The last stand of Mad Max

I'm Andrew Rule. This is life and crimes. If you hang around long enough in this business, and sadly I have, you keep seeing the anniversaries crop up, and you see names come up and think, oh my god, is it really that long since that happened. It seems much closer than that, because some things stick in your mind, and one of them is the shooting of the guy they called Mad Max. This is the real Mad Max. This

is not made up by a scriptwriter. This was the guy who shot several police and went on the run and was apprehended eighteen months later by two brave and perhaps slightly reckless detectives. And that's a story I'm going to go through. Now. We must point out that way back in twenty sixteen, we took a quick look at the story of Mad Max, but today we take a

look at the shootout in much greater detail. It was forty years ago last month that a lone gunman shot two policemen during a routine car check, and then he shot two more during the manhunt that followed. All four of those police were seriously wounded, and one of them was left paraplegic. A fifth policeman was hit in that

same night. This was a dog handler, one of the canine unit, and interestingly, unlike the others, he was wearing his holistic vest, and because he was wearing his bailistic vest, the bullet basically shocked him and stunned him and probably made him fall over, but it didn't hurt him. He walked away. He got home that night unwounded, as did his dog, because he was wearing his bailistic vest and the others were not, I think, and there's probably a

lesson there. The shooter his real name was Pavel Maronoff, alias Max Clark, the name he used when he got to this country. Interestingly, that he did get to this country because he was a former Bulgarian Army deserter, so he was hardly you'd think precisely the right sort of profile as a migrant back in the seventies or whenever

he got here. He was dubbed mad Max by us in the media for the eight months that he stayed on the loose, because for the rest of nineteen eighty five, after he shot four policemen and shot out a fifth one, he became Australia's most wanted man, taking over from the master prison escaper Russell mad Dog Cox, who'd been on the run since nineteen seventy seven. You'll see a certain sameness in the names here. We've got Mad Max taking

over from mad Dog Cox. Neither of them were mad and they got those names from crime reporters who should know better. And in fact, in both cases their real names were quite different from the names that they were known as in the newspapers. But there you go, Finny

ol World. Marino's assault on the police force was probably the most savage since the Kelli gang shot three police dead at Stringing Buck Creek in eighteen seventy eight, so that was one hundred and seven years earlier, probably the worst thing to happen to the Victorian police in that intervening century. Because he was a previously unknown offender with no close associates or criminal history. Police could not lean on the underworld for information. Now, how often does this happen?

Something bad happens and it's somebody who has no criminal history. That's a rare thing. For a start. People don't usually come out of nowhere to offend. But when they do, it's very tricky for police because they can't run through lists of known offenders and find the right guy, because the right guy in these rare cases isn't on those lists, because he's got no criminal history, no known form, and

so they don't know who they're looking for. Whereas, to be honest, in most cases they've got a rough idea exactly who they're looking for. Police command turned to one of its own born, detective Sergeant John Kapetanovsky, a tough major crime Squad veteran who could speak two Slavic languages and had contacts in the Yugoslav community. Kappa, as everyone called him, I remember this, We all call him Kappa, was known for his imposing physical presence. Big tall guy,

long lane or long nose. If he decided not to smile, he could look quite unfriendly. He was a big tough man, and he was known for his habit of carrying a spare snubnosed pistol in an ankle holster. Now I don't know if that was strictly kosher, but back in those days, detectives in the tough squads, like the Robbery Squad and the Major Crime Squad, they tended to want to be well armed because they were dealing with some very violent

people who were well armed. Kappa was no boy scout, but he believed in being prepared, and he was exactly the type needed to flush out mad Max Maronov before he murdered someone before he basically shot in another four people, notably the police. In early February nineteen eighty six, Kappa got a tip from a Yugoslav source that the wanted man was hiding with a young family in semi suburban

Wollen just north of Craigieburn now Wollan. Back in those days, and I know this because I lived up that way was still sort of a country town, but it was a highway town. It was on the Northern Highway that led off the freeway up to Kilmore and then further on you know, it was the back way to Bendigo and to places like Elmore and Rochester and all that.

