‘Mass murderers come and go … but good soldiers are hard to find’.
Julian Knight will live in infamy as the man who went mad in Hoddle Street, killing seven people and injuring 19 others in 1987. He was sentenced to 27 years for the slaughter.
Knight, a former officer cadet at Duntroon Military College, had been ordered out of the College after stabbing another cadet at a Canberra nightclub.
On the evening of August 9, 1987, Knight left his adoptive mother’s house in Ramsden Street, Clifton Hill, armed with a .22 rifle, an M14 military rifle and a shotgun.
He then walked around the area and in 40 minutes shot at anything that moved, killing and wounding as many people as he could. He also shot at the police helicopter, which was forced down.
Knight, slightly built and reasonably intelligent, has always been fascinated with guns and military tactics.
Despite the fact that he is a mass murderer, he still does not see himself as a criminal.
But there is another side to Knight which has never been revealed. As a teenager he used to delight in dressing in the ‘bovver boy’ garb of English National Front hoodlums — a group of violent Right Wing fanatics. The question of how such a person was accepted as a candidate to train as an officer in the Royal Australian Army has never been answered.
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I DON’T agree with what Julian Knight did in Hoddle Street and now, he doesn’t agree with what he did, either. I tend to think you either hang him or leave him in peace — but don’t torment him in the prison system. Strangely enough, I have found him to be a loyal friend. He certainly isn’t a poof, which has been hinted at in some quarters.
That said, let me reveal that it is only by the grace of God — with just a little bit of help from me — that Julian is still alive today. The fact is, he came within a hair’s breadth of being executed not long after he got to jail. The kangaroo courts we have in prison aren’t as forgiving as the law courts.
It happened like this. When Julian arrived in H Division he made the mistake of trying to impress everybody by flashing his murder photos around — meaning the pictures taken at the scene of the Hoddle Street massacre by police for evidence at court.
I’ve seen some bad sights, but the photos of these innocent people with their faces blown away were terrible. One poor lady had her whole face, nose, mouth, chin, forehead and eyes simply blown off. The .308 bullet entered at the back of the skull and went through her head.
It was all too much for us. My right hand man, ‘Joe the Boss’ Ditroia, wanted to put an ice pick through the back of Julian’s skull. In fact, we all considered putting Julian to sleep. The screws even agreed to turn a blind eye if we decided to finish him off.
So, you see, it was touch and go. However, Julian put his photos away and Craig Minogue had a talk to him and tried to put him right on a few points and all was well. Funny thing, when Craig has a talk to people out here they tend to listen.
On the other hand, Joe the Boss was far from convinced that Knight had learned his lesson and was still looking for any excuse to kill him. But Joe had a small problem with carrying out the killing. After he had stabbed Sandy Macrae they had taken all his ice picks and knives from him.
Around that time Joe was quite kill happy. He was always saying: ‘Can I kill Knight, Chopper, can I please?’ I would say ‘No, he’s on our side. He always wanted to be in the army — well, he’s in Chopper’s army now.’
I told Joe that we could send Julian out in our battles and that if he got killed, then it would be fair enough, but we wouldn’t kill members of our own crew. Joe finally agreed after a lot of grumbling. Joe was a bloodthirsty little customer. He had previously stood over Alex Tsakmakis’ fallen body, eating a plate of spaghetti, waiting until the screws rushed in. Joe didn’t mind a bit of blood, but he did what I told him and that’s why Julian is alive now.
But Joe couldn’t help thinking about getting Knight. While I was away fighting my murder trial, Joe hatched his own murder plot. He went into the labour yard with Julian. It is fair to say that Julian obviously wasn’t too bright to get caught in there.
Joe wanted to start a fight. He suggested it was only because Julian was part of Chopper’s crew that he wasn’t being regularly raped in the showers. Joe threw in a few more taunts of a sexual nature and Julian flipped out.
Screaming and ranting with rage, Julian picked up a chair and attacked Joe. Joe was shot a few years ago when escaping from Geelong Jail, leaving him with a badly shattered left arm, which still carries a big pin in it. This means that when it comes to a punch on or a knife fight he is a bit of a one-armed bandit. Anyway, with his one good arm, Joe disarmed Julian and then ripped a few right hooks into him. Julian responded by scratching Joe’s face like a woman. When the screws came in Julian ran out. Joe yelled after him: ‘I’ll kill you; I’ll kill your whole family’.
Joe was a bit excited by this time. His eye fell on Minogue and he said in a rage: ‘You fat slug, you’re off as well. I’ll fix you all! When Chopper gets back you’re a dead man, Minogue’.
