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Speaker 2: That's it. So my understanding it was a I may
Speaker 2: be wrong. Was around here?
Speaker 3: Yes? Okay?
Speaker 4: So if he died right here, where's the ambush points
Speaker 4: are clearly these two side streets and possibly coming out
Speaker 4: behind him from that lane that's the only lane.
Speaker 3: Then you'd reckon. They'd want to be closer because he
Speaker 3: would hear them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, fanguns.
Speaker 3: Yes, thirty eight three, So the three of them, so
Speaker 3: the vera close dn't The first two were in the back,
Speaker 3: dropped in and then they came and pumped another sixty Louis.
Speaker 2: Park Chapel Street, Marrickville at the T junction with Illawarra Road.
Speaker 2: Here in this now desirable inner western Sydney suburb is
Speaker 2: the once notorious Henson Park Hotel on one corner and
Speaker 2: a former mixed business in an old terrace on the other.
Speaker 2: In the spring of nineteen seventy four. The pub was
Speaker 2: a favorite watering hole for crooks, and the shop was
Speaker 2: a Greek delicatessen run by the Poulos family. I'm here
Speaker 2: almost fifty years to the day with my podcast co
Speaker 2: pilot Kelly Slater, Reagan, and my dearest friend, the cartoon
Speaker 2: and true crime officionado John Shakespeare, who passed away recently
Speaker 2: from cancer. Johnny was so passionate about this podcast that
Speaker 2: he desperately wanted to join us in Marrickville when we
Speaker 2: tried to recreate Reagan's violent and bloody murder on that
Speaker 2: distant sunday, right and one was right next to the head,
Speaker 2: right three inches from the head.
Speaker 5: Tom a day.
Speaker 2: Was it September, so it would have been dusk, this
Speaker 2: would have been here, or this would have been here.
Speaker 2: That was a metal shop before it became a cafe.
Speaker 2: I'm just wondering if there wasn't a cockatoo or a
Speaker 2: lookout at the pub.
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2: You can look straight out onto the delicatessen.
Speaker 4: But how did I communicate that then to the shooters mobiles?
Speaker 2: No pages. Someone had to have had an eye on
Speaker 2: him absolute on that quiet Sunday evening, September twenty two,
Speaker 2: as the sun sat close to six thirty pm, Sydney's
Speaker 2: most dangerous gangster, Stuart John Reagan, was supposedly dropped off
Speaker 2: nearby by his girlfriend Helen Scott Huey for a casual
Speaker 2: meeting with a person or persons unknown. Reagan sauntered down
Speaker 2: Chapel Street, with its handful of terrace houses and their
Speaker 2: small gardens on one side and light industrial factories on
Speaker 2: the other. He may have seen the flickering blue of
Speaker 2: televisions in some of the front rooms of those houses.
Speaker 2: Any sounds of bonamie from the Henson Park Hotel would
Speaker 2: have faded the further he moved down the street towards
Speaker 2: the Marrickville Public School on Cholder Lane. Suddenly the darkening
Speaker 2: street was lit up with bursts of gunfire.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a big, horrible set up that appears. No
Speaker 2: buller proofessed, no weapons, no bodyguard.
Speaker 3: No hypervigilant person, hypervigilant it so normally it'd be normally
Speaker 3: travel with a minimum of two bodyguards, best and.
Speaker 4: Gun And we've been reading anecdotes of people actively hunting
Speaker 4: him to kill him, yes, and not being able to
Speaker 4: do it.
Speaker 2: It was that on the ball. Within ten to twenty
Speaker 2: minutes of arriving in Marrickville, Reagan was faced down on
Speaker 2: the road, struck by eight bullets from the guns of
Speaker 2: at least three shooters. Once he was down, someone stepped
Speaker 2: up to the body, placed the thirty eight caliber handgun
Speaker 2: close to Reagan's skull and fired twice just to make sure.
Speaker 2: In the end, it came down to three unknown hitmen
Speaker 2: to make Nano the magician himself disappear for good.
Speaker 3: They've gone boom boom to drop him on the ground,
Speaker 3: so then they've got to come up on him.
Speaker 6: Yeah and do the headshot boom boom boom boom boom boom,
Speaker 6: So they're still going to be there.
Speaker 2: I'm journalist Matthew Condon and this is The Gangster's Ghost,
Speaker 2: a podcast from The Australian. In this investigation, we uncover
Speaker 2: previously unreported facts about the short lived criminal career of
Speaker 2: Stuart John Reagan, speak to his family, friends and businesses
Speaker 2: who go on the record for the first time, link
Speaker 2: him to one of the most notorious mass murders in
Speaker 2: Australian history, and uncover secret audio recordings that will bring
Speaker 2: the ghost of Johnny Reagan Back to Life. This podcast
Speaker 2: started out as a clinical look at one of Australia's
Speaker 2: most reviled gangsters, but when the Reagan family came on board,
Speaker 2: the project took on another dimension and begged the question
Speaker 2: how does a family cope with the generational stain of
Speaker 2: a murderer whose death was celebrated by criminals and police alike.
