends imagined that he had spent most of
his adult life in prison - and no one questioned the LOVE and HATE tattooed
across his knuckles. He was well-spoken and if you ignored the prison tattoos,
fit right in to his new community. Taylor used his ill-gotten gains to flash
around the local footy club. Along with the Minogue brothers, Taylor spent a lot
of time at the club. Craig Minogue even played a couple of games for them.

In his talkative mood, Taylor volunteered the name of the motel in Swan Hill
where the Minogue brothers were hiding out. An SOG raid at 5am netted them
without incident.

When news filtered through of the arrest of the Minogues at Swan Hill, the
detectives used the police Air Wing helicopters to fly Stan Taylor to Swan Hill
so that the three suspects could be questioned, at the same location. That way,
detectives could compare notes in the break. The Swan Hill police station was
conveniently located next to the courthouse. At the court, a magistrate asked
Taylor if he agreed to an extension, and Taylor said he did. The interview
continued in the Swan Hill CIB offices. Over the course of the interview, two
extensions were granted by the magistrate.

Detective Chris O'Connor was mildly surprised that Stan Taylor spoke to them
at all, he'd fully expected 'no comment' replies. But Taylor knew the drill and
O'Connor knew crooks, and once the suspect started talking, the cop knew what
would come - he would admit to as much as he had to and try and blame everything
on everyone else. Sure, Taylor said, he'd been at the Haros Avenue house on the
day of the bombing, but he'd left before the bombing and driven straight back to
Birchip. He implied that Peter Reed and Craig Minogue were the ones most
responsible for the bomb.

Perhaps the rough stuff had taken its toll on Stanley Taylor, and he decided
to play the game. If he had have 'no commented' the interview, he was wily
enough to know that it would have made him look guilty. Best try and minimise
his involvement at this early stage. He also knew that penalties are usually
lighter for those who cooperate with police. There was enough forensic evidence
to link them all to the bombings.

Later on that morning, the Minogues appeared in the Swan Hill Magistrates'
Court. In the interview room Craig, aged just 23, gave detectives his name and
address, and otherwise sat silently with a half-smile on his face. He was
charged with nine offences in total including the murder of Angela Taylor and
the attempted murder of Carl Donadio and Magistrate Iain West.

Rodney Minogue, aged only 20, was held for further questioning. Unlike his
brother, Rodney made what police referred to as a 'full and frank confession'.
He told detectives that the bombing had been planned by Stan Taylor.

While the suspects were in custody being questioned, Wayne
Ashley and his team of crime scene examiners were searching for evidence at the
two Birchip houses. Beginning at Watchem Road, the crime scene examiners
searched inside and outside the neat white weatherboard house. Even though it
looked like the house of a respectable middle-aged man, Ashley found small
things that marked Taylor a crook. The number on the compliance plate of his
Ford LTD parked under the carport, didn't match the chassis number. Along with
the car, other items were taken and handed on to either Chris O'Connor or Bob
Barnes.

After the dawn examination of Taylor's house, the crime scene examiners went
straight to the Lockwood Street home of the Minogue brothers which had been
secured and guarded since the unsuccessful pre-dawn raid. The Minogues had two
suspected stolen vehicles at their house. Inside the house, the crime scene
examiners found ammunition, a shotgun cartridge of the same brand found at
Reed's house, and a loaded shotgun in one of the bedrooms. In the same bedroom,
it was obvious that the brothers had been doing it rough. A sleeping bag lay on
top of a mattress on the floor. Next to the bed was Cold Power detergent box.
Inside it, were three multi-frequency scanners. All three were connected to a
power-board which in turn was plugged into a wall electrical outlet. In a nearby
chest of drawers, they found two more scanners. The Minogues too had been
listening in on police frequencies. Since the scanners found in the raid on
Peter Reed's house, radio silence had been adopted prior to all subsequent
raids. If the bombers were listening in, the police would remain silent.

In another drawer was a book on Bull Terrier dogs. At the Lockwood Street
house, the crime scene examiners noticed the bull terrier dog that the SOG had
being playing with as they surrounded the house earlier that morning. The rug
found in the bomb car had terrier-type hairs on it. This dog and its hair could
provide another important forensic link between the Minogues and the bomb car.
Ashley gently removed some samples from the dog. The hairs would later prove to
be consistent with the ones found on the bomb car rug.

