Walsh Street police shootings

The Walsh Street police shootings occurred in the early hours of 12 October 1988 in South Yarra, Melbourne, Australia. Victoria Police constables Steven Tynan, 22, and Damian Eyre, 20, were investigating an abandoned vehicle on Walsh Street when they were gunned down by unknown assailants. Four men, Victor Peirce, Trevor Pettingill, Anthony Leigh Farrell and Peter David McEvoy, were charged with murder, but were later acquitted by a jury in the Supreme Court of Victoria. Two other suspects, Jedd Houghton and Gary Abdallah, were shot and killed by Victoria Police before being brought to trial.

In 2005, Wendy Peirce, the widow of Victor, who had been convicted of perjury in connection with the shooting, gave an interview to the mass media, in which she stated that her late husband had planned and carried out the murders and that he was actually guilty as charged.

Background

The 1980s saw a high number of armed robberies being committed throughout Melbourne, to the point where they had become a problem for police forces across Australia. Rather than single robbers committing robberies on impulse, professional armed robbers organised in gangs began planning their robberies in advance by conducting surveillance on targets known to carry large amount of cash, selecting gang members, assigning roles, organising weaponry and equipment needed, arranging the getaway vehicles, and organising safehouses. Kearon received a cut above his eye from flying glass caused by bullets shattering the van's windshield, while Fletcher escaped injury by taking cover under the van's dashboard. Thinking it was a burglar, Steele and Stooke followed the vehicle and pulled it over to conduct an inspection. The vehicle was registered to a man named Max Clark. As the officers were conducting the inspection, the driver got out of the vehicle, produced a firearm, and shot both officers before fleeing the scene.

Events

Prior events

On 11 October 1988, Victor Peirce's best friend, Graeme Jensen, was fatally shot by police in Narre Warren.

Killings

Thirteen hours after Jensen's death, at 4:39 am on 12 October, an abandoned Holden Commodore on Walsh Street, South Yarra, was reported to Victoria Police. The call would have usually been answered by police units from St Kilda Road or South Melbourne police stations, but on the night of the murders, St Kilda Road police station had a shortage of officers on duty and were unable to send a divisional van,

Investigation

The police investigation was known as the Ty-Eyre Task Force, a combination of the two surnames of the officers killed. Detective Inspector John Noonan was the officer in charge. It was the biggest investigation Victoria Police had ever undertaken at the time and also the longest running, spanning around two-and-a-half years. At the height of the investigation, police had hundreds of officers working with the task force to investigate the murders.

Police investigations revealed the shotgun used to perform the murders was the same weapon used earlier in a bungled attempt to blast open a bank door during a robbery at the State Bank in Oak Park seven months earlier. A gang, dubbed the "Flemington Crew" by police, had robbed at least four Melbourne banks. The robbers, on the security CCTV at the Oak Park robbery, left shotgun shells at the scene. Seven months into the investigation, the shotgun itself was found half-buried in an inner-city golf-course plant bed by a gardener. The shotgun and shells became the single forensic link police had, linking the Oak Park robbery to the same shotgun used in the Walsh Street murders.

Victor Peirce's wife, Wendy Peirce, also became a prosecution witness and entered the witness protection program. She had previously maintained her husband was with her in a motel all night on the night of the murders; she retracted this alibi in preparation to testify against her husband. The case was also covered by Casefile True Crime Podcast on 29 July 2017.

References

External links

Blue Ribbon Day
Victoria Police