Two men have been charged with the murder of a 23-year-old man killed in a suspected case of mistaken identity at the height of a gangland war.
Taskforce Falcon detectives on Wednesday morning arrested a 43-year-old man and a 19-year-old man at properties in Casula and Bankstown, and charged them with the murder of Condell Park plumber John Versace.
Versace was ambushed in the driveway of his family home around 10.30pm on May 19 and shot several times at close range. He died at the scene.
Taskforce Falcon detectives took carriage of the investigation into Versace’s murder when it was established, to quell a gangland conflict sparked by the fracture of the notorious Alameddine crime family.
Versace was not known to police, and was not associated with the Alameddine crime family. Detectives suspect his killing was a case of mistaken identity.
In the hours after Versace’s death, which bore all the hallmarks of a gangland assassination, police described it as an “extremely brutal and violent execution-style murder”.
Two men have been charged with the murder of John Versace, 23, who was ambushed in the driveway of his family’s Condell Park home.
Versace had just reversed his ute into the driveway of his family’s Dalton Avenue home around 10.30pm when he was ambushed by a masked and hooded gunman dressed entirely in black. He backed away from his killer, but was trapped against the garage door and shot at least four times with a “Glock-style pistol”, police said at the time.
As many as 10 shots were fired before Versace’s body slumped to the ground and his alleged killer made off in a Toyota Corolla, believed to have been stolen last December, that had been parked across the driveway to thwart any potential escape attempt.
