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TRANSCRIPT: John Killick's great escape

SN TRANS: John Killick's great escape

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CHRIS BATH: But we begin with the untold true story behind the most daring prison escape in Australian history. It's a plot straight from a Hollywood movie - a hijacked helicopter landing inside a jail to pluck a dashing and dangerous criminal to freedom. In 1999, Lucy Dudko, the Russian mistress of bank robber John Killick, committed the only crime of her life and all in the name of love. 'Red Lucy' and her lover made world headlines but only now can the whole story be told. Recently, and very briefly, Killick was a free man and gave his first and only interview to Mike Willesee. Killick neither asked for, nor received, any money. John Reginald Killick is Australian crime royalty, if you can call it that.
MIKE WLLESEE: He was what I would call a career criminal. He had a very lengthy history for matters of violence, including armed robbery. He's a bank robber and a jewel thief. He's also a brilliant chess champion. But most of all, he's an old-fashioned escape artist. From banks, particularly good, but more so from jails. That escape that he orchestrated with Lucy was unique and reasonably well planned. Lucy - 'Red Lucy' - the sexy Russian librarian who became Killick's lover and helped him stage Australia's greatest jail break. What did you say to Lucy?
JOHN KILLICK: I said "We can get out "but you'll have to hijack a helicopter". "Sounds simple." That's what I said.
MIKE WILLESEE: What did she say?
JOHN KILLICK: She said it could be done.
RE-ENACTMEMENT: # Jail break... Fly me down. Prison now. Go. Go. # Let me out of here. # Hurry up! C'mon, Lucy. Let's go. Let's go!
MIKE WILLESEE: It was the great escape... # All in the name of liberty...# Daring jail break... Hijacked... Helicopter. ..that made world headlines. # All in the name of liberty. # Weeks on the run... # Got to be free. # ..before one mistake put the lovers who "couldn't bear to be apart" behind bars.
MAN IN RE-ENACTMENT: John Killick, Lucy Dudko, you are surrounded.
MIKE WILLISEE: His periods of freedom have been brief but it hasn't stopped Killick living life in the fast lane.
WOMAN IN RE-ENACTMENT: You know, he wonders why I get upset. Well, have a look at that. Stop it. Please.
MIKE WILLESEE: Now, the story he's never told about the love of his life and the life led on the other side of the law. Hi, John.
JOHN KILLICK: Hello, Mike.
MIKE WILLESEE: Thanks for coming.
JOHN KILLICK: Thank you. It's a pleasure. Really.
MIKE WILLESEE: Are you allowed to be here?
JOHN KILLICK: I am, yes.
MIKE WILLESEE: Because you are on, freshly on parole, and you've got very strict reporting provisions, don't you?
JOHN KILLICK: I certainly have. You can see.
MIKE WILLESEE: Can you take that off?
JOHN KILLICK: I can't. If I took it off, they would be here to arrest me straight away.
MIKE WILLESEE: From the time he was a teen, Killick has been trying to checkmate and out-run the law. He loved his mum but feared his dad - a professional boxer from the tough inner city suburb of Balmain in Sydney.
JOHN KILLICK: When he got drunk, he got violent. I can remember times when we were hiding under the house, me and my brother and my mother.
MIKE WILLESEE: Tell me about your mother.
JOHN KILLICK: I adored my mother. To me, she was everything when I was young and I lost her when I was 17 and it really shook me up.
MIKE WILLESEE: How did you lose her?
JOHN KILLICK: She killed herself.
MIKE WILLESEE: What did you do?
JOHN KILLICK: Just packed my bags and said to Dad, "I'm leaving. "I'm not coming back." The day Mum died, I said, "It's me against the world." And I mean that. That's coming from the heart.
MIKE WILLESEE: Killick lived on his wits and other people's money. His first arrest was over a raffle ticket scam. Later came bank book forgeries and jewel shop robberies. Prison was just a matter of time. So where did you spend your 18th birthday?
