IT WAS one of the most brutal and callous murders Inverell has ever seen, and two decades on, one family is still desperately seeking answers.
Twenty years will pass on Sunday since 17-year-old Michael “Billy” Hegedus was violently gunned down in his parent’s service station in the northern NSW town.
Billy was shot twice in the chest with a pump-action .22 calibre rifle in a suspected robbery gone wrong at the roadhouse on Warialda Rd, on October 23, 1996.
He was found semi-conscious and was rushed to Inverell hospital but died shortly after.
The killer made off with $40,000 which has never been recovered.
The cold-case murder remains unsolved. Despite four murder trials in the courts, the killer still walks free.
Twenty years might have passed, but the quest to find out what happened and who was behind the cold-blooded killing hasn’t wavered.
“You never forget it but you learn to live with it,” Billy’s stepfather Phil Page said. “It’s has been terribly hard, we went through four murder trials.
”Plenty of things bring back memories of him all the time.”
The murder happened about 7.30pm. Mr Page believes the killer had a deliberate, and well-thought out plan.
“They came to rob the premises and it was calculated, they picked the Wednesday night,” he said.
“It was the three hours that we went out. We worked 6am to midnight every day. It was just a ritual that we would go out Wednesday night, and we would be home by 9pm.
”Every taxi driver knew that, people in the pub would see us, people in the Chinese restaurant would see us.”
Billy, in year 12, was preparing to sit his HSC just before he was gunned down.
In the wake of his death, friends described him as “a bloody good kid” who had a cheeky smile
He was a keen sportsman, playing tennis and basketball, and had dreams of going to the University of New England where he had applied for early entry to study primary school teaching.
On Sunday, Phil and his wife, Patricia, will mark the heartbreaking tragedy as a family at home.
But they hope, despite the passing of time, that the anniversary might prompt someone to finally come forward with even a skerrick of information that could see the cold-case re-opened by police.
“Anything, anything to put a closure to it. There is one person or even two walking around who knows what happened,” Mr Page said.
“The reward is still out there. It’s a cold-case. And the anniversary has stirred it all up again and hopefully it might put some light on it and someone might come forward.”
Breanna Chillingworth
Northern Daily Leader Senior Crime and Court Reporter
Northern Daily Leader Senior Crime and Court Reporter
