Drug Lords (2018) s01e04 Episode Script

I went up the stairs with Dennis, my elder son, to the flat.
I knocked on the door and they said, "Who is it?" I said, "It's me, Kim.
I've come to pay you the $300.
" And the next thing I knew I felt a blow to me head.
Like a burn on me face.
The bullet hit the side of my head there.
It took me eye out straight away.
Dennis was standing right next to me.
I could see my eye on his T-shirt.
I couldn't feel anything.
It was all like shock took over.
Well, after I was put into a ward, every Tom, Dick and Harry from the underworld was coming in giving me flowers, bunches of flowers, and I got the message I wasn't allowed to talk about what happened to me.
Especially not to the police.
That is the code of the Australian underworld.
Melbourne, 1985.
Australia's second-largest city is enjoying an economic and financial boom, but a rampant heroin epidemic is sweeping this city of 3 million, fueled by a nearly endless supply of cheap product from neighboring Southeast Asia.
Kath Pettingill and the lawless members of her offspring are capitalizing on the thriving market, establishing themselves as one of Melbourne's major suppliers.
Ruthless rulers of a criminal empire, they're earning up to $5 million a year selling heroin, not just to Melbourne's insatiable addicts but across the entire state of Victoria.
The Pettingill drug trafficking network was arguably the biggest or the most active in Australia.
As drug lords go, they were absolutely on top of the castle.
We estimated that they were making around about $3-5 million a year, probably equivalent to about $20 million today.
Drugs are the Pettingills' primary business, but violence is their trademark, and while Kath's the gang's matriarch, her first-born son, Dennis, is its leader and psychopath.
He had everybody terrified of him.
He would use shocking violence against people, uh, slash them with a sword, smash them with a gun, and nothing was beyond him, as far as violence goes.
But despite Dennis' sadistic behavior, Kath's support for her first-born son is unflinching.
Kath Pettingill was portrayed in some areas as a doting mother, a doting grandmother, but I wouldn't regard her as a mother.
She was an incubator for a pack of gutless criminal people who destroyed the lives of thousands and thousands.
And she should be judged accordingly.
It's in 1971 that Kath gets her first real taste of criminal life.
While struggling to make ends meet, the mother of ten, to three different men, takes a job at a local massage parlor.
Not realizing the clients are looking for more than just a rub down.
They send me in the room to do a massage, so I'm doing this whop, whop, whop, whop.
Like this, thinking you've gotta give 'em a proper massage, and I'm thinking to myself, "God, this is hard work.
Bang, bang, bang.
" When I went out, the girls said, "Well, did you do anything?" I said, "No, I gave him a good massage," and they laughed their heads off.
I realized very soon after that.
The first week, I went home with $1,500.
The first week.
Could not believe it.
Kath learns fast that if she offers a wider range of services, there's even more money to be made.
And I used to do the whippings and all that.
That paid good money.
Actually, I've still got the whip in me wardrobe.
You don't want me to whip ya? Recognizing a business opportunity, Kath's criminal career takes a step up as she moves from prostitute to madam, opening her own brothel.
Meanwhile, Kath's two eldest sons, Peter and Dennis, are being raised by their grandmother, Gladys.
In fact, Kath, only 16 years older than Dennis, tells her sons that she's actually their older sister, an act of betrayal that Dennis will one day pay back in kind.
Gladys' influence on Dennis and Peter was not particularly good.
Gladys used to beat them with a broomstick, so they learnt at an early age that physical violence was a part of life.
And I'm sure this would've had an influence on Dennis when he's When the horrible nature of his violence evolved later.
When Dennis and Peter were in their mid-teens they got up to all sorts of trouble.
They were following in our tradition, into a life of crime.
By his late teens, Dennis becomes deeply involved in more serious crime.
And after one violent weekend rampage with his brother ends in a shootout with the police, he finds himself sent to prison for assault and rape.
Behind bars, Kath gets a second chance at motherhood with her eldest, and this time she doesn't let him down.
I went up to see Dennis every weekend.
I didn't want him to think that I'd forgot him.
Yeah, it was important for me to be loyal to him.