Speaker 2: By mid nineteen seventy four, Reagan is already public enemy
Speaker 2: number one with both the underworld and police, after the
Speaker 2: disappearance and presumed murder of his girlfriend Toddler son Carlos
Speaker 2: Scott Huey. Then in August, one of Reagan's close associates
Speaker 2: and his alleged partner in organizing the Whiskey Go Go
Speaker 2: nightclub mass murder in Brisbane the previous year, the criminal
Speaker 2: Ratty Clark is shot dead in a pub in Sydney's
Speaker 2: in a West. Just a few weeks later, Reagan, after
Speaker 2: a pleasant September afternoon picnic with his young daughter Helen,
Speaker 2: heads off to a pre arranged mystery meeting in Marrickville.
Speaker 2: He arrives in Chapel Street relaxed and unarmed. This most
Speaker 2: alert and paranoid of gangsters didn't see the trap. He
Speaker 2: walked straight into why they're in the Bible their rife
Speaker 2: throughout the works of Shakespeare. Two universal themes that will
Speaker 2: forever run through human history, betrayal and revenge. This is
Speaker 2: episode ten post mortem. Let's go back just a few
Speaker 2: weeks before that Bloody's slaying in Marrickville. Let's head across
Speaker 2: to the neighboring suburb of Petersham, less than two kilometers away,
Speaker 2: to a busy little pub late on a Friday night
Speaker 2: in August nineteen seventy four, just a month before the
Speaker 2: blood bath in Chapel Street. The pub used to be
Speaker 2: called the Newington Inn Hotel, and it was the watering
Speaker 2: hole one of Reagan's closest associates, John Edward Ratty Clark
Speaker 2: Ratty lived within walking or staggering distance in Stanmore Road,
Speaker 2: and what happened to him in the Newington Inn would
Speaker 2: prove to be a critical piece in the puzzle of
Speaker 2: his mate Johnny Reagan's murder. Kelly Slater. Reagan and I
Speaker 2: headed for the old pub one recent quiet Sunday. It
Speaker 2: used to advertise rashers on posters out the front and
Speaker 2: had a Neonlitz sign to its beer garden. Today it
Speaker 2: is a family friendly hotel called Public House. Where are
Speaker 2: we heading now? It's a Sunday in Sydney.
Speaker 4: We're driving through the backstreets of Petersham. We're going to
Speaker 4: the Newington Inn, which used to be the Petersham Inn.
Speaker 4: I think where Ratty Clark was assassinated in August nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy four was only a month or so before Reagan
Speaker 4: was oh gunned down, because it had to be after.
Speaker 4: So what do we know about Ratty?
Speaker 2: At around ten thirty five pm on Friday, August twenty three,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four, Ratty Clark was drinking with friends after
Speaker 2: hours in the lounge bar of the Newington Inn. This
Speaker 2: was Ratty's local, so he was well acquainted with the licensee,
Speaker 2: Philip Bernie. Ratty, you'll remember, was one of Reagan's closest sidekicks.
Speaker 2: He was even named by private investigator Walter Cromwell as
Speaker 2: one of the architects, along with Reagan, of the Whiskey
Speaker 2: Ego Go nightclub fire bombing in Brisbane in nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: three that killed fifteen people on this Friday night, Ratty
Speaker 2: Bernie and five other people were enjoying a drink when
Speaker 2: a bullet smashed through one of the pub windows and
Speaker 2: struck Ratty cleanly in the back of the head. This
Speaker 2: was no random pot shot. The bullet hit its target
Speaker 2: even after penetrating glass. Ratty was probably dead before he
Speaker 2: hit the carpet. His assassin escaped through the pub's rear
Speaker 2: beer garden and car park and into the night. We're
Speaker 2: just doing some research into a murder at this pub.
Speaker 2: At this nine seventy four, Kelly and I were hardly
Speaker 2: surprised when the ghost of Johnny Reagan struck once again
Speaker 2: inside the old Newington Inn. His specter had been pursuing
Speaker 2: us for years during our research, throwing us ridiculous coincidences
Speaker 2: and strokes of luck. We even believed he had a
Speaker 2: hand in Kelly's latest success in securing after a couple
Speaker 2: of years documents from her second cousins in quest. Most
Speaker 2: of the staff here weren't even born when Ratty and
Speaker 2: shotgun Johnny Proud Sydney and were murdered within four weeks
Speaker 2: of each other. Then the face of one of the
Speaker 2: bar attendants, on learning of our historic mission, went from
Speaker 2: confusion to shock. Into the beer gardens. Yes, do you
Speaker 2: know anything about that?
Speaker 7: Just had two guys come in yesterday telling me about it.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, and I've never.
Speaker 7: Heard anything about it. I know about it. They were
Speaker 7: they said, he said it happened at sixty seventy four. Yeah,
Speaker 7: said years, Well, that was when I was born, when
Speaker 7: you drop in or the Newton I think he said
Speaker 7: it was, And he said he knew the guy.
Speaker 2: They really all were they regulars or drop ins. I've
Speaker 2: never seen them before. We're really chiny, unbelievable. In the
Speaker 2: wake of Ratty's murder, the immediate word on the street
Speaker 2: was that he'd been shot dead by his mate Reagan.
