Australia’s most notorious disgraced cop Roger Rogerson, jailed for a cold-blooded execution, has died in a Sydney hospital.
Rogerson, 83, suffered a brain aneurysm in his prison cell in Sydney’s Long Bay jail on Thursday and was taken to Prince of Wales Hospital in the city’s inner-east.
The crooked cop died in hospital at 11pm on Sunday night, after his life support was switched off at about 11:30am the previous Friday.
Both hero and villain during a 28-year NSW Police career, Rogerson was at one time considered NSW Police’s most decorated officer.
Disgraced former cop Roger Rogerson (pictured) spent his final six months in prison in a hospital cell, unable to get out of bed on his own
Drug dealer Jamie Gao (pictured) was shot dead by detectives Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara in 2014
Gao’s body (pictured) was dumped at sea and found floating off the coast of Cronulla
The former NSW detective was serving a life sentence for the slaying of Sydney drug dealer Jamie Gao in 2014.
Rogerson had always argued his innocence, claiming he was unaware of fellow crooked former detective Glen McNamara’s plans to murder the 20-year-old.
Mr Gao was lured to a darkened storage shed in Padstow, in the city’s south, and shot dead before the former police officers attempted to cover their tracks by dumping his body in the ocean.
His body was later found floating off the coast of Cronulla.
Rogerson and McNamara both claimed innocence and blamed each other for Gao’s murder.
When Gao’s body was taken out to sea the morning after he was murdered, McNamara claims Rogerson was with him the whole time on the boat, threatening him with a gun.
But Rogerson claimed he stayed on dry land.
The sentencing judge said although gunshot residue found on Rogerson’s clothing pointed to the possibility he was the triggerman, he couldn’t be sure who fired the fatal shots.
The culmination of Rogerson’s recognition in the force was to receive the coveted Peter Mitchell Award for outstanding police work in 1980 but within six years, his career had unravelled spectacularly.
In 1981 he was controversially found responsible for the fatal shooting of another young drug dealer, Warren Lanfranchi, but deemed to have acted in the line of duty.
Inside the Padstow storage shed where Jamie Gao spent his final moments in May 2014
Australia’s most corrupt cop Roger Rogerson (pictured) died in a Sydney hospital on Sunday
Rogerson had always argued his innocence, claiming he was unaware of fellow crooked former detective Glen McNamara’s plans to murder Joshua Gao (pictured)
Disgraced detectives Roger Rogerson (left) and Glen McNamara (right) were sentenced to life over the murder of Sydney drug dealer Joshua Gao
However Lanfranchi’s girlfriend, sex worker Sallie-Anne Huckstepp, soon after alleged Rogerson deliberately killed him as revenge for robbing a heroin dealer who had been under police protection at the time.
Huckstepp’s body was found dead in Centennial Park in 1986 with a Coroner ruling five years later there wasn’t enough evidence for anybody to be charged.
At the peak of Rogerson’s demise, he was also implicated in the attempted execution of NSW undercover operative Michael Drury.
The similarly decorated drug squad detective had refused to accept a bribe in exchange for evidence tampering in a heroin trafficking trial.
Drury was shot twice through his kitchen window on Sydney’s north shore in 1989.
Rogerson was charged and eventually acquitted of the attack but by then had already been dismissed from the force for depositing $110,000 in bank accounts under a false name.
He was axed from the police force in 1986.
Rogerson’s conviction over the cold-blooded execution of Joshua Gao saw him become a suspect in a string of unsolved murders.
Richard Roxburgh portrayed Rogerson in the 1995 mini-series Blue Murder and its 2017 sequel Blue Murder: Killer Cop.
More to come
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