GUILTY Australia - Jamie Gao, 20, murdered, Padstow, NSW, 20 May 2014

[Mrs G Norris]

I think a lot of people joined the police force with the specific idea to use their position to profit from crime, as in I don't think these guys 'became bent' I think they went in bent. Chances are we'll end up in the exact same position in a few years since the standards for recruits has dropped so much, it used to be you had to have a clean record to become a cop, not now.

 

[they'll get you]

Maybe old age and technical stupidity

Not so Teflon coated.

 

[Ausgirl]

This case brings to mind the mysterious vanishing of Shiva Chauhan in Melbourne recently - another young man with no visible ties to anything dodgy, simply 'vanished', leaving car ad personal effects behind.

I hope he's not been dumped at the bottom of a bay somewhere, too.

 

[Brightbird]

This just proves that truth really is stranger than fiction! Ausgirl, I like your theory that Rogerson and McNamara thought they could make Jamie disappear and steal the drugs. What else could have happened? I suppose Jamie could have threatened them, but I doubt a young man alone would try that on. But it's really odd or maybe just plain stupid that Rogerson and McNamara would try pull that off with CCTV cameras and the like. I wonder what version of events they'll give after reviewing the evidence. I don't believe that Jamie didn't have links to organised crime. I doubt this was his first job. It's sad that a young life has been lost by foolishly getting mixed up in that business.

 

[Ausgirl]

bbm

This just proves that truth really is stranger than fiction! Ausgirl, I like your theory that Rogerson and McNamara thought they could make Jamie disappear and steal the drugs. What else could have happened? I suppose Jamie could have threatened them, but I doubt a young man alone would try that on. But it's really odd or maybe just plain stupid that Rogerson and McNamara would try pull that off with CCTV cameras and the like. I wonder what version of events they'll give after reviewing the evidence. I don't believe that Jamie didn't have links to organised crime. I doubt this was his first job. It's sad that a young life has been lost by foolishly getting mixed up in that business.

Just on the first bolded point - it is weird, so weird that these two canny old crooks did not think about CCTV. They didn't survive relatively unscathed all these decades by being dumb... So my thoughts turn to the idea that maybe they knew about the cameras but truly thought they would be safe (ie, *protected* ) from scrutiny -- and BZZT, wrong!! They're just too cunning, both of 'em, for me to easily think they'd be that gormless. The less conspiracy-oriented thought here is yeah, that they just found a schoolkid on his own too easy a target to pass up and took it, $6 mil in cash and ice being worth the risk.

Second point - what makes me think Jamie was not a seasoned courier or anything, was that he blabbed to his mates about being 'excited' over the meeting. Makes me think he was in on a very petty, low level and this was his big 'opportunity' to prove himself.

I will not be surprised if it turns out he was thrown under a bus.

 

[Mrs G Norris]

This whole thing is unbearably sad and stupid, I think the burning question is how did Jamie have the 3 million dollars worth of meth on him to begin with and who set up the deal, I hope they can find the two men who drove him to the fateful meeting soon. They probably hold the key to how all the arrangements were made, and are the missing pieces in the puzzle IMO.

 

[Brightbird]

I haven't thought about this much. But the more I do, I get the feeling that whatever happened didn't go according to plan for anyone in that storage unit. Besides the CCTV cameras, did they think they could fool Jamie's bosses? I do think Jamie was working for someone. I also think Rogerson and McNamara have been around the block enough times to know better than to take risks like that. Unless they were so desperate to make money :dunno: If it were simple greed, I think they would have planned it better. No, I don't really think this was planned. Speaking of the money, where did it come from? How far deep into Sydney's "underworld" were they, I wonder.

This might have been Jamie's opportunity to prove himself, but I don't believe he was only recently acquainted with that side of life. Ausgirl, in what way do you think he might have thrown under the bus? The only thing I can come up with is that Rogerson and McNamara weren't happy with the 'goods' and one of them kind of snapped and shot him out of rage. I'm not much good at imagining scenarios though.

 

[Amee]

In broad daylight last Tuesday, the pair loaded the bag into the boot of their white Ford Falcon before returning inside, re-emerging with several office chairs which they packed on top of the bag.

Some 24 hours later, police allege, Rogerson and McNamara returned to the Padstow storage facility to clean up their murderous deeds, re-entering unit 803 of the Rent A Space facility on Davies Road.

They allegedly spent 40 minutes inside, cleaning up Mr Gao's blood and any traces of the crime, and returning the office chairs they had removed the day before.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/fatal-ren...-police-say-20140527-392gt.html#ixzz32zALDCez

 

[Ausgirl]

I don't think he was a total stranger to it, either, Brightbird. And it'd be smart, recruiting high-achieving, spotless students as couriers.

Re 'under a bus' - if that was *my* 6 million in cash and ice deal being transacted? I would make sure my courier had some back up close by. Realllly close. That there was no-one there to make damn sure it went down smoothly strikes me as extremely peculiar. Either the manufacturers are a bunch of silly kids making ice on their school hols and erroneously thinking they're proper gangsta, or Gao was sent in there alone, like a sitting duck for whatever inexplicable reason. It all makes little sense, presently.

