Graphic content warning. Gangland witness Jason Ryan describes the brutal and callous murders of three people at the hands of Dennis Mr Death Allen.
CRIME matriarch Kath Pettingill’s grandson, Jason Ryan, grew up in a real-life gangland animal kingdom.
Under the doting tutelage of two violent and brutal uncles, he learnt several criminal trades and witnessed three murders.
“He’s put the seven shots in his head and as he’s doing it he said, ‘This is for your mates’,” Ryan said when recounting one of those killings — the shooting death of a bloke named Wayne Stanhope.
“Dennis has grabbed him and dragged him ‘cos he was bleeding on our carpet. He (Dennis) was very fond of his carpet.
“Dennis has finished his drink, grabbed his head and smashed it into the tiles ... He’d become like an animal more than anything.”
Aussie crime movie Animal Kingdom features a young character with strong parallels to Ryan.
The movie character seems meek and introverted — the polar opposite to the real Ryan who grew up under the influence of overlord uncles Dennis Allen and Victor Peirce; two of Kath Pettingill’s notorious sons.
Ryan was the son of one of Kath’s daughters.
An excitable pup, Ryan gleefully chewed on bones his uncles tossed him during their reign over Melbourne in the 1980s.
One of the few existing photos ever published of Jason Ryan. He was 18 at the time this shot was taken during the Walsh Street court case. Picture: Photo file Source: Supplied
During our secret interstate interview, Ryan once described how he grew from a 13-year-old scrapper into a confident attack dog under the guidance and protection of his relatives.
He witnessed Uncle Dennis commit at least three murders.
Ryan was also influenced by his uncle Victor Peirce. Source: News Corp Australia
Dennis Allen treated Ryan like a son. Picture: Photo File Source: Supplied
Ryan thrived on violence, and prospered until he dumped his criminal heritage and turned police witness.
He risked his life by alleging that Uncle Victor, and another uncle and three of their associates murdered two police constables in October 1988.
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Today, the Herald Sun reveals never-before-heard audio from the Ryan interview, conducted ten years after police constables Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre were murdered in Walsh St, South Yarra.
Gangland witness Jason Ryan explains how he came to be in the inner-circle of the feared Pettingill clan, who inspired the breakthrough crime drama Animal Kingdom
During the lengthy interview, most of it conducted over a Chinese dinner, Ryan talked a lot about his teenage life.
“Mine was far from the perfect upbringing but Dennis was like me dad,” he said.
“I did a lot of bad things.”
He spoke of memories of murder at home and about the Walsh St killings.
Gangland witness Jason Ryan on being the star witness in the Walsh St police murders of constables Steve Tynan and Damian Eyre
He explained why he decided to turn Crown witness and testify against his family and their friends.
He said he didn’t believe the two young cops who got knocked in Walsh St deserved to die.
Ryan’s stories were punctated with dry off-the-cuff remarks.
He smacked of street smarts.
At the time of our interview he’d been trying to live a lawful life, despite his horrendous upbringing.
It was impossible not to like him.
The dumped Commodore used to lure Damian Eyre (inset, bottom left) and Steven Tynan (inset, top left) to a spot in Walsh St, South Yarra, where they were shot dead. Source: HWT Image Library Source: HeraldSun
Writers often use real-life material to inspire fictitious stories.
Animal Kingdom writer and director David Michod read true crime books, including those about the Pettingill clan, to add meat to his “generalised” criminal characters — the core group of his Kingdom story.
To those who well know the history of the notorious Pettingill crime family, it is obvious from which real life characters and events Michod appears to have drawn when scripting his slow-boil movie.
Michod has always stuck to his guns, denying direct links to any person or any one event.
“It (Animal Kingdom) is not based on any real people,” he told the Herald Sun in May 2010.
“There may be an event or two that people feel they recognise from Melbourne’s rich criminal story, but I wanted to build a big fictional story.”
