Gangland figure Des "Tuppence" Moran slumped to the floor and muttered "oh shit" after he was gunned down in a Melbourne cafe last year, a court has heard.
A witness told a hearing for four co-accused in Mr Moran's murder that as the shots rang out in the Ascot Vale deli, someone yelled, "Hit the floor."
Peter Kirchner, 73, said he had been sitting with Mr Moran outside the Union Road cafe drinking coffee and talking about horses before the shooting.
Mr Moran, who had eaten a bowl of soup, got up and walked into the cafe to pay, Mr Kirchner said.
Mr Kirchner also went inside and shortly after heard what he thought was a car backfiring.
"Someone yelled out, 'Hit the floor,'" Mr Kirchner told the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday.
"I hit the floor."
Mr Kirchner said he saw a silhouette, with a hand holding what he believed to be a gun.
He said he saw Mr Moran slump to the floor and heard him mutter, "Oh shit."
Mr Kirchner told the hearing he heard up to six shots, including three after Mr Moran had fallen to the ground.
After the first shots, he turned around and saw a gun poking through the plastic strips hanging in the deli's doorway.
"All I can remember seeing is a hand with a gun pumping shots into Des," Mr Kirchner said in a statement tendered to the court.
Mr Kirchner told the court he lay on the ground for two or three minutes before he was helped to his feet.
He remained in the cafe with the proprietors and another man who had locked himself in the toilet until police arrived.
No one moved towards Mr Moran's body, which lay in a pool of blood near the doorway.
The witness was giving evidence on the first day of a committal hearing for four people accused of Mr Moran's murder.
The co-accused include Mr Moran's sister-in-law, Judy Moran, 65, who appeared in court on Monday in a wheelchair after suffering a fractured hip.
Suzanne Kane, 46, Geoffrey Armour, 44, and Michael Farrugia are also charged with murder.
Two other witnesses, Gen Hope and Judy Marston, were walking nearby when they heard five loud bangs.
Two people were running down the street toward them and one yelled out `run', causing Ms Hope to break into a sprint.
Ms Marston called out to her to stop.
They then saw a car pull out of a nearby carpark.
Ms Hope initially told police she thought a man was driving the car, but the court heard she made a second statement after seeing a news report on television featuring Judy Moran.
She told the court it made her think "that's what I saw in the car".
Ms Marston said she had assumed the car's driver was male, but it did not look like either of the men she had seen running towards her earlier.
The committal hearing is expected to run for three weeks.
Front page
Local News
RSS Feed