Modest mobster who kept the peace

He preferred to conduct his business in private, though what that business was, few really knew.

His criminal record understates his influence on the underworld. It lists offences of dishonesty, bribery, possession of firearms, escape, resisting arrest and assaulting police.

But criminal records list only an offender's arrest history – his failures. The definition of a successful criminal is one that tends not to get caught.

Many wondered how he prospered. Sometimes even he struggled to explain. When he was interviewed soon after the 1998 murder of his friend and fellow gangster, Alphonse John Gangitano, he was uncharacteristically tongue-tied. Asked by homicide investigator Gavan Ryan what he did for a job, he responded: "Occupation at the moment? It would be – I"m a – well, I"m still, I'm still, I'm still a rigger. I'm still a rigger, yeah."

It could have been a Freudian slip. Whereas a lay person might assume he was referring to rigging in the construction industry, it was whispered that one of Kinniburgh's talents was to be an extremely well-informed punter. Although it was never proved, or even widely alleged, that he was involved in rigging horse races, people on both sides of the law – including a former assistant police commissioner – loved to get a tip from the man they called "The Munster". He was a great and good friend to more than one leading jockey.

"Rigging" had been kind to Kinniburgh, 62, right up until he was gunned down in front of his double-storey brick home in Kew just after midnight on December 13, 2003. Ryan – a member of the Victorian Police's Purana Task Force – was immediately assigned to investigate the murder.

While Kinniburgh, a former shearer, had long given away paid employment, it didn't mean he would let a lucrative opportunity pass him by. He was late to his own wedding in 1967, telling his wife that he "had to see a bloke".

The shooting of 'The Munster' is the most telling – and probably the most ominous – of the underworld killings committed in Melbourne since 1995.

Nearly all the previous victims have been volatile and erratic men who saw violence as a weapon of first resort. There was an unspoken sense that they had it coming. But the older and wiser Kinniburgh was a tactician who saw gangland feuds as counter-productive.

From the time of the murder police have always believed that Carl Williams ordered the killings. After all he was out to kill anyone connected with the Morans and anyone he thought had the power to order a revenge attack.

What is known is that in 2003 Williams, frustrated at not being able to find Jason Moran, began preliminary work on launching a hit on Kinniburgh.

But within 48 hours Williams told us he was not involved.

"I've never met him and I've never heard a bad thing said about him. I have nothing to profit from his death. It's a mystery to me.

"I haven't done anything. My conscience is clear."

Seemingly relaxed, he and family members met us at a  city coffee shop about 36 hours after Kinniburgh's murder. He said he did not carry a gun, had never owned one and did not employ any form of security.

Carl's wife, Roberta, said Williams had the perfect alibi. "It was his lawyer's birthday and he was out with him. He got Chinese and came home drunk as a skunk. They can't blame him for this one."

But they did.

There was a second much weaker theory – that it was a payback for the murder of Alphonse Gangitano. It was his relationship with Gangitano that first forced the reticent Kinniburgh from the shadows. He was a close friend of Big Al – a relationship senior police found hard to understand.

Kinniburgh was wealthy, but tried to hide it – Gangitano was often struggling, but deliberately cultivated an image of affluence.

Kinniburgh kept a low profile, while Gangitano loved the headlines, although that high profile meant he was always the target of police investigations. But Kinniburgh"s low profile was blown the night he went to visit the younger gangster on 16 January 1998, the night Alphonse was shot dead in his Templestowe home.

Police believe Jason Moran was at the house and argued with Gangitano. They say Moran opened fire on Alphonse without warning, killing him instantly.

The smart money says that a startled Kinniburgh ran to the front door of Gangitano"s house, injuring his hand on the security mesh in his haste to throw it open. He then went upstairs, the theory goes, to grab the security video that could compromise him, before going to a nearby convenience store "to buy cigarettes" – but in fact to concoct an alibi of sorts – before returning to "discover" the body.

Some believe that Kinniburgh could have slipped away, but saw Gangitano's widow and children driving past and could not leave them to deal with the horrendous scene alone. But he also knew that touching the body in front of a witness would enable him to explain at a later time why his DNA was on the victim. Kinniburgh didn't become a gangster heavyweight by losing his head when others (literally) lost theirs.

Either way, Coroner Iain West didn't buy his hastily-built alibi: "I do not accept Graham Kinniburgh's version of events, as I am satisfied he was present at the time the deceased was shot."

