Queensland police officer Todd Maguire, who operated undercover as Donny Wilson, has recounted a life-threatening encounter in which he faced a shotgun and a accusation of being a police agent.
"You're right, I'm a cop. Now do your end and kill me, you coward," Maguire yelled back, according to an account published by John Silvester. The reckless bluff worked. The bikies surrounding him burst out laughing, and he was not searched, which would have revealed a body wire and sealed his fate.
Maguire now acknowledges that his reckless response was driven by a hidden desire: "I can't ever remember thinking that but looking back, that's what I was doing." He was seeking what he describes as the reverse of suicide by cop: death by crooks.
The source of that despair, he says, was not the job itself but the suicide of his life partner, Karen. On New Year's Day 2000, at their Gold Coast home, Maguire was having a day nap after a night shift when Karen's four-year-old son woke him, saying he couldn't find his mother. Maguire found her; she had hanged herself. She was 31 years old.
Maguire has said he was filled with grief and guilt, a man who prided himself on reading people yet had missed the signs.