Mike Dixon

Report appearing in the tabloid
Pics on Sunday
The boy who couldn’t tell right from
wrong … he had everything writes Cynthia
Sponge.
DAVID PAGET had everything
money could buy — but
that didn’t satisfy the twentyyear-old
rich kid from Canberra’s
plush suburb of Red Hill.
He wanted excitement
Late on Friday, the university
dropout got more than he bargained
for. In the clear blue
waters of the Great Barrier
Reef, David saw his best
friend, Timothy (Timmo) Price,
shoot and kill narcotics officer,
Steven Milkovitz.
Seconds later Price was himself
dead, shot by Officer
Milkovitz’s colleague, Rodney
O’Neill. Officer O’Neill said he
had no choice but to fire at his
attacker.
‘He had already holed one of
our hulls with an explosive
charge and I expected him to
fire at the other,’ he said.
‘I didn’t shoot to kill. I did my
best to avoid serious injuries
but with my boat being thrown
around in the waves it wasn’t
easy. I shot in self-defense.’
Officers O’Neill and Milkovitz
had earlier removed two scuba
tanks, packed with cocaine,
from the inflatable boat used by
Paget and Price. The tanks are
believed to have been dropped
on the Barrier Reef by drug
runners operating from a luxury
yacht.
‘We had information which led
us to believe that Paget and
Price had been assigned to
retrieve the tanks,’ Officer
O’Neill said.
Paget and Price opened a scuba
store together a year ago. It
was a case of rich boy meets
poor boy. They came from different
backgrounds but had a
lot in common. Both had a history
of violence.
From his bed in the Montano
Clinic, David’s thirty-five-yearold
cousin, Harald Paget, recalled
how he had always