Infamous prison escapee spills on half a century inside prison with Australia’s most notorious criminals
For more than 50 years, convicted bank robber John Killick has mixed with the 'who's who of crime' in Australia, including the country's most dangerous serial killers, mass murderers and rapists.
But of all the criminals Mr Killick mixed with Australia's most infamous pedophile Robert 'Dolly' Dunn, the depraved killer Ivan Milat, the five men who kidnapped, raped and brutalised Anita Cobby to name a few - it was killer and rapist William 'Billy' Munday who he feared the most.
Mr Killick spent 15 years in jail in NSW for a string of armed robberies and a brazen escape from Sydney's Silverwater jail in 1999, when his girlfriend hijacked a helicopter.
In a plot straight from a Hollywood movie, Mr Killick's Russian mistress, Lucy Dudko, hijacked a helicopter and landed inside Silverwater Prison to pluck a dashing and dangerous criminal to freedom - all in the name of love.
Ms Dudko served seven years in prison for her role in the escape and Killick served 15 before being paroled in 2014. They exchanged over 4000 letters during Lucy's incarceration, but the relationship ended when she told Killick she had devoted the rest of her life to God.
Due to the conditions of his parole, Mr Killick will not be allowed to make contact with Ms Dudko until he is 80, after which time he says he might ask her out for a coffee.
Over his years in various prisons across Australia, his first stint in prison starting in 1961, Mr Killick says he learned how to 'spot the psychopaths'.
“There’s a whole smorgasbord of well known, high profile crims in maximum security. I met them all; Darcey Dugan and some pretty bad killers, especially in the 60s in Goulburn," he told News Corp.
“I’ve had a lot of publicity (for my helicopter escape) but I don’t rank myself up there with these sort of people. Because all I was was a bank robber and I went long periods of time without committing a crime.”
Billy Munday, who was a member of the Grim Reapers gang, had been sentenced to 58 years in prison after being convicted of rape, kidnap and armed robbery in 1978. He was then sentenced to life in prison after killing Stephen Shipley in Parramatta prison. But that's not what scared Mr Killick the most.
"Billy Munday was a mad crim and killer," Mr Killick told News Corp.
"He was in for murder. He used to stand over and rape boys in Goulburn prison. He used to work as a sweep. And he’d see who was coming, say ‘I like that one’ then he’d go to the screw and say ‘put this bloke in my cell’.
"He was a psychopath. I played him in chess one day because I was a champion and he said he was a good chess player. I beat him. I didn’t know how bad he was at that stage. He got up and shook hands and said ‘good on you John, too good’ and went away. Then everyone came and told me later that I was lucky to be alive. They said he’d just gone in his cell and smashed it to rats***. Because he wanted the game.
“Then when I came back to Goulburn (in later years) he said he wanted to play me again and I said ‘no way’. He wasn’t much bigger than me. I was prepared to fight him but those guys have nothing to lose. And they’re the ones inmates fear the most."
Mr Killick also revealed how he was the only person in the entire High Security Unit at Goulburn Jail who was allowed to be in contact with Ivan Milat, who had been convicted of the murders of seven backpackers.
“They said to Milat ‘you can only go with the helicopter guy’. He didn’t say a lot but when he did he usually talked about sport. He was into rugby league and I think he supported the Bulldogs. Milat went to lengths to convince me he didn’t (commit the murders), producing documents and saying police planted all the evidence in his house," he said.
“I told him that if he did it he was a monster. He looked me straight in the eye and agreed that if he’d done it that would make him a monster then said ‘but I didn’t do it’. He was plausible. A lot of the killers were plausible. But I didn’t believe Milat was innocent.
“I wrote him a letter to tell him not to contact me again. I said ‘I’ve checked all your papers’. But I never heard from him again. I don’t know if it was given to him or if he responded and it wasn’t given to me (by prison guards). They came and took him and two others (to Supermax) and that was the last I ever saw him and that’s been 15 years.”
The reason Mr Killick was singled out for meetings with Ivan Milat was because he was the only person who wasn't under protection at the prison, Mr Killick told News Corp.
John Travers, Michael Murdoch and brothers Michael, Leslie and Gary Murphy were five men who were under so much protection that Mr Killick never had anything to do with them.
"If they were ever put in the main prison, they’d probably be killed," Mr Killick said.
"But they were very well protected because the guards knew they’d be targeted.
"I know the story and I don’t want to be reminded of it. It’s a terrible story. The girl is gone and it’s pretty tragic.
“As I said to (my ex-wife) this morning, there’s a whole new generation of younger people who probably don’t know the facts. But I already know.”