As such, Wollen then was changing, and it did have a lot of people who'd moved there from the northern suburbs, and among them was obviously the family who acted as the host. Saw offered safe harbor for mad Max Maronov, undoubtedly because they were of the same ethnic group and he could speak to them and so on. Now, Detective Sergeant the one we call Kappa, was paired with another senior detective, the quietly spoken Rod McDonald, who I remember

well from that era. On the morning of February twenty fifth, now this is nineteen eighty six, This is eight months after the shootings in Noble Park, a man roughly resembling Maroanov left the Wolln House driving two children to school in a white Ford panel van. The detectives suspective was Maranov, but could not be sure as photographs of him were

scarce and poor quality. The frightening thing about Maroanov was that, unlike most offenders, he was a pistol expert who had honed his skills well above the level of most normal police. Ordinary police who learned to shoot when they do their training, and then now and again they have a refresher course the pistol range and so on. But most of them

are just moderately proficient. But this fellow was a crank and he had clearly built himself a pistol range, I think, under his house down in the southeastern suburbs, and become very very proficient at shooting quickly and accurately. He could shoot under pressure, which is what most of us can't do. If the man in the panel van was Maronov, it was vital they apprehend him away from members of the public.

So when the vehicle, when the panel Van turns south from Wollen on the hum Highway towards Melbourne, the detectives faced making a snap decision. Would they stop him before he reached the suburbs, which were only you know, fifteen to twenty minutes away really, or would they let him go down into suburbia and try and pick him up down there. Now they did have reason logic on their side.

They thought if they could get him out on the highway, away from other people, away from densely populated streets and all that, and no passers by and no pedestrians, that it would be safer for the public, and so bravely in my view, they pulled the van over on the highway near Beveridge, which, as many people will know, is coincidentally only a few hundred meters from the little old tumble down house where near Kelly was born back in

eighteen fifty five. The driver's hair the driver of the panel van, his hair seemed longer and a lighter color than Maronoff's. The pictures they had of maranof and he had a beard, so they couldn't be certain it was him, so they kept their guns down. Now, both these detectives were armed, as they used to be in those days, with pump action shotguns. Pump action twelve GUARDE shotguns a

fearsome piece of equipment at clost range. And I'm not sure if they did this with the blessing of their superiors or the department or not, but they very wisely loaded their shotguns with what they call sgs. Now. Sg's are the very heavy shot. Some people might call it buck shot, and it is. The slugs in sg's are

about as big as a twenty two bullet slug. They're quite big enough to do some damage, and they put nine of them in each cartridge, So that is a very heavy shot load, and it's designed to take down big game. It'll take down a wild pig or that sort of thing. At the right range, it would certainly take down most people. And beauty of it does is that even though there are only nine slugs in each cartridge, those nine would spread sufficiently that some of them would

hit the target, which is a very useful thing. Under the sort of pressure that these guys were under, ordered the driver to place his hands outside the door so they could see them. The driver seemed calm and compliant, but in a split second, I think what he did. I think he had a pistol underneath a street directory or underneath a newspaper or something. I think he added hidden. But in a split second he twisted and fired twice

with a handgun. Now he's shooting through the window of his car, the open window of his car or windows plural. He hits Cappa in the shoulder and the hand two shots, bang, bang hits him twice before pivoting the other way and shooting McDonald in the chest. So McDonald must have moved up to the passenger side window with his pump action shotgun and Matt Max was like wired op on angel dust.

It was an astonishing bit of shooting. He shoots one policeman twice, and he pivots and shoots the other policeman in the chest. Any of those shots could have ky those policemen. They were in fact quite seriously wounded, but it didn't kill them. Maranov was shooting to kill, but they say that Kappa's reflex, his reaction of throwing his hand up after he was hitting his shoulder probably saved him.

The second bullet took the top off one finger, but it deflected the bullet so that it only grazed his forehead near his eyebrow. Then the third shot, of course, hit McDonald in the chest and wounded him quite badly. Devastatingly accurate shooting, and Maranov would have got away again if it weren't for the heavy SG buckshot that they'd selected for their shotguns. As the van sped away, McDonald fired twice at a bang bang with the pump action.