Speaker 2: That rumor was perpetuated by, among others, killer Neddie Smith,
Speaker 2: Reagan's old mate from the Gosford Home for Boys. Johnny
Speaker 2: Reagan had for a few months now been the most
Speaker 2: hated gangster, not just in Sydney but probably Australia for
Speaker 2: supposedly murdering little Carlos Scott Huey back in May. The
Speaker 2: whisper in the wake of Ratty's killing was that Ratty
Speaker 2: had been the only one game enough to call Reagan
Speaker 2: a child killer to his face, and had paid the
Speaker 2: ultimate price in the arc of Reagan's criminal career, and
Speaker 2: now with historical hindsight, the murders of Carlos and Clark,
Speaker 2: within the space of a few months and at the
Speaker 2: end of Reagan's life didn't quite fit. Both killings, according
Speaker 2: to the Gossip, had as their motive a sudden lethal
Speaker 2: irruption of Reagan's fabled temper. The child annoyed him dead,
Speaker 2: his mate Ratty sledged him as a child killer. Dead
Speaker 2: in the past, one of Reagan's victims may have been
Speaker 2: a potential witness who might testify against him in court,
Speaker 2: or a heavy who had muscled in on his criminal territory,
Speaker 2: or someone who had dared to steal from him. But
Speaker 2: Carlos and Ratty didn't fit the Reagan pattern. These so
Speaker 2: everybody said or impulsive killings that spoke directly to Reagan
Speaker 2: as a psychopath. These spoke to the inner tiger, out
Speaker 2: of control and unpredictable. But would he really blow the
Speaker 2: brains out of a close mate for care calling him
Speaker 2: a name? I discussed this with Kelly.
Speaker 3: Well Mark says ready Jack Clark was good.
Speaker 4: Friends with John yep as in they were business associates,
Speaker 4: weren't they correct?
Speaker 3: And no foreseeable reason why he would kill him.
Speaker 2: So this guy was drinking after closing.
Speaker 4: This guy was drinking there after closing in the beer garden. Yes,
Speaker 4: And I think it was a headshot, was it not.
Speaker 4: So you've got to wonder. I mean, they blamed Reagan
Speaker 4: for killing him, yep, even though he was Reagan's business associate.
Speaker 4: But you've got to wonder why Clark was murdered when
Speaker 4: he was good and for what reason. So, I mean,
Speaker 4: we've battered this back and forth forever, but we think
Speaker 4: it may stem all the way back to the whiskey
Speaker 4: of Go Go fire bombing in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 2: Police told the press that Clark's murder was a contract killing.
Speaker 8: The killer is believed to have hidden in the garden
Speaker 8: bar area of the Newington Inn hotel. He fired one shot,
Speaker 8: Clark died before he could say anything. The killer is
Speaker 8: believed to have run out through the hotel's back gate
Speaker 8: and across a car park. A large team of detectives
Speaker 8: from the cib reinforced Petersham detectives investigating the murder.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, Reagan had a premonition that his own
Speaker 2: number was almost up half a dozen streets away from
Speaker 2: Royal Randwick Racecourse. The Colonel Reagan's mother, Claire, lived with
Speaker 2: her sister Thelma in a neat three bedroom Federation red
Speaker 2: brick and tile roofed house in Duke Street, Kensington. They'd
Speaker 2: moved out of the Liverpool Street Terrace some years earlier.
Speaker 2: On a clear day and if the wind was right,
Speaker 2: the Colonel, an absolutely mad punter, may have relished the
Speaker 2: perfume of fresh horse manure from the nearby racetrack. Reagan
Speaker 2: used Duke Street as another one of his bases. He
Speaker 2: kept sets of clothes there, he secretly recorded his phone calls.
Speaker 2: There he went about his criminal enterprises with the full
Speaker 2: knowledge of his mother. He also grew attached to his neighbor,
Speaker 2: old Missus Goodwin. There are numerous stories, apocryphal or otherwise,
Speaker 2: of his affection for her, of seeing her in the city,
Speaker 2: waiting for public transport in the rain, and driving her
Speaker 2: back to Duke Street. He was close enough to her
Speaker 2: also to share his fears in the final weeks of
Speaker 2: his life. Kelly and I had been meaning to visit
Speaker 2: Missus Goodwin for years, but by the time we got
Speaker 2: around to it, she'd moved out, and the carpenters had
Speaker 2: moved in, swarming her property like ants. The gentrification of
Speaker 2: Kensington was well and truly underway, so.
Speaker 4: Kel we finally made it to fifty six Duke Street,
Speaker 4: standing in front of the house right now. All that
Speaker 4: power tool noise you can hear in the background, unfortunately,
Speaker 4: is a renovation of the house next door at number
Speaker 4: fifty four Duke Street. Now, we came today hoping beyond
Speaker 4: hope that the former neighbor of the Reagans, Missus Goodwin,
Speaker 4: would still be there. We knew she would be elderly,
Speaker 4: but she's critical in that she spoke to Johnny Reagan.
Speaker 4: What did she tell him?
Speaker 3: So john was walking down and she said, oh, John,
Speaker 3: is everything okay? Don't look very well? And he said,
Speaker 3: Missus Goodwin, I'm not long of this earth.
Speaker 2: I'm not long of this earth. So he knew something
Speaker 2: was up. He was pre emptying his own death in
Speaker 2: a weird way. So we come to the house of
Speaker 2: Missus Goodwin, and of course she's not here. That's what
Speaker 2: we dreaded.
