Melbourne's underworld grave sites gloss over the brutal pasts of druglords, killers and thugs The eloborate shrine to one-time underworld hitman Andrew "Benji" Veniamin at Keilor Cemetery. Picture: HWT library Source: News Limited MARK "Chopper" Read will spend eternity in Fawkner Cemetery - among some friends and enemies. He had plenty of both. A memorial service was held today for the killer, whose life of violence included the attempted kidnapping of a County Court judge. It had to be moved to the Fitzroy Football Club from a funeral home after hundreds of mourners indicated they would turn up to honour the man whose crimes landed him in jail for a total of 23 years. A final detail in the life and death of Read remains to be completed. A headstone. If the published notices are any guide, it could read "Never plead guilty," but it will more likely extol his virtues as a husband and father. To the rest of us, most of these dead criminals, including the many victims of Melbourne's underworld wars, were reptilian psychopaths addicted to violence, drugs and money. These mostly murdered men were so frightened of a real day's work they'd kill to avoid it. They were dead? Who cared? Nothing stood between them and their way. If it did, they killed it, which is why so many of them quickly went from wise guy to dead guy. These are the words on the shrine to Liborio Benvenuto, who was also known as the fourth-highest ranked mafia boss in Australia in 1965. He now rests at the Springvale Botanical Cemetery. French writer Voltaire famously said that "to the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth." Our city's modern day criminals were men who, while alive, respected almost nobody; now dead, neither will you read the truth about them on the lavish, look-at-me marble slabs marking their resting places. From Alphonse Gangitano, shot dead by Jason Moran in 1998, to Carl Williams, bashed to death 12 years later, the vermilion prose of anonymous authors chiselled into the costly headstones talks of loving family men and of purposeful lives well lived. It wasn't true then. It won't be true a century from now, when the weather has washed away the gold lettering and it takes midday shadows to interpret the words someone wrote long ago about forgot villains. Like many gangland victims Gangitano was buried at Fawkner where his grand marble headstone declares he was a "loving husband" and "dearest father" but, of course, has no mention of his day job. Time is eternity, hours fly, flowers die, new ways pass by. Love stays," it adds; bucolic thoughts at odds with the vicious standover man who rests there. Gangitano was a brooding, black-hearted thug who shot Gregory Workman after an argument at a St Kilda party in 1995. He didn't plan on Workman to live. The dead man had seven bullet wounds in his back and one in his chest. On the day Gangitano was murdered, he had been to court over a nightclub brawl in which he had taken to patrons with billiard cues. Alphonse Gangitano was also known as the "Dark Prince of Lygon St" for good reason. Picture: Alex Coppel His friend Jason Moran was with him that night bashing others, but afterwards said how taken aback even he was by Gangitano's easy violence. Melbourne's gangland war is often dated back to the night Gangitano was killed two years later. Apparently by Moran. Friends and fealties are up for grabs, indeed tradeable commodities, in their world. In any case, a better starting point for the killings is a Wednesday afternoon, at a little stretch of grass in Gladstone Park where the Moran brothers went to meet Williams. It was October 13, 1999 - Williams 29th birthday - and the Morans wished to speak to the man who was undercutting their pill trade and might have owed them money. Negotiations deteriorated quickly and Jason Moran produced a small gun. Mark told his brother to shoot Williams in the head. As it turns out that was excellent advice. But Jason instead shot Williams in his unmissable belly. The boys' cards were marked. Mark lived another 166 days. His headstone records not just that he died (shot dead in his car outside his home) on June 15, 2000, but that he was "always in the hearts of your family & friends, today, tomorrow and forever. Rest in peace. Little expense has been spared at the Carl Williams's final resting place at Keilor Cemetery. Picture: HWT library But how could he? Moran's "family & friends" weren't finished with each other just yet. His brother would be killed in 2003, stepfather Lewis would be murdered in 2004, and, later, his mum Judy would arrange the killing of Lewis' brother, Des. Her failed alibi was that she was at Mark's grave that day. She did visit regularly and so did Jason who'd tell people that his mistake at Gladstone Park had killed his brother. Indeed, Mark's grave was to have been the place of Jason's execution, but that plan failed on the day and was coolly rescheduled for Essendon the following week. They reckon Andrew "Benji" Veniamin shot dead Dino Dibra, who many believe murdered Mad Charlie Hegyaljie, but in any case Dibra had an extensive criminal record and police linked him to a kidnapping, several shootings and bashings. The Herald Sun report of his murder was headlined "Thug lived, died by the bullet." His headstone tells another story. In everyone's eyes a legend, in our hearts a brother willing to make time for family and friends, young and old ...'. He was inspiring and "a man of courage" who "dared to be different" and lived life to the fullest." Some of Melbourne's most notorious gangland figures have been laid to rest under gravestones that do little to reveal their ugly histories Clearly, someone disagreed. They reckon Veniamin shot dead Victor Peirce, too, while Veniamin's sometime boss Carl Williams was convicted of murdering Mark Mallia, but Veniamin was said to have been a witness to Mallia's torture. The murdered Mallia and Peirce lay metres from each other at Altona Memorial Gardens. Williams and Veniamin lay not quite so close to each other at Keilor Cemetery. Neither, at the end, might they have been too close in life. In the months before the industrial relations consultant Mick Gatto shot Veniamin dead Williams was said to have met Benji only in the company of others. He'd lost a faith in his hot-headed little mate who by then wouldn't even go for a pizza without a gun. It's said that gangland figure Mario Condello was planning to have Carl Williams murdered and that Williams planned to have the one-time lawyer dispatched. In the end they were murdered by others, but it is perhaps appropriate that Condello should be interred in a modest crypt at Melbourne General Cemetery, befitting his once respected professional status, while Williams rests in a gaudy gold-plated casket at Keilor where he is remembered as a reliable and loving friend. Metres away, Veniamin's headstone speaks of a special man of courage and loyalty. "God bless you & your cheeky grin," it ends. It also appears to have been sprayed with gunshot. The inscription adds that Veniamin "always brought a smile to everyone's face." My colleague Mark Buttler reported last year that Veniamin was a suspect in the killings - some ordered by Williams - of Peirce, Dibra, Paul Kallipolitis, Frank Benvenuto and Nik Radev. It is not recorded if they died smiling.