Rent-a-kill: Australia's number one hitman

08/04/21 • 35 min

By early 1985 hitman Chris Flannery was running out of friends. This was hardly surprising, as he’d killed most of them.

Flannery had built a fearsome reputation for killing on command but when an attack dog begins to snarl at its master it is time for the big sleep.

Flannery’s boss Sydney gangster George Freeman had lost patience with him and was a little frightened of the unpredictable gunman.

Flannery had threatened police and had shot one – undercover detective Mick Drury. Even in corrupt Sydney that was a crime that couldn’t go unanswered.

He killed gangsters, shot dead a law-abiding Melbourne businessman, stabbed a major banking figure and orchestrated the murder of a teenage girl who could have given evidence against him.

The man they called Rent-a-Kill made sure most of his victims were never found and that proved to be his fate when he was ambushed and murdered.

He was no great loss.

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By early 1985 hitman Chris Flannery was running out of friends. This was hardly surprising, as he’d killed most of them.

Flannery had built a fearsome reputation for killing on command but when an attack dog begins to snarl at its master it is time for the big sleep.

Flannery’s boss Sydney gangster George Freeman had lost patience with him and was a little frightened of the unpredictable gunman.

Flannery had threatened police and had shot one – undercover detective Mick Drury. Even in corrupt Sydney that was a crime that couldn’t go unanswered.

He killed gangsters, shot dead a law-abiding Melbourne businessman, stabbed a major banking figure and orchestrated the murder of a teenage girl who could have given evidence against him.

The man they called Rent-a-Kill made sure most of his victims were never found and that proved to be his fate when he was ambushed and murdered.

He was no great loss.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Previous Episode

Abe Saffron and Sydney's corrupt cops

Abraham Gilbert Saffron was a successful Sydney businessman who hated his nickname and spent a fortune trying to have it expunged from the record by threatening anyone who used it publicly.

The name was Mr Sin and it was well deserved. He built a vice empire on a triangular business model – the three points were bribery, blackmail and arson.

He organised sex, often with under-age boys and girls, secretly photographing patrons to use against them.

He paid bribes to police - $750 per club for local police and $5000 a week for senior police and was so brazen he repeatedly visited the bent Deputy Commissioner Bill Allen at headquarters.

Six of Saffron’s many properties caught fire between 1980 and 1982 - all deliberately lit.

On June 9, 1979, the ghost train at Sydney’s Luna Park was engulfed in flames, killing six children and the father of one of them. It was a property Saffron wanted to own.

The police investigation was a disgrace, not because of incompetence but corruption.

Saffron said he wasn’t involved but he would, wouldn’t he?

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Next Episode

A country school kidnapping: An unbelievable tale

The rookie teacher at the tiny country school was startled during morning recess when some of the kids ran into the single weatherboard classroom, yelling: "There's a man outside with a gun."
Rob Hunter had been the sole teacher at the Gippsland town of Wooreen for just nine days - his first posting after three years at teachers' college. He was 20 years old. Maree Young was his student, she was just 11 years old.
The man with the revolver and wearing a Collingwood beanie as a balaclava was Geelong Prison escapee Edwin John "Ted" Eastwood, 26, who five years earlier pulled the same crime 270 kilometres away, kidnapping a teacher and six students from Faraday. It was February 14, 1977. In the next 21 hours they would experience a car crash, a night imprisoned at a remote campsite, an escape, police pursuit, a shootout and a wounding before final rescue.
In this episode of Naked City, Rob Hunter and Maree Young tell their story, first hand.

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