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I Love Lucy: The Helicopter Jailbreak

He was irresistible, she was determined. Together they staged a spectacular jailbreak from Sydney’s top security Silverwater Prison in a hijacked helicopter.

John Killick was a 58-year-old serial bank robber with offences dating back for most of his life, which he had spent the majority of behind bars. His rescuer, Lucy Dudko, was a shy, stammering 42-year-old Russian librarian who wore spectacles as thick as the bottom of Coca-Cola bottles.

The charismatic Killick was obviously a man who women fell easily in love with. Dudko was not the first pretty young thing to help him escape custody.

In 1984 Killick’s then girlfriend, a 20-year-old, slipped him a 9-millimetre Luger pistol so he could escape from a Brisbane hospital, where he was taken after supposedly injuring his eye while on remand at Brisbane prison.

The woman, who was jailed for two years for her part in the escape, told the judge she was deeply in love with Killick and was mesmerised by him and, obviously, would do anything he asked.

When John Killick met Lucy Dudko at a Queanbeyan party in late 1995, the slender, pretty blonde Russian was at rock bottom. Her marriage to a Russian scientist had deteriorated since she immigrated to Australia with him in 1993.

Lucy was the only daughter of a retired Russian helicopter pilot and his wife, who live in a military town just outside Moscow.

When Lucy took out the six-month protection order against her husband in 1997, she moved in to live with Killick. According to her solicitor, Lucy was immature and seemed overly reliant on the men in her life. She found the old bank robber attractive because he was so willing to do things for her and he drove her everywhere.

Killick and Dudko fled to Sydney after Lucy’s husband subpoenaed Killick’s criminal record and alerted Queensland police that Killick was wanted there for breaching parole. The couple feared Killick would be caught and sent back to prison.

In 1999 John Killick was arrested at Bowral after stealing $23,000 from the National Australia Bank and shooting at an off-duty police officer in his failed getaway.

Devastated when Killick was arrested and sent back to prison, Dudko wrote to him every night, and visited him more than 20 times in the months he was in jail.

But as the months dragged on, Dudko became increasingly frustrated for her lover and began making enquiries about hiring a helicopter from Helicopters Pty Ltd at Bankstown Airport.

For inspiration, she hired prison escape videos which included The Getaway, Captive and Breakout – in which Charles Bronson breaks a convicted murderer out of prison by landing a helicopter in a Mexican jail.

On Sunday, 25 March 1999, Lucy Dudko forced pilot Tim Joyce at gunpoint to land in the yard of Sydney’s Silverwater Jail, pick up her lover at a pre-arranged time and place in the yard, and fly them to safety.

Caught six weeks later, John Killick received 28 years for his crimes which included the breakout. The mild-mannered Russian librarian with the Coca-Cola bottle glasses got 10 years for her daring adventure.

Whether they are still in love is not known. But if they are, one thing is for certain. It will be quite a while before they will be seeing each other. If you want to read all about this extraordinary story it is available in a book called Wanted: John and Lucy by John Kerr.