I think this probably was the start of a very, very strong bond between them.
- It's really fucking tough times.
- Yeah, well you've gotta do it.
You've gotta play the game while you're in here.
- You wanna get out? - Yeah.
Their relationship was volatile and unusual.
But probably the seeds of it were sewn in those early prison visits when she would always be there for him.
When Dennis gets released from prison in 1982, he heads right back to his mother's side, moving into the house next door to her in Melbourne's crime-ridden Richmond neighborhood.
Kathy was incredibly close to him, and it was a bizarre relationship.
It started out as a brother-sister relationship under her design.
In later life, Dennis often chose girlfriends who resembled Kathy.
The pair of them, in between the very turbulent rows that they would have, had periods of real affection.
Back on the streets again, Dennis launches into a new line of work and takes his mother along for the ride.
Dennis went in to the hotel, he didn't tell me what for, then he came out shortly afterwards with a small bag of white powder.
- Is that speed? - This is heroin.
I'm thinking, "God, what's he gonna do with that?" Didn't know whether he was gonna take it himself, or what he was gonna do with it.
It's gonna take us to the next level.
- What are you gonna do with it? - Gonna sell it.
And then it all started.
Dennis teaches Kath how to prep the heroin to sell and the mother-son duo quickly become partners in crime.
But I can remember, he measured it out and measured out as pure heroin and then you have to double it with just, like, baby powder or something like that.
We used to put it in the mixer and mix it.
Once you've mixed it, you have to make deals out of it and you've gotta have sheets of al foil.
Tin foil.
And you've gotta cut it up and then you put the heroin in and tie it up.
Half a gram, or a full gram.
Think it was $90 a deal and $50 for half a deal.
Once people knew where the heroin was, they came in droves.
You couldn't stop working.
And I'd shut the door at ten o'clock at night.
Capitalizing on the criminal network Dennis made in prison, the duo's drug-dealing business grows quickly and so does the involvement of three of Kath's other children.
It was a family business.
Well, Victor was there, Trevor was there, Jamie was there.
While brothers Trevor and Jamie mostly run drug errands for Dennis, Victor, a sadist and prolific bank robber, is given the job of enforcer.
Victor was the, um, stand-over man.
If anything happened, you know, they'd take over.
But the Pettingills' meteoric and violent rise once again puts them on the radar of the Melbourne police.
It was a large-scale drug ring that Peter, Dennis and Victor were running, but they ran that independent of one another.
Peter had his own little business as he called it.
And he was making, in those days, $35,000-$40,000 a week.
Dennis, he would've been turning over about $50,000 a week, with his criminal activity, just in regard to the drugs.
The money rolls in.
But Dennis is in charge of the profits.
There was no division of the money.
Dennis took the whole lot.
Then he'd pay us $300 each a night.
He was the chief and we were the Indians.
We just got paid to do what we were told.
But who else would get $300 a night each? You'd have to work bloody long hours.
To us, that was a fortune.
The more money he got, the more he invested in himself.
He bought all these gold chains.
Oh Worth over $250,000.
Dennis quickly establishes himself as the clan's undisputed drug lord investing their heroin business profits in Melbourne real estate.
Business was booming that much he bought 86 Chestnut Street, then he bought 35 and 37 Stephenson Street but he also bought farmhouse round in Cubert Street.
He was trying to build an empire.
That's all he was trying to do.
Dennis purchases 14 cheap properties in total, making Stephenson Street the clan's crime headquarters and safe haven.
But when he buys three of the houses with cash, Dennis draws the unwanted attention of the police.
He ruled that area of Richmond.
He controlled the drug trafficking in that area.
He controlled a lot of the criminality in that area.
He just thought he could do what he liked.
Police try stemming the Pettingill tide by targeting the family and their two properties on Stephenson Street.
The police were everywhere around Dennis, trying to catch him with his heroin.
But he thought he was smarter than them.
He made his house a fortress.
Well, he had everything that he could get to secure the place.
Couldn't get in the back door and you couldn't get in the front door.
Not even the police could get in.
Not even with sledgehammers they wouldn't have been able to get in.
Was like Fort Knox.