JOHN KILLICK: 18th birthday at Long Bay.
MIKE WILLESEE: 19th?
JOHN KILLICK: Uh, 19th, uh...Bathurst.
MIKE WILLESEE: 20th birthday?
JOHN KILLICK: Bathurst.
MIKE WILLESEE: 21st birthday?
JOHN KILLICK: Yeah, Bathurst, yep, yep.
MIKE WILLESEE: Not a good way to grow up, is it?
JOHN KILLICK: No, it isn't. Well, it's a terrible way. Jails were pretty tough in those days, too.
MIKE WILLESEE: He was 18 when he escaped for the first time. It would become a lifetime habit.
JOHN KILLICK: I took off and they chased me - they fired shots at me, actually.
MIKE WILLESEE: While being escorted to Bathurst Court House for sentencing, Killick surprised his guards and bolted.
JOHN KILLICK: I hid in a chook pen. An old lady seen me in her chook pen and told them where I was. The chooks gave me up, yeah.
MIKE WILLESEE: When he got out of Bathurst, he went back to Sydney. Killick's favourite pastime was punting on the ponies. He thought it was a hobby but it was an addiction.
JOHN KILLICK: When I walked on a racecourse, you know, just the exhilaration was there. And being an optimist, I always thought "I can win".
MIKE WILLESEE: But that's not robbing people, that's gambling.
JOHN KILLICK: Yeah, I know. But when I lost, then I'd rob.
MIKE WILLESEE: And to make real money, he began robbing banks.
JOHN KILLICK: It was me against the banks, you know? I hated banks - they foreclosed on my dad's place. We lost our house, we went from a good house to a small house. When I ran into those banks, it's me against them. I'm getting the money, you know? And if I got away with it - good, that's one for me. I didn't have any remorse, nothing.
MIKE WILLESEE: His first heist was the Commonwealth Bank at Canley Heights in Sydney's west. He was 24, wore a clown mask, and walked in carrying a rifle. He fired a warning shot into the floor and walked out with £1,300 - $40,000 in today's money. I want to do something now that will surprise you.
JOHN KILLICK: Right.
MIKE WILLESEE: May frighten you.
JOHN KILLICK: Mm-hm.
MIKE WILLESEE: And I want to get your reaction.
JOHN KILLICK: OK.
MIKE WILLESEE: OK, you're this far apart, the guy's got a gun. Killick claims he only ever fired to intimidate...
JOHN KILLICK: I'm terrified. I would be.
MIKE WILLESEE: ..never to kill. But that still leaves traumatised victims.
JOHN KILLICK: If I feel bad about anything, I feel bad about that.
MIKE WILLESEE: Briefly, for five years, Killick says he put down his guns and went straight and it was love that helped turn him around. In 1973, he met 33-year-old Gloria Bonafede at a chess tournament. She was a secretary and had no idea that this dashing chess player had a criminal past.
JOHN KILLICK: It went for about seven weeks, this chess tournament, and right near the end, I said to her, "If I win this tournament, we got to have a date."
GLORIA BONAFEDE: I said, "yes, I would go, yes".
JOHN KILLICK: And I won it. I won the tournament.
MIKE WILLESEE: When did he tell you about his criminal background?
GLORIA BONAFEDE: Well, not right away. Um, but I knew he was different and I knew I was missing something. I just said, "What did you do?" and he just said, "I rob banks". So I suppose, um, taken aback.
MIKE WILLESEE: Didn't stop you?
GLORIA BONAFEDE: No.
MIKE WILLESEE: They settled down, bought a local convenience store and before too long, Gloria fell pregnant. Life was good but then Killick got back on the punt.
GLORIA BONAFEDE: John was gambling and he, at one point, had a bad, disastrous day.
JOHN KILLICK: Came home one night and said to Gloria, "I have lost the shop." Can you imagine what that can do to a marriage? I lost the shop to an SP bookie.
