Melbourne gangland hit kills infamous thug from family of thieves

By GREG ANSLEY

CANBERRA - Mark "Chopper" Read worries that the execution of his old mate Victor Peirce near the upwardly mobile cafes of Port Melbourne on Wednesday night will ignite a series of revenge murders in the Victorian capital.

"There would have to be a couple of shootings following this," the self-confessed hitman and torturer, who gained his nickname by chopping off his victims' toes, told Melbourne radio yesterday.



If anyone would know, it would be Read, who knew Peirce for 14 years and has an intimate knowledge of the Melbourne underworld he stalked for two decades before finally emerging as author, celebrity thug and subject of the hit movie Chopper that propelled star Eric Bana to Hollywood.

Peirce, 42, was one of Australia's most notorious criminals and a member of the infamous Pettingell family, presided over by mother Kathleen, a convicted drug dealer and brothel owner whose life was chronicled in another real-life crime classic, The Matriarch.

Yesterday she vowed revenge: "All I can say is to the two persons involved, they can run but they can't hide. If I had a gun at this moment, first of all I would get even, and then I would knock off somebody else with a big mouth."

Peirce died in a volley of bullets as he sat in his car near the Port Melbourne Coles in Bay St, the gentrified strip that over the past few years has filled with upmarket bars, cafes and apartments.

Witnesses said a light-coloured, mid-1980s Holden Commodore pulled up alongside Peirce, the passenger stepped out and shot him several times in the upper body, then the car sped off. Peirce died soon after arriving in hospital.

"Probably to do with drugs," Read said. "He was a major cocaine dealer. He was probably there to collect money."

Peirce was released from Dhurringile jail four years ago after serving a six-year sentence for drug trafficking. His pregnant wife, Wendy, was jailed for perjury over the same case.

Their baby boy, the youngest of three children, spent his first 15 months in Fairlea women's prison and did not see his father as a free man until he was six.

But Peirce's infamy had been earned years before, through the still-unsolved killings of two young policemen, Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre.

They were shot on October 12, 1988, when they checked an abandoned car in South Yarra.

After an 895-day investigation police charged Peirce and three others with the murders. All were acquitted, but police still believe Peirce was responsible.

The two officers were thought to have been executed in revenge for the police shootings of Frank Valastro - an armed robber whose friends vowed to kill two policemen for each death of one of their own - and Graeme Jensen, a friend of Pierce.

Peirce was already a well-known thug, and his fame grew after the police murders until he was arrested for selling heroin to an undercover officer.

Kathleen Pettingell, a madam and drug-dealer said to have bought protection for the family from corrupt police, oversaw a family of confusing parentage whose careers eclipsed even that of Peirce.

Brother Dennis Allen was implicated in 11 killings. He served four years of a 10-year term for a brutal rape committed during an attempted contract murder with another brother, Peter Allen, and was Melbourne's biggest heroin and amphetamine distributor in the mid-1980s.

Peter Allen was an armed robber and drug dealer who was jailed for 12 years for rape after a gunfight with police, then for 13 years for trafficking and conspiracy to commit armed robbery, and finally for six years for running a heroin distribution ring from prison.

Brother Jamie Pettingell had his first conviction at age 11 and became a car thief in his teens.

He graduated to armed robbery and was a strongman for Dennis, shooting at least two men. He died of a drug overdose in 1985.