Unsolved The murder of Jane Thurgood-Dove

[_Mike_]

Still unsolved this is one of Victoria's most baffling murders


"On November 6, 1997 Jane Thurgood-Dove was shot dead in the driveway of her Muriel Street, Niddrie, Melbourne, home in front of her children Scott, 11, Ashley, 6, and Holly, 4.

The killing of Mrs Thurgood-Dove, 34, is one of Victoria`s most baffling murder mysteries.

A stocky gunman (pictured) chased Mrs Thurgood-Dove around the family`s four-wheel drive as her children looked on.She tripped and fell and was shot dead with a large calibre pistol.

The masked gunman ran to a Holden Commodore, stolen from Carlton days earlier, and was driven away at high speed.The burnt-out wreck of the vehicle was found in nearby Farrell St.

Scott gave his account of how his mother was gunned down:"He chased her around the car and then I just saw her fall to the ground then all this smoke came up.Then he got in the car and drove off...there was another man in the car."

http://www.crimenet.org/index.php?tp=rewards&id=18&t=unsolved


"Police believe Mrs Thurgood-Dove was mistaken for the wife of an underworld figure who lived in the same street.
Mrs Thurgood-Dove’s father, John Magill, who spoke exclusively to the Leader, said he received a phone call in September from a man who said he had information about the murder."

Mistaken for a wife of the Moran brothers?

http://moonee-valley-leader.whereil.../hopes-that-new-lead-will-end-murder-mystery/

"Time took care of two figures implicated in the murder within the next seven years.
Mordy, a hard-living former bikie who beat a New South Wales murder charge in 1996, died in his bed in 2000 from a heart ailment exacerbated by heavy amphetamine use.
Police believe that in the period after the killing, Mordy was made responsible for his mistake by fellow bikies who gave him a fearsome hiding.
Jamie Reynolds, who police believe was involved in the theft of the getaway car, perished in a boating accident off Ocean Grove in 2004 while under investigation."

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/la...ell-never-forget/story-fnat7jnn-1226509905618#

Will we ever know what really went down and the events that lead to the murder of Jane?

 

[Dan Cooper]

A mate is a cop and told me years ago this murder was simply a case of mistaken identity.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

A mate is a cop and told me years ago this murder was simply a case of mistaken identity.

100%. The police are certain that they know who the hitman and the guy who organised the car are (and both are now dead). The identity of the getaway driver is still officially unknown, though like many Fairfax crime stories of this nature (presumably it's written by John Silvester; it certainly reads as though it is), it strongly implies that police are pretty sure who he is (along with the guy who put out the hit). Not sure what the Morans have to do with it; it's no secret who the suspected 'real target' (and her husband) are:

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/if-money-talks-1m-may-finally-spill-the-beans-20100709-1045r.html

Two young mothers who lived on the same side of the street, three houses from each corner. Both drove four-wheel-drives, both had school-age children and both had blonde hair at the time.
One was Jane Thurgood-Dove. The other was Carmel Kyprianou.

Carmel's husband was Peter Kyprianou, a well-known and thoroughly unlikeable criminal. The Thurgood-Doves were popular. The Kyprianous were not - so much so that police had uncovered, and foiled, an attempt on Peter's life a few years earlier. One man who wanted him dead was Philip Peters, a former lawyer known in crime circles as ''Mr Laundry'' because he could wash millions of dirty dollars for underworld figures.

The two men had fallen out over a $200,000 fraud scam that went wrong, leaving Peters feeling ripped off. Peters was arrested in April 1994 and charged with conspiracy to murder Peter Kyprianou. With some nifty plea bargaining, he was released in 1997, a few months before Jane Thurgood-Dove was murdered.

​

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http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/i...l-the-beans-20100709-1045r.html#ixzz2g5FwOUny​

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Lol at 'fallen out over a $200,000 fraud scam that went wrong, leaving Peters feeling ripped off...'​

 

[MaddAdam]

What a horrible thing. Murdered in your driveway because some icehead "hitmen" stuffed up their targeting.

 

[Dan Cooper]

What a horrible thing. Murdered in your driveway because some icehead "hitmen" stuffed up their targeting.

Very sad, and not exactly the first time a hitman has got it wrong either.

 

[Oneiros]

And hardly something "a fearsome hiding" could put right.

 

[Two Planks]

I live across the road from the house it should have been.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Why would a wife be specifically targeted? Seems like Mexican cartel behaviour to me, is this sort of thing commonplace in the Aust underworld?

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Why would a wife be specifically targeted? Seems like Mexican cartel behaviour to me, is this sort of thing commonplace in the Aust underworld?