It was in the kitchen that Wayne Ashley found what investigators had been
looking for all along. Plugged into an extension cord and resting on the old
kitchen bench was a high-speed engraving device. The spinning end of it looked
to be the same size as the drill that had drilled out all the chassis numbers of
the stolen cars and the serial numbers of the firearms found at other raids. It
would have to be tested, but it looked promising.

Not only did the Minogues have evidence at their house, but police found out
that Craig Minogue had rented a storage garage in North Albury. The day after
the Birchip raids and the arrest of the Minogues in Swan Hill, the crime scene
examiners travelled from Swan Hill where they had spent the previous night, to
Albury to examine the storage unit. Police photographers caught the contents on
film before it the forensic examination begun. The photographs captured the
clutter of furniture, boxes and tool boxes. During the subsequent search, police
found detonators and an explosives handbook. They also found tools that were of
particular interest. A pair of blue-handled tin-snips was later found to have
been the same ones that cut the wires on the bomb detonators as well as the
detonators found at Peter Reed's house.

Sockets missing from a socket set located in the storage garage, were later
found to have been used as shrapnel in the bomb.

Back at the forensic laboratory, Ashley used the engraving tool found in the
Minogues' kitchen to drill into old firearms. He made casts of the patterns
which he later proved were consistent with the other firearms, the Brock
Commodore and the bomb car.

While the forensic team matched the evidence, detectives located a friend of
Stan Taylor's. The friend admitted to taking part in the theft of gelignite and
detonators from the Triconnel Mine in Blackwood back on the 6 October 1985 and
described how the Craig Minogue and Stan Taylor had tested the stolen detonators
on a country property. He said he had also heard Craig, Taylor and Reed talk
about blowing up the Russell Street police headquarters.

While awaiting trial in 1987, Craig Minogue joined seven other
prisoners protesting against conditions in the maximum security Jika Jika
division of Pentridge Prison. The prisoners sealed their doors and further
blocked them by stacking their bedding against the doors as well. Windows were
covered in paper so that the warders couldn't identify the trouble makers. The
men started a fire and ripped plumbing from the walls with the intention of
breathing fresh air through the pipes. They badly miscalculated and five of the
protesters perished in the fire. Craig Minogue emerged as one of three prisoners
to survive the Jika Jika fire. The section was quickly closed down.

The committal hearing began in January 1988. There was so much
forensic evidence, that crime scene examiner Wayne Ashley spent four days in the
witness box. Standing in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court, a stone's throw from
the scene of the crime, Ashley had a chance to study the four accused. Craig
Minogue's hatred of the police was almost palpable. He was tall and of large
build and his size was intimidating. Ashley reckoned that of the two brothers,
Craig wielded the power, and Rodney was more the master's apprentice. Peter Reed
looked like the typical crook that he was. Stan Taylor was harder to read.
Occasionally, while he was giving evidence, one or other of the accused would
yell out, 'Liar!' The seasoned crime scene examiner tried to focus on the
evidence, rather than the men accused of the Russell Street bombing.

The trial proper began in March 1988. By this time, Stan Taylor was
51-years-old. Craig and Rodney were 26 and 23 respectively. Reed was 31.

Detectives from the Taskforce hung around the courtroom as much as they were
able. Detective Chris O'Connor who had interviewed Stan Taylor at Swan Hill
after his arrest, continued to get a nod of hello from the accused man. Between
arrest and trial, O'Connor thought that Taylor looked like a broken man older
than his years.

The evidence led at the trial suggested that the bomb car was driven to
Russell Street by Peter Reed and Craig Minogue. Stan Taylor allegedly followed
in the stolen Brock Commodore. Once the two-toned Commodore was parked outside
the south door of the Russell Street police headquarters, the Chux Superwipe was
removed from the timing device and the bomb set. One witness suggested that
Taylor, Minogue and Reed had parked nearby and waited for the explosion. When
the bomb when off, said the witness, the bombers were thrilled.

On Tuesday 12 July, the accused arrived to the Supreme Court to hear their
verdicts. As they entered the court room, they yelled out that they were
innocent. And the tension wasn't just with the accused, Detective Bernie Rankin
was physically sick. He and fellow Taskforce detectives had spent two years
living and breathing the Russell Street bombing. This was the day of reckoning.
Rankin was quietly confident that the verdicts would vindicate their
investigative efforts.

Stanley Taylor and Craig Minogue were both found guilty of the murder Angela
Taylor and of causing serious injury to Iain West and Carl Donadio. Rodney
Minogue was found guilty of being an accessory after the fact. The jury retired
again to deliberate on its verdict for Peter Reed.