Speaker 4: She'd either passed away or moved on, and she's moved on,
Speaker 4: But there is an indication from the builder she.
Speaker 2: May still be alive. And of this Earth, So yet
Speaker 2: another Reagan goat track to go down a rabbit hole,
Speaker 2: Away we Go. His de facto partner, marg also sent
Speaker 2: something amiss in Reagan's final weeks. She remembered him manically
Speaker 2: writing letters on behalf of his Independent Action Group for
Speaker 2: a Better Police Force, his anti police corruption and anti
Speaker 2: prostitution lobby group that was seen as not just a
Speaker 2: joke by detectives and Reagan's fellow criminals, but as an
Speaker 2: almost comical effort by Reagan to keep authorities at arm's length.
Speaker 9: I think his love was short lived from the knowledge
Speaker 9: that I knew that with the letters, he would be
Speaker 9: writing to the police, and he was really stirring up
Speaker 9: a lot of people. Whether it was the only police,
Speaker 9: whether it was criminals, whether it was I don't know.
Speaker 9: He was stirring people up. And it's definitely yeah.
Speaker 2: But you never had a notion that if he keeps
Speaker 2: this up, then he's going to die at the end
Speaker 2: of a gun.
Speaker 9: No, didn't he mend him my mind. I thought he
Speaker 9: would just keep going, you.
Speaker 2: Know, because he was a forceful personality.
Speaker 9: He had a great personality. He was just so likable,
Speaker 9: it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Do you think he thought he was indestructible.
Speaker 9: I think that he told his mother's neighbor that he
Speaker 9: wouldn't be around for much longer, and that was a
Speaker 9: couple of weeks or a few days. He told missus Goodwin.
Speaker 9: You know, Missus Goodwin, I don't think I'm going to
Speaker 9: be around much longer. He did emphasize that to her.
Speaker 9: They'd known each other for ye So that's the only
Speaker 9: indication that we know that he made that he may
Speaker 9: not be an anthhalone.
Speaker 2: Reagan's last day was a snapshot of how complicated his
Speaker 2: life had become. It showed how his family existence on
Speaker 2: the surface was messily intersecting with his parallel gangster universe.
Speaker 2: The two worlds were colliding. Detective Sergeant Donald Worsley of
Speaker 2: the Special Crime Squad later delivered to the coroner the
Speaker 2: narrative of Reagan's last day Sunday, September twenty two, nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy four. The early hours of Sunday morning remained confusing.
Speaker 2: Mark in her statement to police two days after Reagan
Speaker 2: was murdered, says Reagan came to her place on the
Speaker 2: Saturday night, then in the early hours of Sunday, She said,
Speaker 2: he asked her to ring Hell Scott Huey at the
Speaker 2: Goldban Club and tell her to meet him at Marg's
Speaker 2: place after she finished work. Mark says she never said
Speaker 2: the words attributed to her in her statement and wasn't
Speaker 2: even sure she had a phone at the time. She
Speaker 2: said Reagan never asked her to ring the Golden Club.
Speaker 2: Woolseley went on in his narrative to the coroner.
Speaker 10: About five am on the twenty second of September nineteen
Speaker 10: seventy four, some hours after retiring to bed, Reagan was
Speaker 10: joined at these premises by Helen Scott Huey, a close
Speaker 10: friend of the deceased. Both remained in bed together at
Speaker 10: that address until about eleven am, when they arose and
Speaker 10: partook of a cup of coffee. It was about this
Speaker 10: time that the deceased and Helen Scott Huey decided they
Speaker 10: would take the deceased's daughter, Helen to Watson's Bay Beach.
Speaker 2: On the way to Watson's Bay, Worsley concluded Reagan, his daughter, Helen,
Speaker 2: then three, and Scott Huey stopped in at the Colonel's
Speaker 2: place in Duke Street, Kensington, where Reagan changed into his
Speaker 2: swimming trunks.
Speaker 10: On arrival, at Watson's Bay. The deceased Scott Huey and
Speaker 10: the young girl Helen sat on the grass near Dunbar House,
Speaker 10: where they had a meal. They remained in the Watson's
Speaker 10: Bay area until about three point thirty pm.
Speaker 2: Incredibly, Helen Reagan still remembers that afternoon.
Speaker 11: Going back to that day, I mean, my father had
Speaker 11: the from what I was told, he woul always take me,
Speaker 11: cut me around a lot, so I was always with him.
Speaker 12: Then, you know, I.
Speaker 11: Always remember being on his lap driving the car suitbelt.
Speaker 11: But I remember I had been at Watson's Bay. I
Speaker 11: believe it was in a park at Watsons Bay, and
Speaker 11: I was on swings and having a picnic.
Speaker 2: Mark Reagan says by mid to late afternoon on that Sunday,
Speaker 2: she went to find her daughter to bring her home.
Speaker 2: Mark ended up at Scott Huey's flat in Paddington.
Speaker 9: So my arrangements was he had taken her on a picnic.
