By Karen Sweeney, AAP
A jury has found Aaron Ong guilty of murdering Croydon grocer Paul Virgona, with Josh Rider also having pleaded guilty to murder days before the trial was due to begin.
Mr Virgona was on his way to a Melbourne market to sort his daily order of fruit and veg when he was shot and killed on the Eastlink freeway just after 2am on November 9 2019.
Eleven rounds from a semi-automatic handgun were fired into the driver’s side of his van, with seven striking the 46-year-old.
Ong and Rider watched Mr Virgona’s Croydon home for two hours prior to the shooting.
It’s not clear which of the men was driving the stolen car the shots were fired from, or who fired the shots.
Ong was convicted on the basis that he and Rider had formed an agreement to kill.
Mr Virgona didn’t know the men, had no criminal associations and wasn’t associated with the Mongols outlaw motorcycle club, which Ong and Rider were both linked to.
“There was nothing in Mr Virgona’s background that explained why he was targeted and killed,” prosecutor Mark Gibson KC said during Ong’s trial.
Rider pleaded guilty to murder on November 9 after seeking a sentence indication.
Ong’s barrister Mark Gumbleton had claimed his client was not present at the time of the shooting.
With their verdict, jurors rejected that argument.
Both men will face a pre-sentence hearing on 1 March next year.