They're vulnerable/easy targets that can be used against criminals. And I think a lot of the time, family members could be pretty oblivious to what their relatives get up to, so they wouldn't be anywhere near as security conscious. Not sure how often a crime like this would be carried out, but I imagine such threats ('if we don't get you, we'll get your wife, or your kids') would be pretty common. Pretty much what happened in the murder of Prue Bird.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

They're vulnerable/easy targets that can be used against criminals. And I think a lot of the time, family members could be pretty oblivious to what their relatives get up to, so they wouldn't be anywhere near as security conscious. Not sure how often a crime like this would be carried out, but I imagine such threats ('if we don't get you, we'll get your wife, or your kids') would be pretty common. Pretty much what happened in the murder of Prue Bird.

Yeah, I'm sure the threats happen, but just not sure how commonplace it is in Aust to actually go through with it. I know we have our criminals but killing somebody's wife just seems like the sort of thing that only happens in the most extreme environments on Earth where human life is basically held in no regard.

Gotta think that the blokes who carry out this sort of hit are the lowest form of scum imaginable.

 

[GreyBudgie]

Article by Age Crime Reporter John Silvester dated November 9 2013 on the case, a very sad story for family and friends.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/1...red-mum-jane-thurgooddove-20131108-2x6u2.html

 

[Mr Reliable]

They're vulnerable/easy targets that can be used against criminals. And I think a lot of the time, family members could be pretty oblivious to what their relatives get up to, so they wouldn't be anywhere near as security conscious. Not sure how often a crime like this would be carried out, but I imagine such threats ('if we don't get you, we'll get your wife, or your kids') would be pretty common. Pretty much what happened in the murder of Prue Bird.

Just watched a new episode of Australian Story on the ABC (part one) and they covered that very story. There is a strong link to Russell St bomber, Craig Minogue (Dr Craig Minogue PhD, as he is now known), who was found to have killed murderer, Alex Tsakmakis, in the prison gym when both were inmates in the same prison.

Dr Craig was dobbed in for the bombing by former friends, associated with Prue - I think? I was distracted while trying to pay attention.

Dr Craig's still inside and even has his own website.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Just watched a new episode of Australian Story on the ABC (part one) and they covered that very story. There is a strong link to Russell St bomber, Craig Minogue (Dr Craig Minogue PhD, as he is now known), who was found to have murdered another murderer, Alex Tsakmakis, in the prison gym when both were inmates in the same prison.

Dr Craig was dobbed in by former friends, associated with Prue - I think? I was distracted while trying to pay attention.

Dr Craig's still inside and even has his own website.

The killing of Tsakmakis is covered in Chopper Read's first book. How much credibility people want to give to Chopper's version of things is up to them, but his suggestion was basically that Tsakmakis (who had been convicted of multiple murders and burnt Barry Quinn to death in prison, after Quinn baited Tsakmakis following Tsakmakis' girlfriend being raped) wanted to be the king in Pentridge and saw Minogue as a threat. Since Chopper had also stabbed Tsakmakis in an earlier incident in the prison, he (Chopper) surmised that if he helped Tsakmakis kill Minogue, he would be next on the hitlist. So, he pretended to go along with the plan, notified Minogue immediately, told Minogue when it was going to happen and when Tsakmakis went at him, Minogue pulverised his skull with gym weights in a pillowcase. Chopper had a habit of dubiously putting himself in other's stories, but I believe Minogue was acquitted of this killing on the grounds of self-defence, so it would appear that the other aspects of the incident aren't too far away from the truth.

Chopper also ran with Hetzel for a bit in the infamous 'Undercoat Gang'. According to Chopper, Hetzel was the most treacherous person he'd ever met and he was ultimately severely beaten and expelled from the gang. One of the Silvester/Rule Underbelly books looked in detail at the murder and had two theories: one was the Russell Street connection and another was that a mate of Hetzel's with a long history of armed robbery and sex offences was responsible. The book gave the 'Hetzel's mate' theory a bit more credibility, due to some bizarre/callous quotes that Hetzel made after Prue Bird's disappearance was first reported.

 

[hirdy_is_champ]

What a farce that Minogue was allowed to do a PHD. If state funded makes it even more ridiculous, a masters can cost a fortune, can't imagine the price of a PhD...

