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Chopper Read boasts about four murders in final TV interview
In his last interview before he died from liver cancer last week, notorious ex-criminal Mark ''Chopper'' Read has confessed to killing four people.
In a tell-all interview with 60 Minutes screened on Sunday night he told presenter Tara Brown that he committed his first murder when he was a teenager.
The confession comes as a shock, as Read, who had been convicted for violent crimes including armed robbery, assaults, arson and kidnapping, had never been convicted of murder.
His first murder, he said, was committed in 1971 when Chopper was only 17. It was an organised hit on union heavy Desmond Costello, who was involved in the ''waterfront wars'' of 1970s Melbourne among the painters and dockers.
His 60 Minutes interview has sparked a fresh police investigation ... Mark 'Chopper' Read claims to have killed four people.Credit: Jon Reid
Costello was abducted, shoeless, and blasted with a shotgun. His body was dumped in a freeway excavation. ''He didn't really see it coming. He didn't believe it was going to come - not from me. I was only a young kid,'' Read said.
When asked why he killed Costello, Read said he did not have ''the faintest idea''.
Chopper said his second kill occurred in 1974 while he was inside Pentridge Prison. The victim, serial paedophile and child killer Reginald Edward Isaacs, was an English migrant who had tormented young boys across Victoria since 1950. He was first jailed in 1952 for child sex offences, and again in 1957, 1964 and 1974. Isaacs was thought to have committed suicide six months into his long jail term.
But in Sunday's interview, Read said he and notorious criminal Charles ''Mad Charlie'' Hegyalji ''walked into Isaacs' cell, and Charlie belted him to the ground''.
Mark 'Chopper' Read.
''And I've jumped on his bunk … and banged, jumped on his head. From his bunk onto his head.
''Anyone that would kill a child in such a manner didn't deserve to live.''
Victims Chopper Read claims to have murdered.
Read's third murder, he said, took place in 1987, when during a rare stint out of jail, Read shot Siam ''Sammy the Turk'' Ozerkam outside the infamous St Kilda nightclub Bojangles. Police said it was cold-blooded murder when Read pulled out a baby .410 shotgun and blasted the drug dealer in the face. At the time, Read claimed it was ''a clear-cut case of self-defence'', and the jury sided with him. ''Everyone swallowed it. I couldn't understand.
''When I killed Sammy, that wasn't self-defence. That was outright f---ing murder,'' Read said.
Read said his last murder, of former Outlaws Motorcycle Club boss Sidney Michael Collins, happened in 2002, after Collins dobbed Read into the police for shooting him ''in the guts'' in 1992. According to Read, he was expected to ''donate $8000 to his bloody wedding. I'm not giving him eight grand for his bloody wedding,'' he said.
Before shooting Collins, Read said he gave his friend the option of ''going to the lemon tree, or out into the hospital''.
Read caught up with Collins in Casino, NSW, in 2002. ''[Then] I got him, I hopped in his car, going back to his place, bang bang bang. I shot him the last time with his gun.''
Despite the confessions, Read, who lived his life without regrets or remorse, ended the interview expecting to be let into heaven.
Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Steve Fontana said police would investigate Chopper's claims.
"We have been in communication with him over a period of time," he said.
"We'll be certainly looking at what he said on the interview last night, but we've got to assess whether he's actually telling the truth, first of all."