So the cops changed tack, setting up stakeouts near the gang's compound.
I undertook a lot of surveillance work on the Pettingill clan, which meant sitting off observations posts in factories or down the street in broken-down, shit pot cars and we'd find the place to park, make sure we weren't standing out like dogs' balls.
There he is.
And with night vision gear we'd be videoing all the movements.
We were able to find out how often people came and went.
Drug dealers, prostitutes, junkies.
Fabulous evidence.
That's Dennis' The same gate.
This was really just a den of iniquity.
It was crime HQ for Melbourne.
Dennis would come out from here, a car would come around the corner.
All the crooks would roar down here, stop for ten or 20 seconds, and Dennis would come out to the car And there was obviously money being changed hands.
And then he'd go back inside, then he'd come out and with his drugs, usually in a tissue, and he'd flick it in to the car.
And he'd bolt straight inside, lock the gate up, into the next one, lock the front door, and back into his fortress.
McLaren's surveillance team gather extensive intel on Dennis' heroin dealing.
However, in order to arrest him they must catch him red-handed.
There was no way known police could break into these places or effect entry very, very quickly.
It would probably take you, with a sledgehammer and a crew, every bit of ten or fifteen minutes to get into the place.
And of course by then, whatever drugs were there would be flushed down the toilet, or out the backyard, strewn into the air.
So what we did, we had the SOG or what is universally known as a SWAT team These are the black pajama guys.
And what they did was, in the still of the night, they'd push their four-wheel drives by hand along the roadway and up to the front of the houses.
They then hooked up some silent chains over the doors and over the gates that were heavily fortified, and they kick-started the four-wheel drives and just flew off at about 100 mile an hour and wrenched the gates completely off the hinges.
And they took off straight inside.
All of a sudden, they'll raid your house and there'll be six of them, all big bastards, you know? In the end, I just said, "I can't even open the door.
Fucking batter it in.
" I can't get the key in the lock because I was shaking so much.
Oh, God, it was horrible.
They'd scream at you, "Police! Police! Don't move! Don't move! Down on the floor! Down on the floor!" On the ground.
It was very frightening.
Once the SWAT team had gone in and hog-tied everybody inside, we were able to, as techies, then go in and take charge and we get on with the searching properly, with exhibit logs and finding the drugs.
As the cops conduct their search, Dennis summons his lawyer, Andrew Fraser, who sets to work keeping Dennis out of jail.
The typical sight that would greet you would be there'd be coppers everywhere.
Dogs, coppers, Kath shooting her mouth off uh, Dennis wandering around, muttering under his breath.
Dennis would want me at the raids, because what Dennis was concerned about was that they might What they say in Australia is load them, you know, give them a present.
Put something there that shouldn't be there.
And as one senior copper once said to me who's now deceased, "Fraser, I want you to remember, it's always very bad manners to go to a party and not take a present.
" However, on the other side of the coin, on more than one occasion Dennis would say to me, "Look, there's a bag of smack.
They're about to find it, can you go and get it and take it with you?" And he asked me that on more than one occasion, and obviously, on more than one occasion, I declined.
The cops don't find anything this time, but the frequency of their raids increases.
And Dennis begins treating them like a game of cat and mouse.
He did like pulling little tricks where he knew the coppers wouldn't be able to pinch him.
So if a firearm is found on your property, you are in possession of it.
So what Dennis would do is he'd dig down, through the veggie garden, under the fence into the next property, stick the guns and the heroin in there and then backfill it.
And of course the coppers would come along and have a poke around and find them.
And he'd go, "What's this, Dennis?" He says, "Fucked if I know.
Not on my property, I've never seen it before.
" So they'd take the guns away and fingerprint them and of course, he was too smart for that.
No fingerprints on anything, so the guns would be forfeited and 30 seconds later, he'd have more guns.
When police eventually find drugs on Kath's property next door, she realizes her own son isn't above turning on his mother to save his hide.
I didn't know there were any drugs in the yard.
One of the gang had hid 'em there.
Didn't matter if I got arrested, as long as Dennis was all right.
Everybody was expendable in those days.
