Nine News Perth reports from Albany Court House. Courtesy: Nine News
IN a quiet suburban Adelaide home a wife decides she wants her husband dead.
Doris Ann Brundritt has decided she wants her estranged husband gone — and in what could be a scene straight from the movies — last summer attempted to hire hitmen to kill him.
But in a twist worthy of the big screen those hitmen were actually undercover police officers and Brundritt was arrested and charged with soliciting murder.
The 45-year-old has pleaded guilty to the charge at the South Australian Supreme Court but has pleaded not guilty to an additional count of solicting murder, which allegedly occurred three years earlier in January 2010.
She feared the impact publication of her name would have on her children but a judge earlier this year rejected her bid for name secrecy.
Her matter returns to the Supreme Court on August 22 but it isn't an isolated case There are many other recent examples, including ones that are currently playing out in courtrooms across Australia.
Brian Vincent Attwell leave the Albany Courthouse in Western Australia. He was sentenced to 8 years 6 months' jail for attempting to have his former daughter-in-law killed. Source: AAP
Robyn Lindholm is facing a committal hearing in Melbourne over the death of her ex-partner. Source: News Limited
In Melbourne, 41-year-old Robyn Jane Lindholm this week is facing a committal hearing on a murder charge along with two men police allege she convinced to kill her ex-partner.
In Western Australia a 74-year-old man, Brian Vincent Attwell, was found guilty of trying to hire a hitman to kill his former daughter-in-law, who was embroiled in a legal dispute with his son.
He was accused of paying $10,000 to an undercover policeman to kill daughter-in-law Michelle Attwell. The court heard he had described her as a "nuisance to society" and "a maggot" but he denied actually ordering the hit.
And earlier this month Chris Soteriou told Channel 7's Sunday Night program of surviving a hit placed on him by his wife Vicky, who arranged her lover Ari Dimitrakis to stab him on his 44th birthday.
Chris Soteriou describes the moment he had his throat slit. Source: Sunday Night Source: Supplied
Chris Soteriou's wounds after the attack that was orchestrated by his wife of 18 years. Source: Sunday Night Source: Supplied
Vicky Soteriou was jailed after plotting with her lover to kill her husband, Chris Soteriou. Source: News Limited
These cases might seem extraordinary but in fact, hitmen or contract killers, have been a feature of Australian crime for decades.
Research conducted into local hits in the early 2000s by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) is still one of the most significant pieces of work into contract killing anywhere in the world.
That work — by John Venditto and Jenny Mouzos — shattered the notion that hitmen were only hired by underworld figures similar to those depicted in The Godfather or Sopranos, or to eliminate someone with a drug debt, for example.
They are working for your wife, husband, lover or anyone else who knows you well — and wants you out of the way so much they are prepared to pay thousands of dollars for someone to do their dirty work for them.
Contract killings in Australia are usually personal- or domestic-related scenarios than for political or economic reasons.
If money was the motivation then usually it was still a domestic relationship, in the form of payouts on superannuation, insurance and through the person's estate and not a shady business deal gone wrong, the AIC study showed.
Actor James Gandolfini in a scene from TV show 'The Sopranos'. Source: Supplied
As the shocking Soteriou case proves, contract killing is happening in suburban Australia and they make up about two per cent of all homicides.
The AIC study examined 163 completed and attempted cases over a period of almost 13 years to determine who hired the killers, why and how often.
It found both genders were hiring killers and it was something both the rich and the poor have resorted to.
Most Australian murders are committed by someone known to the victim, so contract killing is different in that respect, because the hired killer has no relationship with the person they're being paid to kill.
A breakdown of the killings revealed several motives that kept reappearing and the researchers were able to split them into the following categories.
Break up of a relationship
This is the most common type of contract killing, in Australia, for both successful and unsuccessful hits.
Some are ordered to stop the partner from entering a new relationship, or because they have already done so, while others occur so the surviving person is able to pursue a new relationship.
In some instances custody of children comes into play and the partner who hires the hitman does so with the sole purpose of full custody of the children.
Financially motivated
Commercial gain is the motive, be it via a will, superannuation or a stake in a business.
Silencing of witnesses
This category made up 13 per cent of contract killings. It was also further proof that professional killers of the organised crime variety were lower than those hired for domestic reasons.
Revenge
More likely to have older targets than other motives and exists not for any other reason than to settle some real or perceived score.
Drugs
The least common motive with just 6 per cent of contract killings.
The AIC data also showed the average payment made to hitmen in Australia was $16.500, although amounts varied wildly.
The lowest was $500 and the highest was $100,000, but that was offered when there were two targets, so effectively $50,000 each.
The majority (about 75 per cent) of payments were under $20,000.
A further analysis of the completed kills showed most of the victims were men and most were married and had jobs. This is another big departure from typical Australian homicide victims who, statistics show, are single and unemployed when they are killed.
Hitmen, much like their counterparts in TV and movies, are much more likley to use a gun than other Australian assailants. In fact, the study showed firearms were five times more likely to be used in a contract killing that any other homicide in Australia.
A separate Victorian study, which examined 12 cases, confirmed the AIC findings that hits typically involved partners hiring killers to end arguments over custody, property, life insurance payouts and complicated love triangles.
Businessman Michael McGurk was shot dead outside his Sydney mansion. Source: Supplied
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