Unsolved High Country Disappearance of Barwon Prison Boss David Prideaux

[Kurve]

Of interest.
Wonnangatta - Russell Hill & Carol Clay vanish *Jetstar Pilot Arrested

 

[MaddAdam]

Barwon prison boss David Prideaux was 50 when the experienced hunter went on a trip with his brother-in-law in Victoria's rugged high country on Mount Stirling and simply vanished.

There are fish canneries sited next to sewerage plants that stink less than this.

 

[CAS79]

There are fish canneries sited next to sewerage plants that stink less than this.

Agreed. Some context to recent developments for those not familier with it.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...f-david-prideaux/story-e6frgczx-1226588021061

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

As my ex boss and someone who I knew a bit, I've been following this with some interest whenever something pops up.

The alleged sighting of him in Broome recently piqued my interest. I thought it was totally believable. Will have to see if they ever find a body. I thought once the snow season had ended that something may have turned up.

One thing, when quite a lot of the gangland stuff was going on at the end, he wasn't there, he was always seconded to somewhere else and there were other people in the chair as acting GM of the prison.

 

[MaddAdam]

As my ex boss and someone who I knew a bit, I've been following this with some interest whenever something pops up.

Was going to ping you to this.

Must say david disappearing and Matty Johnson waking up a bad case of the angries that day has made it almost impossible for a certain retired Victoria Police officer to ever have to answer questions about some of his links to very serious drug dealers.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

Was going to ping you to this.

Must say david disappearing and Matty Johnson waking up a bad case of the angries that day has made it almost impossible for a certain retired Victoria Police officer to ever have to answer questions about some of his links to very serious drug dealers.

Yeah, lucky for him.

While Johnson and Williams didn't actually share the same sub unit together with the ex copper, they were all in Acacia together at one point. It's actually segregated into 4 smaller secure units. In two of them, they're able to talk with each other through bars, iirc, they were in the adjacent units.

 

[MaddAdam]

Yeah, lucky for him.

While Johnson and Williams didn't actually share the same sub unit together with the ex copper, they were all in Acacia together at one point. It's actually segregated into 4 smaller secure units. In two of them, they're able to talk with each other through bars, iirc, they were in the adjacent units.

That's a detail I didn't know.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

That's a detail I didn't know.

I'll just back track on that a bit.

Johnson and the copper were in Acacia at the same time. I'm not 100% on Williams. I know that they seperated Carl and Matty a couple of times for short periods, for instance when George Williams was transferred there.

When I first started there I used to look after Johnson and Williams a fair bit, there were in another unit together in another segregated section with another couple of members of the 'Trial from Hell' that was widely reported recently.

 

[MaddAdam]

I'll just back track on that a bit.

Johnson and the copper were in Acacia at the same time. I'm not 100% on Williams. I know that they seperated Carl and Matty a couple of times for short periods, for instance when George Williams was transferred there.

When I first started there I used to look after Johnson and Williams a fair bit, there were in another unit together in another segregated section with another couple of members of the 'Trial from Hell' that was widely reported recently.

That's the interesting bit for mine.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

Was going to ping you to this.

Must say david disappearing and Matty Johnson waking up a bad case of the angries that day has made it almost impossible for a certain retired Victoria Police officer to ever have to answer questions about some of his links to very serious drug dealers.

I processed George into the prison that day for his visit with Carl. Carl used to get the HUN everyday and that day on the front page was a full spread on what Carl was allegedly getting for his co-operation ie school fees for his daughter and an alleged offer to waive George's tax problems. Matty would have read it while Carl was in having his visit.

Whether or not it was a premeditated attack or the paper that day triggered it, I guess only Johnson and if it was premeditated, one other person would probably know.

I read the transcripts on the 'Trial from Hell' and was surprised to learn of the weapons used in that attack and what was used in Carl's murder.

