Russell Street bombing


The Russell Street bombing was the 27 March 1986 bombing of the Russell Street Police Headquarters complex in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The explosion killed Angela Taylor, the first Australian policewoman to be killed in the line of duty. The materials for the bomb were stolen from Tyrconnel Mine. Several men were arrested for suspected involvement with the bombing. Stanley Taylor and Craig Minogue were convicted of murder and various other offences related to the bombing. Peter Reed and Rodney Minogue were acquitted of any offences related to the bombing but Reed was convicted of a number of offences related to his arrest, which involved a shootout with police officers injuring himself and an officer. He was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.

Explosion

The explosion was caused by a car bomb hidden in a stolen 1979 Holden Commodore,. The explosion caused a massive amount of damage to the police station and surrounding buildings, estimated at more than A$1 million. The Age reported that the blast's impact was enhanced by the open-floor design of the offices, which had acted like a Claymore mine, sending more shrapnel as the blast ripped through the floors and adding more pressure to the blast as it followed its path. The blast seriously injured 21-year-old Police Constable Angela Taylor, who died on 20 April, becoming the first Australian policewoman to be killed in the line of duty. 22 other people were injured.

Investigations

On 7 October 1985, gelignite and detonators were stolen from the Tyrconnel Mine at Blackwood. On 25 March 1986, a Commodore was stolen. Both crimes were later found to provide equipment needed for the construction of the bomb.
In the course of the investigation, a group of people, including Craig Minogue, Rodney Minogue, Stanley Brian Taylor and Peter Reed, were apprehended. The motive for the bombing seems to have been revenge against the police.
A week after the bombing, on 4 April 1986, an anonymous caller had contacted Police Commissioner; Mick Miller, stating that they had footage of the offenders responsible just before the explosion, the caller then stated they wanted AU$500,000 for the footage. The caller contacted Miller's office five times, the detectives traced the calls coming from a series of public phone boxes in and around the St. Kilda area. In an attempt to get the caller to make contact again, Commissioner Miller and Victoria's PremierJohn Cain offered the caller's amount as a reward for information. The caller was later identified as 38-year-old industrial chemist; Vladimir Rhychta who was arrested while calling Commissioner Miller's office from another public phone box by a St. Kilda detective on 16 April 1986 and charged with hindering a police investigation as it was found that Rhychta's information was false.
The taskforce then received information from a second witness who stated that they seen a male suspect parking a Commodore identical to the bomb car in front of the Russell Street Police HQ at around 12:30pm on the day of the bombing, the witness' description was enough to provide detectives with an identikit picture of the suspect, the identikit matched the description of career criminal; Claudio Crupi. Crupi was a career armed robber who had a hatred towards police, prior to the bombing, Crupi had been charged with a burglary and was on bail. Crupi had left Melbourne shortly after bombing, in a raid on Crupi's home, taskforce detectives found a homemade device on Crupi's kitchen table, making him a prime suspect, He was later arrested in Sydney on 15 April 1986 and was brought back to Melbourne. Under police questioning, Crupi denied that he had any involvement in the bombing but admitted that he had a hatred towards a detective who worked at Russell Street. Crupi also stated that the homemade device recovered in his home was a fake and was meant to planted at a police station in Flemington.
A major breakthrough in the investigation came from a police report filed three weeks prior to the bombing. On 6 March 1986, a Victoria Police Traffic unit was in pursuit of a stolen red Daimler Sovereign in East Keilor, the pursuit came to the end when the driver wrecked the Daimler. The driver fled on foot into nearby St. Albans where he had stolen another car from a passing motorist at gunpoint and made his escape. In the boot of the Daimler, police found a backpack, containing a set of Victorian number plates that had been cut into pieces. When the pieces were put back together, the number plates; CCH-997, came back to a silver 1985 VK Commodore HDT that also had been stolen before the bombing. This second Commodore matched the description of a vehicle being used in an armed robbery of a bank in Donvale at 3:00pm on the day of the bombing in which the vehicle was used to ram-raid the front of the bank. The vehicle was later recovered from the Yarra River at Wonga Park on 7 April 1986.
Upon the examination of the silver Commodore by the Victoria Police Stolen Motor Vehicles Squad, detectives discovered that the vehicle's VIN on the chassis had been drilled out. The drill marks on the silver Commodore's VIN were found to be identical to the VIN on the Commodore used in the bombing and the silver Commodore's number plates were recovered from the Daimler, linking the stolen Daimler and the Donvale robbery to the Russell Street Bombing.
In a statement given to the detectives, the traffic officer caught a glimpse of the driver from the Daimler during the chase and out of a series of mugshots, identified the driver as Peter Reed. Reed was a suspected armed robber and car thief. As Reed was a person of interest in matters relating to several violent armed robberies and car thefts, his address and the addresses of Reed's family members and several of his associates were placed under police surveillance.
One of the addresses under surveillance was a house of an associate on Haros Street in Nunawading. Police checks on the house identified the associate as Karl Zelinka, while Zelinka had no criminal background, he was known to Reed who visited Zelinka on multiple occasions.

