Once upon a Time in Melbourne

Once upon a time in Melbourne there was a gigolo who thought he was a vampire. He bit the tongue off a prostitute and was then murdered in broad daylight on a suburban street. His execution, top brass believed, was organized by police. The aftershocks of this killing–and the murder of a state witness and his wife inside their fortress home–rocked the police force and the Parliament, vanquished one government, and brought the next to its knees. This is the story of police corruption that was swept under the carpet for years to avoid a Royal Commission. It is the story of a police force politicized to the point of paralysis and a witness protection program that buries its mistakes. It involves a policeman still free and living in a very big house, a drug baron who survived the gangland war only to be murdered in the state’s most secure jail, and battles royale within a police force comprised of thousands of pistol-packing members. This is the story of Melbourne in the first decade of the new millennium: its lawmen, villains, and politicians. It is a bizarre, tawdry, unbelievable tale, but every word of it happened.

Liam Houlihan is an award-winning journalist and former lawyer. He was the Sunday Herald Sun’s crime reporter for five years and is currently a news editor at the Herald Sun. He is the author of Badlands and Return to the Badlands.