 

[Mr Reliable]

The killing of Tsakmakis is covered in Chopper Read's first book. How much credibility people want to give to Chopper's version of things is up to them, but his suggestion was basically that Tsakmakis (who had been convicted of multiple murders and burnt Barry Quinn to death in prison, after Quinn baited Tsakmakis following Tsakmakis' girlfriend being raped) wanted to be the king in Pentridge and saw Minogue as a threat. Since Chopper had also stabbed Tsakmakis in an earlier incident in the prison, he (Chopper) surmised that if he helped Tsakmakis kill Minogue, he would be next on the hitlist. So, he pretended to go along with the plan, notified Minogue immediately, told Minogue when it was going to happen and when Tsakmakis went at him, Minogue pulverised his skull with gym weights in a pillowcase. Chopper had a habit of dubiously putting himself in other's stories, but I believe Minogue was acquitted of this killing on the grounds of self-defence, so it would appear that the other aspects of the incident aren't too far away from the truth.

Chopper also ran with Hetzel for a bit in the infamous 'Undercoat Gang'. According to Chopper, Hetzel was the most treacherous person he'd ever met and he was ultimately severely beaten and expelled from the gang. One of the Silvester/Rule Underbelly books looked in detail at the murder and had two theories: one was the Russell Street connection and another was that a mate of Hetzel's with a long history of armed robbery and sex offences was responsible. The book gave the 'Hetzel's mate' theory a bit more credibility, due to some bizarre/callous quotes that Hetzel made after Prue Bird's disappearance was first reported.

Thanks for that. I made a couple of necessary changes to my post as a result of reading your's.

 

[Farmer2Goggin]

I live across the road from the house it should have been.

I grew up in Coghlan St Two Planks
From memory she lived a couple of houses up from the corner of Hoffmans Rd , the other lived a couple of houses from the corner of Garnett St
Absolute tragedy - if I recall correctly the husband was somewhat ( incorrectly) the subject of rumours as well - imagine dealing with all of that.

 

[Two Planks]

I grew up in Coghlan St Two Planks
From memory she lived a couple of houses up from the corner of Hoffmans Rd , the other lived a couple of houses from the corner of Garnett St
Absolute tragedy - if I recall correctly the husband was somewhat ( incorrectly) the subject of rumours as well - imagine dealing with all of that.

Plus there were unsubstantiated rumors of her having an affair with a policeman who was also a suspect. Every time I say my address I get that look and people say "is that the street that the mum got murdered in front of her kids" and I just nod. Terrible.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

One of the Silvester/Rule Underbelly books looked in detail at the murder and had two theories: one was the Russell Street connection and another was that a mate of Hetzel's with a long history of armed robbery and sex offences was responsible. The book gave the 'Hetzel's mate' theory a bit more credibility, due to some bizarre/callous quotes that Hetzel made after Prue Bird's disappearance was first reported.

(from Presumed Dead in Underbelly 3 by Silvester & Rule)

A 'good crook', in police slang, is not a character reading. It's an assessment of a criminal's ability to commit crimes professionally enough to minimise chances of arrest. Maurice John Marion, like his contemporaries Stan Taylor and Paul Hetzel, is a good crook, but an evil man. And the closest thing Hetzel has to a best friend.

Marion's crime 'form' goes back to 1959, but in the 1970s, he was a 'stick up' man known as 'Bank Enemy Number One.' Marion liked sex with his violence. He was convicted of rape and associated offences in 1975 and later charged with eleven counts of abduction, two of indecent assault and of using a firearm to resist arrest.

Jenny Bird knew none of this when she met Marion through her mother's connection with Hetzel. She remembered Marion as the friendly man who ran the canteen when she and her mother, then known by her married name, Julie Finlay, used to visit an old boyfriend in Pentridge in the 1970s (incidentally, the same man that helped Chopper Read hack his ears off in the late 1970s).

Hetzel left jail in 1981. Julie was waiting. She was a compliant older woman who would do anything to please him. Even better, she was a 'cleanskin': she could legally hold shooter's licences, buy guns, open bank accounts, get credit and sign lease agreements.

Jenny often sent Prue to stay with the Hetzels. It wasn't until much later, after Prue had taken an overdose of tablets the year before she had disappeared that Jenny's mother revealed that Stan Taylor had once handcuffed Prue - then seven years old - to a naked boy of her own age in a shower.

It was an insight into the sickening behaviour Prue's gradmother tolerated from the criminals she lived among - men who raped as well as robbed. But Jenny didn't realise and her mother didn't tell her, and so Prue - and her cousin Natasha - continued to visit.