He didn't care who it was.
Dennis didn't care, as long as he was all right.
Even his mother.
Payback time.
Not bringing him up myself.
Payback time it was.
Payback for abandoning him to older relatives and letting him believe she wasn't even his mother.
The relationship between Dennis and Kath deteriorated.
Dennis became more powerful, more violent, and Kath found herself more and more on the periphery.
In fact, Dennis said to me once, "I never tell the Old Sheila nothing, because she's a loudmouth.
" In other words, he was saying to me that Kath couldn't be trusted with too many secrets, 'cause she might blab.
As a result of the constant raids, police managed to arrest Dennis on drugs and firearms charges.
However, his subsequent court appearances and playing of the system helps him avoid landing back behind bars.
I had basic instructions from Dennis and he didn't have to repeat them.
"Adjourn, adjourn, adjourn, adjourn until you could not adjourn any longer, and then leave it to me.
" It's all about forestalling the evil day, and it's all about keeping the business running.
One day I was in court and Dennis said, "The case can't go on.
I don't feel well.
" I said, "Mate, we've done the 'I don't feel well, ' and we've done it so many times, nobody cops it anymore.
" So he said, "Okay.
" He's in the dock, and the first thing he says We're not even getting into our stride, and he screams out from the back of the court, "I'm gonna spew!" And so he races out of the dock, and all you can hear is this dreadful dry retching right through the whole court.
Dennis comes back wiping his mouth, "Sorry, Your Honor, I had to have a spew.
Can we get going now?" "Yep, righto, off we go.
" "I'm gonna spew again!" And out he races.
Anyway, the judge got very, very pissed off about all of this and so he said, "Now, I want you to control yourself.
" And the next thing, you just hear of this dry retching in the dock.
He hasn't even bothered to open the door this time.
And he looks up, and he's wiping the tears from his eyes, and he says, "I've spewed on me new shoes, Your Honor," and there's this horrible smell of bile in the court.
He got his adjournment 'cause no one could bear the smell in there.
He was a man of many talents.
While Melbourne detectives continue hunting Dennis, the drug lord develops a mutually beneficial relationship with other police officers, to further ensure he stays out of prison.
Police had tried to work on Dennis and without a lot of success.
They were hindered by the fact that there were police that certainly aided the activity of the Pettingill family.
If Dennis was pulled over by police, they would then tell the police that he was an informer and he was out doing something on their behalf and that they'd be spoiling a job if they didn't let him go.
It's well known who the police were that were involved with Dennis Allen and the Pettingills during that time.
Very well known.
Myself and a fella by the name of Paul Higgins were chosen to go over there and win the Pettingills' confidence and see whether we could use them as informers for the police department.
The first time I met Dennis, I'd knocked on the door of the premises, "Who the fucking hell's that? Who's that? Who are you, anyway?" I said, "Look, I'm from Russell Street, Brian Murphy.
" "Fucking heard of you.
" He said, "What do you want?" I said, "Thought I'd drop in and say g'day to you.
" "About what?" I said, "Nothing in particular.
" "Yeah, well, you'll get fucking nothing outta me so fuck off!" Despite Kath teaching Dennis the sacred code of the underworld, he betrays that principle, and begins giving up his fellow criminals to the police.
On this particular occasion, I was speaking to Dennis, and I said, "I just saw so and so's car there.
" He said, "He's a cunt, a dead set cunt.
And he's just done a fucking armed robbery, and he comes running with fucking some of the money outta the bank.
I don't want his fucking money or his drugs.
" He says, "I don't want anything to do with him.
The bloke's a dog.
" If that's not giving somebody up because he didn't like him, nothing is.
And that was one of the first armed robbers that he put into us.
These villains have gotta love a copper.
They've gotta have a copper they think they can trust.
And they talk to them, and they tell them things because it makes them happy and they know they've got somebody they might be able to call on one day.
There was no loyalties with Dennis, not in the world of crime.
He didn't stay staunch, as we call it.
In fact, he did the opposite thing.
Dennis was what was called a "dog.
" The worst name you can give to any criminal is a dog.
A dog is one that gives up on somebody else.
