{"id":22674,"date":"2026-06-01T15:15:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T15:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/22674\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T15:15:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T15:15:17","slug":"chadstone-cold-case-accused-garry-sullivan-faces-court-three-decades-after-armed-robbery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/22674\/","title":{"rendered":"Chadstone cold case accused Garry Sullivan faces court three decades after armed robbery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">A man accused of shooting three people during a violent armed robbery has faced court more than 30 years after the alleged crime.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Garry Sullivan, 78, faced Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday, 32 years after he allegedly confronted two Armaguard employees after they collected the weekend takings from a cinema at the Chadstone shopping centre on May 16, 1994.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The former rugby league player was not required to speak during the brief hearing and no details of his alleged crimes were read to the court.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The exterior of Chadstone Shopping Centre with a Christmas wreath hanging as decoration on it.\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/9f6fc11867dcb6b3d809edc957d815ad.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Chadstone Shopping Centre in Melbourne&#8217;s south-eastern suburbs was the scene of an armed robbery in 1994. (ABC News)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">But his lawyer Felix Best told the court that Sullivan suffered from a diagnosis of coronary artery disease, mouth cancer and coeliac disease, and hadn&#8217;t eaten for a few days due to a lack of gluten-free meals available in police custody.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Weeks prior to his arrest, Victoria Police announced <a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-05-28\/police-arrest-man-armaguard-robbery-chadstone-cinema-cold-case\/106732318\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/106732318\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">they had reopened the investigation into the armed robbery<\/a> after receiving new intelligence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">During a press conference, Detective Inspector Adam Tilley revealed that the at-the-time unknown offender ordered the guards to &#8220;get down, drop the money&#8221; and then shot one of the guards in the right ankle, and the bullet ricocheted into the other guard&#8217;s shoe.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Man on hospital stretcher with police surrounding him\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c59f842d4b65f8199e5b58d7ba86f967.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Two guards were allegedly shot after being ordered to get down by a man wearing a balaclava. (ABC News)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The offender then took the cash-filled bags and stole the two Armaguard revolvers, Detective Inspector Tilley said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">A 40-year-old Doveton man who pursued the fleeing gunman was also shot in the leg, shattering his femur.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Carl Benjaminsen, the son of the now-deceased Armaguard employee Sverre Benjaminsen, said at the time that his father carried the impact of the incident through the rest of his life and the family were keen to &#8220;finally see justice done&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Sullivan did not apply for bail on Monday, and was remanded in custody to appear via videolink at Melbourne Magistrates&#8217; Court on October 13.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man accused of shooting three people during a violent armed robbery has faced court more than 30&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21374,10960,12258,22,21,13499,21375,21376],"class_list":["post-22674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-1994-robbery","tag-armaguard","tag-armed-robbery","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-chadstone","tag-chadstone-robbery","tag-shopping-centre-robbery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}