Port's underbelly

It's a decade to the day since Port Melbourne's ignomious contribution to underworld notoriety. At about 9:20pm Victor Peirce was shot, at point-blank range, several times in the chest having got out of his car opposite Coles. As confirmed by his wife, Peirce had been involved in the Walsh Street Killings (around which the plot of the movie Animal Kingdom is based).

According to the Underbelly dramatisation, the hitman was Andrew Veniamin; who was himself murdered in March 2004. His driver was eventually jailed for his part.

But that wasn't the end of the Peirce saga. In 2009 Victor's daughter hacked a man with a meat cleaver at the Clare Castle hotel. She died later that year of a suspected drug overdose, although doubts were raised about whether there may have been foul play there too.