Former Victorian detective Paul Dale threatened to shoot police informer Terence Hodson if he ever betrayed him, an inquest has been told.
Mr Hodson and his wife, Christine, were found dead at their Kew home in May 2004, when Mr Hodson was due to give evidence against Mr Dale in a criminal trial over the burglary of a drug stash house.
Their son Andrew Hodson told police that Mr Dale had once threatened his father at gunpoint if he ever turned his back on him and fellow drug squad detective David Miechel.
"He was told he would be shot if he ever betrayed them," Andrew Hodson said in a statement read to the Victorian Coroners Court on Thursday.
In his statement, Andrew Hodson recalled the day he and his sister Mandy found their parents' bodies.
"I heard my sister scream, 'They're dead, they're dead, they've murdered them'," he said.
Mr Dale and hitman Rodney Charles Collins were charged over the Hodsons' murders in 2009, but the charges were withdrawn the following year when gangland figure Carl Williams was killed in prison.
Williams had claimed Mr Dale paid him $150,000 to have Mr Hodson killed.
A witness, who cannot be named, told the inquest he told Williams to use information about the Hodsons to curry favour with police and discredit a rival.
"The carrot that was going to be dangled was going to be the Hodson case," the witness said.
"Carl Williams was going to say to (homicide detective) Ron Iddles that he had firsthand knowledge of what happened to the Hodsons."
When asked if he thought Williams would lie to police about the case, the witness replied, "Absolutely not".
The witness said he was at a meeting in 2003 in which Mr Dale gave Williams a piece of paper with Mr Hodson's name on it.
The witness told the inquest that Mr Dale said: "Can you take care of this dog for me and I'll have the money dropped off at your mother's."
Collins and Mr Dale deny any involvement.
The inquest, before State Coroner Judge Ian Gray, is examining the identity of the Hodsons' killers, as well as the adequacy of protection offered by police.
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