Animal Kingdom writer-director David Michod, who has a new movie out called The Rover. Source: News Limited
Welcome to the Melbourne underworld, where tensions are building between dangerous criminals and equally dangerous police. The Wild West played out on the city's streets.
According to Michod, he moved from Sydney to Melbourne for a time and, through journalist Tom Noble’s true crime books, he became fascinated with Melbourne’s criminal milieu.
Michod told Readings.com.au: “I knew from early on, however, that I wanted to create my own menagerie of characters and to build my own fictional world around them.”
Former Victoria Police detective Colin McLaren, who was involved in the Walsh St murder investigation, wrote his thoughts on the movie in the Sunday Herald Sun.
“Let’s not mix words,” he wrote.
“Australian movie Animal Kingdom is inspired by the Walsh St murders.”
Former Victoria Police detective Colin McLaren. Source: News Limited
The strong parallels between the film’s characters and real people and events were not lost on critics, either.
Herald Sun movie expert Leigh Paatsch wrote: “The story centres on a family of low-level crooks with obvious parallels to the dynasty once presided over by the infamous crime matriarch Kath Pettingill.”
The film’s main characters mirror criminals who feature in Noble’s books.
Some of those characters — like Victor Peirce and his bandit mates Graeme Jensen and Jedd Houghton — were involved in a long-running cat-and-mouse war with the fearsome Victoria Police armed robbery squad.
Armed robbery squad members had shot and killed several notorious bandits during what was a boom era for holdups in the 1980s.
In Animal Kingdom, actor Jacki Weaver plays Janine “Smurf” Cody — mother to three adult criminal sons.
One of those sons is a career bandit.
Janine ‘Smurf’ Cody (Jacki Weaver) sits between two of her three sons in ‘Animal Kingdom’ - ‘Pope’ Cody (left, played by Ben Mendelsohn) and Darren (right, played by Luke Ford). Source: Supplied
The three Cody brothers as played by Ben Mendelsohn, Sullivan Stapleton and Luke Ford. Source: Supplied
According to the film’s production notes: “Her boys — the quietly menacing Pope, volatile Craig and “baby” Darren — are her life and she’s the glue, or some would say toxic poison, that holds them together.
“Although they’re grown men she remains their ‘parental figure’. Her life is nothing without them.”
Michod said: “I didn’t want Smurf to be a grizzled old battle-axe. I wanted her to have Jacki’s qualities — a kind of delightful, almost disingenuous naivety.
“She’s very smart and delightful, yet disarmingly so. The lady that you meet belies a much more knowing person.”
Weaver said of the character: “Smurf is a sociopath and a psychopath who bred these three psychopath sons.
“She’s all the more chilling because she appears to be quite normal — even sweet — with this immense affection for her boys.
“But sociopaths can be lovable one moment and monstrously cold and callous the next, which pretty much describes her.”
Smurf appears as an outwardly sunnier version of Kath Pettingill; the once tough-as-nails Melbourne mother of murderers, armed robbers, drug barons, traffickers, brawlers and drug addicts.
Dennis Allen playfully points a pistol at the head of his mother Kath Pettingill at a party in one of their Richmond houses. Source: News Limited
A family portrait of Kath Pettingill’s sons (from left to right) Dennis Allen, Victor Peirce, Trevor Pettingill and Lex Peirce. Picture: Supplied Source: News Limited
Jacki Weaver as ‘Smurf’ Cody front and centre in a cast pic from ‘Animal Kingdom’. Source: Supplied
Kath lost her right eye in a shooting incident in the late 1970s.
A brothel madam with criminal convictions, she fiercely protected her “boys”.
Jason Ryan once quipped of Kath: “She certainly wasn’t the kind of nanna who’d sit around and do the knitting.”
Kath once described herself as one who believes in God despite her family’s criminal deeds.
“But I won’t be going to heaven,” she conceded.
“I wouldn’t know anyone.”
