Roger Rogerson is escorted from King St court in Sydney after being found guilty for the murder of student Jamie Gao.

That was Roger Rogerson’s opening gambit, as we shook hands for the first time.

“You’re welcome,” I replied, “How’d you spend it?”

“I bought a boat,” he laughed. “Nice little craft, too.”

I had no idea about the payout.

The “fifty grand” was a secret out-of-court settlement for a sensational story I had done for 60 Minutes, after Rogerson shot a drug dealer and stand-over thug named Warren Lanfranchi in 1981. The coroner found Rogerson shot Lanfranchi in the line of duty.

Lanfranchi’s girlfriend, Sallie-Anne Huckstepp — a heroin addict and prostitute — had insisted it cold-blooded murder.

“Rogerson was Judge! Jury! And Executioner!” Huckstepp alleged in our extraordinary interview that cost Kerry Packer $50,000 and may have cost Huckstepp her life five years later.

Some time after she was found strangled and dumped in the lake at Centennial Park in 1986, the disgraced detective was recorded whispering to a cop mate.

“Huckstepp had to go. Even after I sued Channel Nine she was still into me, f***ing junkie b*tch. No one puts sh*t on me, I always win.”

I’d been trying to interview “The Dodger” for over a decade without success.

Now, filling in for an ailing Mike Willesee on A Current Affair, in the space of two nights I got to talk to not just Rogerson but his lethal partner-in-crime, Neddy Smith, as well.

A notorious criminal and convicted killer, Smith came into the studio in a white T-shirt but shaking almost uncontrollably.

“Are you cold, Neddy?” I asked him.

“No, mate. It’s this f**king P … P … Parkinson’s” he snapped back.

Alleged killer Roger Rogerson was interviewed by Ray Martin. Picture: Bob Barker.Source:News Corp Australia

For our interview the day before, Roger Rogerson wore an eggshell blue cardigan buttoned to the top — an open shirt, beige slacks and loafers.

Softly spoken, he looked like the president of the local bowls club.

Still, his eyes were shards of blue ice and menacing.

At the time of Lanfranchi’s killing in a Sydney back-lane Rogerson’s reputation was that of a colourful, hard-nosed, take-no-prisoners kind of cop.

He was Sydney’s “Dirty Harry”. Highly decorated and deadly.

In the years that followed his CV would be corrected to “crooked, drug lord and serial killer cop”.

Even in the venal underworld there is karma.

In our celebrated 1981 interview — set high in the Hilton Hotel, where Huckstepp had been secreted for days, fearing she would be Rogerson’s next victim — Huckstepp told me chapter-and-verse what had led to the shooting of her boyfriend-lover, Lanfranchi.

The All-Comers boxing champion at Silverwater jail, Lanfranchi had knocked out a drug courier in a rendezvous outside North Sydney Post Office, Huckstepp told me. As he stuffed the half- dazed victim in the car boot and prepared his escape with the heroin sack the bloke shouted, “You better be f***ing careful. This is Roger Rogerson’s dope.”

Lanfranchi, who according to Huckstepp feared nobody on earth, suddenly knew he was a dead man. He knew Rogerson would kill him.

On the run from Western Sydney motels to friend’s couches for a fortnight a terrified Lanfranchi finally got word to Rogerson that he was sorry, and desperately wanted to hand the heroin back.

Huckstepp alleged Lanfranchi was going to give Rogerson a $10K bribe.

Sallie-Anne Huckstepp was strangled and dumped in the lake at Centennial Park in 1986.Source:News Corp Australia

With military-like precision, another panicked rendezvous was arranged in inner-city Chippendale by Neddy Smith, at which time Lanfranchi would beg for forgiveness from Detective Rogerson.

Huckstepp said that Saturday morning Lanfranchi bought her birthday flowers, threw his handgun into the harbour at Kirribilli as she watched, then nervously went offer to meet the killer cop.

After a cleansing beer in the pub opposite Lanfranchi walked down the laneway — to his death. News bulletins that night showed Rogerson standing over a dead body in the gutter, suddenly startled by the TV camera turn his back to the lens.

Three university students living in a squat next-door to the lane told me they had heard two shots — what they thought at the time was a car backfiring. Although their estimates of the time between the shots differed, all three thought it was between 30 seconds and two minutes.

Huckstepp told 60 Minutes she’d been informed — probably by Neddy Smith who was present at the killing — Lanfranchi had approached with his hands in the air, was first shot in the chest and then in the head, as he lay in the gutter.

Rogerson pleaded self- defence. The killer cop received a NSW Police Bravery citation and was never charged.

Before the 60 Minutes interview went to air I asked a Channel Nine appointed Queen’s Counsel if we could use Huckstepp’s allegation that Rogerson had acted as “Judge. Jury. And Executioner.” I thought it was clearly defamatory at the time. The QC said not to worry.

Rogerson sued and was awarded Packer’s hard-earned fifty grand.

How times — and his standing at law — have changed for Mr Rogerson.