He worked with portfil of prison and I explained I was with Corrections Victorious, so we both knew the same job, we knew the same prisoners, so we did work.

Your book is really the memoir of a screw dog Maggott.

Yeah, yeah, it was funny like that, as you.

Found out, to your shock and horror the night the Friday night you went to the sea Ballah.

It ended in blood, sweat and tears.

Yeah, a lot of blood.

I'm Andrew Rule is his life in crimes.

Today.

We have another author in the studio which is a bit different from the usual author because this author he's a first time author, and actually he is a lifetime prison officer.

He is known in the system by the younger officers as a dinosaur because he's done more than twenty years in one of the toughest jobs that you can do.

I would suggest his pen name is Bruce McLeod.

It's not his real name.

We won't use his real name because that would be a giveaway.

The authorities take a dim view of prison officers using their real names when they do interviews and things, and so Bruce will be fairly tentative about some aspects of what he talks about.

But he's going to tell us the reason he wrote his book, which has been recently published.

It's called Justifying the Means, and he was prompted to do this probably by the sudden death of a very good friend.

Bruce.

Welcome to our humble studio.

Tell us about the death of your friend and how you heard about it.

Thank you, Andrew.

Well, Brian was my best friend, almost like a brother to me because we had that shared experience of working in corrections.

Yep, it was a Friday night we were traveling into My wife and I were traveling into the city to stay for the weekend, and it was also a chance to catch up with Brian and his wife as well.

So how long ago is this?

Two thousand and eighteen.

Just before COVID, a couple of years before.

So we were driving into the city from the west from down Geelong Way, so basically traveling in.

We were staying at the Sebel in Flinders Lane.

So as we came over the Westgate Bridge on the Friday night, as we normally would tune into the Channel nine news that were similar cast on FM radio, and that's when I heard what did you hear?

Man's body was found at moreency that.

Would interest you because you knew your friend lived at.

That's correct, And at that stage my initial thought was, I wonder if Brian knew who this person was.

They then basically mentioned the street name, and that's when it hit me that I thought my body just instinctively knew it was Brian.

I couldn't describe it.

It was just a feeling of something.

Yeah, it was just something about that the story in the way it was announced that I thought it was him, and you.

Were right, it was.

Yeah.

Immediately my wife basically started to call his mobile number than his wife's number.

All we got was just answering messages.

We were sending text messages.

We were trying to contact other people in regards to had they heard the news and had they heard from from Brian or his wife.

We kept driving.

It was hard to describe because I couldn't I can't even remember how I got to the hotel.

We had a feeling of dread absolutely, and at that stage we checked in, raced upstairs to our room and switched on the TV to try and get more information.

We were doing searches on Google, anything that we could get right to just basically give us a little bit more in detail about what had happened, and then what happened next.

We eventually saw the late news on Channel nine that night, and the images that.

Still for your weekend in the city.

Yeah, but the images still burned into my memory, and that was the female officer leading Brian's wife out from.

The house, who you recognized.

I recognized straight away.

I recognized the house, her car, and she's been let out, and I just sunk to my knees and realized that was when my whole world just changed.

Right now, Brian had been murdered.

At that stage, I didn't realize.

It wasn't until much later in the evening that we've got a phone call from his wife.

She'd actually stepped out of the police station.

Obviously she had been there doing interviews with detectives, but she stepped out for a cigarette.

Rang our first thought was what happened.

She basically described the fact that she went around there to find him, and I can still almost hear it in my mind, you know, her words saying there was just so much blood, so much blood, and it was haunting at that stage to realize that, you know, we still didn't know if he'd taken his own life or if he was murdered, But the more and more news came out about it, and we understood then at that stage he was murdered.

Yeah, and the fact that there was so much blood would suggest that it's done with a sharp instrument, which is possibly It's not impossible to get itself with a knife.

No, but yeah, the way in which he actually was murdered was quite brutal and horrific, right, And that those details came out obviously during the trial later on, But that that period where we were sort of finding out about bits and pieces of information, obviously your mind starts racing as far as all the ifs and what happened, and you try and start to put things together.

I know we've chatted earlier about how we should tell your story or your stories, but I think now our listeners will probably want to know how you knew Brian and then find out what happened, what led up to this.

You were both employed as prison officers at different prisons, different systems.

You've had that in common, but you didn't actually work shoulder to shoulder.

No, but you were great friends because you worked in the same yeah profession.

Yeah, absolutely, How and when did you meet?

