A deadly bombing shakes Melbourne’s CBD (Part 1/2) | Forensic Files

[Music] nano wadding is a suburb just the outside of the main city area of Melbourne in the state of Victoria there
was 11:30 a.m. Thursday the 27th of March 1986 in Harris Avenue in Nana wadding prison had a problem for the
police surveillance team following the red Jaguar there was a small dead-end street no way
to observe the house a bank robbery suspect was heading to without them being obvious to avoid being detected
they had no choice but to let the suspect out of their sight there was only one way in and one way out of
Harris Avenue so the suspect would have to come back past them eventually no big
deal they thought as they parked outside Harris Avenue keeping a close eye out for the red Jaguar when the 1979 model
Holden Commodore drove out of the street the police weren't to know their suspect
was inside they were looking for a red Jaguar not a Commodore there was a stroke of luck for the suspect he had no
idea the police were watching him the change of cars had nothing to do with avoiding the police table there was a
far more sinister reason for the switch [Music] back in 1986 the Victorian police
headquarters building was located on the corner of Russell Street and Latrobe Street in Melbourne opened in 1943 the
building was recognized as a symbol of policing in Victoria and was referred to by many officers simply as Russell
Street the building housed many different police units and hundreds of officers were based there at 12:50 p.m.
that same day Thursday the 27th of March 1986 officer Charles buzina from the drug squad parked his unmarked police
car on Russell Street directly outside of headquarters he was annoyed at the car parked in front of him a two-tone
Holden Commodore sedan the same one that had driven out of Harris Avenue past police surveillance teams a short while
earlier buzina knew it wasn't a police car but it was parked in the police parking spot he had a quick look through
the window there was no one inside and he couldn't see anything to be worried about he didn't have time to deal with
the illegal park if it got to be at it and made his way inside headquarters directly across the road from the police
headquarters building was Melbourne Magistrates Court constable Karl denardio was a young 19
year old officer fresh out of the Academy he was assigned to court security at the time which basically
meant he set up the back of the courtroom and made sure no one caused any trouble it was a slow day in
denardio was happy when the court broke for lunch he made his way out of the court building and onto Russell Street
just before 1:00 p.m. as denardio was walking out of the court 21 year old constable Angela Taylor was flipping a
coin with her partner they were working in the watch house that day which is the
police cells next to the court and they were also on a lunch break Angela Taylor
graduated from the police academy at the top of her class and was described as a
brilliant and vibrant person with a magnificent career ahead of her the loser of the coin toss had to go and buy
lunch Angela lost the toss and made her way onto Russell Street heading across the
road to the canteen inside police headquarters the quickest way to the canteen was through the southern
entrance and that's where Angela Taylor headed denardio was headed for the canteen as well but he wasn't as
familiar with the layout of headquarters being fresh out of the Academy so he made his way to the northern entrance
denardio and Taylor headed for the same place but were walking in opposite directions
they didn't in the prone into a scene of mass panic by the blast the first explosion went off just before 1 o'clock
when a car blew up outside the police headquarters Eyewitness News cameras were first on
the scene we're just a few minutes ago a car bomb exploded outside the police station here in Russell Street there was
a sound of one massive explosion we were sitting in our office our Eyewitness News office just around the corner of
the glass it was shattered in the windows of our office after that there were several more explosions the sound
of properly fuel in the car exploding Russell Street was in a complete state of chaos for seconds Russell Street was
in a state of chaos policemen police women were screaming everybody was in a state of complete hysteria 19 people in
the busy lunchtime crowd were injured two police officers in a passerby are in a serious condition three cars were
destroyed in the six explosions there was massive damage to nearby buildings Russell Street was covered in a thick
cloud of black smoke the Holden Commodore which police referred to as the bomb car as our
warning up caller had been packed with 12 kilograms or 26 pounds of gel ignite three-quarters of it was in the boot and
the rest was in the center console a small crater had been left in the road underneath where it was parked the
crater was 15 centimeters deep and one and a half meters wide which equals six inches deep and five feet one
the explosion was extremely powerful shaking the foundations of the police headquarters building and other
