It was 4:50 am. The air in South Yarra was cold, the kind of damp Melbourne chill that gets into your bones. Most of the city was asleep, but on a quiet residential stretch, a stolen Holden Commodore sat abandoned in the middle of the road. Its headlights were cutting through the dark, and both front doors were swung wide open, like an invitation.
Constables Steven Tynan, 22, and Damian Eyre, 20, pulled up in their divisional van, call sign Prahran 311. They weren't even supposed to be there. A shortage of cars at the St Kilda Road station meant these two young blokes from Prahran took the call instead. They stepped out to check the empty car, probably thinking it was just another joyrider's dumped toy.
They were wrong.
Hidden in the shadows of the nearby gardens, gunmen were waiting. Within seconds, a shotgun blast and rifle fire tore through the silence. Tynan died instantly. Eyre, though wounded, tried to crawl for cover but was executed with a final shot to the head.
The Walsh Street police shootings didn't just kill two officers; they broke something in the psyche of Victoria. It felt like a declaration of war.
Why Walsh Street was a Revenge Plot
You can't talk about Walsh Street without talking about what happened 13 hours earlier. On October 11, 1988, a notorious armed robber named Graeme Jensen was shot dead by the Victoria Police Armed Robbery Squad in Narre Warren.
The police said Jensen pulled a gun. His associates, a brutal group known as the Flemington Crew, said he was murdered in cold blood.
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Underworld figures don't usually go to the ombudsman when they have a grievance. They handle it themselves. Victor Peirce, a key figure in the infamous Pettingill crime family, was Jensen’s best friend. He was devastated. He was also, according to later allegations, very, very angry.
The theory that eventually dominated the investigation was simple: the Walsh Street police shootings were a direct, "eye-for-an-eye" retaliation for Jensen. The killers didn't care who they hit, as long as they wore the blue uniform. Tynan and Eyre were just the first ones to show up.
The Trial That Shocked Everyone
By 1991, four men stood in the dock: Victor Peirce, Trevor Pettingill, Anthony Farrell, and Peter "Bubble Brain" McEvoy. The Crown's case was massive. They had a star witness, Jason Ryan, who was actually part of the family—he was Victor Peirce's nephew.
Ryan went into witness protection and spilled everything. He talked about the planning, the weapons, and the way the family celebrated after the news broke. It looked like a slam dunk.
But trials are rarely that simple.
The defense tore Ryan apart. They painted him as a drug-addicted liar who was only saying what the police wanted to hear to save his own skin. Then there was Wendy Peirce, Victor’s wife. She had initially given a statement supporting the prosecution but, in a dramatic twist, refused to testify when the time came.
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On March 26, 1991, the jury delivered their verdict: Not guilty. All of them.
The courtroom erupted. The police were gutted. To this day, the acquittal is cited by many veterans as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in Australian history.
The Bodies Left Behind
Before the trial even started, the body count was already rising. Two other suspects, Jedd Houghton and Gary Abdallah, never made it to court.
- Jedd Houghton: Shot and killed by police in a Bendigo caravan park in November 1988.
- Gary Abdallah: Shot and killed by detectives in April 1989 after he reportedly pulled an imitation pistol on them.
Basically, the streets were a mess. It was a cycle of violence that felt like it would never end.
The 2005 Confession
Things got weirdly quiet for years, until 2005. Wendy Peirce, long after the trial and after Victor had been murdered in a 2002 gangland hit, sat down for an interview with journalist John Silvester.
She dropped a bombshell.
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She admitted that her husband had indeed organized the Walsh Street police shootings. She claimed Victor was the driver and that Jedd Houghton and Peter McEvoy were the ones who pulled the triggers. Why say it then? Maybe it was the weight of it all. Maybe she just didn't care anymore.
But because of "double jeopardy" laws—which at the time meant you couldn't be tried for the same crime twice—the surviving men who were acquitted couldn't be dragged back to court, even with this new "evidence."
How It Changed Policing Forever
If you talk to older cops in Melbourne, they’ll tell you there is "before Walsh Street" and "after Walsh Street."
Before 1988, there was a certain level of—not respect, exactly—but a known boundary between the "crooks" and the "wallopers." You didn't execute young kids just doing a routine check. Walsh Street changed that.
It led to a massive overhaul in how Victoria Police operated:
- Safety Procedures: Officers were trained to be far more tactical when approaching "routine" abandoned vehicles.
- Weaponry: The standard-issue .38 Smith & Wesson revolvers were eventually replaced with more modern semi-automatic firearms.
- The Ty-Eyre Taskforce: This massive investigation set the template for how future underworld wars, like the one in the early 2000s, would be handled.
What to Do With This History
The Walsh Street police shootings are a heavy part of Melbourne’s DNA. If you want to understand the modern Australian justice system and the friction between the police and the underworld, this is the foundational text.
Take these steps to dig deeper:
- Visit the Memorial: There is a plaque at the corner of Walsh and Powlett Streets in South Yarra. It’s a somber place, but it helps put the scale of the tragedy in perspective.
- Read "A Pack of Bloody Animals": This book by Tom Noble is widely considered the definitive account of the case.
- Listen to "Naked City": John Silvester’s podcast episodes on the Flemington Crew provide incredible context from someone who lived through the reporting of it.
Understanding this case isn't just about true crime. It's about recognizing how a single night can change the laws, the safety protocols, and the very culture of a city forever.