Speaker 9: That was fine, and as an afternoon went on, it
Speaker 9: got later. So I'm there trying to find him. Then
Speaker 9: I knew that Helen's got you, because I knew that
Speaker 9: they were having a relationship. Okay, So I went down
Speaker 9: the pathway and I knocked on the door, saying, John,
Speaker 9: please give me Helen back. I'm here. Open the door
Speaker 9: and I could hear him, and Helen remembers this. He
Speaker 9: told me to be quiet. He's gone sh So I'm
Speaker 9: giving you ten minutes to bring my daughter back. I'll
Speaker 9: go down to the barrack murders. He did come down
Speaker 9: within fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: How did you know that he was in there with Helen,
Speaker 2: Scott hue and your daughter in that or did you
Speaker 2: just have an educated guest educated guess. Helen remembers the
Speaker 2: moment inside Scott Huey's flat.
Speaker 11: And dad and her we're in a bed and I
Speaker 11: was in bed next to it, and my mother turned
Speaker 11: up really furious, and I remember Mum banging on the windows.
Speaker 9: I know you're in there, and my.
Speaker 11: Father actually telling me to be quiet, like sh be
Speaker 11: quiet and go to sleep. But I remember my mother
Speaker 11: being furious.
Speaker 2: Marg was concerned about little Helen.
Speaker 9: I was more angry about him if it was obviously
Speaker 9: it was having a sexual relationship with her, that he
Speaker 9: would do it in front of my child because it
Speaker 9: was only a small apartment, disgusting. I was angry about
Speaker 9: that that he put her on.
Speaker 2: In that situation, marg shouted at Reagan he had ten
Speaker 2: minutes to bring the child out. She then waited at
Speaker 2: nearby Barrick Motors, Reagan's business headquarters, in her myro own Valiant.
Speaker 9: He's brought Helen Helen Scott virtually wasn't letting and he's
Speaker 9: brought her and put her in the car. But then
Speaker 9: he said, I want you to say that I want
Speaker 9: you to drive somewhere, and I'm like this, you ain't working,
Speaker 9: And then he's gone into the main part what I
Speaker 9: call hisself is in Barrack Majors. He took the keys
Speaker 9: out of my ignition too.
Speaker 2: Just to make sure you didn't go anywhere.
Speaker 9: But I had a second set of keys, and I
Speaker 9: was assuming by that time.
Speaker 2: Tell me it just briefly, had you ever made the
Speaker 2: decision to carry a second set of keys with you?
Speaker 2: Why did you have it on in the car like
Speaker 2: in the glove box.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, it was no particular reason. And in the
Speaker 9: actual fact that I'm really surprised I even thought about it.
Speaker 9: But anyhow, and I remember him saying the main thing
Speaker 9: that I seen him standing there with his mouth open
Speaker 9: as I drove off, So that was the last time
Speaker 9: you ever, the last time I seen John.
Speaker 2: In the end, it was left to Helen Scott Huey
Speaker 2: to drive Reagan to his meeting in Marrickville. She reminded
Speaker 2: him of the appointment after the tiff with marg This
Speaker 2: is what Helen Scott Huey told police.
Speaker 13: Because he told me earlier that he had a meet
Speaker 13: at six o'clock. I said to him, haven't you got
Speaker 13: to meet someone at six? John then looked at his
Speaker 13: watch and I saw that it was a quarter to six,
Speaker 13: and he said, yes, we have to go. We both
Speaker 13: got into my car and he drove and he took off.
Speaker 13: I didn't take too much notice where we were going,
Speaker 13: but I've got a feeling that we drive down Downing Street,
Speaker 13: and we passed a swimming pool off Victoria Road at
Speaker 13: Marrickville and into the street near the Henson Park Hotel.
Speaker 13: We stopped near there he got out of the car.
Speaker 13: Before he got out of the car, he said he
Speaker 13: was too early, and he now thought it was half
Speaker 13: past six. He had to have the meet. He got
Speaker 13: out of the car, which was parked on the left
Speaker 13: hand side of the roadway, and he walked over to
Speaker 13: the other side of the road. I moved into the
Speaker 13: driver's seat and I drove off and as I got
Speaker 13: to the corner near the hotel, I looked in the
Speaker 13: rear vision mirror and I saw him strolling up towards
Speaker 13: Illawarra Road. That was the last I saw of him.
Speaker 2: In his statement, Detective Worsley reiterated.
Speaker 10: As Scott Huey drove away, she looked in the rear
Speaker 10: vision mirror and saw the deceased walking towards z Illawarra Road.
Speaker 2: This small fact of the mirror stood out in both
Speaker 2: Scott Hughey's statement and Worsley's story to the coroner. It
Speaker 2: intrigued both myself and former detective Michael Drury. Why did
Speaker 2: both police and the witness include this almost innocuous detail.
Speaker 2: I'm fascinated how you sort of snagged upon the point
Speaker 2: in the statement where Helen Scott Huey as she was
Speaker 2: driving away from the scene, when she dropped him off.
Speaker 2: It's a very clear point in the statement that she
Speaker 2: looked in her rear vision mirror and saw him. I
Speaker 2: stopped when I read that because I thought that, a
Speaker 2: it's a very unusual observation to make, and secondly, why
Speaker 2: would you make that observation, the observation points towards the witness,
Speaker 2: as in Helen Scott Huey saying I was driving away.
Speaker 2: Let's just reiterate it. I looked in the rear vision
Speaker 2: mirror and saw him, so therefore I must have been
Speaker 2: driving away from the scene because I saw him in
Speaker 2: the mirror.