buildings nearby as well as shattering a heap of windows the force of the blast sent constable denardio flying back 15
meters in the air he suffered a severe wound to his leg where he was hit with a piece of shrapnel they completely sliced
through his muscle were down to the bone and it was bleeding heavily he couldn't
walk but he managed to crawl off the road where he was assisted by two fellow officers
one of them used her shirt to try on a Kerry and his Lake to try and stop the bleeding
one of his kidneys had been sliced by the shrapnel and his lung was also punctured making it difficult for him to
breathe he had also been struck with a number of smaller shrapnel pieces all over his body he required emergency
surgery that night constable Angela Taylor was closer to the explosion and was caught in the
inferno she suffered horrific burns 70 to 80 percent of her body many people tried to
do the best they could to help her but she soon lost consciousness magistrate Ian West who was walking out of the
court at the time of the explosion was also struck with shrapnel and was badly wounded there were around 20
people injured in total half of whom were police officers constable Angela Taylor was the most
critical but constable Karl denardio was in a bad way as well ambulance officers
arrived on the scene quickly and conveyed the injured to Royal Melbourne Hospital the busy city street near
resembled a warzone injured people scattered along the ground everywhere debris and smashed glass all over the
street confusion and people screaming for help I was standing out in McKenzie Street
just around the corner from Russell when the first explosion hit like an earth tremor the buildings shook and the
winner is all around us shattered and we rushed onto the street series and flying
all over the place woman eating most of us amazing we saw were people pouring out of the buildings
[Music] [Applause] crowd seem together from nowhere but they were being pushed further and
further back the special operations group people moved in every car was a potential bomb and they had to check
them all everybody was being put further and further away out into the city Street Police Headquarters happen to be
where the Victorian police special operations group were based pretty much the same as SWAT which you might be more
familiar with they quickly responded to the carnage on Russell Street helping to
secure the area and carry the injured away from the blast zone for these officers and the other officers who were
assisting the threat of a second bomb was firmly in their minds it's a common tactic for a smaller explosion to go off
which attracts a lot of people into the area to help only then for a second larger explosion to go off maximizing
the amount of casualties what happened in the Russell Street bombing was that it didn't go off as
planned when the primary explosion went from the booth where most of the gel ignite was this disrupted the secondary
explosion in the center console where the rest of the gel ignite was and as a result that gel ignite in the
center console hardly exploded at all so the bomb didn't go off to its full potential this meant there was still
live detonators and sticks some gel ignite present and the bomb car was up in flames
firefighters weren't all that keen on approaching the vehicle to put the flames out that job is left to Senior
Constable Denis tipping from the Special Operations Group he put on a bomb suit and managed to get close enough to put
out the flames safely the area was completely shut down and evacuated creating traffic chaos throughout the
city a thorough search was conducted of other vehicles and buildings in the area
to see if there are any other bombs none were found such was the force of the explosion
debris was found several blocks away a toy from the bomb car was found in the rear carpark of police headquarters
meaning it had been blown over the roof well it was three cars parked across the
road and then there was this almighty explosion and one of the cars just burst into flame and shared us what sort of
debris and everything else and with that it sort of threw us against the wall and
down on the ground I think one of the guards of the car came down on top of Ginny's head said he hit the wall and
bounced or from occasional shower on that J was wandering around he hit the ground
so he threw him to the ground I don't know it's just like a big fireball oh I hate this big explosion I just
automatically ran outside to see what was happening and what about you well I was facing the window and I heard the
huge explosion and the window just shook the glass panel just moved it's just like a gas explosion and how frightened
really very frightening numerous crime scene officers attended and bomb experts from the Defense Department were also
called in to help they quickly found the first big clue a piece of wood with the
remains of an alarm clock attached there was another piece of metal connected to
the alarm clock which helped make up the circuit but the piece of metal couldn't