When Prue turned thirteen in 1991, she became increasingly rebellious, mixing with boys Jenny didn't approve of. (Prue) wanted to leave home. They agreed she would stay with 'Nanna' and Hetzel in Leonora, near Kalgoorlie. She flew weat in July, 1991, after agreeing to Hetzel's peculiar stipulation that she stay for twelve months. Later, when Jenny telephoned to see how she was, Prue was moody and withdrawn. Hetzel told Jenny not to ring her - and was backed up by 'Nanna' Julie. Jenny knew Marion was staying in a caravan near Hetzel, but didn't worry about it. Until later.

Six weeks later, in September, the Hetzels drove back to Melbourne to sell gold, with Prue. Marion followed in another car. 'Mum said Prue wouldn't be staying with me, but at her friend Melissa's,' Jenny recalls. 'But Prue just grabbed me, and stayed with me. Three days later she said "Mum, I don't want to go back - he's nuts." I was frightened of what Hetzel would say, but I decided Prue should stay home with me.'

Hetzel was angry. It wasn't clear why he was so perturbed by a teenager wanting to be with her mother. After returning to Leonora, Hetzel rang Jenny and told her Prue was 'nothing but a little s**t' and that she'd caused 'nothing but problems.'

Prue was an 'absolute angel' for a few weeks, but she became increasingly troubled. She switched schools twice, and resumed psychological counselling started in 1988, three years before.

Meanwhile, Hetzel called with an unusually friendly offer to Jenny to spend Christmas in Western Australia with him and her mother. But he stipulated that she come alone, while Prue stayed home with Isabelle Taiatini (Jenny Bird's partner).

This puzzled Jenny. Only later did she suspect it might have been an attempt to throw suspicion on Isabelle if Prue disappeared. If so, it didn't work. Jenny went west, but took Isabelle with her, while Prue stayed in Melbourne with friends. They returned late in January. Two weeks later, Prue was gone.

After checking times, faces and places, police quickly dismissed the possibility that Isabelle Taiatini was involved. Curiously, Hetzel later pushed this line, despite initially insisting that Prue must have run away. He ostensibly changed his mind again even later. From the start, Jenny says, Hetzel was strangely aggressive rather than sympathetic about the child he'd known since she was three. When a female relative rang him the first night to say Prue was missing, he paused, took a deep breath, then blustered 'What the hell do you expect us to do all the way over here?'

Despite Jenny's obvious anguish, it took her mother and Hetzel more than a week to get to Melbourne ('I thought Mum would have been on a plane that night.') When they finally arrived, Hetzel sneered at Jenny: 'What the f*** are you crying for?' Within two hours, he took Julie to the rented property at Yarck and left her there, while he went to stay with Maurice Marion for several days at Marion's place at Yandoit, near Daylesford.

This rendezvous later haunted the grieving mother. What were the two criminals doing there?

When Hetzel returned, he sneered to Jenny 'She's probably out getting the arse f***** off her.' It was a brutally offensive thing to say to the mother of a thirteen-year-old missing for two weeks, but that's beside the point - which was that Hetzel was insisting that she'd run away, despite evidence suggesting otherwise. Every day that passed made it more likely she was dead.

Jenny thought Hetzel's behaviour was weird. He tried to stop her having contact with her mother, as if he was afraid of what might be said.

Another thing nagged her. 'I had a photo of Prue and Maurice Marion taken in Western Australia. I was going to give it to the police because it was a good picture of Prue, but Hetzel and Mum insisted that I didn't, in case Maurie was pulled in for questioning.'

She did as they asked, and gave the picture to her cousin's wife to hide from police.

One 'fact' picked up, then repeated, slanted perceptions from the start. Prue was described as Hetzel's 'grand-daughter', an understandable but inaccurate simplification that bolstered the implication she'd been abducted in revenge by the bombers. The fact that Rodney Minogue was at large heightened speculation that he was involved. But, to Jenny Bird, the revenge theory didn't quite add up.

It was clear that Minogue or anyone else could easily have found the Birds. But would they abduct and kill a teenage girl six years after the bombing when they could just as easily get her uncle, James 'Kicka' Finlay, who lived in the same street - and who actively helped the police convict the bombers? Like Hetzel, he avoided being charged by co-operating with police. A bumbling petty offender, he would have been an easy target.

Other things didn't quite gel. The bombing mastermind, Stan Taylor, was obsessed with killing Hetzel. Two of Taylor's former jail-mates, went to Perth in 1991 on a fruitless mission to find Hetzel. Every member of Julie Hetzel's extended family - 'Kicka' Finlay, Jenny Bird, Prue, her cousin Natasha Evans, and others - knew where Hetzel was living. Any of them would have revealed it, if threatened. If Prue had been abducted by Taylor's friends, she would immediately have told them where Hetzel was. But nothing happened to Hetzel, and he didn't seem nervous. Why?