In an interview, Weaver told At the Movies reviewer David Stratton that even though Animal Kingdom was a fictional story, there would be “inevitable comparisons” to real life figures.
Weaver made a direct Pettingill comparison in an interview with CinemaBlend.com.
“We were discouraging people in Australia from thinking it was about real people, but in fact it does mirror a few people,” Weaver said.
“Most particularly one family who were career criminals, including the mother … Kath Pettingill.”
Former crime matriarch Kath Pettingill was fiercely protective of her sons. Photo by: Marty Smith, Boxing Clever Pictures. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied
Jacki Weaver as Janine Cody, a character likened to Kath Pettingill. Source: Supplied
Kath Pettingill in more recent times. Source: News Corp Australia
Kath Pettingill saw a direct comparison, and wasn’t happy with how she believed she’d been portrayed.
“Jacki Weaver and I have only one thing in common — neither of us can act,” Kath told the Sunday Herald Sun in February 2011.
“I’ve seen the movie and I’m not impressed. She’s supposed to have read books about me and studied me for the part, but it doesn’t come off.
“She’s continually telling her boys to come and give her a kiss and then planting one on their mouths. If I’d done that to any of my boys, I’d have copped a smack in the mouth — not a kiss.”
Janine Cody (Jacki Weaver) gets close and personal with one of her sons, Craig (played by Sullivan Stapleton). Source: Supplied
Tensions rise and fall in the film. Source: News Limited
Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences disagreed with Kath’s opinion of Weaver’s acting chops.
Weaver’s portrayal of Smurf Cody saw her nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
In Animal Kingdom, James Frecheville plays Smurf’s grandson, Joshua “J” Cody.
Despite his insular nature, the Josh Cody character mirrors Jason Ryan.
James Frecheville plays Josh “J” Cody, a character with parallels to Pettingill crime family member Jason Ryan. Source: Getty Images
Jason Ryan at age 18. Source: Supplied
The Cody brothers take J under their wings, offering him criminal advice and opportunity — just like the Pettingill clan took “custody” of Ryan in real life.
As the film progresses, J gives the impression he will testify against some of his relatives.
He falls into the care of veteran detective Nathan Leckie while under police protection.
Leckie builds a rapport with the young man.
In reality, police officers minded Ryan during the Walsh St investigation and court cases.
His main minder was a veteran cop named John Noonan.
Det-Insp Noonan spent a lot of personal time with Ryan.
“John took me more or less under his wing,” Ryan said.
“He said them (sic) other police were not having any more dealings with me. It was just him and me from then on.”
Guy Pearce plays Det-Sen-Sgt Leckie in the film.
Leckie’s motives and attempts to support Josh Cody are reminiscent of Det-Insp Noonan’s with Ryan.
Guy Pearce plays veteran detective Nathan Leckie, whose motives and actions are similar to those of John Noonan during the Walsh Street investigation. Picture: Madman Supplied Source: Supplied
Detective Inspector John Noonan during his time with Victoria Police. Picture: Brad Wilson Source: News Corp Australia
The Animal Kingdom production notes state: “While in custody, and later in witness protection, J’s sole ally is Leckie — a decent detective who realises that the only way to persuade J to testify against his family is to treat him with kindness and empathy.”
Ben Mendelsohn plays Smurf’s eldest son, Andrew “Pope” Cody — a career armed robber looking for new criminal pursuits.
In the film’s production notes, Mendelsohn says of the character: “He’s a criminal who once upon a time could make money, but with the advent of technologies to thwart armed robberies and the rise of substance (drug) dealers, his world has been left behind.
“He’s not a very highly functioning person, but a man who lives within a very small, and rapidly disintegrating world.”
Pope is a menacing drug user who commits murders.
He and a brother shoot dead two young police officers at an abandoned car dumped in a dark street.