GLORIA BONAFEDE: I think he went from horses to dogs and at the end of the day, we didn't have anything.
JOHN KILLICK: I had a $200 limit. I lost the $200 and I said, "Listen, make that $400." He said, "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" and I said, "Yeah, I know what I am doing." She was shocked. I mean, she was, um... about eight months pregnant. It's a horrible thing and it's one of the worst things that I've done.
MIKE WILLESEE: Soon after Gloria gave birth to their son, John Jr. But with their business gone and another mouth to feed, Killick needed money. Behind Gloria's back, he started planning another bank job. So you've lost your apartment. You've lost your corner store business that you had with him and he was stealing. How did you put up with that?
GLORIA BONAFEDE: (SIGHS) Because I didn't want to lose him.
MIKE WILLESEE: But try though she did, the marriage didn't survive. By 1978, it was over and Killick went back to his old ways. He was caught and convicted for five more bank robberies and in and out of prison.
FILE FOOTAGE: It was here at the casualty section of the PA Hospital that a young female accomplice armed with a gun helped Killick make his escape.
MIKE WILLESEE: In 1983, while being escorted to hospital for a supposed eye injury, he sensationally escaped from Brisbane's Boggo Road Gaol with the help of another of his lovers. Still a fugitive, Killick moved to Canberra and in 1998, met a beautiful librarian called Lucy Dudko. Born in Moscow and an accomplished horsewoman, she'd come to Australia with her Russian husband.
JOHN KILLICK: That marriage was dead and that's a fact.
MIKE WILLESEE: She and Killick met at a party and the attraction was mutual.
JOHN KILLICK: Lucy is intelligent. She's artistic, she's sexy.
MIKE WILLISEE: Killick's love for 'Red Lucy' would soon lead to Australia's most daring prison escape.
RE-ENACTMENT- MAN: She opened her purse... WOMAN: This is a hijack! ..pulled out a pistol, pushed it to the side of her head. She's hijacked a helicopter. Fly me down. (LAUGHS) It could be done.
MIKE WILLESEE: Lucy Dudko had never committed a crime until she met and fell obsessively in love with the notorious bank robber, John Killick and he with her.
JOHN KILLICK: We lived together for pretty close to 18 months. That 18 months, we spent 24 hours a day together most of the time. I think a woman's got to have femininity and a sense of humour for me, and she had both.
MIKE WILLESEE: And the crime this Russian beauty would soon commit would be a crime of passion. In the late '90s, Killick was one step in front of the law. Wanted in Queensland for escaping Boggo Road Gaol, he and 'Red Lucy' were in New South Wales and constantly on the move.
JOHN KILLICK: We'd taken off, were on the run. There was no money. I robbed a bank in October, one at Mittagong, and got away with it.
MIKE WILLESEE: He got away with $32,000 and blew most of it gambling. He needed more. 10 minutes from Mittagong is Bowral, a pretty town south of Sydney with an NAB bank ripe for the picking. In January 1999, wearing a stocking on his face, a black wig and a baseball cap, Killick went to make a withdrawal. John Killick, desperate for money, walked into this bank holding a 0.32 automatic pistol. The tellers filled his bag but they also placed in the bag a red dye bomb.
RE-ENACTMENT: That's it, come on, come on! Let's go! Let's go!
MIKE WILLESEE: Killick had another problem - he was spotted by an off-duty policeman using the ATM outside.
JOHN KILLICK: I turned and went out of the bank and I saw him from the corner of my eye and he saw me.
MARK MACDONALD: Killick's gone into the bank around lunchtime, armed with a pistol, and he's demanded money from the teller. He got about $40,000, threw it in a bag and then ran out of the bank and went bolting through here.
MIKE WILLESEE: And he was being chased?
MARK MACDONALD: Yes, by an off-duty officer.
JOHN KILLICK: When I started to run, the dye bomb went off. Red smoke started to come out of the bag.
