Quiet town's tale of guns and greed led to murder

Violent criminals are often tempted to rob colleagues, as this story about a modern-day bushranger shows.

When Ric Anson held up the Tamborine Mountain Bowls Club in January 2005, he did not realise it would lead to his death two days later. Anson's life revolved around guns, amphetamines and violence. The problem was that so, too, did the lives of some of those he mixed with at home, back on the Central Coast.

Tamborine Mountain, inland from Brisbane, is a quiet place. So when Anson and his partner burst in just after closing time on January 9, the bar manager at first thought it was a practical joke. The men were wearing balaclavas and dark clothes. One had a long black coat down to his knees and was carrying a shotgun, while the other wielded a pistol. They forced the cook and a patron who had stayed behind to lie on the floor.

"We don't want your stuff," Anson told them, "we just want the club's. It's insured. We don't want to hurt you, just do what you're told and you'll be OK."

The manager was made to produce all the money on the premises at gunpoint. When she refused at first, the shotgun was pushed into her chest. The robbers collected about $19,000 in total and ordered their three victims into the cool room.

"I asked them to turn off the fans [to reduce the temperature] and they did," the bar manager recalls. "That was the one bright side to an unhappy night."

The manager stayed at the club for almost a year after the robbery but had to leave in the end to try to escape the memory. She still has nightmares.

This was about the 11th armed robbery committed by Anson and his partner (who cannot be named for legal reasons) in a four-month rampage that started soon after Anson, a career criminal in his mid-50s, was released from jail in August 2004. They robbed small licensed premises in the Hunter region and up the coast. They liked targets with no closed-circuit TV cameras. It was lucrative work: their total haul was something like $300,000, and the police formed Strike Force Brickwork to investigate.

According to an article by Dan Proudman in the Newcastle Herald, they had a breakthrough when a staff member at the Dungog RSL recalled a suspicious-looking man coming into the club the day it was robbed and buying a bottle of Coke. The police found the bottle in a bin outside and recovered DNA from it that enabled them to identify Anson.

But by a matter of days someone else got to Anson first. After the Tamborine Mountain job, he returned to his home in Toronto, south of Newcastle, on Monday, January 10. On the way he bought a quantity of amphetamines. He arranged to meet an associate named Bill Spencer, to pay him back the money he had borrowed for the hire car he had used to get to Queensland. Spencer's girlfriend, Hazel Seery, went along for the meeting, which occurred on a dirt track in the bush.

Anson gave Spencer a sample of the speed he had bought. Spencer was impressed by the quality. So much so, he decided to arrange to have Anson robbed of his drugs and the money from his latest robbery. To do this he enlisted the help of Owen Frazer, a muscular member of the Lake Munmorah chapter of the Rebels Motorcycle Club, and Kirrlie (Kyle) Wilson, a probationary member, known as a nominee or "nom", of the same organisation. (One of the ways noms prove themselves is to go out debt-collecting for the Rebels on Tuesday nights. Tuesdays are not looked forward to by some people on the Central Coast.)

Spencer wanted to get Anson's flatmate, Carol Puru, out of the townhouse before the robbery. Late that night Spencer and Seery went to visit Anson. "He was standing in his kitchen," Seery would later tell a court, "waving a gun." She thought he was a "bit paranoid and worried ... I went over to give him a cuddle, and he told me to back off ... you can tell he was off his head."

Spencer had asked Seery to persuade Puru to come out with them to party. "He didn't want Carol to get slapped around," said Seery, who knew about the plan to rob Anson later that night.

After some reluctance, Puru asked Anson if it was all right for her to go, and he said, "I'll be right. Trust me, I'll be right. I've got this here with me," and pointed to his gun. The three departed, leaving Anson alone in the townhouse.

Later Spencer and Seery left Puru and met another car containing Wilson and Frazer. The two cars headed to Anson's place. Spencer, who had a set of keys, got out and opened the front door and then ran back to his car and left with Seery.

Wilson and Frazer entered the house. In the version of events they told the court, Anson greeted them and told Frazer to sit on a lounge downstairs, and he complied. Wilson says he then went upstairs with Anson and the older man produced a pistol.

"I shit myself and I lunged at him," Wilson said. "I wanted to get it out of my face." He says Anson shot himself accidentally in the ensuing struggle.

Forensic evidence shows Anson had injuries to his face and forearm consistent with being pistol-whipped, and that two shots were fired. One entered his forehead at a downwards angle of 30 degrees. It was the Crown's case during the trial that Wilson had a gun with him, although this was never found, and used this to shoot Anson.

The prosecutor Trevor Bailey said in his summing up to the jury: "There's no way, in order for [the robbery] to be effective, Mr Spencer would not have made sure that Frazer and Wilson knew about the violence they were liable to come into contact with when they walked into that flat. Remember how many people talked [to the court] about Ric Anson and his passion for guns."

Wilson said he ran down the stairs and out of the house with Frazer. When they got back to the car, he said to Frazer: "I f---ed up mate. I'm sorry."

The police set up Strike Force Mercer to investigate the murder. It was headed by a young detective sergeant, Jerry Bowden, and comprised two detectives from the Homicide Squad and about five others from the area around Toronto. They were met by a wall of silence.

Spencer and Seery had disappeared (they had fled to Melbourne). Reluctantly, the task force was disbanded in July of 2005. But the local detectives kept pushing, and nine months later there were enough new leads for Mercer to be reformed. An important breakthrough occurred after the relationship between Spencer and Hazel Seery broke down. Seery decided to give evidence against him and went into the witness protection program.

Last month, following a long and persistent investigation, Wilson was convicted of murder and Spencer and Frazer of manslaughter. They attended a sentencing hearing last week. (Wilson's sentencing was postponed because his lawyers want more time to produce a psychologist's report.)

As the three men were being led back to their cells, Detective Sergeant Bowden stared at them. Frazer was the last to go. He glanced around the court room just before he disappeared, and for a moment he locked eyes with Bowden.
Outside on the street I asked Bowden if he always came to sentencings. "If possible," he said quietly. "You've been there from the start, so it's good to see it through."

This week he drove to Newcastle and back - a round trip of four hours - to hear the judge announce the first two sentences. Spencer, the organiser, received 131/2 years (91/2 non-parole). Frazer, whom the judge had earlier referred to as "the muscle", received 111/2 years (71/2 non-parole).

-- Sydney Morning Herald, 15 December 2007

(See the accompanying story about David Wilcox to find out what happened to Anson’s partner.)