Very funny story.

Two thousand and six.

Yep, it's almost twenty years ago.

Now, yeah, we first met.

We're at a pub one night.

Back in those days, I actually smoked myself.

So we were up at a rooftop bar.

My wife had gone to the bar to get a drink.

She'd been gone for a couple of minutes, so obviously I went looking for her, found her talking to Brian's wife and went up and my wife introduced to her to me and we had a bit of a chat.

Next thing, I got bumped in the back from behind, and I had this hot breath in my ear good a screwed dog, maggot, and my world just basically tunnel vision.

Then I immediately thought it's the next prisoner who was basically going to take a swing at me, And turned around and found this guy standing there who was six foot four, probably one hundred and fifty kilos, built like a brick shit house, and they had this massive cheesy grin on his face.

So you knew he wasn't And yeah, I.

Realized then he'd stitched me up, and he explained, Yeah, he explained.

Then he worked in the private sector, so he worked with port Fillip prison and I explained I was with Corrections Victorious, so we both knew the same job, we knew the same prisoners, so we did work.

Your book is the Memoir of a screw dog maggot.

Yeah, yeah, it was funny like that.

I've been caught out a couple of times.

One other time by another officer at a supermarket and yeah, not expecting it and scarce of ship out of here.

You hear about cop humor, but the.

Our humored tends to run very very dark.

Very dark, so you hit it straight off with him this but two very different men.

Yeah.

I think our friendship really grew by the fact that we did work at different locations.

We understood the system, we understood the role and what we would actually achieve, but we were separated by those work locations that we could vent to each other, okay, and we knew that information's not going to get back to the actual workplace.

And that was fantastic because this is a job that you need to vent, you need to event to people that understood the standard family don't realize what it is that you do, what you go through, what you see and hear, an experience and in some aspects of the job, it's almost unthinkable as what you actually go through and see and experience.

So they become very good friends.

Yeah, so to talk to someone like that, we became best friends.

We became almost like brothers.

We never walked the same tears, but we experienced the same things.

So we understood fears.

Yeah, we understood each other so well.

And unnecessary relationship in your business.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He was someone that no matter how bad my day was, I could talk to him and he would make things better.

Now he's happy, go lucky, good company, is a man mountain.

There's a lot to like about it.

Bluck like that in your business and he failure with joy and confidence and all sorts of things.

What happened?

What went wrong for Brian?

He was the sort of guy that, obviously, through that role, he would jump in and help anyone.

So one day while at Port Phillip, he was basically running to someone's aid another officer up on a tier.

Yep, he got jumped from behind, ended up falling downstairs and hurt his back.

And a big heavy man falling downstairs is not a great thing.

Your own size is against you.

Yeah, because you fall harder.

Yeah, well that's correct.

I think he went through something like about four back operations.

But at the end of that doctors then told him he would never work again.

But as a result of that incident and being attacked and then his injuries, he ended up with a massive payout out from g fours, who basically run Port Phillip Prison.

So as a result of being told you're never going to work again, he was in constant pain.

If he sat too long, he had to stand because he was in pain.

If you stood too long, he had to sit down because he was in pain.

And so that did you see the change in him?

Yeah, he basically he did change.

He became probably a little bit more isolated, only having sort of close friends and that around people that understood what he was going through.

We're sorry.

When this happened, this would be.

Two three years before the before Yeah.

Yeah, so this is roughly twenty fifteen or something like that.

Yeah, something like that.

I think.

So he gets a payout.

So you know, he's assaulted in jail.

It does happen.

You don't always get that badly hurt when but he did, and he couldn't sit, he couldn't work.

It did Buggery's life up.

He gets a payout.

Now, when you say a massive payout, not a life changing just something that covered, you know, not the sort of thing where you can go buy a house with it.

No.

No, he got a massive payout in the sense that it wasn't as large as what he thought, but the payout ensured that they would pay for all his medical expenses in the future.

Right, so that he did go out and buy a brand new land cruise.

I think he spent one hundred and twenty thousand on that and was all kidded out for him.

He was an outdoors man, He was a fisherman, a hunter.

He loved the outdoors, love camping, getting away.

So there was a lot of aspects of his life that just changed in that one instance.

It was so devastating to him as far as not being able to work that he then looked upon as far as an idea of basically supporting himself something that he could invest.

He wanted to invest his money, invest his.

Money, get some sort of return on that to set himself up a little bit more for the future.