The heavy slugs, nine in each cartridge, blasted through the side and rear panels and hit Clark's stomach and arm. The van ran off the rail. Some hundreds of meters away. It went through six wire fences and stopped in a thistly paddock about one hundred and fifty meters from the highway and about a kilometer from the crime scene. So this car has gone down the road quite away with essentially a dying man at the wheel. Then he's become disoriented,

he's losing blood, he's dying. He runs off the road, luckily to the left rather than across the oncoming traffic, and he goes through a fence, and he goes through six more fences before the van rolls to a stop. Meanwhile, behind him, back on the highway, the Hume Highway, the wounded pair of police desperately needed help. They flagged down a passing driver to ask him to stop a truck with a CB radio to call an ambulance. Now why they had to do that, I'm not sure, but anyway,

we've got to remember this was before mobile phones. But you would have thought they had a police radio that would have done the trick. I don't understand what went wrong there. Maybe they weren't thinking straight, don't know, but they needed medical help faster than waiting for an ambulance,

so they staggered to their Commodore. They had the plane commodore, just a brown Commodol and Kappa drove it with one hand towards Melbourne because he had I think a finger knocked off and his shoulders out of action with a bullet. He drives towards Melbourne. So he's going past Donnybrook towards Craigieburn, and then he decides he can't go any further. They

stopped at a house at Craigieburn North. Now in those days, nowadays a lot of that is suburbia and or small blocks and all factories and all sorts of things, But in those days it was still farmland. They stopped at the house at Craigburn North and asked to use the phone. Both of them were bleeding badly by this time. As Kappa ended his call to police headquarters, he slumped to the floor, much to the alarm of the nice old lady that owned the house. Rod McDonald was already slumped

in the passenger seat of their car, bleeding profusely. Meanwhile, a police helicopter circled the panel van back up the road. Circled the panel van looking for signs of life. It looked as if a man were crouched in the driver's seat, so the Special Operations Group was brought in to rush the car. They needed to be sure that he was dead, what if he was playing possum. It turned out that he wasn't playing possum. He had died. He had died

from those shots that Rod McDonald had let loose. It wasn't until they removed a wig that they were sure as Maranoff alias Max Clark wasn't ntil. Then they realized they were certain they had the right guy because Maranoff was actually short, he was balding. He looked like George Costanzo in Seinfeld, and he was bolding, and he had short, dark hair, and so the long blonde wig and the

beard was a throwoff. The two injured officers were flown by helicopter to Faulkner Park and transferred to hospital, where they both had life saving surgery. Assistant Commissioner Kel Glare, who's still with us today as a retired long retired police officer. Later he was the Chief Commissioner. Calvin Glair said the pair Kappa and MacDonald had taken a courageous decision to intercept the offender, and they did it for the right reasons. This person was heading towards a populated area.

Blaire said they saw an opportunity to intercept him before he got into a crowded situation where even surveillance would have been difficult and fraught with danger for others. They acted with great courage, But these heroes, as they were, had to cope with the psychic and physical effects of theirs wounds for the rest of their lives, as did the four other police injured by Maronov. There's little doubt that being shot and the stress of the whole situation

shortened Kappa's life. He died at sixty years old in twenty twelve. Rod McDonald's still with us to this day. He's a quiet, unassuming man and to meet him or talk to him, you would never imagine that he was the man who emerged victorious at the OK Corral. Was him with the buckshot that beat mad Max. Part script of the story is that Kappa actually became divorced at some stage, and he remarried a policewoman and they had one daughter, whose name is Alexandra. Alexandra has joined the

police force in honor of her father. She was only nineteen when her father died. Now, of course, she's now in her thirties and she's going very well in the police force. She recently told our reporters that she owes a great debt to Police Legacy, the organization which helped her and so many others get over the effects of the injuries and sometimes the deaths that are suffered by our policemen and women in a line of duty. Thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun

production for true crime Australia. Our producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns, features and more, go to Heraldsun dot com dot au, forward slash Andrew rule one word. For advertising inquiries, go to news Podcasts sold at News dot com dot au. That is all one word news podcasts sold And if you want further information about this episode, links are in the description.