Category: Crime

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Decline of the English Murder; a King is overthrown by a mob

Discipline wanes. The relevancy criteria relax. Nothing to do with Abbotsford, except that there are lots of bike paths in Abbotsford and bike path snipers might strike anywhere there’s bike paths. The source of Melinda Zygarlicki’s was it a bird? was it a tennis ball? or was it .22 rifle? wound has turned himself in, saying he accidentally discharged his weapon. Weird, but reassuring.

Meanwhile, a Magistrate has ordered one of the two alleged hoodlums who were charged with the murder of the thief of the yellow racer, an Abbotsford lad, to stand trial in the Supreme Court on 8 August 2006, while dismissing the charge against the other, his half-brother. Ever since I read George Orwell’s “Decline of the English Murder” at an age when I found that, and “A Nice Cup of Tea“, more engaging than the leftist politics of the 1930s in England, I have enjoyed the odd Sunday paper article about a good murder. I want a nice Sunday paper article on the yellow racer murder.

And as the beautifully written Tariq Ali pointed out today in a concise and engaging must-read article, isn’t it wonderful to hear the good old fashioned news from Nepal, that desperately poor theatre of civil war waged by Maoists against — oh irony! — the Chinese-assisted King (pictured) who never expected to have to assume the throne (remember the “murder suicide” by the King’s nephew, the right handed crown prince who died from a bullet wound to his left temple after popping off most of the royal family?)? A general strike has overcome a shoot to kill protesters on sight edict and forced representative democracy onto the hilltop nation.

All this I find satisfying, wholesome; a counterpoint to the so-called war on terror. Mind you with 11,000 dead in the civil war, that’s almost a third of the Iraqis dead in this latest war, and it’s not getting a third of the coverage.

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Another murder [update: and a workplace death]

According to News.com.au:

A MAN has been charged with murder after another man was repeatedly stabbed at a Melbourne karaoke bar.A 54-year-old man, from suburban St Kilda, died after he was stabbed three times in the back at the bar in Church Street, Abbotsford, during an argument about midnight last night.He was taken to the Alfred hospital in a critical condition but died this morning.

A Victoria Police spokesman said a 33-year-old man, from Ivanhoe, had been charged with one count of murder.

He has been remanded in custody to face the Melbourne Magistrates’ court tomorrow.

We seem to have more than our share of murders and their attempts in Abbotsford and surrounds. There was the Smith St Collingwood murder over the yellow racer last year in which two Nicholson St men were charged, the 2004 severing of a man’s spinal cord again associated with a Victoria St karaoke club, and the attempt to bash two men’s heads in with a hammer by a bondage and discipline afficionado the same year. Update: Meanwhile, on April 13, a man was crushed to death at his workplace in Abbotsford [further update: the CUB plant].  Further further update:

“The week’s third victim, a 58-year-old man from Wantirna, was crushed by a machine at Carlton and United Beverages’ factory in suburban Abbotsford.

He died in hospital also on Thursday, after he was found by co-workers caught between a door on the machine and a handrail on April 13.”

Continue reading “Another murder [update: and a workplace death]”

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Hoodlum slashes cabbie; cabbie robs old lady; sniper guns down cyclist

A wave of curious crimes is sweeping over our area. On 19 March a thin Asian hoodlum who seemed to be about 17 years old slashed a cabbie with a knife after getting in on Victoria St, prompting calls for the installation of security screens. Down the road in Thomastown Kathleen Kelsen, an 84 year old woman, probably supports those calls after a cabbie stole $400 from her by convincing her that others had used her taxi card without her knowledge, but that she was responsible for the bill. And in Northcote, Melinda Zygarlicki was shot in the lungs by an unknown sniper whilst crossing a bridge over Merri Creek near Rushall Station on the Merri Bike Path. She thought she had been branded by a tennis ball, or that a bird had flown into her, and rode the rest of the way home. The Herald Sun seems to know something Melinda doesn’t since they are sure that the sniper was a “gunman“. For the photo, thanks to Puss in Boots, a Kuwaiti girl obsessed with Manga.