THE mother of a young father shot at a Glenroy house early on Tuesday morning yesterday urged witnesses to the shooting to come forward and provide information to police.
Jen Walker, a social worker from Wodonga, said yesterday she also feared the friends of her son, Matt Walker, 26, might take the law into their own hands.
“He’s got some ‘beautiful’ friends, people who are not prepared to talk to the police and say who the hell did it,” she said.
“These people who are involved, if they are really Matt’s friends, need to step up and let the police know who did this.
“Otherwise what sort of friends are they really.
“Quite honestly I don’t think they give a damn, it’s all about them, whatever it is they are doing and they don’t dob on their mates.”
Ms Walker, who has been at her son’s bedside in Royal Melbourne Hospital since Tuesday, said she feared Matt’s friends could seek retribution.
“We were talking to someone at the hospital who is from Albury and they said that is what will happen,” she said.
“They will settle it themselves.
“There is also an entry on my Facebook from a young girl who said the same thing.”
Ms Walker, a single mum, said the first she knew of the shooting was when her sister Lynne Edwards phoned her about six hours after the incident.
“Apparently a young person, who I don’t think was at the shooting rang Matt’s former partner, who then tried to ring me but was unable to get through to me,” she said.
“She then rang Lynne’s daughter who rang her mum who then rang me.
“By this time it was 7.30am and I was at home with just my daughter as my youngest child had already gone to school.
“I was just numb, it wouldn’t register what had happened, I was shocked, it was like a few seconds of nothing; it’s still blurry.
“I didn’t even know if my son was dead or alive.”
Ms Walker said there was some confusion as to where Matthew was at that time, although she had no complaints about how the police and the hospital system handled the matter.
“We lost Matthew for a while,” she said.
“Initially there was some confusion as to whether he was in the Alfred or somewhere else but we eventually worked out with the Albury hospital he was at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
“Apparently he had suffered massive blood loss and, potentially, we could have lost him at Albury hospital.”
Ms Walker said she and her sister, Lynne, had driven to Melbourne not knowing if Matt was alive.
“He was in intensive care when we arrived and they returned him to surgery today, where he’s been for over five hours, and I still haven’t spoken to him,” she said.
“I am told the bullet went through the right buttock — so shot in the back — passed through his abdominal cavity, shattered his pelvis, and gone out through his left groin and then hit him in the left wrist.”
Ms Walker turned 50 yesterday and said it was a birthday she would never forget.
“Or Father’s Day either,” she said.
“My son’s former partner and their daughter, who is 16 months old, will visit him on Sunday for Father’s Day but it will be one they will always remember, for all the wrong reasons.”
Ms Walker said she was certainly not blind to her son’s faults.
“But Matt is a lovely kid, he’s got a heart of gold but he has the potential to be very easily led and would do anything for anyone.
“So being the soul that he is he gets himself into pickles, including problems with the law.”
Ms Walker said her son, who was also known to some as Matt Freund, had returned to some bad influences after he and his partner broke up.
“They have only just recently separated and I believe that since that separation he has fallen back into his old crowd of friends because that is who he hung around with traditionally.
“Hence the chain of events which unfolded; being in the wrong place, wrong time.”
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