Hells Angels 'made me murder'
by Karen Michelmore
February 25, 2005
From: AAP
A TEENAGER told police he killed two Thai prostitutes as a "favour" for the
outlaw motorcycle gang the Hells Angels, a Darwin court was told today.
Ben William McLean, 19, said he owed the gang $50,000
and they had threatened to kill him unless he removed the two women from the
streets of Darwin.
"They said that they will knock me off unless I do them a favour, to repay
the money," Mr McLean told police shortly after his arrest, in an interview
replayed to court today.
"What was the favour?" Brisbane police asked in the
tape.
"Get two prostitutes off the street. They said I had
to kill them."
Mr McLean and friend Phu Ngoc Trinh, also 19, are
standing trial in the Northern Territory Supreme Court over the drowning
murders of the two women in the crocodile-infested Adelaide River,
south-east of Darwin, last year.
The floating bodies of Phuangsri Kroksamrang, 58, and
Somjai Insamnan, 27, were found in the river by crocodile-spotting tour
operators.
Mr McLean told police Mr Trinh had agreed to help him
kill the women after he had been approached in a Darwin pub by two Hells
Angels two months earlier, the court was told.
The men had shown him photographs of the women and
told him their names.
"I was using speed and I ripped them off," Mr McLean
told police, explaining why he did what they wanted.
However, Prosecutor Rex Wild, QC, had previously told
the jury to disregard any suggestion the Hells Angels had anything to do
with the murders.
He told the jury in his opening the defence had
admitted it was an "untrue story".
The court heard today that Mr McLean told police Mr
Trinh had picked up the two women and taken them to his parent's farm in
rural Darwin, where Mr McLean was sleeping.
The women stayed for three or four hours at the
property, with Mr Trinh having sex with both women and Mr McLean having sex
with the younger of the two.
The teenagers then told the women to sit on a couch
while they bound their ankles and wrists with cable ties.
Neither woman screamed, Mr McLean said, but one
resisted and he held her in a "hug", before both women were placed in the
back of the Trinh family van.
Mr McLean drove to the Adelaide River, while Mr Trinh
strangled or suffocated the women in the back, the court heard.
"We pulled over and went to dump them off the bridge
... and they were already dead," Mr McLean said in the interview played to
court.
"They weren't moving or kicking or anything.
"If anyone's going to throw me off a bridge I'd be
kicking or saying something."
The court has previously heard tests showed the women
were alive, but possibly unconscious, when they went into the water.
The pair put batteries on the women's legs, "to
supposedly hold them under", Mr McLean said in the interview.
"We picked them up and dropped them off one by one."
The pair then drove back to the Trinh family farm and
slept until the next morning, when they went back to work picking
vegetables.
"We had to pick ochre because you can't miss it
for a day, it goes too big," Mr McLean told police in the interview.
The trial continues.
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