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Trio found not guilty of murdering 'vampire gigolo' in Melbourne | Trio found not guilty of murdering 'vampire gigolo' in Melbourne |
(35 minutes later) | |
Three men have been acquitted of murdering self-professed vampire gigolo Shane Chartres-Abbott, who was gunned down outside his Melbourne home. | |
Chartres-Abbott, 28, was shot dead in front of his pregnant girlfriend in 2003 while on trial for the alleged rape of a female client. | |
The woman's former boyfriend Mark Adrian Perry, 46, and two other men, Warren Shea, 42, and Evangelos Goussis, 46, pleaded not guilty to the male prostitute’s murder. | |
A Victorian supreme court jury returned not guilty verdicts for all three men on Tuesday following their two-month trial. | A Victorian supreme court jury returned not guilty verdicts for all three men on Tuesday following their two-month trial. |
During the trial the jury heard Chartres-Abbott told his alleged victim he was a vampire who needed to drink blood to survive, and he was "older than the city of Melbourne". | During the trial the jury heard Chartres-Abbott told his alleged victim he was a vampire who needed to drink blood to survive, and he was "older than the city of Melbourne". |
The woman he allegedly raped was found unconscious in a hotel room with cuts and bite marks covering her body and part of her tongue missing. | |
Chartres-Abbott was heading to his rape trial with his pregnant partner and her father when he was killed outside his Reservoir home in June 2003. | |
In the trial's key piece of evidence, jurors heard from a man who cannot be named, who claimed he shot Chartres-Abbott to even the score for the alleged rape. | |
The man said Shea came to him and told him of Chartres-Abbott's alleged crime and that he subsequently shot the sex worker for Shea. | |
Prosecutor Andrew Tinney SC told the trial Perry was enraged about the attack on his ex-girlfriend and set the hit in motion by contacting his friend Shea. | |
"The murder was carried out for perhaps the oldest and most powerful reason – vengeance," he said. | |
Tinney argued that even though none of Perry, Shea or Goussis pulled the trigger, they were part of a joint criminal enterprise that led to Chartres-Abbott's death. | |
"Each is as guilty of the murder of Shane Chartres-Abbott as the man who pulled the trigger," he said. | |
Barristers for each of Perry, Shea and Goussis said the man who cannot be named was a liar, and their clients had nothing to do with the death. | |
Supporters of the men cheered as the verdicts were delivered and applauded the jury members as they left the courtroom. | |
The trio was found not guilty of both murder and the alternative charge of manslaughter. | |
Goussis wept and mouthed his thanks to the jury while holding his hand over his heart. | |
He is serving a minimum 30-year prison sentence for the murders of gangland figures Lewis Moran and Lewis Caine, but the verdicts left Perry and Shea free to walk from court. | |
Both men tried to avoid the waiting media outside court and made no comments to reporters. | |
Perry was arrested in Perth last year and extradited to Melbourne after disappearing in 2007 when he learned he was being investigated for the killing of the male prostitute. |