23-04-2025
EXCLUSIVE Melbourne woman finds her partner dying in elevator after he was stabbed by feared gangster's grandson
The grandson of a feared Melbourne gangster has entered the high stakes killing game by savagely stabbing a man he left dying in a pool of blood.
Kloud Allen, 24, fronted the Melbourne Supreme Court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of 42-year-old handyman Andrew Sullivan.
Allen stabbed Mr Sullivan to death in an elevator at a commission housing block in the inner northern suburb of Carlton on January 16 last year.
The court heard Allen and a 15-year-old accomplice attacked Mr Sullivan with knives after an altercation broke out inside the elevator at the Drummond St building.
In a horrible twist Mr Sullivan's dying body was sent down a floor where the elevator opened up to his partner.
Residents attempted urgent first-aid before Mr Sullivan was rushed to the Royal Melbourne hospital where he died just after midnight.
Allen, a father of two, is the grandson of the deceased Melbourne drug kingpin Dennis 'Mr Death' Allen who ran his family's drug empire with murder and violence until his death in 1987.
His family, which included accused cop-killer Victor Pierce and crime matriarch Kath Pettingill, was fictionalised in the 2010 Australian crime film Animal Kingdom which was later adapted into a US TV series.
Kloud Allen fled to Queensland but was arrested and extradited back to Melbourne where he admitted to police he killed Mr Sullivan.
Allen, who was originally charged with murder, claimed he intended to stab Mr Sullivan in the arm and not in the abdomen in which a autopsy confirmed was the wound which proved to be the fatal blow.
The 15-year-old accomplice, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also stabbed Mr Sullivan several times and was handed a youth supervision order which has since expired.
Just days earlier, Allen, the 15-year-old and another woman, robbed a victim in Port Melbourne.
The court heard Allen pulled a knife then asked his accomplices: 'Should we kill him?'.
The 15-year-old attacked the victim with a machete as the group held him down and stole his Jordan 4 sneakers and iPhone.
'If you tell the police, I'll find you and kill you,' Allen told the victim.
The prosecution submitted the armed robbery was a 'terrifying ordeal accompanied with threats'.
The manslaughter case involved multiple victim impact statements read to the court including those from Mr Sullivan's mum, his partner and his siblings.
Mr Sullivan's mum Beverley Krieger said the 'pain is indescribable'.
'He was the apple of my eye, he was hardworking and selfless,' Ms Krieger said.
Mr Sullivan's partner Desiree Schmidt, who found him dying in the elevator, said he was the 'love of my life'.
'He stolen from me in the most brutal way possible,' she said.
'Since that day I have been living in a nightmare I can never escape, he was the love of my life, we were inseparable, I'm still so lost, completely and utterly lost.'
Other family members said Mr Sullivan would be 'sadly missed'.
A close friend told the court he has felt 'so sad since the loss of my friend'.
'He was kind, gentle and had much to give,' the friend said.
Allen told police he fled to Queensland to visit his children before he was thrown in jail.
The brutal killer also told police he was had consumed half-a-bottle of Jim Beam, a 'couple of goon bags', several 'pingers', sticks of Xanax and took MDMA before he killed Mr Sullivan.
Justice Stephen Kaye said the drug use could not explain away Allen's actions, as he was 'not out of his mind' and was able to return to the elevator to attack Mr Sullivan a second time.
Allen's great grandmother Kath Pettingill, also known as 'Granny Evil', was a convicted drug trafficker and brothel worker who had 10 children.
Jacki Weaver's Oscar-nominated role as Janine 'Smurf' Cody in Animal Kingdom is loosely based on Pettingill.
Allen earned the nickname 'Mr Death' after police suspected the ruthless, tattooed drug dealer was responsible for at least 13 underworld murders.
Police and criminal insiders claimed Allen's preferred sinister method of killing was to inject drug 'hot-shots' into his victims.
Allen, whose family ruled Richmond, Cremorne and South Yarra in the 1980s, was also suspected of filling his bathtub with water from the Yarra River where he drowned victims before throwing their bodies back in the Yarra.
Allen was also suspected of the gruesome chainsaw dismemberment murder of Hells Angels bikie Anton Kenny in 1985.
It's suspected Allen shot guitarist Chris Stockley in the stomach after gate-crashing a Melbourne party.
Disgraced deceased NSW copper Roger Rogerson was also linked to Allen and his mum Kath Pettingill's crime family.
Rogerson was convicted of supplying heroin in a deal with Allen, but was later acquitted on appeal.
Allen, a methamphetamine user who was jailed for 10 years in the 1970s for rape, managed to evade police capture until he died from heart failure in 1987.
The crime empire took a hammer-blow when Allen's brother Victor Pierce was gunned down during the Melbourne gangland wars on May 1, 2002.
Pierce is most famous beating the wrap on the infamous Walsh Street police killings on October 12, 1988 in which young constables Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre were ambushed, shot and murdered while investigating a stolen car in the inner suburb of South Yarra.
Pierce, his brother Trevor Pettingill and Anthony Farrell and Peter McEvoy were charged but later acquitted of the murders.
The horrific slayings were a major plotline of Animal Kingdom as was Dennis Allen's penchant for hot-shot murder.
Pierce's widow Wendy Pierce later claimed in an interview that her slain husband planned and carried out the murders.
Kloud Allen, whose mum Jade Allen is Dennis Allen's daughter and was present at court today, will be sentenced at a later date.