Arrests

On 25 April 1986, ten Victoria Police officers raided the Kallista home of Peter Michael Reed at 5:45 a.m. It was alleged that upon attempting to enforce the arrest by forcing entry to the premises, Reed produced a.455 Smith & Wesson revolver and fired at police, seriously wounding Detective Sergeant Mark Wylie. Reed was then fired upon by Det. Sgt. Steve Quinsee, who was also wounded and arrested.
During the search of Reed's home, detectives found several firearms with drill marks similar to the drill marks on both the bomb car and the stolen silver Commodore. Also recovered at Reed's home was a police scanner and two detonators sitting on a backpack identical to the detonators used in the bombing. Inside of the backpack were sticks of gelignite identical to the sticks of gelignite used in the bomb car.
Fingerprints found on the door of the toilet at Reed's home matched to Craig Minogue and fingerprints found on the newspaper wrapped around the sticks of gelignite matched to Craig Minogue's brother; Rodney Minogue. The Minogue brothers were both associates of Reed in which Rodney Minogue had served time in prison with Reed.
Police later raided Zelinka's house, evidence recovered from the house matched as the source of the components used in the construction of the bomb including a fence post from a neighbouring yard that matched a block of wood found at the Russell Street scene and a metal rubbish bin that matched a metal strip used to hold the wired components of the bomb in place. Under police questioning, Zelinka admitted that he knew Peter Reed through his association with Craig Minogue, Zelinka also admitted that he saw Craig Minogue pulling into the garage of Zelinka's home in a Commodore identical to the bomb car. Zelinka also stated that Craig Minogue had paid for Zelinka and his girlfriend to fly to Sydney for the Easter Holiday just before the bombing occurred with the return airline ticket dated for after the bombing. Zelinka then stated the when he and his girlfriend returned from Sydney after the bombing, he saw the Minogue brothers filling up a small trailer and was told by Craig Minogue that he and his brother were moving out from Zelinka's home. Zelinka then admitted that Craig Minogue had told him to grab the lid of Zelinka's metal rubbish bin and put it on the a pile in the trailer. When the detectives asked about the pile in the trailer, Zelinka admitted that the Minogue Brothers took the pile in the trailer to a rubbish tip.
Zelinka then told the detectives that while the Minogue brothers were staying at his home, they were visited on several occasions before the bombing by an associate known to Craig Minogue. Zelinka described the associate as an older male aged about 50 and was referred to as "Stan the Man", Zelinka's description of "Stan the Man" matched to armed robber; Stanley Brian Taylor. Stan Taylor had a extensive criminal record dating back to the late 1940s. Taylor first came attention to the authorities at the age of 8 when he was arrested for truancy and spent two years in the Bayswater Boys Home at The Basin where he was subjected to physical abuse from the other inmates and staff and was introduced to a life of crime. In 1949, he was arrested after being caught fishing in prohibited area. During his young adult years, Taylor had been in and out of jail on criminal charges relating to theft of motorcycles and burglary. In 1961, Taylor was convicted of an armed robbery on a milk bar in Clayton and was sent to Pentridge's notorious H Division where met Ronald Ryan. While in prison, Ryan approached Taylor and asked him to accompanied Ryan on his 1965 escape but Taylor refused. Instead, Taylor and another prisoner escaped from Pentridge only to be recaptured five days later during which, he committed seven bank robberies.
While in prison, Taylor became a model prisoner and took part in several prison stage shows. After his release in 1978, Taylor became a social worker to help young men avoid a life of crime. As a bit-part actor, Taylor starred in a 1979 episode of Prisoner.
Detectives arrested Taylor at his home in Birchip on 30 May 1986. Under questioning, Taylor claimed that he had no involvement in the bombing and that knew Craig and Rodney Minogue through his job as a social worker and he met them to prevent them from getting involved in any further crimes, but admitted that both Craig and Rodney Minogue and Peter Reed were responsible for the Russell Street Bombing.
Detectives then ran a search for Craig and Rodney Minogue and found that they moved into a house within close distance of Taylor's home in Birchip, a raid on the house failed to locate the Minogue Brother but turned up evidence linking them to Russell Street Bombing. At the house, detectives recovered a large drill machine that matched to the drill marks on both the stolen silver Commodore and on the bomb car.

Trial

Reed was charged with attempted murder, recklessly causing serious injury, using a firearm to prevent apprehension and possessing explosives in suspicious circumstances in addition to charges related to the Russell Street bombing. Reed later reportedly stated at his trial in unsworn evidence that "the police started the shooting and I only used firearm in self defence."
Prosecutors did not allege that any person played any particular role in the bombing, but that each of them were members of a team which planned the bombing and caused the bomb to explode. Evidence against the accused was as follows:
At the end of a six-month trial in the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1988 before Justice Vincent, Taylor and Craig Minogue were convicted of murder and various other offences related to the bombing. Peter Reed and Rodney Minogue were acquitted of any offences related to the bombing but Reed was convicted of a number of offences related to his arrest, and was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.
Taylor was sentenced to life imprisonment with no minimum term, the first person in Victoria to be so sentenced. Taylor died in prison at the age of 79. Craig Minogue was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 28 years. Although Minogue thus became eligible for parole in 2016, the Victorian Parliament has twice legislated to keep him in prison. Minogue and Reed have both been recently charged with sexual assault offences that allegedly occurred just prior to the bombing.

Aftermath

In 1995, police headquarters moved to the Victoria Police Centre with the old headquarters many years later redeveloped into an apartment complex. Wylie, who was shot by Reed, later recovered from his wounds, but eventually left the police force; in July 2014, he died by suicide, aged 61.

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