 

[MaddAdam]

I processed George into the prison that day for his visit with Carl. Carl used to get the HUN everyday and that day on the front page was a full spread on what Carl was allegedly getting for his co-operation ie school fees for his daughter and an alleged offer to waive George's tax problems. Matty would have read it while Carl was in having his visit.

Whether or not it was a premeditated attack or the paper that day triggered it, I guess only Johnson and if it was premeditated, one other person would probably know.

I read the transcripts on the 'Trial from Hell' and was surprised to learn of the weapons used in that attack and what was used in Carl's murder.

I have absolutely no doubt the Carl school fees story was planted for a reason.

People will call me tin foil hat wearing, but then, most people don't believe/refuse to accept how the world really works.

My theory? Johnson had already been primed to knock Carl. The motivation to do it? I dunno. Cash rewards, promises of easy treatment, threats against family/himself, I just don't know.

Anyway, he'd been primed to do it and told to do it when a certain sign was sent.

The school fees story was the sign.

As you say, the fact he was allowed access to the same weapon he used on Bluey Brazel is telling. The whole thing was a huge set up.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

I have absolutely no doubt the Carl school fees story was planted for a reason.

People will call me tin foil hat wearing, but then, most people don't believe/refuse to accept how the world really works.

My theory? Johnson had already been primed to knock Carl. The motivation to do it? I dunno. Cash rewards, promises of easy treatment, threats against family/himself, I just don't know.

Anyway, he'd been primed to do it and told to do it when a certain sign was sent.

The school fees story was the sign.

As you say, the fact he was allowed access to the same weapon he used on Bluey Brazel is telling. The whole thing was a huge set up.

I don't think any of the highlighted would've made any difference. The main one I can think of is to regain some of his standing after he was put into the high security units and segregated from the POWs. He committed a crime when he was released and once he was back in had to be kept out of mainstream due to the nature of the crime.

 

[MaddAdam]

I don't think any of the highlighted would've made any difference. The main one I can think of is to regain some of his standing after he was put into the high security units and segregated from the POWs. He committed a crime when he was released and once he was back in had to be kept out of mainstream due to the nature of the crime.

Out of interest, how bad are the POWs? My understanding is that while Australian jails (I've never been in one, though done lots of stuff, visits etc, stories, in UK jails) are not nice places, they are far from the gang ridden rape farms like US jails.

Yet the POWs have a rep for being quite serious standover types with a strong sexual violence element, especially Matty boy himself.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

Out of interest, how bad are the POWs? My understanding is that while Australian jails (I've never been in one, though done lots of stuff, visits etc, stories, in UK jails) are not nice places, they are far from the gang ridden rape farms like US jails.

Yet the POWs have a rep for being quite serious standover types with a strong sexual violence element, especially Matty boy himself.

A year or two before I started there'd been a lot of violence between the POWs and the Lebanese. They were all broken up and moved out of mainstream and into higher security units or to other prisons.

The only concept I had of what it was like inside was what you'd see on American prisons. A couple of weeks before I started my training, America's Hardest Prisons started on foxtel and I started to watch it. I stopped watching after the first couple of episodes so that I didn't spook myself.

Once I got in there, I was surprised by how little actually happened. I had a couple of blokes on my course from prisons interstate and they reckon that Barwon was like kindergarten compared to them. There was a few nasty incidents while I was in there but nothing that was continually happening. There actually used to be more frequent incidents happening next door at Margoneet the medium security prison. .

I used to listen to a few of the older, longer serving officers that had been around since the Pentridge days, telling stories and couldn't understand how anyone would get up and voluntarily go to work in that sort of an environment each day. It was bad enough people used to question how I could work where I did but it paled in comparison to what I'd heard from Pentridge.

 

[Silent Alarm]

This all sounds interesting but I have no idea on the backstory. Why did Prideaux disappear? Was he just an unnoteworthy head of a prison, or what?