He said Kinniburgh went to the convenience store to be filmed on the security camera, "thereby attempting to establish an alibi of being absent from the premises at the critical time."

"I am satisfied that both Graham Allan Kinniburgh and Jason Matthew Patrick Moran were implicated in the death."

The difference between Moran and Kinniburgh could be seen at the inquest.

The younger gangster wore a flash suit, while Kinniburgh dressed down for the occasion. He would do nothing to draw attention to himself.

While Kinniburgh could afford imported suits, he mostly preferred the casual clothes of an off-duty dock worker, even if in middle age he had acquired some expensive tastes and was a regular at the exquisitely expensive Flower Drum restaurant in Melbourne's Chinatown. At his funeral, his daughter, Susie, said, "Restaurants all over Melbourne will not only miss his patronage but they'll be missing him. They used to fuss over him like he was a king. He didn't ask for it or seek out special favours, it was just bestowed upon him."

A regular at Crown Casino, he also enjoyed trips to Las Vegas to try his luck at the spiritual home of The Mob. He also loved the atmosphere of old style pubs, where he would stand at the bar examining his form-guide and watching the races on television.

Kinniburgh lived in a large house in a quiet street in one of the better blocks of the prestigious Melbourne suburb of Kew, the natural haunt of doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers and media executives. But he drove a second-hand Ford, the car he drove home on the night he was shot. While Kinniburgh didn't flaunt his wealth, he managed to put his three children through private schools while not working in any legitimate job.

He was also an expert in picking police; trainee surveillance police were often sent to the street in Kew to try to follow him. It was a sharp learning curve.

In 1994, his son married a girl from a well-to-do Melbourne family. After the wedding, it was just a short walk from St Peter's Anglican Church to the reception in Melbourne's grand old established hotel, The Windsor.

During the stroll, an alert observer might have noticed photographers taking pictures not of the wedding party but of the guests. The photographers were intelligence police looking to upgrade their files.

As is the case in many weddings, the groom's friends and family had little in common with the bride's group.

One friend of the bride was mildly startled when introduced to Kinniburgh, not so much by the man himself as by the four who were standing around him. "They were all wearing Ray-Bans and it was 10 at night," she said later.

Dressed in a dinner suit, Kinniburgh welcomed his 100 guests with a speech that left an impression. One guest, who didn't know the colourful background of "The Munster", later said: "He reminded me of Marlon Brando."

Weddings are emotional times and this one was no different.

A guest of the bride, a millionaire property developer, was dancing with a woman invited from the groom's side.

A friend of the groom, released from prison days after completing his sentence for biting a man's ear from his head, told the friend of the bride that he would be shot if he didn't immediately become a wall-flower.

The property developer lost interest in the music and retired to the bar. It was a sensible move.

Only a few months before Kinniburgh's death, his daughter married into a well-known Melbourne family with strong connections to Melbourne's legal and political establishment.  The reception was held at the National Trust showpiece property, Ripponlea. The story circulates that when a friend asked the groom's mother how she had got along with the Kinniburghs in making the arrangements she just laughed and said: "No problems. We just agreed to everything they wanted."

For three decades Kinniburgh was connected with some of Australia's biggest crimes. Police say he was the mastermind behind the magnetic drill gang – Australia's best safebreaking crew – which grabbed $1.7million from a NSW bank, a huge jewellery haul from a Lonsdale Street office and valuables from safety deposit boxes in Melbourne.

He was alleged to have been the organiser of a gold bullion snatch in Queensland and was also once charged over receiving stolen property from a burglary on the home of the well-known and fabulously wealthy trucking magnate, Lindsay Fox.

When police raided Kinniburgh's home, they found $4500 in a drawer and a rare pendant owned by Mrs Fox in a coat pocket. He told police they could keep the money if they didn't charge him over the burglary. This time he appeared to be out of luck. The detectives were honest and added attempted bribery to the other charges.

But "The Munster" was nothing if not innovative. While he was convicted of bribery, he beat the theft charges by having an identical pendant made in Hong Kong to raise doubt about the unique nature of the jewellery.

In the 1990s he was charged over an attempt to import a record 15 tonnes of cannabis resin. Police flew to Sydney for the initial court hearing, in which Kinniburgh was granted bail.

Detectives flew back in economy seats only to see Kinniburgh in first class. The case against him later collapsed.

