'Vampire' shot as revenge, Vic court hears

A woman attacked by a man claiming to be a vampire says her ex-boyfriend told her he gunned him down, a Melbourne court has heard.

A woman raped by a self-proclaimed vampire gigolo claims her ex-boyfriend bragged about shooting him dead, using his fingers to imitate a gun firing as they sat in a Melbourne bar.

Mark Adrian Perry, 45, is charged with murdering Shane Chartres-Abbott who was shot outside his Melbourne home in 2003.

Perry's former partner, who cannot be named, told the Melbourne Magistrates Court Perry vowed to get Mr Chartres-Abbott as retribution for an attack on her.

Mr Chartres-Abbott, 28, was working as a male escort at the time of his death and was on trial for raping and biting off part of the woman's tongue.

After the attack, she told police Mr Chartres-Abbott believed he was a vampire who needed to drink blood to survive.

The woman claims that Perry confessed to the murder years after the shooting.

"We sat inside the pub, and after saying hello (Perry) whispered to me `I am the one who shot him'," the woman told police in a statement tendered to the court.

"He said that he put his arm around the guy's neck then shot him in the head.

"He showed me by putting one arm around his neck and with the other hand he made a gun sign out of his fingers and pointed at his head."

The woman told Perry's committal hearing that he had told her before Mr Chartres-Abbott was gunned down that "something needs to be done about this guy".

Police allege Perry murdered Mr Chartres-Abbott as revenge along with co-accused Evangelos Goussis, 45, and another man who cannot be named.

Perry has pleaded not guilty to murder.

He was arrested in Perth in July after six years on the run.

Magistrate Elizabeth Lambden on Friday found there was sufficient evidence for a jury to convict Perry and ordered him to stand trial.

The trio will face a directions hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court later this month, ahead of their trial next March.


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Source: AAP


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