He was just a wretch, and there was no decency in this man at all.
Informers are like manure.
They might smell, they might even stink, but they give you good vegetables and the results speak for themselves.
Over 12 months, Higgins and I reckon that he put in a minimum of 32 armed robbers.
And the armed robberies were fast and furious in those days.
Unbelievable that he could give so many people up.
I was never aware that Dennis was a police informer.
Never.
I would never have believed it.
And I thought, "No, this is not like us in the underworld.
We don't do things like that.
" But he did give up people.
He did give up people.
I felt betrayed.
He didn't care for his own family.
As the charges against him continue to mount, Dennis looks for other ways to guarantee his continuing freedom.
I saw Dennis give a now deceased police officer an envelope one day.
And he said, "What do you think is in there?" I said, "Well, clearly, money.
" He said, "How much?" I said, "I wouldn't have the faintest idea.
" And he said a grand each for him and his mate.
A grand each a day for a week.
$7,000 a week buys a lot of influence.
But, for instance, Dennis gave me two telephone numbers.
No names, just two numbers.
"And if I ever get arrested, ring one of those numbers.
It doesn't matter what hour of the day or night it is.
And all you have to say is, 'That bloke is at whichever police station, ' and hang up.
" And then those officers would turn up at court and talk about Dennis being required to be out on bail.
In the late '80s, authorities investigate Brian Murphy's partner, Paul Higgins.
Although there's no evidence to show Higgins took money from Dennis, he is charged with corruption and found guilty of receiving other criminal payments.
Higgins serves five years in prison.
Murphy also is investigated, but never charged.
And to this day, he strongly denies any suggestion that he was corrupt or that he ever took a bribe.
Dennis Allen paid me fuck all.
Over the years, people have made allegations to my face, they've told people I know that Dennis Allen had me in his back pocket.
They've never ever come up with any proof, because there was none.
I never helped Dennis to stay out of prison.
Let's get that straight.
Dennis was the ultimate artful dodger.
Dennis had that much shit cunning in him.
He had the shit cunning of 20 men.
They had nothing on me, because I'd done nothing wrong.
Once again, Dennis employs his cunning to beat the cops and stay out of prison.
He's at the height of his powers, feeling invincible.
So he hits the drugs harder and harder.
Dennis never took heroin.
Speed was the love of his life.
It turned him into a lunatic.
Day and night He never had a night because he'd just stay up for a week at a time.
He was a maniac on it.
Dennis was using amounts of amphetamines that would've probably killed the average person.
He would have a dressing gown cord tied permanently around his arm, this is to make the veins bulge so injection is easier, and he would inject as often as every half hour.
Massive amounts of speed.
Speed makes one almost incapable of sleep, so Dennis would stay up for days on end.
And at the end of these binges, his behavior was literally terrifying.
His whole persona was like a jagged nerve ending.
The last year or so that I acted for him, he was completely insane.
His psychosis was such that you'd knock on his door and he'd race out the door And he'd race off down a street or round the corner or up into somebody's garage "They're watching me.
" And they were.
We all knew they were watching him.
High on speed and drunk with power, Dennis spirals out of control, indulging in violence and a growing fascination in torture and murder.
Dennis was a person that had no morals.
He had no qualms about taking life or causing serious injury.
Dennis would always attack from behind without any warning.
He would shoot, stab and ultimately kill people without any conscience or consequence.
And not even his mother can control him.
This is Dennis when he was mad.
You know, he'd been up for a few days, but he was so desperate to shove a gun at me head, that's what he did, even though I was his mother.
I haven't been back here for 30 years.
This is 35 Stephenson Street.
Doesn't look like it when I had it.
And this is number 37 and Dennis' house.
This is where I used to stand, in here, and listen to his conversations when he was having big drug dealers around.
He would be in there, hitting up speed all day.
I don't know how it's gonna be when I walk in here.
All those bad memories.
This was Dennis' room, and he had big wooden pieces on the door, somehow to block off everybody trying to get into his room when he was asleep at night.
Well, I'm shaking even at being in this house.
It was bloody and horrible and dead people.
The worst thing I ever saw was here.
