Jason Moran

Background

Moran was the son of Lewis Moran and Judy Moran. She is the daughter of Les Kane, a Melbourne painter and docker and reputed criminal who was murdered in his family home on 19 October 1978.

Education

Moran attended Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School. Jason Moran had attended the funeral of another slain mobster, Victor Peirce.

Career

He sported a 12 cm scar on the side of his face. Mark Moran was his half-brother. During the 1990s Moran emerged as one of Melbourne"s main dealers in "party" drugs.

During this time he had a team of up-and-coming western suburbs gangsters.

Moran was reported to have shot Carl Williams in the stomach during an argument in Gladstone Park on 13 October 1999, giving rise to lengthy violent turf wars known as the Melbourne gangland killings. Moran was considered by many to be a "dead man walking" and when paroled from prison in September 2001 was allowed to leave Australia due to fears for his life.

He later returned to give evidence in the inquest into the death of Gangitano on 20 November which began on 14 January 2002. Moran was suspected in Gangitano"s murder.

A coroner found that Jason Moran and Graham Kinniburgh were present during Gangitano"s murder in January 1998.

According to former Moran associate Bertie Wrout, however, it was Kinniburgh who killed Gangitano and it was Mark—not Jason—Moran who was his accomplice. Pasquale Barbaro and Moran were gunned down on 21 June 2003 at a junior football clinic in Essendon, where they had been watching Moran"s young children. On returning to their motor vehicle they were shot dead by a lone gunman.

Security footage from a neighbouring hotel showed the van they had driven to the footballground and a figure running away from the vehicle.

Police feared that the murders would lead to further violence in the Melbourne underworld war. During the service another priest, Father John Martin, said:

"Any funeral presents a challenge.

Obviously, the church does not make judgements about the person. They need the prayers and whatever the church can do for them..They have to answer to God.

We will not deny them."

Moran"s father, Lewis Moran, was unable to attend the service due to incarceration at Portuguese Phillip Correctional Centre.

Authorities refused his request, for security reasons, to be released from prison to attend the service. Lewis Moran was later murdered while drinking in a Brunswick Barometer On 28 February 2007, Carl Williams pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court of Victoria to the murder of Moran (but not of Barbaro).

The actual shooting was done by a killer often known as the "Runner" with Williams having organised the killing.

Williams was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum of 35 years, on 7 May 2007. He was later murdered while incarcerated at Barwon prison on 19 April 2010.

Connections

Friend:

Joe Giaccobe

associate:

Alphonse Gangitano