MIKE WILLESEE: A bit of a giveaway, isn't it?
MAN IN FOOTAGE: He was running but I saw him turn left and turn into Station Street. I kept running after him.
JOHN KILLICK: It was a dead end and he came down. There was a car separating us.
MAN IN FOOTAGE: He was saying, "Do you want a (BLEEP) go, do you? "It's a real...I've got a real gun."
JOHN KILLICK: He picked up a rock and he hurled at me and missed by about three inches. I fired a shot over his head.
MAN IN FOOTAGE: As I got down, I heard a bang or... It was more like a pop, a loud pop.
WOMAN: Police, emergency.
MAN: Police, emergency. John Bright, National Bank, Bowral. We've got an off-duty officer of yours. The bank's been held up and he's shooting at the off-duty officer down near the railway station in Bowral.
MIKE WILLESEE: Killick fired two more shots.
MAN IN FOOTAGE: He was pointing the pistol at me. I could tell it was coming at me.
JOHN KILLICK: One was in the ground. Another one was over his head, way over his head.
MIKE WILLESEE: The off-duty cop kept chasing. He sounds like a pretty brave police officer.
JOHN KILLICK: That was my misfortune because when I went to Bowral Police Station, when I was down there they said, "You were unlucky "because he's the only guy that would've chased you unarmed."
MAN IN FOOTAGE: I moved to the right and see him disappearing between those two buildings.
MIKE WILLISEE: By now, reinforcements were on the way.
MARK MACDONALD: was driving up this way...
MIKE WILLESEE: Detective Sergeant Mark MacDonald was in one of seven police cars searching Bowral when he spotted an exhausted Killick in this backstreet.
MARK MACDONALD: And as I got here, I jumped out, arrested him. He said, "I'm not gonna try to escape - "I've got a heart condition."
MIKE WILLESEE: With his gun coloured red by the dye, Killick was arrested and handcuffed. While police questioned him, on the outside, his lover, Lucy, was beside herself with grief and turned to Killick's former wife, Gloria, for support.
GLORIA BONAFEDE: I said to her, "Well, look, I've got another bedroom. "If you want to come here, you're quite... "..I'm quite happy to have you."
MIKE WILLESEE: While Lucy stayed with Gloria, Killick was banged up in Silverwater jail, in Sydney's west, awaiting a very long sentence. The love of his life, Lucy, was visiting him three times a week and the 57-year-old Killick decided he wanted to spend no more of his life in jail. Whose idea was it to hijack a helicopter?
JOHN KILLICK: Ah, well... We agreed that I was going to try and escape. We agreed. I said that, "Look, we can get out "but you'll have to hijack a helicopter. "It sounded simple" - that's what I said.
MIKE WILLESEE: It was the year before the Sydney Olympics and Lucy's first step was to take a joy-flight over the stadium site but what she really wanted to see was Silverwater jail, just to the north.
JOHN KILLICK: She came back, she was all excited, said, "It can be done."
MIKE WILLESEE: You also told her she'd have to have guns.
JOHN KILLICK: Well, I had a couple of guns put away.
MIKE WILLESEE: Lucy was armed and dangerous but he didn't stop there. She then hired the classic Charles Bronson movie Breakout about a helicopter escape from jail. The night before the day of the escape, Lucy had dinner with Killick's ex-wife, Gloria. Did you know anything was going on?
GLORIA BONAFEDE: No. Didn't know anything was going on, of that nature or any other. She seemed to be tense. She was struggling. She was struggling to live without him. I had no idea that something as dramatic as that was about to occur.
MIKE WILLESEE: Were you nervous?
JOHN KILLICK: I was a mass of nerves, really, and I couldn't sleep much that night. Can you imagine what sort of date that would be, if I didn't turn up? She's hired a helicopter, you know.