Speaker 14: It's adding emphasis to the fact that, as she claims,
Speaker 14: she was driving away from the location of where the murder.
Speaker 2: Took place exactly. Other unanswered questions emerge from the statements
Speaker 2: and coronial documents. How was Reagan going to get back
Speaker 2: home after the meeting in Marrickville? Here's Kelly Remember she
Speaker 2: was also a former New South Wales police officer and
Speaker 2: had that similar sense of logic as Michael Drury.
Speaker 3: My thing is, where did Helen Scott go when she
Speaker 3: dropped him off? If he's here, how's he going to
Speaker 3: to get back to Sydney without a lift?
Speaker 2: Did he have that arranged that he would be That's
Speaker 2: what I want to know. No one's ever talked about that.
Speaker 3: No, did she hang around? Did she park somewhere and
Speaker 3: hang around because he never went he was never going
Speaker 3: to catch public transport. If there was and there was
Speaker 3: Was he going to wring her back? Or was she
Speaker 3: simply waiting for him? Therefore? Did she see? Yeah, like,
Speaker 3: there's no way he would have come this far from
Speaker 3: his nest unarmed.
Speaker 2: I mean no mobile phones. You can't just say I think.
Speaker 3: We'd have to go to a phone booth or the pub.
Speaker 3: It makes sense that if Helen drops him off, Helen
Speaker 3: puts him up, don't yep.
Speaker 2: And here's Michael Drury independently following the same line of thought.
Speaker 14: Let me ask you this, if I may please, so,
Speaker 14: Miss good Huey takes Reagan to this meeting and the
Speaker 14: police interview her, and she said she didn't know what
Speaker 14: the meeting was about. This is from Worsley's covering statement,
Speaker 14: which is like a story narrative. She doesn't know what
Speaker 14: the meeting's about, and she doesn't know who he was meeting. Yes, okay,
Speaker 14: so she takes him to this meeting, which is some
Speaker 14: distance away from where he lives. Okay, Now after the meeting,
Speaker 14: what's he going to do? Get an uber home?
Speaker 5: Is he?
Speaker 14: It would be logical for her to wait there for him.
Speaker 2: How would he get home?
Speaker 5: Exactly?
Speaker 14: What was he there for? He didn't have a bag
Speaker 14: with him full of money, or a bag full of drugs,
Speaker 14: or a bag full of guns, etc. She drove him
Speaker 14: to meet someone, and I would suggest it's highly probable
Speaker 14: that she was in the area parked in the car
Speaker 14: waiting for him to take him home after the meeting,
Speaker 14: which is only logical.
Speaker 2: Scott Huey told the police that after she dropped Reagan off,
Speaker 2: she went to her mother's house in Bellfield, west of Merrickville.
Speaker 2: Reagan then decided to buy a snack from the Greek
Speaker 2: delicatessen opposite the Henson Park Hotel. Here's Worsley again.
Speaker 10: I have established that shortly after six pm, the deceased
Speaker 10: went to a small mixed business shop. Whilst at the shop,
Speaker 10: the deceased purchased some cabanossi and then left and walked
Speaker 10: into Chapel Street.
Speaker 2: Kelly and I, tracing Reagan's final steps, stood at the
Speaker 2: doorway to the old delicatessen. It's no longer a shop
Speaker 2: but a converted residence.
Speaker 4: So this is the delicatessen, the Pulos family delicatessen. Hell,
Speaker 4: some old grapevines are still growing out the side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gorgeous, so that would have been maybe the family
Speaker 2: saloons on the door and were greeted by an elderly
Speaker 2: Greek lady. Could this possibly be an A Poulos, the
Speaker 2: young woman who served Reagan in those final minutes before
Speaker 2: he was murdered. Could we be that lucky? Hello, Hey,
Speaker 2: I know how are you. We're hoping you could help us.
Speaker 4: We're doing some research on the Poulos family who had
Speaker 4: this delicatessen in nineteen in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: Sure, yes, this building before before before it wasn't Anna.
Speaker 2: The Poolosses had moved out decades earlier. But we stood
Speaker 2: on the steps into the old shop and tried to
Speaker 2: take ourselves back to that Sunday evening in September nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy four, and a Pooloss was in her delicatessen when
Speaker 2: Reagan stepped through the door. She said in her statement,
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 15: Some time after six pm the same day when I
Speaker 15: noticed a man in the shop. My husband served him,
Speaker 15: and I heard this man ask my husband for cabanassi,
Speaker 15: but he called it cabana, and I heard him say
Speaker 15: to my husband, not too big. I was serving other
Speaker 15: persons at the time, but I remember this man leaving
Speaker 15: the shop, This man who purchased the Kabanassi was about
Speaker 15: thirty years old, bare hair and complexion. He may not
Speaker 15: have had a lot of hair on top, but his
Speaker 15: hair was not long. He was wearing I think sports clothes.
Speaker 15: I think the top was something like a jumper with
Speaker 15: the zipper. I cannot remember the color, but it was dark.
Speaker 15: When he spoke to my husband, his voice sounded rough
Speaker 15: and I would say demanding.
Speaker 2: Shortly after, Reagan walked out with his snack and a
Speaker 2: Pouloss went to the back of the shop and into
Speaker 2: the kitchen where she was cooking.