Good call on the 'unhappy with goods' thing. But there was really 3mil worth of ice. Maybe it was poorer quality than expected?

((Another thought: were McN and R maybe intercepting drug deals they somehow got wind of, rather than actually making them. Ripping dealers off would be right up their alley. )) Ooh strike that - I see they personally arranged the deal with Gao himself!

Perhaps then, I am giving both dealers and buyers -way- more credit for smarts than they deserve. Heh.. Maybe the part I bolded above is closer to what happened, after all.


McNamara, 55, phoned Mr Gao from a Telstra phone booth in Cronulla last Tuesday, allegedly arranging to meet the student outside an industrial block in Padstow.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/fatal-ren...-police-say-20140527-392gt.html#ixzz32zE3kt5f

 

[Amee]

t's understood a CCTV camera perched high above the south-west Sydney storage facility did not capture the two gunshots police allege the men fired into Gao's chest as they prepared to exchange 3kg of the drug ice for about $3 million in cash - but it did record the trio entering the facility just after 1.30pm. And only two of them walking out..

McNamara, 55, phoned Mr Gao from a Telstra phone booth in Cronulla last Tuesday, allegedly arranging to meet the student outside an industrial block in Padstow.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/fatal-ren...-police-say-20140527-392gt.html#ixzz32zDdmE6l

 

[Amee]

How Jamie Gao's Australian dream turned into a nightmare: Final hours of the 'nice guy' student who was besotted with his new girlfriend and had the world at his feet

But that dream turned into a nightmare on Tuesday, May 20. That afternoon began, police allege, with Mr Gao wading 'in over his head' into a high-stakes drug deal, and ended with the university student being shot twice in the chest, his body wrapped in a blue tarpaulin before being dumped into the ocean off Cronulla.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-reveal-student-world-feet.html#ixzz32zFq6GBh


A friend of Gao's said his girlfriend held out hope that he would 'still come back'.

The friend met with Gao on the same day he allegedly met with Rogerson and McNamara.

"He was fine, normal. We had lunch. He didn't tell me about the meeting", she told MailOnline.

"People say he's dealing drugs and he's bad. But his intention is not to be bad," the friend said.

"He doesn't do anything on purpose to hurt anyone, I think he was just persuaded by his friends and by peer pressure."

https://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/a/23908304/gaos-girlfriend-held-out-hope-he-would-return/

Who are these so called friends??

 

[Mrs G Norris]

Look, let's get real, normal happy well adjusted kids do not walk into a storage facility with 3 million dollars worth of drugs thinking they're going to walk out with 3 million dollars cash in their back pocket. There is a whole lot more to this story the police aren't sharing or don't know yet.

 

[Amee]

The odd couple: Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara's unlikely alliance

By all accounts, they were the odd couple. Former detective Glen McNamara was a serious, intense man so embittered by his hatred of his former profession that when he set up a company to run his private detective agency last year, he called it Fuipsu Pty.

The 55-year-old Mr McNamara and his older colleague had struck up a loose working arrangement, with the state's most notorious former cop supplying the cases and Mr McNamara, the PI, doing the legwork.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/the-odd-c...ly-alliance-20140527-391ph.html#ixzz32zTUz6KH

 

[Ausgirl]

I notice the papers are now calling him "Gao, a Sydney drug dealer". Has quite a different ring than "murdered student", doesn't it.

Maybe he was living something of a double life. He had excellent grades, was an overachieving student from a family who could afford a good school, some of his friend seem genuinely shocked. He was excited about the meeting. Says 'baby gang recruit' maybe.

I hope police will soon ID the two men who dropped him off, leaving Gao to carry drugs into that storage shed all alone.

 

[sleepinoz]

Ch 10 - believe Gao was working as a police informer involved in a drug investigation- will put MSM up asap

 

[Mrs G Norris]

Interesting on the police informant angle .. wasn't Jamie Gao doing a business degree, did anyone here watch The Wire and remember when Stringer Bell advanced his education in business economics?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDBq-OU1rHo

 

[sleepinoz]

Ch 10 take a while to put their news up on tenplay - so I tried to catch the sound through the computer so here it is - hope it works.

I'll try again - Nope Invalid File - You will all just have to wait

 

[Amee]

Interesting Rogers friend thought Gao was an informant....

Colourful business identity Jim Byrnes believes Mr Gao may have been a police informant working under surveillance when a drug deal went wrong.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/roger-rog...-gao-murder-20140527-zrpb4.html#ixzz32zb5cehD

 

[Brightbird]

Once again, I'm just floored that two people could murder someone, dispose of their body, return to clean up the scene, and then carry on with their daily lives.

Even if he was a police informant, it makes no sense to kill him at a pre-arranged meeting in a relatively public area. What I'd give to know a just quarter of the gossip among Sydney detectives right now!

Eta - I'm working on the assumption they found out he was an informant. But maybe not.

 

[sleepinoz]

Could be why they have so much Video of the crime. Rogerson may have checked out the storage unit prior and determined there was no CCTV and decided it was a safe place, in come the Police and put camera's everywhere.

It would explain much of their stupidity.