Last moments of Bradley Lyons’ life tortured by Australian Freedom Fighters with a chainsaw

A ruthless gang of meth-fueled vigilantes threatened their victim with a chainsaw while trying to force a confession from him for crimes he didn’t commit.

Father of eight Bradley ‘BJ’ Lyons was tortured and executed after being betrayed by his meth-addicted wife Jana Hooper, who falsely accused him of sexually abusing her daughters.

Video obtained by Daily Mail Australia shows Hooper leading her husband to his death after giving ‘the nod’ to thugs to enter their home in Lakes Entrance, eastern Victoria, and attack him.

CCTV footage captured on a neighbor’s property showed Mr. Lyons following his wife to their home, unaware of the horrors to befall him.

He would not be seen alive again after he was stuffed in the trunk of his would-be killer’s car and driven away.

“The cat’s in the bag,” Albert Thorn told the girlfriend of his co-defendant Jordan Bottom, who was found not guilty of murdering Mr. Lyons with Rikki Smith last week.

Jessica MacFarlane, Bottom’s girlfriend at the time, was living with him in a caravan on Thorn’s Nyerimilang farm when he arrived with Mr. Lyons still trapped in the boot of his car.

Ms. McFarlane told the Supreme Court from Victoria jury Thorn claimed that Mr. Lyons was trapped in the trunk of the car under the blazing summer sun for up to 21 hours.

Thorn, 57, was found guilty this month of torture, imprisonment and murder of Mr Lyons.

“I walked over to the car parked under the tree and tapped the trunk, and ah, I heard someone screaming in the back of the car,” Ms McFarlane told the jury.

When asked what she heard, Mrs. McFarlane replied horribly.

“Get me out of here, or kill me now,” she said.

Thorn had been the leader of a vigilante gang with a very specific hatred of paedophiles.

Thorn’s hatred of pedophiles was so great that he tattooed the gang’s name, Australian Freedom Fighters, all over his back and posted pictures on Facebook.

It was false information from Hooper, who shared three biological children with Lyons, that lit Thorn’s fuse.

In December 2018, Hooper told Thorn that she believed Mr. Lyons fathered her 16-year-old daughter’s child and also got her 14-year-old daughter pregnant.

The court ruled that it was an outright lie.

On Sunday, December 2, 2018, Thorn and his gang raided Mr. Lyons’ home in what would have been an idiotic attempt to force a confession from him.

Aided by another buddy, Alec Harvey, and Thorn’s drug-addicted lieutenant, Nicholas Stefani, the men ran into Mr. Lyons’ bedroom and each hit him in the face and head.

Harvey hit him with a metal pole and Smith lashed out while holding a cigarette lighter between his fingers like brass knuckles.

Stefani shoved the barrel of the gun into Mr. Lyons’ mouth and threatened to kill him if he did not confess to the assault charges.

CCTV shows Harvey and Smith running out of the house, as Smith falls out of the getaway vehicle driven by yet another buddy, Jayden Ball.

Mr. Lyons was eventually dragged from the trunk of Thorn’s car to an old shed on his property where things went from bad to worse for the terrified father.

The court heard that Thorn was dizzy with excitement.

“I saw Bert get really excited and kind of having fun with this,” Ms. MacFarlane told the jury.

What happened next isn’t exactly clear due to the murky haze of meth-induced accounts that followed.

By one account, the men saw off Mr. Lyons’ hand.

The jury was told that only 93 percent of Mr Lyons’ skeleton had been recovered, with both feet, bones of his hands and a neck bone missing

What is clear is that Mr. Lyons was subjected to horrendous torture that left him on the brink of life.

During Stefani’s December sentencing for his role in the crime, the court learned that a chainsaw was one of the gang’s torture devices.

“A chainsaw was held over his head to get him to talk, he was beaten, hot water was poured on him from a kettle, and Deep Heat was applied to his body,” the court heard.

Stefani later told one of Hooper’s own daughters that a chainsaw had been held over Mr. Lyons at the ranch and they kept letting him “piss himself.”

“You said that you and others held a chainsaw over Lyons’ head to get him to confess, and that he was induced to piss himself,” said Judge Andrew Tinney.

“You told one of the girls you expected Lyons to have the girls’ name tattoos cut off before the end of the night and “have some knuckles down.”

“You told one of the girls that what you ‘had to do’ made you sick.”

When they were done, in all likelihood without making a confession, Mr. Lyons was stuffed back into the trunk of Thorn’s car.

With towels wrapped around his head and his hands tied, Thorn, Smith, and Bottom drove into the wilderness on a dirt road near Double Bridges.

There Mr. Lyons had to wait while a shallow grave was dug.

When it was done, Thorn shot Mr. Lyons in the leg with a .410 shotgun cartridge.

On his knees, another shot was fired into the back of his skull.

Bottom would later lead police to the cemetery, where a large log had been dragged over it.

A single rifle cartridge remained on the scene.

The court heard that the men had celebrated their crime by holding a party at Thorn’s property attended by Mr Lyons’ own wife and children.

“It looked like they were celebrating,” Ms. MacFarlane told the jury.

“Jana was drinking, but I thought – it was a bottle of whiskey or something and they were (cheering), like – yeah.”

Hooper was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison last year and is eligible for parole after just four and a half years.

Smith, 26, and Bottom, 25, were found not guilty of the murder of Mr Lyons, but the pair were found guilty of his assault and false imprisonment

Thorn will undergo a pre-sentence hearing later this year.