To mark Dandenong Star Journal’s 160 years of publication, PHILIP SALAMA-WEST is taking a then-and-now look at the people, places and events that have formed Dandenong’s modern history.
This week, we look back on a notorious murder spree in Police Paddocks Reserve and a Mini-bombing spree.
In 2019, James Patrick Dobbie, then 65, was jailed for up to 31 years over the murder and rape of couples who were parked in ‘lovers lane’ in Police Paddocks in 1980 and 1983.
In his first two episodes of terror, a masked Dobbie pointed a sawn-off shotgun at couples aged just 18-21 years, tying up the males and sustainedly raping the females nearby.
In May 1983 attack, Dobbie pointed the gun through a car at a 37-year-old man and 26-year-old woman inside.
The man fought back and briefly struggled with Dobbie until he was fatally shot twice.
Dobbie left the dead man behind, binding the woman and driving her away in her lover’s vehicle.
She escaped from the moving vehicle – despite Dobbie warning he would shoot her if she tried.
Dobbie dumped the car at Caulfield railway station, caught a train to his Boronia home and fled for a new life in Queensland.
The crimes were quickly reported to police but remained long unsolved.
On 17 January 1985, the Journal reported on police posting a $50,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the ‘Police Paddocks Murder’.
“The killer has been described by police as a ‘bloody maniac’, and because of his record, fears are held that he could kill again.,” the Journal stated.
Despite detectives sifting through mountains of evidence and information, they still lacked “one vital clue”.
Decades later, an anonymous Crime Stoppers call led to Dobbie handing himself in for arrest at a police station in Cobram, NSW, in June 2018.
“I just had enough,” Dobbie told police during his admissions.
“I want to get it out now.”
In sentencing, Supreme Court of Victoria judge John Champion said Dobbie’s “despicable” and “completely indefensible” behaviour had “no place in the civilised community”.
Meanwhile on 15 May 1973, this is how the Journal reported on a Mini-bomber striking in Dandenong (headline: Bomber Strikes Again! Dandenong Mini up in flames)
Melbourne’s Mini-bomber struck in Dandenong on Sunday night dashing the hopes of a 19 year-old youth.
Kevin Davies of David Street had parked his Mini on the front lawn of his home and gone inside for his dinner.
Thirty minutes later his car was in flames.
Five minutes later a Dandenong Fire Brigade unit headed by sub-station officer Col Pinkerton and a crew of six arrived on the scene, but the car was well alight and it was too late to save it.
Arson squad detectives were called in later when it was discovered that the fuel line had been cut.
The standard petrol cap was removed by Kevin when he bought the car and replaced with a locking cap.
Kevin tried to douse the flames with a garden hose while waiting for the fire brigade but when he realised the hopelessness of the situation he turned the hose on the front wall of the house six feet away.
Kevin said yesterday that the car was insured but he would never recover what the car was worth to him.
Kevin works with the Forestry Commission in Kallista and his car was the only way he could get to work.
There have been more than 50 Mini bombings over the last four years.
Of these, Police attribute between 40 and 50 to the real Mini bomber and the rest they put down to imitators.
The big question for Mini owners is: is the original maniac back in business, or does he have a sick counterpart working in the Dandenong area?
