By TONY WALL
A killer described as a remorseless psychopath is refusing to reveal where he dumped his victim's body.
Ian Douglas Johnson, a career criminal who has twice fired shots at police, was convicted in the High Court at Auckland on Monday of murdering his flatmate, drug dealer Stavros Stavrianos. He
is serving a life sentence.
The family of Mr Stavrianos are appealing for Johnson to reveal what he did with the body.
But sources the Herald spoke to yesterday said that Johnson, aged 47, was a psychopathic killer who showed no remorse and was steadfastly refusing to tell anyone where he dumped the body.
On January 15, he shot Mr Stavrianos, 49, in the face at pointblank range with a shotgun in the toilet of the house they shared at Green Bay. He stole around $5000 of Mr Stavrianos' drug money.
Police later found a small piece of shotgun-peppered skull in the toilet plumbing. It was the only part of Mr Stavrianos' body that was found.
The Herald understands that the only clue Johnson has given police is that he dumped the body on a roadside within an hour's drive of Auckland and that it was not well hidden. Searches have failed to find it.
The officer in charge of the case, Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Bush, said Johnson headed south to Dannevirke after the murder, disposing of items, believed to be clothing, in an incinerator on a friend's farm.
He said he hoped for the sake of Mr Stavrianos' family, including his daughter and former wife, that Johnson would talk.
Defence lawyer Steve Cullen said his client was aware that police wanted to know the location of the body, but he had been given no instructions on whether Johnson would reveal the information.
Johnson has a long list of convictions. In 1981, he was caught during an attempt to blow up a safe with gelignite at the Kingsland Post Office in Auckland.
In 1985, he fired a rifle at a constable who had come to his Warkworth property looking for cannabis. The bullet nicked the officer's neck.
He went bush and two weeks later, when the armed offenders squad cornered him in another Warkworth house, he fired at an officer's head, missing by centimetres. He was jailed for four years.
In 1991, he was jailed for seven years after terrorising staff during an armed robbery at a bank in Dominion Rd.
The following year he escaped from Kaitoke Prison, near Wanganui, for two days, scaling a 6m-high fence.
"Society's a lot safer with him behind bars," said Detective Senior Sergeant Bush.
By TONY WALL
A killer described as a remorseless psychopath is refusing to reveal where he dumped his victim's body.
Ian Douglas Johnson, a career criminal who has twice fired shots at police, was convicted in the High Court at Auckland on Monday of murdering his flatmate, drug dealer Stavros Stavrianos. He
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.