Victor Peirce's de facto wife, Wendy, later claimed that her husband planned and carried out the murders with the fellow accused.
[2] The family was furthermore involved in the infamous Melbourne gangland killings, where it suffered a major blow, with the death of one of its highest-ranking members, Victor Peirce, and resulting in its power being greatly weakened.
[5] Police officer Roger Rogerson received his first criminal conviction in 1985 for involvement in drug trafficking when he was charged with conspiring with Allen to import heroin.
[3] It would later be alleged in court by barrister and Queen's Counsel Robert Richter that the now-deceased contract killer Andrew Veniamin had murdered Peirce.
In October 2005, Wendy Peirce gave a media interview detailing how her husband planned and carried out the Walsh Street police shootings[9] for which he was charged and later acquitted.
In September 2008 Wendy Peirce was jailed for six months after pleading guilty to threatening and stalking former lovers of her ex-partner Victor who was murdered in 2002 during Melbourne's underworld war.
[11] At the time of her death, she and her mother were on bail for an incident at the Clare Castle Hotel in Port Melbourne on 28 March 2009, when Mark Lohse, a regular patron at the hotel, was attacked with a meat cleaver and left seriously injured with a deep and long gash across his face, three fractures to his jaw, broken teeth and facial nerve damage.
Senior County Court judge Geoff Chettle said at the plea hearing the incident was "the worst example of intentionally causing serious injury he has seen.
[16] Wendy Peirce's lawyer said he had spoken to her on the phone on 15 December 2009 to inform her of her daughter's death and would apply to the prison for permission allowing her to attend the funeral.
[17] Lex Peirce (born 1960) is the seventh child and fifth son of Kath Pettingill and has a minor criminal record.
These include television docudramas like the series Underbelly and the 2009 miniseries Killing Time, and fictionalised versions of family members, which have been the basis for key characters in: The Pettingills were also featured in the fourth episode of season one of the Netflix original Drug Lords.