Pictured: Williams leaving a Melbourne courthouse in 2003 after being granted bail
Carl Williams has been described as Australia’s most notorious gangster due to his central role in Melbourne’s ‘underbelly’ gangland war which shook the city in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Williams was serving a life sentence in Melbourne’s notorious Barwon Prison for four murders and conspiracy to commit another when he was bashed to death by fellow inmate Matthew Charles Johnson with a exercise bike part on April 4 2010, making him the last victim of the underworld war.
KEY EVENTS
October 13 1970: Born Carl Anthony Williams in Melbourne, Victoria.
1990: Convicted of handling stolen goods, possession of stolen property and failing to answer bail. Fined $400.
1993: Convicted of criminal damage and throwing a missile. Sentenced to 150 hours of community service work.
1994: Convicted of attempting to traffic in a drug of dependence. Sentenced to 12 months’ jail, six months suspended for two years.
October 13 1999: Williams is shot in the stomach by Jason Moran over an $80,000 debt to the Moran crime family, and stumbles bleeding to his parents’ home in Essendon.
November 25 1999: Williams is arrested with his father George and another associate and charged with drug trafficking after $20million worth of amphetamine tablets were seized.
June 15 2000: Mark Moran, Jason Moran’s half-brother is shot dead outside his north-west Melbourne home. Williams was charged with murder over the shooting but charged were dropped when he pleaded guilty to three other killings.
November 10 2010: Williams’ home in Hillside and his Mercedes Benz are damaged by shotgun blasts. Williams later testified he believed the Morans were responsible.
June 21 2003: Jason Moran and Pasquale Barbaro are gunned down while sitting in a van after watching Moran’s children play football.
August 18 2003: The badly-burnt body of Mark Mallia, a close associate of murdered mob enforcer and drug dealer Nik Radev, is found in a melted wheelie-bin.
October 25 2003: Drug dealer Michael Marshall is gunned down in front of his son in South Yarra.
March 31 2004: Moran family patriarch Lewis Moran, father of Jason Moran, is shot dead execution-style in the Brunswick Club in Melbourne.
June 9 2004: Police arrest two gunmen near the home of notorious gangster Mario Condello.
February 6 2006: Mario Condello is shot dead in his driveway.
July 19 2006: Williams pleads not guilty to the murder of Michael Marshall but is sentenced to 27 years – 21 without parole – over the killing. The outcome of the trial is not revealed until 2007.
May 7 2007: Williams pleads guilty to three counts of murder over the deaths of Jason Moran, Mark Mallia and Lewis Moran, and and one count of conspiracy to murder Mario Condello. He is sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment and given two 25-year jail sentences, all to be served concurrently with a minimum term of 35 years before eligible for parole.
April 4 2010: Williams is bashed to death in Barwon Prison by inmate Matthew Charles Johnson, 38, who used an exercise bike seat stem in the murder.
December 8 2011: Johnson is sentenced to 32 years jail without parole for the murder of Williams. Victorian Supreme Court Justice Lex Lasry found Johnson killed Williams because he was providing assistance to Victoria Police.