Thanks for that little effort, Joe. Fine, great and wonderful. Here I was in court on a murder charge and Joe gets me involved in murder threats. I came back and went into the yard with Slim Minogue and he told me all about it. The screws said Joe was mad.
It was all a mess, but I patched things up by making them all say they were sorry, like naughty schoolkids. I got Julian to apologise for attacking Joe. He apologised to me, not to Joe. Then Joe apologised to me for all the trouble — but he still hated Slim and Julian, calling them the Laurel and Hardy of Pentridge.
Joe wanted to see Julian and Slim dead, he wanted to see everyone dead. He even asked me if I wanted him to stab Russell Cox, after he read somewhere that we were supposed to hate each other.
At the same time Slim wanted to kill Joe. What a mess. But I loved little Joe the Boss. He was as mad as a hatter, but he was loyal to me.
Slim and me had teamed up. I couldn’t allow this rather powerful friendship to become upset by some kill-crazy little half-Italian, so I spoke firmly to Joe and demanded that he stop all the kill talk and say sorry to everyone. Joe was due to go back to South Australia in a short while so the crew got back together with a very shaky peace.
Thinking back, it probably wouldn’t have hurt to have Joe kill Julian. Ollie the German, who helped make our weapons inside, was first for letting Joe kill Julian. Then he was with me, saying he should live. Ollie would agree to anything as long as it didn’t lead to him being stabbed.
It was a nutty crew back then. Later, Julian went to J Division and I got Ted Eastwood to look after him. The whole idea was to turn a mass murderer into our own personal mass murderer. But Julian was not what I would call a heavy thinker. He had a heap of wonderful points and would be a top addition to any jail gang, but when he went to K Division he was placed in the same unit as the Crown witness in the murder trial that my friend, Frankie Waghorn, was facing. Julian knew this — but the big deal mass murderer failed to take any action.
I tolerate Julian, but if he had been in the Surrey Road gang, he’d be eating lit cigarettes, drinking vodka and getting a bashing every weekend. Dave the Jew would have put him on the missing list after a month.
In his own way Slim liked Julian too, but he always resented the fact that Julian got less jail than him. Left to their own devices, Slim, Joe and Julian would have killed each other and Ollie the German would have made a huge profit selling ice picks to all sides.
In jail, Julian is learning and growing into a sensible young man. He was just a stupid young kid when he was in my crew and for some reason, Slim and I felt sorry for his situation and we got hold of him before his mind got too perverted by the drug gangsters in here.
Slim is a strong friend, a thinker and a cold-blooded, hard man. Julian might be a mass murderer but he hasn’t got a drop of real cold blood in him. On the streets I’d take a dozen Joe the Bosses over a thousand Julian Knights.
Joe had guts, dash and loved blood. He has a big mouth that gave me an earache, but a big heart to go with it. I saw the look of sheer delight when he put that ice pick in Sandy Macrae’s back. Joe loves blood and in the end that’s the key. Mass murderers come and go but good soldiers like Joe are hard to find.
Because Julian became part of my small crew in H Division it was only normal that when he went up to J Division he would team up with Ted Eastwood, a longtime and loyal friend of mine. In other words, Eastwood looked after him.
Julian and myself share an interest in firearms and military history and he has a great depth of knowledge on both topics.
Julian has become a pen friend to my father in Tasmania. The mind boggles at the contents of those letters. But, as my father is an ex-army man himself, I think he feels for Julian.
It is hard to defend the indefensible, but Hoddle Street aside, Julian is a nice chap, a solid and loyal friend who knows the rules and doesn’t talk out of school and can take what is dished up to him like a man.
Whatever demon or insane monster gripped him on the night he went to Hoddle Street with his guns, it no longer possesses him. I’ve mixed with killers for 20 years and Julian is no cold-blooded killer, nor is he a head-banging psychopath. He was a kid who flipped out.
He calls me the mentor to the mentally ill. He says it in jest but I don’t think he’s in any position to be casting doubt on my mental health.
One more thing. Not many people know this, but in 1986 Julian used to get around the city with the Neo-Nazis as an 18 year old, dressed up like those skinheads in England.
He was recruited by some nitwit Nazi group that was getting around at the time. He told me he was introduced to them by some young bucks he met in what he said was the Prince of Wales Light Horse Regiment in the reserve based in Carlton. He was a member of the army reserve from November 1985 to January 1987. He started off in the training squadron then transferred to B Squadron, employed as a signaller in Squadron HQ, and as an assault trooper in the assault troop.
I couldn’t get into the army because I was too ‘violent’ but they accepted a fascist sympathiser into the Duntroon officers’ course. Maybe I wasn’t Right-wing enough for them. It makes you wonder.