Inquest into drug killings

Press, 23 April 1980, Page 1

Inquest into drug killings

NZPA , A New Zealand couple found dead in a shallow grave had been executed by the leader of a big-drug organisation that depended on killing and maiming for. its survival and prosperity, said a senior policeman yesterday. The couple had been executed because they had “spilled the beans” on the organisation, Detective Chief Inspector Paul Delianis told the Melbourne City Coroner (Mr K. Mason, S.M.) The Coroner yesterday began hearing evidence at an inquest into the deaths of the couple, Douglas Robert Wilson, aged 26, and his wife, Isabel Martha Wilson, aged 24. whose bullet-riddled bodies were found at suburban Rye on May 18, 1979. Detective Chief Inspector Delianis said the man who had ordered and arranged the Wilsons’ execution was Terrence - John Clark. They had been killed after they had made a tape-recording of what they had known about the organisation - to the police in Brisbane.

At one stage the' organisation .that Clark- headed had become sb big > that Clark “had’money coming out of his ears.” A female witness would say that at the time she was involved in the organisation 110 kg of heroin was brought into Australia by couriers with a wholesale value of $9 million and a street value well over $lOO million.

Detective Chief Inspector Delianis said that Clark, a New Zealand national, was known under several aliases, including Philip Scott, Richard Turnbull, Keith Perkin, Christopher John Peterson, Terrence John Sinclair, and Terrence Alexander Sinclair. Terrence Alexander Sinclair was the name under which he had now been charged in Britain with the murder of Christopher Martin Johnstone, “The evidence wiii show that Clark was directly or indirectly involved in killings before and after the Wilsons and it will show that he directed the maiming and killing of others.” said Detective Chief Inspector Delianis.