- Police have all but given up on solving the broad daylight killing of standover man Brian Kane – gunned down in a Brunswick pub 30 years ago today.
In 2009 there was hope within the force they would cut through underworld allegiances and lay charges.
What sparked that hope is a mystery.
Victoria Police has chosen not to answer questions about its investigations.
Investigators firmly believe they know the two suspects who burst into the Quarry Hotel in Brunswick and shot Kane dead, but more than three years later the case is all but over.
Police resources, including interstate investigators, phone taps and other surveillance are costly, especially on a historical case involving crooks killing another crook.
The $100,000 reward – doubled in 2009 – was not enough for those with inside information to risk their lives.
Both men police have in the frame are destined to take their secrets to the grave.
The underworld veterans are among the hardest, connected and ruthless of all Australian criminals.
Firstly there is Melville Peter Schnitzerling.
It was not a fitting name for a career criminal with a penchant for disguises and rat cunning, so he changed it.
Re-badged as Russell “The Fox” Cox, he is regarded as a highly connected, feared and staunch underworld figure, but oddly he is remembered more commonly by his media given name – “Mad Dog”.
Living in a Queensland unit after a life in and out of jail, the one-time professional armed robber is close to his nephew and lives a quiet life – living beyond his means, but not with the lavishness of a gangster high on his own cocaine.
Despite being questioned over Kane’s murder in March 2010, the 65-year-old has not been charged.
It is believed he pulled the job with another slippery and ruthless character, Rod “The Duke” Collins, also known as Rodney Earle.
Collins, who is serving a life sentence for killing Ray and Dorothy Abbey at their Heidelberg home in 1987, is an associate of Tony Mokbel and Carl Williams.
A gun for hire and drug addict, he has known most of Melbourne’s hardest crims – Anthony Dowsley
