Updated ,first published
Perth bikie David Pye has been found guilty of masterminding the murder of rival underworld heavyweight Nick Martin.
The 43-year-old appeared via video link to hear Supreme Court Justice Joseph McGrath’s decision on Friday morning after a 2½-month wait following his trial in October last year.
Pye’s case was dubbed “the trial of the century” after he was accused of ordering the hit on Martin at Kwinana Motorplex in 2020.
The bikie denied being the person responsible for paying a former soldier to shoot Martin dead in front of thousands of people – and the only real evidence police had was the word of the man who carried out the killing.
The former soldier, who cannot be identified as his identity is suppressed, previously admitted to murdering Martin while he sat watching the races with his family, but the hitman said he was paid to do so by Pye, with whom he had struck up a friendship over drugs and his work overseas.
Pye emphatically denied the accusation and took the matter to trial, launching a security nightmare for police who escorted him to and from Perth’s District Court daily with multiple armed vehicles and an armed helicopter watching his every move.
The building itself was also unusually heavily guarded throughout the trial, with multiple armed tactical response units watching each entry and exit point like hawks throughout the hearing.
The majority of the evidence in the case was the word of the former soldier who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for Martin’s murder – significantly reduced on the basis he would testify against Pye.
The 39-year-old gave days of testimony from behind bullet-proof glass, claiming the bikie boss asked him to kill Martin shortly after he turned down a request to kill Pye’s ex-girlfriend.
“He basically wanted to blow holes in him with a .357 [pistol],” the ex-soldier claimed.
The soldier said he agreed to “look into it”, considering the job for the paltry sum of $150,000.
He said he “tailed” Martin for weeks as he came and went from his house, trying to find a pattern of behaviour that would enable him to set up and carry out the kill.
He bought a drone, the court was told, and flew it over his house to assess his security set up.
But the former soldier later decided the best place to murder the 51-year-old was in front of 2000 people, in the dark, from 365 metres away.
He sat among some bushes, he said, on the far side of the Kwinana Motorplex on December 12, 2020, and watched Martin through the lens of his rifle. He claims he turned off his phone and then took the shot, firing one single bullet through Martin’s chest as he sat next to his wife, Amanda, his step-daughter Stacey and a bunch of horrified friends and onlookers.
The bullet exited Martin’s back, brushing past the leg of his step-daughter’s boyfriend, Ricky Chapman, before embedding itself in his arm. The then 31-year-old survived the shot but died 16 months later from an unrelated medical episode.
The soldier was caught soon after and quickly struck a plea deal, telling police he was paid to carry out the job.
But Pye’s lawyers told the trial the man is a pathological and compulsive liar.
During cross-examination, he was repeatedly exposed for lies he told and exaggerations made about killing conquests.
The trial also did not expose any real evidence connecting Pye to the killing, save for the soldier’s word, and while police bugged conversations between the pair, the conversations played in court fell short of ever hearing them both discuss the murder of Martin.
In contrast, prosecution argued Pye had the motive for wanting Martin dead.
Former friends and allies, the pair had become enemies after Pye defected from Martin’s Rebels gang to the Comancheros. It was said Martin wanted Pye dead as much as, allegedly, Pye wanted to return the favour.
But the trial was also told there were around 60 other people who also wanted Martin killed and Pye’s lawyers took the opportunity to deflect the heat off their client and point the finger elsewhere.
Unlike any ordinary trial, this one was not heard in front of a jury as it was decided that finding a group of unbiased people to decide Pye’s fate would be impossible. Instead, one man only was charged with deciding Pye’s fate.
On Friday, he delivered that decision to a packed courtroom, ending years of speculation and deliberation.
