A career in homicide means living with unfinished business. For Sol Solomon, 35 years of Victoria Police's toughest detective work culminated in one particularly galling setback: the sudden loss of his star witness.
Carl Williams was many things. The convicted murderer and drug trafficker from Melbourne was a central figure in the Melbourne gangland killings as well as their final victim. Between January 1998 and August 2010, 36 underworld figures were murdered in Melbourne in what became known as the gangland killings. For Solomon, Williams represented something more valuable: the potential to resolve cases that might otherwise remain cold.
Solomon met with Williams several times at Barwon Prison, where he was in custody. During their first meetings he was non-committal, but later agreed to assist police in return for indemnity over the brutal murder of the Hodsons, who were both police informants. These conversations, stretched across weeks, yielded detailed statements about how crimes had unfolded in Melbourne's underworld.
Then, on 19 April 2010, the arrangement collapsed. Williams was beaten to death with the stem of an exercise bike by another inmate, Matthew Charles Johnson. For Solomon, the loss was immediate and absolute. The detective had been building prosecution cases around Williams' testimony. The murder case against two men accused of killing a police informer took what would prove to be a fatal blow.
The consequences became clear within months. Solomon gave a scathing statement to an inquiry into police use of informers, labelling the decision to drop the evidence of another witness as "unethical" and possibly "unlawful". The forced abandonment of that witness left Solomon with neither his primary cooperator nor his backup. Cases went nowhere. Justice remained elusive.
Solomon's reflections on why Williams' death hit so hard carry weight beyond the loss of a single witness. Detectives from the Purana Taskforce believe that Carl Williams was responsible for at least 10 of the 36 murders that occurred during the gangland killings. Williams had knowledge that could have closed multiple files. Solomon had been hopeful the prosecution could be resurrected but the order meant they couldn't contact another key witness, compel her to give evidence or even investigate her as a possible conduit for leaked material that identified the informer as a police informant.
For a detective approaching the end of a career spent pursuing murderers and their handlers, such losses define legacy. Solomon's 35 years of homicide work spanned one of Victoria Police's most turbulent periods, when the line between investigation and political pressure became dangerously blurred. Williams' death in prison, whatever its cause, represented the erasure of evidence that could have given families answers and the justice system closure.
The reflection comes late in a long career, and the cost of Williams' death is still being counted.