The future because he realized he probably couldn't run the gym's mowing franchise or anything, because he his back was shot.

Yeah, and yeah, a terrible thing.

So here's your friend.

He's got some money, he's got a nice new car, but he knows that it's not going to last if he can't invest in and get a return.

So he looks around to invest his money and get a return.

What happened then, So he basically invested his money with a friend that he knew, somebody.

I had no knowledge of this person, although I did find out a lot later, but at that stage he invested money.

Now, I'm of probably the old school where I had no idea it was Brian's business.

I didn't ask him about how much it was or who he invested with, but that's what he was looking at doing.

It was a hangover from his previous life.

He'd been a tradesman, Yes, that's where he joined the job.

He was a chippy for a long time.

And he would have met and known quite a lot of people.

Yeah, as a trades have been working on construction sites, you met all the other trades.

Yeah, and various people as supply things and so on.

So we know quite a lot of people in that area.

Yeah, that's right.

And one of them, we would think is the person that he invested with.

Correct, This person obviously had a few people invest with him.

Right, he canvassed.

But yeah, he had a project.

He had an idea.

I believe it was something to do with the commercial drainage system, something along those lines.

But the month before Brian was actually murdered, he came around to our house.

We'd moved into a new home.

Brian came around.

Even Brian came to your house.

Yep, So even with.

All the pain that he was going through, he actually helped me put up our clothesline.

Did he We sat down afterwards, having a few drinks, and he told me then that he was basically asking this guy for the for the money back.

Even at that stage I had no idea how much he invested with this person.

But that was the month before, and he said he was asking for this money back.

Right, And it didn't really register then that it was particularly particularly a problem.

No, No, he wasn't really upset about it.

No.

I had again no knowledge of who it was all the amount.

But bryan demeanor was not He wasn't distressed about it.

No, No, it was just having a normal conversation over a few drinks and he said, yeah, I looked obviously not going too well.

I'm asking for the money back, right.

But as you found out, to your shock and horror, the night the Friday night you went to the Sea bull, Yeah, it ended in Yeah, blood, sweat and tears.

Yeah, a lot of blood.

You contacted the police, didn't you, Yeah, because the police didn't know who did it initially, No, so, and you had an idea.

Well, I basically it was probably a week later.

We were still waiting.

Obviously the croenter had Brian's body, so there was no funeral.

Was still waiting to hear of things and find out more information.

But yeah, I ran crime stoppers.

I spoke to a female detective who rang and.

They took notice of you.

Yeah.

I wanted to explain to her that although I didn't have a suspect in mind, I wanted her to understand who Brian was, even though he was no longer a prison officer.

Once you're an officer, you're always an officer.

You have what does that mean?

You have that personality?

You have that basically the understanding that you keep people at a distance.

Trusting people is very very difficult, and you want them.

Yeah, you basically, keep people in your peripheral all the time.

You don't turn your back on anyone.

What you were telling the police officer or reminding them, is that because of his years as a prison officer, Brian wasn't the sort a bloke that would have somebody that he perceived to be a danger or possible potential danger, or a stranger up close and personal.

He wouldn't have them behind him.

He would he'd keep them inside, but he'd have all those little tricks that you blogs have as do bounce of security guys.

You see it with people in that business.

They're always watchful.

They got their head on a stick moving and Brian was like that.

So therefore you deduced, and you told the police this.

You deduced that whoever did this was someone he knew well, that he trusted.

Correct.

That then gave them the idea that perhaps they should look at people he knew well, not a random thing or somebody he didn't know well.

That and the fact that it involved money involved.

I had no idea, but certainly I assumed it would have been a large amount of money he would have invested.

But as I said, I think six figures.

Brian, like all officers.

We become hyper vigilant.

You see threats everywhere, so for him to turn his back, and it was after that that I think it was a week later they basically made an arrest.

We then had the funeral.

I actually got approached by officers from where he worked, from Port Phillip, and they spoke to me.

After the funeral, I told a funny story about Brian.

We actually I actually got him a tour of the prison.

I was working at Melbourne Assessment Prison at the time and he basically came in for a tour and showed him around.

We both knew a few prisoners there and that.

But after the funeral, I actually got approached by officers from Port Phillip who said, if we ever get hold of this guy, and I said to him, I'll stop you right there.

Do not tell me.

I do not want to know.

As far as and I stayed away from the trial.

I stayed away from a lot of it because I didn't want this person having influence over my emotions and making own decisions.

