WITHIN days of the murders of Gary Silk and Rod Miller, police had a short list of possible suspects, but there was only one in bold — the name of armed robber and escaper Peter Gibb.
Gibb was one of the few criminals in Australia to end up having a movie made about him, or more correctly, about his love life.
His twenty years as a violent criminal had not excited great public interest, but when he blasted his way out of the Melbourne Remand Centre in March, 1993, with the help of his lover, a prison officer and married mother of two called Heather Parker, he was headline material.
He was on the run for six days with Parker and fellow escaper, Archie Butterly, but it was long enough to make Gibb a national name.
Butterly, a tough career criminal, was destined to be a bit player in the film. He was shot dead at the recapture in circumstances that have never been adequately explained. Parker and Gibb were caught during a shoot-out near Jamieson in north-eastern Victoria. Butterly was found dead with a bullet in the head. The State Coroner, Graeme Johnstone, was unable to conclude if Parker, Gibb or Butterly himself fired the fatal shot.
During their escape a policeman who tried to apprehend them, Senior Constable Warren Treloar, was shot in the chest and shoulder. Butterly shot Treloar and Gibb and took the injured policeman’s gun, emptying all but one bullet from the chamber.
He then gave the gun to his fellow escaper. It was that bullet that killed Butterly.
In the early 1980s another associate of Gibb’s, Stephen Kenneth Haines, was murdered. He was allegedly killed because Gibb believed he was given bail after informing to police.
Detectives from Operation Lorimer, the task force investigating the police murders, were given Gibb’s name as a possible suspect within two days of the killings. He was violent, had used guns and had been involved in an escape where a policeman had been shot.
Even more intriguing was the fact that one of the key investigators into the Gibb escape was Gary Silk, then with the prison squad. Perhaps Gibb was one of the bandits who had been robbing the Chinese restaurants? Maybe when Silk stopped the car the two recognised each other and Gibb knew he would never be able to bluff his way out, so he opened fire.
It was only a theory, but one that had to be checked by the Operation Lorimer detectives.
Police began to look at Gibb. While he was known to be a cool criminal he showed no signs of behaving as a man who had just killed two police. He was seen going to work and living a seemingly straight forward life.
By the middle of September Gibb knew he was ‘tropical’ and under investigation. He accurately predicted he was likely to be questioned over the killings.
He spoke to Woman’s Day to announce his engagement to Ms Parker, in an article clearly inspired by Mills and Boon, and said he was aware of police interest. He said he knew his name had been mentioned in connection with the police murders.
‘We go to bed at night and wonder if the doors are going to come off in a raid,’ he said.
It was around this time police decided to move. It was time to pull in Gibb, and his associates, to see if they were involved, to interview them and get their statements.
If they were not involved then it would be in everybody’s interest to eliminate then from the investigation. He didn’t need to wonder for long. On 16 September, one month after the murders, Gibb was arrested as he left his Bayswater home about 6.30 am. He was not surprised. In fact, he had been waiting for it.
But since Gibb was named as a suspect into the double police killings, intense police investigations have failed to turn gossip into fact.
The former tough criminal has behaved normally and may have even developed a social conscience. He was seen at the Jabiluka protest outside the North Limited building earlier this month. He may have just been heading to a building site nearby where he works, not far from the St Kilda Road police building that houses Operation Lorimer taskforce on the sixteenth floor.
Police decided to question Gibb and associates to either strengthen the case against them, or eliminate them from inquiries so resources would not be wasted on wild theories.
But Gibb’s arrest became public knowledge only after attempts to grab an associate did not go exactly to plan.
The Special Operations Group was called in to control the arrest. While Gibb and his crew were drifting as likely suspects the SOG had to work on the belief the men they were going to grab were armed and prepared to shoot police.
They did their homework and planned to pull over one of the targets, Ian Burtoft, near his home in a quiet St Albans street. But they had to wait for the right moment, and that moment came on the Western Ring Road in early peak hour traffic.
Motorists with mobile phones rang the media within seconds and most of Melbourne was informed over breakfast that detectives from Operation Lorimer had made arrests.
