Carl Williams Murder Trial

All about to happen, that's Williams reading the paper, Johnson sneaking up with the pole

It is almost comical…The first week of this trial has been full of lies, self-serving declarations and outrageous self-defence claims by life long thug Matthew Johnson. Carl’s old man carried on like Alan Bond and the famous cannot recall comment when it suited him. That bloke is still as sharp as a tack, remember that! So I look forward to next week as we get into the meat and bones of it all, and the inadequate “Secure” security that engulfed this unit way before this happened…Everybody has a price, and yes Carl paid his, but fair dinkum, how some of these stooges still have their jobs at that jail is a joke…

STAY TUNED

NEW secret AUDIO 21/09/11 (I have included a running transcript of the audio from inside jail during visits)

NEW VIDEO and UPDATE today 20/09/11

 3.50pm: CARL Williams‘ killer told the jury he assumed he’d spend the next 40 years in jail for murder.

Matthew Charles Johnson, 38, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Williams claiming he had to kill him to save his own life.

But under cross examination today he told the Court he thought he’d end up serving 30-40 years for his actions.

“This self defence part didn’t come into my mind,” he said.

He said he killed Williams thinking he was “throwing my life away” to save his family.

Johnson told the jury Williams’ best friend Tommy Ivanovic had confided that Williams planned to kill him with billiard balls, so he had to act.

But he denied Ivanovic played a part in the killing.

“The act of murder, I was acting alone,” he said.

He said Ivanovic told him Williams was going to get him while he ate.

The jury heard Williams made Johnson lunch and sat down to dine with him shortly before Johnson bashed him to death with an exercise bike part.

“I knew as long as he didn’t come up behind me the way I did to him I’d have a fair chance,” he said.

Prosecutor Mark Rochford asked him why he was seen on CCTV footage turning his back on Williams on the morning of the bashing if he thought Williams was going to kill him.

Johnson replied that Williams would not have been able to get to the billiard balls without him knowing.

Johnson admitted telling a close mate that Williams did not shoot Mark Moran or any other gangland victim.

“Forget Mark Moran… He’s never done one in his life,” Johnson allegedly said.

Yesterday he gave evidence that Williams told him he had personally murdered three people, including Moran, and that he believed him.

Johnson said Williams shared his police statements with him because he trusted him.

“Because you wouldn’t do anything to him, would you?” Mr Rochford asked.

“Well obviously I did,” Johnson replied.

Security footage showed Johnson returning to the body moments after the attack with a white towel which he places over Williams’ battered head.

When asked why by his own lawyer, Johnson said: “Because I assumed the (prison) officers would run straight in and I didn’t think it was, you know, very nice.”

“I knew there was a few female officers on that day, they didn’t really need to see that.”

Having covered Williams’ head, Johnson then dragged him by the feet from where he had fallen in the recreation room of their unit to his cell a few metres away.

“I didn’t want to leave him laying there for the same reason,” Johnson told the jury.

“In my mind I thought the officers would have got there before I finished hitting him.”

In the video, after removing the body, Johnson again returns to the spot where Williams had lain, which is soaked in blood and littered with other “biological matter”, and covers it with another cloth.

He said it was to “cover the mess”.

“Because at any time of the day the staff can walk into the unit and … a lot of the time it’s a female staff member will be doing that.

“I just didn’t want them to come across that.”

UPDATE today 15/09/11 DEAD MAN TALKING can we believe anything Carl says people?

He’s gone, Carl Williams‘s killer yelled

September 9, 2011

“I think he’s gone”, the man who killed notorious gangland murderer Carl Williams told his Acacia Unit cellmate after they were locked down following his bashing, a court has heard.

Prison guard Brendan Butler today told the Supreme Court murder trial of Williams’ accused killer, Matthew Charles Johnson, that he overheard Johnson tell his only other cellmate in the high-security unit, Tommy Ivanovic, that he thought Williams was dead.

Mr Butler said he relieved a colleague at cell five where Johnson had been placed and cuffed while being monitored after Williams’ body was found.

“The only thing he said was he yelled to Tommy Ivanovic ‘I think he’s gone’,” Mr Butler told the jury.

He told the court he was one of the first prison officers to see Williams after a “Code Black” was declared once Johnson and Ivanovic suggested officers check on Williams after the attack.

Code Black means a prisoner is dead or seriously injured, he said.

“(Carl) was lying face-down on the floor with an awful lot of blood around him,” Mr Butler said.

“I could see a large open wound to the back of his head. We looked for a rise and fall of his chest and we looked couldn’t see one and one of the other prison officers looked for a pulse.”

He said they could not find one.

Mr Butler said Johnson requested that no female prison officers be allowed in the unit.

Johnson has pleaded not guilty to Williams’s murder. He admits to killing him but says he acted in self-defence.

The jury was shown vision of the prisoner’s movements in the unit from different camera angles.

In it Johnson is seen grabbing the metal stem of an exercise bike seat and placing it in his jail cell.

The one-hour vision showed Williams being attacked by Johnson and his limp body being dragged into his cell from a different camera angle. Ivanovic is also in the room.

Johnson then paces the exercise yard and at one point sits down alone.

The trial, before Justice Lex Lasry, will continue on Monday.

Related articles

• Carl was going to kill me: Johnson (news.theage.com.au)
• Carl killer wanted to ‘get in first’, jury told (heraldsun.com.au)
• Carl Williams’ accused killer on trial (news.theage.com.au)
• Carl’s accused killer takes the stand (news.theage.com.au)
• Jury shown gruesome Carl footage (heraldsun.com.au)
• Carl Williams murder trial starts (heraldsun.com.au)
• ‘Kill or be killed’ for Carl’s killer (news.theage.com.au)
• Johnson led Prisoners of War in jail (news.theage.com.au)
• Self-defence story ‘read before killing’ (heraldsun.com.au)
• Williams didn’t tell Roberta murder plan (theage.com.au)