That would affect very wise in the long run.

And the only thing I wanted management to know where I was working was just simply who this person was and the fact that I asked he not be sent to that prison, okay, and they basically said, don't worry as long as you're working here.

He had not come here and not come here.

That was very very good of them, really, it was.

Yeah, I really appreciated that.

I didn't know how I would react to come face to face with his killer.

Just to go back to the crime, this central crime, a crime that's really affected your life and made you decide to write this book indirectly, what happened with it.

He's invested the money, the guy with the money with his project drainage game or whatever, it hasn't worked or he hasn't got the money to pay in back.

What came to a head?

What happened?

So during the trial, it came out that he basically went around to speak to Brian and he used to a ruse to basically go and use the toilet.

He then came out claimed that the toilet wasn't flushing right.

Brian went in to actually have a look at it, and this guy grabbed a knife from the kitchen, stabbed Brian in the back, so back and neck about thirty four times.

So this was at least to that extent.

It was a planned attack.

I mean, whether he planned it for two days or two weeks or two minutes, he planned it to get him to get step into the toilet and do that with a ruse.

He's a plan.

I can't comment.

I don't know.

Clearly, even if it's only a short term thing he did.

Yeah, he wasn't you know, we had an argument and then we start hitting each other.

It wasn't that.

The only thing I would say is that during the trial, his defense team trying to use an alleged story that Brian had threatened this person's children, and the judge basically saw it for what it was, completely fanciful, that he never made any threats and all of that, and a as a result, he ended up with twenty eight years I think around twenty two twenty three on the bottom as far as but yeah, twenty eight years maximum.

Most of the rest of his life he'll be yeah, yeah, he'll come out a very old man, if he comes out at all.

But I think for myself that the night Brian was murdered, it was like it wasn't something broke inside me.

It was like a spark or a light just went out.

I had a lot of grief and guilt after the funeral, after all the trial.

And that's basically I didn't have my friend that I could speak to anymore.

I couldn't ring him and tell him about my day or did the assault or an incident at work or anything like that.

So I would wake at two three o'clock in the morning and start writing notes on that on my phone as a way of still talking to him.

Yes, and that's what ultimately led to writing the actual book.

The book is a long letter to your dead mate, is Well.

It's inspired by his story.

I like to think of it as telling his story.

He was someone that mattered as all correction offices, what we do and what we go through.

It's very hard your book justifying the means.

It's how would you characterize who are you talking to in that book?

Who you read?

It's pretty much, well, it's a psychological I've put it as a psychological crime thriller.

I had a writing coach.

Obviously, debut books, I've never tried this before, so I had a writing coach who basically read parts of it and came back with her first line on her report was thoroughly enjoyed your story, right, good, But you had a lot of questions what happens to this person and what happens here and that?

So that certainly gave me the confidence to continue writing.

Is this a work of complete fiction?

Fiction based on real events, real events, just but with false names?

How to characterize it real events with Yeah, I've changed a few names and dates and.

A few Bruce, but you're not Bruce at all.

No, no, but that's a funny story.

As well.

As I used to DJ forty years ago.

Did you no clubs?

Did you?

Yeah, a few of your future customers in there.

Well, I still do.

Actually DJ mixes for a few close friends and that.

Yeah, a lot of seventies and eighties and that.

But at the time, I think it was nineteen eighty four, a movie came out they called me Bruce, and I did a lot of martial arts around that time.

So the guy that I used to DJ with said, I'll call you Bruce from now on, and he still does to this day, as in Bruce Lee as in Yeah, that was the film interesting we think about it.

It was a comedy, wasn't probably one of the best, but it was quite.

Fun with Bruce, And so that's why you chose that.

Yeah, I mean, there's this idea that until you grieve, you can't move on.

We act and move about, we put on the uniform, we put on the fake smile, but until you actually grieve, you can't move on.

We're going through the motions and I never really understood that until Brian was murdered.

And that's the end of our first part of the story being told to us by Bruce McLeod, serving prison officer who has written a book called Justifying the Means.

Next week we will hear the rest of Bruce's story.

Thanks Andrew, Thanks for listening.

Life in Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for True Crime Australia.

Our producer is Johnty Burton.

For my columns, features and more, go to Heroldsun dot com dot au forward slash Andrew rule one word.

For advertising inquiries, go to news Podcasts sold at news dot com dot au.

That is all one word news podcasts sold And if you want further information about this episode, links are in the description.