Vic: No more laughs in underworld murders

AAP General News (Australia)
04-02-2004
Vic: No more laughs in underworld murders

By Mike Hedge, Senior Correspondent

MELBOURNE, AAP - Many people have found a certain amusement in Melbourne's underworld killings.

Onlookers at the scenes tend to make bad jokes. The media puts on a world-weary swagger.

At the subsequent funerals, the humour has matched the wardrobe of the mourners.

After last night, though, it seems that everyone is running out of irreverence.

The murder of Lewis Moran as he enjoyed a quiet beer with his mate somehow put a different
perspective on the killing spree that has claimed at least 23 victims in the past six
years, nine of them in the past 12 months.

It isn't that anyone outside his family has any special sympathy for Moran.

He was a drug trafficker who, along with his sons, made miseries of the lives of hundreds
of families.

Moran was said to be making upwards of $40,000 a week producing and selling amphetamines
- and he'd been making it for a long time.

At the time of his death he was on bail on charges of trafficking commercial quantities of drugs.

For all that, the mood has changed.

Maybe the same intrigue and the novelty that makes TV cop shows rate so highly is wearing off.

It may be that this murder came only a day after the funeral of the previous victim,
Andrew Veniamin.

It may be, as Victoria's Assistant Police Commissioner Simon Overland put it, the stupidity
is becoming overwhelming.

Mr Overland admitted that this killing had got to him in a way others had not.

"Last night was the first time I have been shocked by what has occurred," Mr Overland said.

"... I was really shaken."

At the scene the night before, it had also been clear that Mr Overland had taken this
one to heart.

"It is stupid, wanton killing," he told journalists.

"(The killings) have reached new depths of stupidity, to be frank."

"I am surprised it's happened in the way it's happened, I'm surprised it's happened
at this time."

There is also another side to the killings that Moran's death emphasised.

His widow Judy has now lost two husbands and two sons in gangland executions.

No one needs to weep for Judy Moran. She has lived well off the pain and suffering
her men and boys created.

But two husbands and two sons. It is more than enough.

AAP mh/gfr/jv/jc

KEYWORD: GANGLAND MOOD VIEW (REPEAT)

2004 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.