The Hoddle Street massacre was a mass shooting that occurred on the evening of Sunday, 9 August 1987, in Hoddle Street, Clifton Hill, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, in Australia. The shootings resulted in the deaths of seven people, and serious injury to 19 others. The Crown prosecutor, Joe Dickson QC, "did not contend that a minimum term should not be fixed".

Prelude

right|thumb|The house in Ramsden Street, Clifton Hill

At 11:30 on Sunday 9 August 1987, Knight woke up in his temporary bedroom in the front room of his mother's house at number 6 Ramsden Street, Clifton Hill. Between 13:10 and 16:10 on Sunday 9 August 1987, Knight attended a belated birthday party for his mother at his grandmother's house in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn. While at the party Knight consumed two cans of beer. He left the party in his own car and drove his younger sister home before driving aimlessly around the Clifton Hill area.

At about 16:50, Knight went to see an old girlfriend in Clifton Hill in order to give her a magazine. He only stayed at her flat for about five minutes then he continued to drive aimlessly around the area. Minutes later the gearbox of his car – his only asset – jammed and stuck in second gear. He limped the car home, where he changed clothes and drank another can of beer before walking angrily around to the nearby Royal Hotel, his local pub, at around 17:30. None of Knight's friends were there, so he drank alone from around 17:30. At around 20:50, Knight reportedly began to feel the effects of the beer he'd been drinking and he had a "vision" of soldiers being ambushed. He felt as if it was a "call to arms", and at about 20:55 he rushed from the hotel and ran back to his mother's house.

Preparation

Arriving back at his mother's house a few minutes later, he spoke briefly to his sister when she met him in the hallway outside the front room. He then waited until his sister returned to the rear of the house to watch a movie on TV with their mother, before he ventured upstairs to his mother's bedroom. Stored under her bed were his legally owned and licensed weapons: a .177 calibre Daisy BB air rifle, a .177 calibre Chinese air rifle, a .177 calibre Crosman model 766 air rifle, a .22 calibre Ruger model 10/22 semi-automatic rifle, a 12-gauge Mossberg pump-action shotgun, and a Chinese-made 7.62mm calibre M14 semi-automatic military rifle. Knight retrieved the Ruger rifle, the Mossberg shotgun and the M14 rifle, then he took the Ruger and the Mossberg back downstairs to the front room. He then returned to his mother's room and collected the M14, and a steel ammunition box and a leather shotgun cartridge belt from his mother's wardrobe, before returning to the front room to load the three firearms.

  • Fatalities
  • Tracey Skinner (23). Shot in face
  • Johnny "John" Muscat (26). Shot in face and chest
  • Vesna Markovska (24). Shot three times
  • Robert Mitchell (27). Shot in right side of the head
  • Georgina "Gina" Papaioannou (21). Minor wounds, later shot in the left side
  • Dusan Flajnik (53). Shot in the left side. Bled to death
  • Kenneth "Shane" Stanton (21). Leg injury, then shot twice
  • Injuries
  • Con Vitkos. Minor wounds
  • Rita Vitkos. Minor wounds
  • Alan Jury. Wounded
  • Monica Vitelli. Wounded
  • Diane Fitzpatrick. Serious back injury
  • Zoran Trajceski. Minor wounds
  • Edward McShortall. Minor wounds
  • Keith Wing Shing. Serious jaw and throat wounds
  • Adam Skinner. Minor glass injuries
  • Peter Curmi. Seriously wounded
  • Steven Wight. Seriously wounded
  • John Finn. Minor wounds
  • Andrew Hack. Seriously wounded in left side
  • Michael Smith. Minor wounds
  • Jacqueline Megens. Seriously wounded in right shoulder
  • Renata Coldebella. Minor wounds
  • Danny Coldebella. Seriously wounded
  • Colin Chambers. Slightly injured in right side
  • John Delahunty. Minor shrapnel wounds to face and left hand

Media

The Hoddle Street massacre has been the subject of GTV Channel 9's Hoddle Street (2007). In 2018, the incident was the subject of the 90th episode of the true crime podcast Casefile.

Media attention on the massacre has been cited as a possible motive for a killing spree in Hungerford, UK 10 days later.

The massacre forms the background of the second episode of Series 2 of the Australian drama series The Newsreader, broadcast on ABC on 17 September 2023.

See also

  • List of mass shootings in Australia
  • Category:Mass shootings in Victoria (state)
  • Queen Street massacre – a spree shooting in Melbourne in December 1987
  • Milperra massacre
  • Port Arthur massacre
  • List of massacres in Australia
  • List of disasters in Australia by death toll

References

  • Hoddle Street Massacre, State Library of Victoria, Ergo
  • S treetview/map of the shooting's location