Lisa Govan: Club Deroes bikie gang elder Andrew Edhouse to face inquest

A secretive bikie considered to be one of the most dangerous men in Australia will be dragged into the national spotlight next week during an explosive inquest into a 25-year murder mystery.

Club Deroes bikie gang elder Andrew Edhouse was one of the last people seen with Kalgoorlie woman Lisa Govan before she vanished on October 8, 1999.

The 28-year-old’s body was never found, and no arrests have been made.

Mr Edhouse and other gang members have refused to speak to police about what happened when Ms Govan went to their Kalgoorlie clubhouse in the early house of that morning.

The State Coroner will next week try to break the bikie code of silence that has frustrated the investigation into Ms Govan’s suspected murder.

The six-day inquest is the subject of a new true-crime podcast by The West Australian team, which created the Claremont serial killer trial podcast.

The inquest will likely expose flaws in the long-running police inquiry and probe one of the case’s most suspicious particularities — why it took detectives more than a week to raid the Club Deroes clubhouse.

When police did crash their way into the clubhouse days later, they found a square section had been cut out of the carpet.

In 2017, the concrete under that missing carpet was cut up and taken away for forensic examination.

The cold case squad is convinced the decision to postpone that raid — despite credible eyewitnesses saying they saw Ms Govan outside the Boulder Road building around 7.45am on the morning she disappeared — was terminal for the investigation.

Police were suspiciously close to the Deroes in the late 1990s, drinking regularly with outlaw gang members at the Foundry Hotel, next door to the clubhouse when Ms Govan was last seen.

In 2002, the royal commission into police corruption found a senior officer had a financial interest in the now-demolished pub.

The Corruption and Crime Commission is willing to give the coroner top-secret surveillance recordings of crooked police talking to senior bikies soon after Ms Govan vanished.

The Club Deroes is one of Australia’s most secretive outlaw motorcycle gangs.

While prospective members at most clubs endure a six to 12-month nominee-ship, the vetting process to become a patched Deroe takes up to two years.

The club was founded in the early 1970s and, for two decades, was considered a relatively benign underworld influence.

That changed in 1998 when one of its members, Kevin “Mad Mick” Woodhouse, defected to the Coffin Cheaters.

The subsequent battle, which led to Coffin Cheater elder statesman Eddy Withnell almost losing an ear in a pub attack, had Perth on edge for more than a year.

The tit-for-tat bashings and shootings culminated in the assassination of Cheater Marc Chabriere in October 1999.

Police believe Mr Edhouse — who had been partying with Ms Govan the night before she disappeared — had pulled the trigger.

He was charged with Chabriere’s murder, as well as the shooting of Coffin Cheaters Mick Anderson and bikie turncoat Mick Woodhouse, but he walked free after a debacle of a trial at which a detective testified that an inspector had two physical rows with Mr Edhouse when questioning him about gang warfare in December 1998.

It is likely any bikies called as witnesses at the Govan inquest will refuse to answer questions.

The Coroners Act 1996 states that a person who does not obey a summons, order or direction of a coroner is guilty of a crime and is liable to a maximum penalty of imprisonment for five years and to a fine of $100,000.

However, the big penalties were not applied when bikies last tested the coroner’s mettle.

In 1997, four Gods Garbage bikies blamed for the suicide of a 31-year-old Quinninup mother refused to tell the State Coroner what they knew about Lynette Kay Higgins’ death.

They were hit with $1000 infringements for refusing to answer questions at the inquest, then fined an additional $4000 for obstructing the course of justice after the Director of Public Prosecution proceeded with additional perverting the course of justice charges through the criminal courts.

Ms Govan’s parents, Ian and Pat, have previously said they are resigned to any bikies called remaining tight-lipped.

“If the bikies are called to testify at a coronial inquiry and they refuse to provide any information about what happened to Lisa, we wouldn’t be surprised in the least,” Mr and Mrs Govan said in a statement.

“The person responsible — and those with the knowledge of what happened to her — have no morals; otherwise, they would have answered questions already.

“We believe they will still refuse to give up any information they have.”

The coroner is expected to test a police theory that Ms Govan died in the Club Deroes clubhouse and her body was driven away on the back of a white Toyota four-wheel-drive.

Detectives think Ms Govan’s body was driven south of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, thrown down an abandoned mine shaft and detonated with explosives.

Catching Lisa’s Killer: The Inquest is hosted by Ben Harvey and Natalia Bonjolo, creators of the true-crime docuseries, Catching Lisa’s Killer: Fear and Murder in Kalgoorlie.