Bullet-shaped pen rejected as evidence from Rogerson murder trial
A gold bullet-shaped pen engraved with the names of all the people Roger Rogerson allegedly killed during his time as a police officer was rejected as evidence in his murder trial, it has been revealed.
The lawyers of co-accused Glen McNamara tried to have the pen placed as evidence but the bid was unsuccessful, the Daily Telegraph revealed.
Along with the pen, details of a bold conversation between the two murderers were submitted, where McNamara claimed Rogerson had boasted about the people he had allegedly killed.
“They had to go,” was Rogerson’s reasoning for the deaths, in the private talk between the pair three months before the murder of university student Jamie Gao in 2014.
For the past four months, the notorious 75-year-old sat calmly in an oversized camel coat in the oak dock of a NSW Supreme Court listening through a hearing-assistance device as the Crown laid out its case against him and 57-year-old McNamara.
On Wednesday, both men were found guilty of killing Gao, taking his 2.78 kilograms of ice and dumping his body at sea bundled in a tarp and chains.
Both men had pleaded not guilty and blamed the fatal shooting on each other, but this was rejected by the seven men and five women on the jury, who returned their guilty verdicts after si and a half days.
The conversation at Rogerson's house focused on a previous crime from 1989, where Rogerson and convicted drug dealer Alan Williams were accused of conspiring to murder former undercover police officer Mick Drury.
He allegedly told McNamara: “When I was charged with conspiracy to murder Drury, that c*** (former NSW assistant police commissioner) Clive Small got Alan Williams to give me up.”
He was acquitted and Williams later died.
“It looked like suicide but it wasn’t. I never let anyone get away with giving me up… I have connections everywhere,” he allegedly said of Williams' death.
Another co-accused in the Drury trial was Christopher Flannery, who mysteriously went missing after his involvement in the attempted murder.
According to McNamara, Rogerson described Flannery as a “useless drug addict” who “had the twitches from too much coke, so I shot Drury”.
“It was easy. I met with him and put two in his chest, then we put him on a boat, went out three miles off Sydney Heads, mate, he’s never coming back. Chris would have rolled on me for sure if Small had of got to him.”
The conversation turned to Warren Lanfranchi, a man who Rogerson had shot while on duty as a police officer outside a Chippendale pub.
“Mr McNamara asked, ‘What happened with Lanfranchi?’ (Rogerson) replied: ‘I shot Lanfranchi twice, once in the neck and then one in the chest. That was close. The jury said I didn’t act in self-defence’,” the court heard.
Lanfranchi’s girlfriend Sallie-Anne Huckstepp also died, with Rogerson allegedly adding: “F**k me she had to go… the f***ing junkie bitch. It was a problem for Ned as well, one we solved. You know she drowned.”
Her body was found in a lake in Centennial Park in 1986.
Rogerson spent his first night behind bars as a convicted killer on Wednesday night.
A sentencing hearing for both men will be held on August 25, but McNamara has already indicated he will appeal against his conviction.