Speaker 15: I heard what sounded to me like the exhaust of
Speaker 15: a car. There were three or four explosions. They came
Speaker 15: from the direction of Chapel Street, and they sounded very loud.
Speaker 15: With these explosions or shots, I heard a number of
Speaker 15: dogs in the vicinity start to bark. I then went
Speaker 15: into Chapel Street, walked to the lane that runs behind
Speaker 15: our shop, and I was looking generally to see where
Speaker 15: the noises came from when I heard someone running and
Speaker 15: I looked in the lane to my left and I
Speaker 15: saw two men running from around the bend in the
Speaker 15: lane towards.
Speaker 2: Me, and Apulos said the men hopped into a car
Speaker 2: parked in the lane behind her delicatessen and took off.
Speaker 2: She described them as both of medium build, one was
Speaker 2: taller than the other. The driver had shielded his face
Speaker 2: from her with his hand. We continued walking down Chapel
Speaker 2: Street in Reagan's final footsteps. As best as we could
Speaker 2: gather from various witness statements, especially an a pool looss,
Speaker 2: we needed to stand on the precise spot where Reagan's
Speaker 2: body came to rest.
Speaker 3: And A Poulos who worked in a Merrickville shop said
Speaker 3: in evidence that she served Reagan minutes before he was
Speaker 3: shot dead. After serving some cabanossi to Reagan, she heard
Speaker 3: several loud explosions near her shop, ran out and saw
Speaker 3: Reagan lying face down on the road in a pool
Speaker 3: of blood. Reagan had been working west in Chapel Street
Speaker 3: when he was shot in the back.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's have a look.
Speaker 4: We think it's roughly where that zebra crossing is, right,
Speaker 4: So this young woman comes out here. Here's the noises
Speaker 4: rushes out here, and can see a body down there.
Speaker 2: Right, Let's go and walk down. This is all the
Speaker 2: pool losses right down to the corner. Apparently it's a
Speaker 2: massive block. Many months after we'd visited the murder scene,
Speaker 2: Kelly called me she'd found something curious in Anapoulos's statement
Speaker 2: to police that I'll admit I'd completely overlooked. It was
Speaker 2: just a couple of sentences, but those words tore a
Speaker 2: massive hole in the fabric of the official police narrative
Speaker 2: of Reagan's murder after half a century. What Annapoulos said
Speaker 2: in her statement recorded by police in the nearby Newtown
Speaker 2: police station two days after the murder has never been
Speaker 2: satisfactorily explained. It's the flow in the rug. After seeing
Speaker 2: the car with the two potential suspects take off, Anapulos
Speaker 2: says this.
Speaker 15: I then went across the road to where another Greek
Speaker 15: lady was standing. I spoke to her. Then together we
Speaker 15: started to walk down Chapel Street towards the school, and
Speaker 15: at the beginning of the building of the school, there
Speaker 15: was a car driving down Chapel Street, and in the
Speaker 15: headlights I saw that there was the body of a
Speaker 15: man laying on the roadway, and the husband of the
Speaker 15: Greek lady I was with, who was where this body
Speaker 15: was on the road, called to us to stay where
Speaker 15: we were.
Speaker 2: Who was this Greek lady and her husband both must
Speaker 2: have witnessed the shooting, given they were already there in
Speaker 2: Chapel Street when Annapoulos ran out on hearing the gunfire
Speaker 2: from the kitchen in the back of her shop. Who
Speaker 2: were these two people? By the time Annapoulos entered Chapel
Speaker 2: Street just seconds after hearing the gunshots, the mysterious Greek
Speaker 2: lady and her husband were already there. Given the time frame,
Speaker 2: you could safely assume then that the Greek lady and
Speaker 2: her husband had witnessed the Assassins shooting rega. Didn't this
Speaker 2: make them the number one witnesses in Reagan's murder? And
Speaker 2: what was the Greek lady's husband doing leaning over Reagan's body?
Speaker 2: How did he get there so quickly after the shooting,
Speaker 2: which included two close range headshots. This may have been speculation,
Speaker 2: but it was tethered in logic. Was the so called
Speaker 2: husband leaning over Reagan's body actually the man he'd arranged
Speaker 2: to meet that evening? And was the Greek lady on
Speaker 2: the footpath nearby actually Helen Scott Hughey. I needed to
Speaker 2: talk to Detective Michael Drury about this extraordinary scenario. I
Speaker 2: needed him to hover over the scene and explain what
Speaker 2: was credible and what was not.
Speaker 14: There could have been several reasons for the motive of
Speaker 14: the meeting, and it could have all been re laid
Speaker 14: to Reagan by Helen Scott Huey, because we know he's
Speaker 14: as paranoid as anything, and he goes wandering off with
Speaker 14: her on a Sunday evening at that time, it would
Speaker 14: have been dark. She had to know who he was meeting,
Speaker 14: and it's highly probable, I would suggest to you that
Speaker 14: she was going to take him home after this meeting
Speaker 14: because he had no bags, no money, no guns, no drugs,
Speaker 14: et cetera, et cetera on him. So it really wasn't
Speaker 14: intended to be a long meeting anyway, and it was
Speaker 14: going to be on the footpath, et cetera. And what's
Speaker 14: happened is, there's no doubt in my mind, roughly around
Speaker 14: that location, probably in the school, there's those two co
Speaker 14: offenders have been hiding in waiting. Reagan's there with the fellow.
