page_title: Donald Mackay (anti-drugs campaigner)
section_title: Aftermath of Mackay's murder
hierarchical_section_title: Donald Mackay (anti-drugs campaigner) / Aftermath of Mackay's murder
caption_attribution_description: English: A photograph of the Donald Mackay memorial.
context_page_description: Donald Bruce Mackay was an Australian businessman. He was also a prominent substance abuse campaigner who came to media attention and fame in 1977 through the circumstances of his murder, which has never been solved.
context_section_description: In 1980, Al Grassby was charged with criminal defamation when it was alleged that he had asked New South Wales state politician Michael Maher to read in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly a document that imputed Mackay's wife Barbara and her family solicitor were responsible for Mackay's disappearance. An inquiry by John Nagle Q.C. found that "no decent man" could have spread the "scurrilous lies" that Grassby had. Grassby maintained his innocence and fought a 12-year battle in the courts before he was eventually acquitted on appeal in August 1992 and was awarded A$180,000 in costs. Grassby had already lost a civil suit filed by Barbara Mackay, forcing him to unconditionally apologise.
  In 1984, the coroner ruled Mackay had died of "wilfully inflicted gunshot wounds".
  In 1986, hitman James Frederick Bazley was charged over the death. Bazley claimed he was innocent, blaming allegedly corrupt former Sydney detective Fred Krahe as the killer, but was convicted of conspiring with Gianfranco Tizzone, Robert Trimbole, George Joseph and unknown other persons to murder Mackay, as well as the murders of drug couriers Douglas and Isabel Wilson. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
  Gianfranco Tizzoni, who turned informer in 1983, admitted to his 'complicity' in Mackay's murder. Specifically, Tizzoni admitted that he arranged for a hitman he knew as 'Fred' to undertake the contract. When shown photographs of possible suspects, Tizzone fingered Bazley as the trigger man.
  In July 2012, 35 years after his disappearance, the New South Wales police offered a $200,000 reward for information on the whereabouts of Mackay. The reward was considered a last-ditch attempt to gain evidence from reluctant witnesses. In particular those of Bazley, who was 86 in 2012 and unwell. However, in the rare moments he has broken his silence, Bazley denied he was the killer.
caption: Donald Mackay memorial
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