Detective Chief Inspector Rod Collins was quick to hose down expectations. He said this was not a major breakthrough, just one line of inquiry. It is believed Gibb spoke to police and provided an alibi. He is no longer seen as a prime suspect.
The SOG conducted at least twenty level-three raids (where armed offenders may be present) over the police murders in the first month. Safe breakers, amphetamine dealers, armed robbers and criminals who deal in guns have been interviewed. ‘It is a process of elimination at this stage,’ a senior policeman said at the time.
Some have been charged with offences unrelated to the murders. Heather Parker was interviewed at the Knox police station on the day Gibb was arrested. While she was apparently unable to assist the Lorimer investigation, police were happy to chat to her about other matters. She was charged with handling stolen property and unlawful possession of a windsurfer.
Many of those questioned by police can prove where they were at the time of the killing. One had to admit he was in bed with another criminal’s wife. The red-faced woman confirmed his whereabouts.
Many names have been thrown up in the investigation, including a convicted murderer who has breached parole, a veteran armed robber and murderer, as well as a series of drug-addicted offenders with violent criminal offenders.
‘There are a lot of criminals in society who will be asked where they were on the night. We would prefer they came to us before we had to come looking for them,’ Detective Chief Inspector Collins said.
‘If they can justify their movements on the night then we will get out of their lives.’
More than 30 police were working on Operation Lorimer backed by forensic experts, divisional detectives and the serious crime squads.
They are looking at several theories of who killed Gary Silk and Rod Miller.
An armed robbery squad team is looking to find the bandits who robbed at least eleven restaurants and convenience stores in the eastern suburbs as part of Operation Hamada. Silk and Miller were killed near the Silky Emperor restaurant in Warrigal Road while on surveillance duty.
Police intelligence indicates the bandits who robbed the restaurants may be the same two responsible for about twenty eight unsolved raids from 1992 to 1994.
At the time police launched an investigation, code-named Operation Pigout, to find the men who robbed pizza shops and restaurants from Seaford to Nunawading. The methods were always the same. They wore masks, entered through the back door and used tape to tie up staff and customers.
At a Blackrock restaurant in Melbourne’s southern bayside area on 1 November, 1992, one of the bandits shot two victims when he accidentally fired his gun. During another robbery on 4 April, 1994, the robbers threatened to shoot staff and patrons who tried to follow them.
Police who know Gibb say he would not be involved in a series of small-time armed robberies which each net less than $2000. He was also in jail during Operation Pigout.
But police also have to consider the possibility that the killers of Silk and Miller were not the bandits they were after, but two other armed criminals who happened to be stopped by the police just after midnight on 16 August.
Detectives have been told to keep open minds and not to discount any possibility.
They have checked files looking for known violent criminals with access to guns, but they also know the killers could be ‘cleanskins’ — offenders with no criminal records.
It has happened before. The offenders responsible for the Russell Street bombing in March, 1986, were not known as heavy criminals and were discovered only after an investigation into stolen cars.
Two of the most prolific robbers of the 1970s were unknown to police. They were twin brothers, known as the After Dark Bandits, and they robbed more than twenty TAB agencies and banks before they were caught when one shot a policeman.
Lorimer investigators had to deal with nearly 2000 intelligence reports containing all the leads that came in the month after the killings.
The information was collated on a specially-designed computer program so analysts could provide all data on any element of the inquiry immediately and cross-check intelligence reports.
But each intelligence report has to be checked and each piece of information can take weeks to verify or discard.
A fortnight into the investigation 250 police were given information from Operation Lorimer to check in order to clear the backlog. With such massive amount of information already on file detectives have to be sure every lead is checked thoroughly. It is easy for the right clues to slip through the net.
A taskforce in the US investigating a triple murder failed to solve the case for more than six months because one vital tip from a member of public was mislaid and not checked immediately. Detective Chief Inspector Collins has said publicly that this will be a long investigation.
A month into it, detectives had a list of names to work with.
But they didn’t know if the killers’ were on it.