Jenny Bird started to ask herself that question as weeks passed without any break in the investigation. Meanwhile, her cousin's wife persuaded her to give the photograph of Prue with Maurice Marion to the police. If Marion was questioned then so much the better, she argued.

Jenny knew her younger sister had once been involved with Marion. She asked her about him privately, and was shocked by the answer. 'Maurie's an animal,' her sister began, and poured out her story.

The sister was much younger than Jenny. When marion had left jail in 1986 she was only twenty, but Hetzel and their mother had openly approved Marion's advances to her, despite the fact he was twice her age.

One night in the house at Birchip, Marion came into her bedroom and raped her. Hetzel and her mother must have known what was happening, because they joked about it the next morning, despite the fact she had been crying and upset about the incident. It was the start of a sordid twelve-month 'relationship' with the 40-year-old Marion in which he abused the frightened girl physically and sexually, making bizarre and obscene demands. She later told police: 'I noticed he does not show interest in women his own age...he would often comment about my younger friends and what he would like to do to them.'

Her sister's story hit hard. From that moment Jenny believed Prue had come back from Western Australia terrified because Marion had sexually assaulted her - probably with Hetzel's knowledge. 'Paul had been giving me a real bad time,' she recalls. 'He didn't want me to talk to mum, and I didn't know why. Suddenly it came to me...I wondered if he got Maurie to take Prue.'

Later, investigators spoke to the Hetzels and to Marion separately. Hetzel said Marion was 'eccentric', ha paedophile tendencies, and suggested he would make a likely suspect for a sex murder. But he didn't make any signed statements that could be used against his old jailmate. What he did say was that Prue had seemed afraid of Marion since she had been 'mushrooming' with him one day in Western Australia. When they had driven back to Victoria, Marion had asked if Prue wanted to travel in his car, but she had refused.

In a long, carefully-worded statement made six years later in 1998, Hetzel contradicts his early 'belief' that Prue had run away, saying he now believed she had come to harm because of the Russell Street bombing. He cited the two threats made by Craig Minogue in May, 1986, one of which referred to Prue by name.

Despite speculation about the Russell Street bomb link, a persistent underworld rumour suggested otherwise. A well-known criminal and jailbreaker who had known Marion and Hetzel for years, but had fallen out with them, told police that the two men had abducted the girl, killed her and dissolved her body in acid.

Hmmmm...

Now, bear in mind that this story was written 15 years ago and a quick Google search on Marion turns up nothing but his minor acting career. For all I know, he's been ruled out as a suspect. It always seemed kind of convenient that Camilleri ended up getting pinned to Prue Bird's murder. But I'm not sure how any of the bolded parts of the above have changed and therefore, I think there's still some reason to wonder whether it really was tied to the Russell Street bombing.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

On further research, it seems Jenny Bird is now also leaning towards this being linked to Russell Street. It's pretty clear that in the Underbelly story, she was discounting that possibility. Hoping any subsequent episodes of The Innocent explore this other Marion theory and why it seemed like such a strong possibility 15 years ago but now can't even be found in a Google search.

 

[van peebles]

Why would a wife be specifically targeted? Seems like Mexican cartel behaviour to me, is this sort of thing commonplace in the Aust underworld?

You are right.
This is not common place behaviour in Australian criminality.
Very few{let the google freaks loose}payback wife murder assasinations have taken place in the last 226 years.

 

[TheGreatBambino]

Just read the chapter on Jane Thurgood-Dove in the new book about Ron Iddles. The policeman who was having an affair with her must of looked guilty as hell with his shrine of Jane and stuff

 

[_Mike_]

Either way, a bumbling case of mistaken identity

 

[Kurve]

Just read the chapter on Jane Thurgood-Dove in the new book about Ron Iddles. The policeman who was having an affair with her must of looked guilty as hell with his shrine of Jane and stuff

Every cop in North/West suburbs of Melbourne were talking about it within a day of her murder, it went around that fast.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Just read the chapter on Jane Thurgood-Dove in the new book about Ron Iddles. The policeman who was having an affair with her must of looked guilty as hell with his shrine of Jane and stuff

He wasn't though, was he? He was just infatuated with her.

 

[TheGreatBambino]

He wasn't though, was he? He was just infatuated with her.

No was ruled out as a suspect. But still stuff like having Janes birthday as his passcode on his phone is pretty creepy.

Don't think this case will ever be officially solved as the 2 guys they need to speak with are dead.