be identified at that time the piece of wood looked like it had been cut from a fence post the alarm clock was the
timing device when the alarm sounded a metal piece at the back of the clock clicked a lot and connected with wires
which completed the circuit and set off the bomb the bomb was found to be poorly
constructed an amateur job definitely not made by an expert but it was designed to inflict maximum damage the
bomb maker had packed a large amount of metal tools and sockets around the bomb to act as extra shrapnel in total 50
sticks of gel ignite were used if the bomb had gone off to its full potential it was believed that part of the police
headquarters building would have come down some thought it may have been an attack against the court maybe somebody
who was pissed off with a court ruling and was taking revenge of course this had happened before in Australia it was
actually still very fresh in everybody's Maude's but perhaps the largest chapter
written in Australia's history of outrages concerns the Family Court and Family Court judges the first judge
David opus done to death outside his Valera home in June 1980 then justice Richard G whose bellerose home was blown
apart in early March 1984 the Parramatta family law court was badly damaged by a
bomb blast in the following month and then in July 84 possibly the worst of the family law court attacks the wife of
61 year old family court judge justice ray Watson was killed the family's Greenwich apartment was shaken to the
foundations by a bomb triggered to explode as the front door was opened although a member of our family Lord
judiciary had been the target his wife became the innocent victim but today's attack although not an isolated incident
stands out as this city's first senseless terrorist action directed at the public at large not yet the streets
of Beirut but a big step closer to the madness that madness that we thought looked only beyond our shores
the Russell Street bombing and family law court bombings were not considered linked by place but consideration was
given that the court may have been the target the court lists were checked and recent decisions were reviewed but
nothing stood here others thought that maybe it was a terrorist attack saying that Beirut had now come to Australia
the comparison may due to the Lebanese civil war that was going on at the time where there were a lot of bombings but
the obvious conclusion for most was that this was an attack against the police the bomb had been put directly outside
of police headquarters and it had been set to go off at lunchtime ensuring that a lot of police were going to be our
side the building when the bomb exploded after all of the initial confusion had settled a direct attack against the
police was how the case was treated although it was on fire and damaged the bone car wasn't completely destroyed and
something stood out the chassis number had been Julia the chazzy number being the serial
number of a car used to identify the Bombers had drilled through right across the chassis number so you could no
longer see it this was very unusual something the police hadn't seen before the way criminals usually got rid of
chazzy numbers was to grind them down or some would even try and change the numbers drilling through the shutting
number completely was unique although it was completely pointless in this case because the number plates had been left
on the car maybe they thought the plates would be destroyed in the explosion but
they weren't making the bomb car easily identifiable it had been stolen two days
before the bombing from the Brennan Park Shopping Center in Mulgrave which is about 20 kilometers or 12 miles away
from Russell Street a red and cream-colored blanket was found inside the bomb car it was burnt and damaged
but it was in okay condition considering good enough to be forensic ly tested anyway which was important because the
blanket didn't belong to the vehicle owner he had never seen it before an examination revealed it contained dog
hairs belonging to a bull terrier this could be useful to match to a suspects dog if a suspect was ever identified the
car was checked for fingerprints using the superglue fuming method not the dusting method this is where superglue
is combined with water and the vapors react with chemicals in fingerprints but no prints were found the search for
evidence wasn't just restricted to the ground police from the Special Operations Group
abseiled down buildings hunting for evidence that have made its way up onto roofs and window ledges it's on the roof
of police headquarters that they found one of constable Barnardo's boots all of the pieces of shrapnel and all of the
other evidence were bagged and taken to a large auditorium where they were catalogued
twisted metal bomb components pieces of wire the alarm clock and any other debris that was found it was all bagged
and treated with great care the debris was basically treated like pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle that investigators
would have to try and put back together any piece of the debris could contain valuable forensic evidence to help catch