In his younger days Kinniburgh usually carried a gun. He was charged in the early 1980s after a parking officer saw a gun sticking out from under the driver's seat. The grey ghost turned a whiter shade of pale and contacted police, who arrested Kinniburgh when he returned to the car.

He was also charged after police found a gun stashed in a storm water drain opposite his house when he lived in Balwyn.

He once punched a detective outside a city nightclub, breaking his nose. A well-respected detective later went to his injured colleague and said Kinniburgh was upset at what he had done and would give 100 pounds – then several weeks' wages – as a peace offering if the charges were dropped. But the only thing bent about the battered policeman was his nose. He refused the bribe and the case continued.

In his later years Kinniburgh saw no value in exciting police, and other members of the underworld, by carrying a gun.

But in the weeks before his murder, he again began to carry a handgun. Friends say his mood became morose and they believe he knew he had been marked for death.

A few days before he died, he dined in Lygon Street, Carlton, with five colourful Melbourne identities. It can only be assumed none knew this would be the last time they would see their friend alive.

On the night of his murder he returned home to Belmont Avenue and parked on the street just past his driveway shortly after midnight. He walked about six steps, carrying a bag of groceries, before he was ambushed.

A pistol was found next to his body and the bag of groceries he dropped. He had been able to fire just one shot before he died in front of the house that crime built.

Kinniburgh was a careful man, but like many of the gangland victims he had become lazy. He had installed state of the art video security but it had broken down a year earlier and he had never bothered to repair it. He had a secure garage, but chose to park in the street. He had a special fortified door fitted inside the house so intruders could not get upstairs, but he wandered outside in the street rather than driving into his fortress.

And, a creature of habit, he always arrived home around midnight on Friday nights. You could set your watch by it. The killers obviously did.

Typically, the murder appeared to have been carried out by a hit team of two – a gunman and a driver. Witnesses who heard the shots say one gunman fired at least two volleys of bullets before fleeing in a car just after midnight.

Ambulance paramedics called at 12.07am found Kinniburgh dead at the scene.

The killing appears to have been meticulously planned. Within seconds, the hit team was driving north along Belmont Avenue towards Parkhill Road before doubling back to cross Cotham Road.

They were using a blue sedan – police now believe it was the Hyundai Excel they seized in Alexandra on Tuesday.

But there was a second car – a stolen blue ford found burning about one kilometre from the scene soon after the murder. Residents among the million-dollar houses of nearby Doona Avenue reported the car had been dumped and set alight in a hidden driveway down a narrow, cobbled service lane.

The killers had certainly planned the hit for at least a week. The getaway car had been stolen from South Melbourne the previous Saturday and hidden until used in the attack.

Police also believe the gunmen had carefully scouted the local area before striking. The fact that the Falcon was dumped and burned in a tiny laneway not shown on any maps shows they had done their homework.

And Kinniburgh? Long-time residents of Belmont Avenue said they knew of his reputation but said he was "a quiet man who kept himself to himself". There were no surprises here.

They said he had lived for at least fifteen years in his red brick house, which is fronted by a high brick fence and sprouts several video security cameras. Neighbours said he was occasionally seen walking a small, white fluffy dog.

Kinniburgh had many friends. One of them was the ill-fated Lewis Moran, father of the late Jason and Mark.

When evidence was led at one court hearing that Lewis had been caught on police telephone intercepts talking about crime, Kinniburgh just shook his head as if perplexed that his old friend could be so stupid.

Perhaps Graham Kinniburgh was killed because of his wide network of friends; it may have been his Godfather-like reputation that made him a target.

It was not so much what he had done but what he could do that made him such a threat.

But Williams was losing his best hitmen. The killer known as The Runner was stewing in jail and would soon turn on Carl.

And his once trusted gunman, Andrew Veniamin, who had already killed at least four times for him, was under constant police watch.

Police believe Williams went back to some old associates – some of who he had met in jail.

One name that has been mentioned is armed robber Terrence Leigh Blewitt, who disappeared in April 2004 from Melton.

He was last seen heading to a Blue Hyundai – the same make and model as owned by a crime associate who now refuses to talk to police.

Police have been told that Blewitt, either by accident or design, was shot dead in that car, and that is why it is now undergoing minute forensic examination.

They believe the car may still contain "vital evidence" into the two killings.

On Tuesday police offered a $100,000 reward for information on the Kinniburgh killings.

They believe that both cases, unlike the victims, are very much alive.