Australia’s most wanted fugitive was living in a rubbish-strewn house full of animal cages and junk when police finally tracked him down.
Graham Potter, 64, was arrested on Monday after spending more than a decade on the run.
He had allegedly skipped bail on charges in Melbourne for conspiracy to murder in 2010 and had since evaded authorities by constantly changing his appearance.
In body-worn vision released by Queensland police during the raid to capture Potter, the shocking condition of the house in which he hid out at Ascham St, Ravenshoe, 120km south-west of Cairns in far north Queensland, was revealed.
The footage shows police locating Potter in a squalid room filled with empty cardboard boxes, a chicken coop and old bed.
Potter is seen hiding behind a bunk bed topped with multiple old mattresses. There are large cobwebs on the walls.
‘This is the police. Do not move. Put your hands where I can see them,’ a police officer yells at him.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Potter nonchalantly responds.
Graham Potter stumbles on a chicken coop after police discovered him inside a squalid room filled with old cardboard boxes and rubbish
Old furniture, fridges and other junk are strewn randomly through the Ravenshoe house in which Potter was found
A stack of old mattresses are pictured on the bunk bed behind which Potter was found hiding
Potter was taken in handcuffs from the house down a staircase piled with old newspapers, magazines and general rubbish
The house on Ascham St, Ravenshoe, 120km south-west of Cairns, where fugitive Graham Potter was found by police
As he is led from the house in handcuffs, piles of newspapers and magazines are seen stacked on a staircase.
Old furniture, fridges and other junk are strewn randomly through the house.
Empty beer bottles can be seen lined up in the front windows of the house, with the curtains tightly drawn.
Police said Potter denied his identity when located, while the home’s owner said Potter was known to her as ‘Ned’.
The owner, Sandi Feller, told The Australian she would not comment about Potter’s discovery at the house under she’d spoken to a solicitor.
‘They didn’t arrest me. They haven’t charged me, but that might come yet too, who knows?’ she said.
Potter had evaded police for 12 years before he was located at the far north Queensland property
Empty beer bottles can be seen lined up in the front windows of the Ascham St property, with the curtains tightly drawn
A neighbour told 9News Queensland he had never seen Potter at the house.
‘I’ve never seen the man they arrested this morning,’ the man said.
‘To know that was right beside you… I’ve got a four-year-old son, to know he was living right there…’
Another resident of the street, Paul Adamson, said the house where the fugitive was found was known as a junkyard but had actually been ‘tidied up’ recently.
‘At the moment it looks the best it’s been since I’ve been here. You couldn’t even see the house two weeks ago.’ he said.
Mr Adamson said Potter had been known to visit the house.
‘He was there years ago. He was on the run years ago and they’d found he’d been staying there,’ he said.
Graham Gene Potter was released from prison in 1996 after serving 15 years. He was dubbed Australia’s ‘number one fugitive’ by Victoria Police in 2017
Potter was jailed for life for the murder of teenager Kim Barry (pictured), 19, in Wollongong in 1981
Victorian detectives are travelling to the Queensland to seek the extradition of Potter to Victoria when he appears in Mareeba Magistrates Curt today.
The convicted murderer, who has an extensive criminal history, was dubbed Australia’s ‘number one fugitive’ by Victoria Police acting assistant crime commissioner Paul De Santo in 2017.
Historical police records show Potter lining up for a mugshot as early as 1976, when he was aged just 18.
Five years later, he was jailed for life for the murder of teenager Kim Barry, 19, in Wollongong, after he beat her and cut off her head.
He was released in 1996 after serving just 15 years.
At the time of his arrest in 2010, Potter was connected to Victorian and New South Wales organised crime figures and had allegedly been recruited to carry out gangland killings.
He was one of three charged over the alleged planned murders of two men related to disputes within a drug syndicate over a failed importation.
Potter skipped an appearance at Magistrates court in February 2010 and has eluded police ever since.
In August 2010 he bragged about how he had used a number of costumes, including wigs, fat suits, and hair colour changes, to mingle in society undetected.
His strategies were unearthed in letters discovered at a campsite in Tully, 140km south of Cairns, on August 28 that year by officers investigating a tip-off about his possible location.
Potter’s stint in Tully was the closest police would come to catching him before he was finally apprehended this week, in another town just 128km north west.
Acting on a tip off, an army of officers and police dogs stormed the ramshackle Ravenshoe house around 8.45am on Monday to find Potter lying at the top of a dingy bunk-bed.