MIKE WILLESEE: On March 25, 1999, Lucy knew that just before 10am her lover, John Killick, would be in the jail's exercise yard. Just before 9:00 she boarded another joy-flight, the only passenger in a tiny 3-seat chopper.
TIM JOYCE: And as we came towards the Olympic site, ah, she was staring fairly intently ahead and she says, "Oh, is that a jail ahead?" And I said, "Yeah, it is."
MIKE WILLESEE: At the controls that day was pilot Tim Joyce.
TIM JOYCE: As we came around the jail, I was talking on the radio to another helicopter that was passing close behind us. She opened the purse and pulled out a pistol, pushed it to the side of my head and said, "It's a hijack."
RE-ENACTMENT: This is a hijack! Fly me down! Prison, now!
TIM JOYCE: "This is a hijack" and then she said, "We need to land down there".
MIKE WILLESEE: Lucy had done her homework and wasn't fooled when Joyce tried to send a distress signal via the helicopter's transponder.
TIM JOYCE: Screamed at me, "No transponder!" and rapped me across the wrist with a pistol.
MIKE WILLESEE: They were now above Silverwater prison.
TIM JOYCE: She said, "We're gonna land down there "and pick somebody up." Climbed in and then he put the barrel of a machine gun in my ribs. Then I started hearing shots.
MIKE WILLESEE: Did you fire?
JOHN KILLICK: I didn't fire. One of the officers fired.
MIKE WILLESEE: How many shots?
JOHN KILLICK: Three. He hit us twice.
MIKE WILLESEE: In the high stress and mayhem, as the guards opened fire, Lucy said to Killick, "We have no car. "I've forgotten the keys."
JOHN KILLICK: My mind was racing - "What are we going to do when we get out of the chopper? "We haven't got a car. "We're going to have everyone in Australia "looking for us very soon." That one slipped her mind - she didn't bring the keys to the car. But she brought the chopper. (LAUGHS) I was still pretty uptight because I knew we were far from home at that stage. We are in a small chopper, we were going very slow. He said, "Look..." I said, "Can't you make it go any faster?" He said, "Look, mate, you're unlucky - "this is one of the slowest choppers in Australia."
MIKE WILLESEE: After a 10-minute flight Tim Joyce landed the Bell 47 here, about 7km from Silverwater prison. By then, Killick knew what he had to do. He and Lucy tied up their pilot and then stopped a passing car.
JOHN KILLICK: I said, "I need you to drive us somewhere. "If you don't do it, I'll shoot you in the knee."
MIKE WILLESEE: They headed to North Sydney station and then caught a train south to Goulburn. In a cheap motel, Killick dyed his hair. He and Lucy kept moving, travelling on trains and buses, heading south to Victoria. In all, they would spend 45 days hiding from the law while making headlines around the world. They'd been all over Victoria and they were all over the media. They were getting desperate. The last chance they had to get the money they needed was a risky one and miles away in Sydney. How did you get caught?
JOHN KILLICK: We came back to Sydney to get some money from a guy that just didn't turn up.
MIKE WILLESEE: It was a criminal mate who owed Killick money but when he didn't front, he had to change plan. He also feared the police were closing in.
JOHN KILLICK: And I said to Lucy, I said, "We're really in trouble "because you can outsmart 'em every day "and they've only got to once outsmart you "and you're gone. "That's where the odds are against you."
MIKE WILLESEE: At the caravan park on the outskirts of Sydney, John and Lucy decided that next day, they'd go bush and they went to bed unaware that earlier that day, they'd been seen. And very early the next morning, the game was up. John and Lucy had spent their last night together.
JOHN KILLICK: Probably 2:00 in the morning and we were asleep. We were leaving at 6:00 and we heard - and it's something I'll never forget - on the loudspeakers - you think you're dreaming - "John Killick, Lucy Dudko, you are surrounded. "Put your weapons down, step outside."
MAN (ON LOUDSPEAKER): John Killick, Lucy Dudko - put down your weapons, come out with your hands up. You are surrounded.