That shooting is a carbon copy version of the real-life shooting deaths of constables Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre, who were gunned down in the dark while inspecting an abandoned car in Walsh St, South Yarra.
Immediate parallels can be drawn between Pope and Victor Peirce.
Ben Mendelsohn plays former bandit ‘Pope’ Cody, a character that mirrors Victor Peirce. Even their taste in shirts is the same. Source: Supplied
Armed robber and suspected killer Victor Peirce. Picture: Supplied Source: News Limited
Peirce was a career bandit who ran with close mate Graeme Jensen.
The armed robbery squad hated the duo with a passion.
With armed hold ups becoming a dying art form as the year 2000 neared, Peirce — a deadly menacing criminal — turned to dealing drugs.
Peirce was one of four men charged over the murders of constables Tynan and Eyre.
Despite Ryan giving evidence for the prosecution, the four men were acquitted.
It is a popular belief but an unproven theory that five men — including Peirce — killed Tynan and Eyre as random payback after armed robbery squad detectives shot Jensen dead when he pulled a gun on them during an arrest operation.
Jensen died behind the wheel of his car.
The four charged men were Peirce, his half brother Trevor Pettingill, bandit Peter McEvoy and family associate Anthony Leigh Farrell.
Peter McEvoy and Victor Peirce while in custody. Source: News Limited
Anthony Farrell and Trevor Pettingill after their 1991 acquittal. Source: News Limited
In the film, Joel Edgerton plays Pope’s best mate Barry “Baz” Brown.
Brown is a retired armed robber, shot dead by armed robbery squad detectives as he sits behind the wheel of his car.
The Brown character can be instantly compared to Jensen.
‘Pope’ Cody and Barry Brown are as thick as thieves early on in ‘Animal Kingdom’, until Armed Robbery Squad detectives shoot Brown dead. Source: Supplied
Direct comparisons can be made between Joel Edgerton’s Barry Brown and Victor Peirce’s close associate Graeme Jensen. Source: Supplied
Career armed robber Graeme Jensen. Picture: Photo File Source: News Limited
A dead Jensen sits behind the wheel after armed robbery squad detectives opened fire on him while trying to arrest him in October 1988. Picture: File Photo/Drew Ryan Source: News Limited
Sullivan Stapleton plays Smurf’s second-eldest son, Craig Cody.
In the film, police shoot an armed Craig dead on a rural property after he overhears evidence of a listening device on a radio scanner while on the run from police.
In reality, police shot dead alleged Walsh St triggerman Jedd Houghton when he pulled a gun on them at a Bendigo caravan park.
Houghton had overheard the echo of a nearby listening device on his police scanner — while on the run from police.
There are direct parallels between the way Sullivan Stapleton’s character Craig Cody dies in ‘Animal Kingdom’ and the circumstances surrounding the police shooting of alleged Walsh Street triggerman Jedd Houghton. Source: Supplied
Bandit Jedd Houghton, who ran with Victor Peirce, was implicated as a Walsh Street triggerman. Source: Supplied
Craig Cody stands defiant with a shotgun one last time before detectives shoot him dead in ‘Animal Kingdom’. Source: Supplied
In his interview with Readings.com.au, Michod said Animal Kingdom was inspired by a “period charting the decline of armed robbery as a serious and professional criminal pursuit” in Melbourne in the 1980s.
Violent armed robberies were commonplace in the 1980s. Source: Supplied
Armed bandits had the power to terrorise and instil fear. Source: Supplied
According to Colin McLaren, who dealt first hand with the Pettingill clan, Animal Kingdom got “bogged down in domesticity and petty arguments between brothers”.
“What I get,” McLaren wrote in his Sunday Herald Sun piece, “is a neat brick veneer villa unit with a backyard BBQ on a street lined with highly polished cars and strips: Ramsay St rather than the underworld.”
Former armed robbery squad detectives agree, having said the movie lacked what the real grey world of cops and robbers threw at them in years gone by.
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