whoever was responsible to help with the cataloging a large grid was placed over
a map of the blossom and every piece of evidence was marked with a letter corresponding to where it was found on
that grid [Music] five days after the explosion constable Donato was recovering from surgery which
had been successful he was interviewed but he wasn't able to assist with the investigation he didn't see anyone or
anything suspicious constable Angela Taylor was still in a critical condition and was fighting for
her life [Music] although there were still no suspects the investigation was coming along some
of the debris from the blast had now been identified as being bread crates investigators had worked out the main
part of the bomb had been placed onto a bread crate then the metal tools and sockets were placed on the crate around
the bomb and they knew where the bread crates came from they were stolen during a
robbery from a milk bar at Bray site another suburb of Melbourne about 26 kilometers or 16 miles southeast of
Russell Street the robbery occurred six weeks before the bombing a large amount of cigarettes and confectionery was
stolen along with the bread crates there were no suspects for the robbery a taskforce was established to investigate
the bombing it was made up of over 30 detectives brought in from all different areas of Melbourne making sure they were
drawing on knowledge of possible suspects from across the entire city as well as local detectives members from
the arson squad Major Crime Squad and homicide squad were called in to assist they felt there weren't a lot of people
that would be capable of the attack it was one thing to hate the place there was another level altogether to bomb
police headquarters it didn't take long for the taskforce to link the bombing to
a break-in that occurred six months earlier on the 6th of October 1985 a country man was broken into near
Blackwood about 70 kilometers or 43 miles northwest of Melbourne a large amount of detonators and gel ignite was
stolen and those detonators and gel ignite were used in the Russell Street bombing there were no leads and no
suspects for the breaking the first lead for police happened when an unknown male
caller got in contact with the Victorian police commissioner the caller said he knew who the Bombers were and he even
had photos of them he ended up calling in on five separate occasions and he eventually said that he wanted five
hundred thousand US dollars in a Swiss bank account before he would tell police what he knew
the calls were traced to a number of public phone boxes in the st. Kilda area which is only a short distance away from
Russell Street police weren't sure if the caller was genuine or if it was just a hoax but they couldn't ignore it so
the police commissioner was able to convince the government to offer a reward of five hundred thousand dollars
not US dollars and the money wouldn't be putting this Swiss bank account but it was hoped it would be enough to entice
the unknown caller to make contact again premier John Kane and Chief Commissioner Mick Miller
jointly announced the record half-million dollars reward but in a press conference they refused to answer
any questions on developments behind their decision the offer of an amount of this magnitude might succeed in
producing vital information and I don't propose to divulge the nature of that information in case it might jeopardize
this development police staked out phone boxes in the st. Kilda area in the hope
that the caller wouldn't be able to resist the huge reward while laning to hear from him again police received
hundreds of other calls from members of the public did it work find out next week in part
two of Russell Street here on case file [Music] you [Music]

Case 24: Russell Street Bombing (Part 1)

[Part 1 of 2]

Haros Avenue in Nunawading (Melbourne) presented a problem for the police surveillance team following the red Jaguar. It was a small dead-end street. No way to observe the house there bank robbery suspect was heading to, without being obvious…

To avoid being detected the police had no choice but to let the suspect out of there sight. There was only one way in and out of Haros Avenue, so the suspect would have to come back past them eventually…

CREDITS

Narration – Anonymous Host Research and writing – Anonymous Host Production, scoring – Mike Migas Additional scoring – Andrew Joslyn

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Brief Summary

The Russell Street bombing injured 19 people and sparked a major police investigation after a car bomb exploded outside police headquarters in Melbourne.

Key points

The Russell Street Bombing. A devastating car bomb exploded outside police headquarters in Melbourne, injuring many.
Investigation Begins. Police launched a massive investigation into the bombing, linking it to previous attacks.
A Mysterious Caller. An unknown caller claimed to know the bombers and demanded a ransom.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was a state of complete hysteria.

5:58WatchNov 19, 2018

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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