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A much-anticipated murder trial will not only detail how a Perth bikie boss was assassinated by a trained sniper five years ago, but also lays bare the alleged violent and lawless lives of Western Australia’s criminal underworld.
David James Pye, a member of the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang, is accused of paying a former soldier to shoot dead Nick Martin, head of rival gang the Rebels, at Kwinana Motorplex in 2020.
David Pye leaves court during an appearance in 2013. Credit: AAPIMAGE/Angie Raphael
He denies the accusation but, during his opening address on Wednesday in the WA Supreme Court, prosecutor Justin Whalley, SC, told Justice Joseph McGrath that the state’s prime witness – an ex-soldier who has admitted carrying out the killing – would point the finger directly at Pye.
Whalley said the sniper, whose identity is suppressed, would tell the court Pye paid him to murder Martin and also asked if he would kill a former girlfriend and fellow Comanchero Ray Cilli.
Whalley claimed an Instagram message between the soldier and Pye in 2019 kicked off the chain of events that led to Martin’s death.
The sniper, who lived in Waikiki and had served in Iraq, had recently returned to Australia after volunteering for medical charities overseas and was suffering PTSD from his active service in the artillery corps.
Whalley told the court Pye reached out to the soldier to ask him about the veteran-run charity Shadows of Hope, which led to conversations about sourcing the drug MDMA, which the sniper believed he could use to treat his PTSD.
The pair met in person for the first time in mid-2020, during which Pye allegedly revealed to the 35-year-old that he was at the time on home detention bail over allegations of sexual assault against a former girlfriend.
Whalley claimed that Pye told the man his ex was in witness protection in the state’s north-west and allegedly offered the soldier $380,000 to kill her and dispose of her body.
“He told him it needed to look like she just disappeared, otherwise he would be prime suspect,” Whalley said.
“[The soldier] declined to commit the murder on the basis he thought it was a stupid idea, and he didn’t kill innocent women.”
Police outside court on day one of David Pye’s murder trial.Credit: 9 News Perth
But conversations between the pair continued, Whalley alleged, and on another occasion the soldier sold Pye some ammunition.
During the delivery of that ammunition in July of 2020, Whalley alleged Pye then started to talk to the soldier about Martin and the “history of antagonism and disagreement between them”, including Pye’s belief that Martin had put a contact out to have him killed.
Whalley then alleged that Pye asked the man to kill Martin, giving him $10,000 to scope out the situation.
The soldier was at the time out of work due to a workplace injury, had just launched a mobile coffee van business with his girlfriend and was in need of money, the court heard.
The man then “conducted reconnaissance of Nick Martin and his house”, Whalley said, and exchanged messages with Pye about what he had found, which included flying a drone over his home to scope out the security system.
But after he was told that Martin regularly attended drag-racing events at the Kwinana Motorplex, the soldier suggested he kill him at long range for the fee of $150,000.
On December 12, 2020 just after 8.30pm, Martin was fatally shot during a race meeting in front of his horrified family and members of the public.
A man sitting behind Martin was hit with the same bullet that exited Martin’s lower back.
Whalley told the court Pye later texted the soldier two coffin emojis and a hand clap.
“Was there two?” the soldier responded.
“One dead, one serious,” Pye allegedly responded.
Pye denied the allegations, with his legal counsel David Hallowes, SC, telling the court the sniper was “a liar”, that Pye never suggested he kill his ex-girlfriend, and that he did not pay him to shoot Martin.
“The credibility of [the soldier] is central to this,” he said.
“The allegation came from [the soldier] and the prosecutions case stands or falls on that.
“We say [the soldier] is a liar. We say dishonesty courses through the veins of [the soldier] and we’ll show that through our cross-examination of him.
The soldier is the prosecution’s first witness and will begin giving evidence on Thursday.
Pye is facing trial by judge alone.
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