 

[MaddAdam]

This all sounds interesting but I have no idea on the backstory. Why did Prideaux disappear? Was he just an unnoteworthy head of a prison, or what?

Read the link. He had the files of Carl Williams talking about how he'd done serious business with dodgy cops.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

This all sounds interesting but I have no idea on the backstory. Why did Prideaux disappear? Was he just an unnoteworthy head of a prison, or what?

There's no why at this stage. He disappeared on a hunting trip in Victoria.

 

[Hard_to_Beat]

As my ex boss and someone who I knew a bit, I've been following this with some interest whenever something pops up.

The alleged sighting of him in Broome recently piqued my interest. I thought it was totally believable. Will have to see if they ever find a body. I thought once the snow season had ended that something may have turned up.

One thing, when quite a lot of the gangland stuff was going on at the end, he wasn't there, he was always seconded to somewhere else and there were other people in the chair as acting GM of the prison.

Hmmmmmm.

 

[CAS79]

As my ex boss and someone who I knew a bit, I've been following this with some interest whenever something pops up.

The alleged sighting of him in Broome recently piqued my interest. I thought it was totally believable. Will have to see if they ever find a body. I thought once the snow season had ended that something may have turned up.

It's strange that sighting, as it's now been downplayed according to this article



http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vi...rideaux-an-error/story-e6frf7kx-1226574575711

But it is believed the former friend of the corrections officer who made the sighting is not convinced it was Mr Prideaux.

He believed it strongly enough at the time to report it and delay a coronial hearing but is not convinced it is Mr Prideaaux.

How do you make a report of a sighting that put's the inquest on hold but not be convinced. That change of opinion raises even more questions about strange behaviour. The question is if it is a change of story that was "helped" in deciding to change it who "helped".

Remembering you find the story believable Henre, do you think this person has been assisted in suddenly finding doubt in their own version?

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

It's strange that sighting, as it's now been downplayed according to this article



http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vi...rideaux-an-error/story-e6frf7kx-1226574575711


He believed it strongly enough at the time to report it and delay a coronial hearing but is not convinced it is Mr Prideaaux.

How do you make a report of a sighting that put's the inquest on hold but not be convinced. That change of opinion raises even more questions about strange behaviour. The question is if it is a change of story that was "helped" in deciding to change it who "helped".

Remembering you find the story believable Henre, do you think this person has been assisted in suddenly finding doubt in their own version?

Perhaps.

Perhaps he was persuaded by Prideaux himself. Maybe Prideaux caught up with him after the report had been made and persuaded the witness to change his story by using the reasons why he'd done it. It's not like he's an average Joe looking bloke. Put it this way, if I saw him, I'd know it's him unless he'd had radical cosmetic surgery.

Maybe he took a selection of Mokbel's wigs with him?

Maybe he's lying dead in the Victorian high country waiting for his skeletal remains to be found one day.

I found it believable, not in the sense of some evil conspiracy tied to the murder of Carl Williams or anything to do with the ex copper. But believable in the sense if someone wanted to just disappear to start a new life.

 

[CrazyJoeFevola]

As an aside; Prideaux was a decent footballer for Preston in the VFA in the mid 80s

 

[Kurve]

Bumpety bump.

 

[nut]

Bumpety bump.

What’s new.

 

[Kurve]

What’s new.

Prideaux' disappearance is getting some attention on the Royal Commission thread and apparently, Adam Shand is doing something.

 

[Kurve]

I found it believable, not in the sense of some evil conspiracy tied to the murder of Carl Williams or anything to do with the ex copper. But believable in the sense if someone wanted to just disappear to start a new life.

With his profile, he'd need a lot of money and the right good contacts to successfully get away with that. A career in the prison system going to the head, he might have those. I'd also have to assume he had a criminal bent given the circumstances and a really big life insurance policy his family were making a claim on. iirc.

I think he's dead personally but I'm not convinced it was an accident or major medical emergency so keeping an open mind.