Dennis killed Wayne Stanhope right in this room.
There was a whole heap of people sitting here.
Dennis shot the man six times in the head.
Then another six times in the head.
And then he cut his throat.
So he made certain he was dead.
And then he had the cheek to come in to my house and demand that I get out of bed and come in here and clean the house up.
He was swaying on his feet 'cause he hadn't been to sleep for days, and he said to me, "Get outta that bed and get in there, 'cause I've just killed so and so.
" There was not a day towards the end that he wasn't off his tits.
He was absolutely mad with drugs.
When you put firearms in the middle of all that Then all of a sudden, bang, bang, bang, you've got another death.
Dennis' sadism becomes too much for Kath to ignore, and she finally intervenes to save the life of one of his victims.
I went into his place one night, and I walked past the bathroom, and I could see all the blood dripping down.
I turned around and saw a man with a machete in his head.
And I could hear Dennis and his friends all drinking around the table and he was laughing and giggling and I know he's gonna kill this boy.
So I just walked him quickly to the back door, let him out into the fresh air.
That's one that he didn't get.
He was prepared to kill anyone.
They said he killed 13.
I couldn't take any more.
I was sick to I wanted to kill him myself.
There was no criminal code with Dennis.
He was his own judge and jury and executioner.
Kath's relationship with her firstborn son is irrevocably broken, lost in Dennis' fog of drugs, paranoia and lust for murder.
But then, Dennis' chaotic reign brings down the entire empire.
His body suddenly surrenders to a lifetime of self-abuse at age 35.
It was a terrible scene, and I knew something was terribly wrong.
Moaning and that.
Dennis! Dennis? I went in there.
I saw Dennis slumped across the bed onto his bedside table.
Can you hear me? Dennis? Dennis? And he was making terrible noises and I panicked and I rang the police.
He'd had a stroke.
Dennis! Please! Dennis' massive speed addiction causes him to contract a rare bacterial infection.
Apparently, little pieces of his heart was flicking off.
His sharp decline leads to his undoing in more ways than one.
With the drug lord now incapable of meting out revenge, witnesses to Wayne Stanhope's murder come forward and accuse Dennis of killing him, leading to Dennis' only murder charge.
But before he can be brought to trial, Kath helps Dennis escape justice one last time.
All of a sudden, I'm looking at the monitor and it's going down and down.
And then all the sirens went up and all the nurses came running in.
I said, "Stop.
Don't do anything.
I don't want him to go to prison.
I wanna let him die.
" I didn't want him to live.
I wanted it all over.
Can you understand what I Can you understand how I was feeling? It's just that I didn't want them to take him away.
Let him just go by himself.
Let him just go.
Once Dennis died, it certainly left a bit of a hole in the Pettingill family.
They'd lost that figurehead they'd had there for so long.
It was probably fitting that he suffered the way in which he did in those last few months.
It's just unfortunate that he didn't die sooner.
For years, Dennis ran a very profitable heroin trafficking business, but it was Dennis' business first and last, and everybody else was, to a degree, second fiddle to Dennis.
So much so that when he died, ultimately, that was the end of it.
The whole thing just hit a wall almost overnight.
The death of Dennis made it all peaceful for us again.
And the drug dealing empire was gone.
Thank God for that.
There was nothing to go on forward, living down there or being around Richmond anymore, so I sold Dennis' house and came here to live 29 years ago.
I had to get out of there and get away from all the crime and the stuff that'd gone on before.
I'd had enough.
Kath Pettingill, she bore seven of the most rotten people you could imagine, and some of the worst criminals this country's ever seen.
As a mother, she's gotta live with herself and find what karma she needs towards the end of her life, but not once did she say anything bad about them and their atrocities.
Kath's getting old and let's hope she just disappears soon.
They call me Granny Evil.
I don't think I'm evil.
I've never done anything wrong.
I've never killed anyone.
I would never hurt anyone.
I'll always be criticized for what Dennis did for the rest of me life.
I mean, I can't stop what they do when they've grown up.
Why should I take the blame for what they did? I tried me best.
Well, I suppose I just turned a blind eye to it.