Speaker 14: They've come out and gone bang bang bang bang bang.
Speaker 14: There's no adverse body language from the fellow that's talking
Speaker 14: to Reagan. Higgans in a relaxed state, if you know
Speaker 14: what I mean, I fish. You can see from the
Speaker 14: description of the eight worns a couple of them are
Speaker 14: flesh worms where he's grazed. But it sounds to me
Speaker 14: like the final shots, the one through the head and
Speaker 14: one through the back of the head, are to absolutely
Speaker 14: guarantee that he's dead, and they didn't take place when
Speaker 14: he was standing up. They took place when he was
Speaker 14: laying down, and that would have absolutely guaranteed, because if
Speaker 14: you're involved in this type of behavior, you don't wanting
Speaker 14: to recover six months later and come looking for you.
Speaker 2: Say, even though a couple might have been grazers, and
Speaker 2: the couple might have been close range headshots, the other shots,
Speaker 2: how difficult is it at dusk or in the dark
Speaker 2: to hit a target with a thirty eight with that
Speaker 2: sort of accuracy.
Speaker 14: They must have been very close, you know, within twenty
Speaker 14: meters or less. Because you've got to remember also that
Speaker 14: he was talking to this other mile and so you
Speaker 14: didn't want the other male shot.
Speaker 2: We don't know whether he was talking to that male.
Speaker 2: We know that there was an a male leaning over
Speaker 2: the body, which the Greek lady on the footpath said,
Speaker 2: that's my husband. Yeah, but I mean, given the timeframe
Speaker 2: of the sound of the explosions and Apoulos running into
Speaker 2: the chapel street, bumping into the lady and seeing a
Speaker 2: man over a body, is it wrong just to hypothesize
Speaker 2: that the man leaning over the body might have been
Speaker 2: one of the shooters?
Speaker 3: Correct?
Speaker 2: Because the timeframe is so tight. Correct, Drury made a
Speaker 2: cold assessment of the scene as if it was frozen
Speaker 2: in time.
Speaker 14: Look all this happened in the blink of an eye,
Speaker 14: and whether it's a second or two here or a
Speaker 14: second or two there, that's okay in the circumstances. What
Speaker 14: you've got to look at is, let me is a
Speaker 14: word that everyone will understand the sinister movement or behavior
Speaker 14: of individuals over this couple of minutes around the killing
Speaker 14: of Reagan. Okay, I would suggest to you that there
Speaker 14: is nothing sinister about the behavior of Anapoulos. The two
Speaker 14: males that she sees run down to a vehicle, jump
Speaker 14: in the vehicle and drive off at high speed. That
Speaker 14: is sinister. There is no doubt about that behavior of
Speaker 14: the male standing over the body, who I take it
Speaker 14: police have not identified.
Speaker 2: Well, this is the big question. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: what I wanted to ask you, I would have would
Speaker 2: have assumed, even at a distance of fifty years, that
Speaker 2: the so called Greek woman on the footpath and the
Speaker 2: man leaning over the body her so called husband. I
Speaker 2: would have imagined to any investigating police officer arriving on
Speaker 2: the scene, that they'd be the first people I'd want
Speaker 2: to talk to.
Speaker 14: Correct, they're primary witnesses. Yeah, they're at the scene of
Speaker 14: the crime. They're either eyewitnesses to the crime or they're
Speaker 14: involved in the crime.
Speaker 9: Yes.
Speaker 2: Another question begs to be answered. Had Reagan been relaxed
Speaker 2: and comfortable going to his meeting unarmed without his usual
Speaker 2: bulletproof vest or bodyguard because he was accompanying his girlfriend,
Speaker 2: Helen Scott Huey, had she gone and parked the car
Speaker 2: while he bought his cabanossi in the pool Loss delicatessen
Speaker 2: Kelly Slater. Reagan would put questions about the unidentified Greek
Speaker 2: woman and her husband to the New South Wales Unsolved
Speaker 2: Homicide Team. She was told that, according to the Reagan murderphiles,
Speaker 2: both of these mysterious strangers apparently gave statements to police
Speaker 2: after Reagan was killed. The records said the couple had
Speaker 2: been interviewed in their home. Why were they interviewed at
Speaker 2: home and not in various police stations like other witnesses.
Speaker 2: Why weren't they brought in immediately and questioned by police?
Speaker 2: What were their names? Did they even exist? And why
Speaker 2: were their statements never presented to the coroner during the
Speaker 2: inquest into Reagan's death in nineteen seventy seven. Why weren't
Speaker 2: they called as witnesses before the coroner given their importance
Speaker 2: to the murder investigation. Michael Drury offered an hypothesis.
Speaker 14: Well, let me put this to you. We know that
Speaker 14: Scott Hughey takes Reagan to this alleged meeting, okay, and
Speaker 14: from there, at this alleged meeting, when she drops him off,
Speaker 14: we then know that Scott Hugh he does a statement
Speaker 14: for the police shortly thereafter, days or whatever, and she
Speaker 14: says she sees him walking off down the footpath in
Speaker 14: her rear vision mirror.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 14: I find that interesting because I also understand that shortly
Speaker 14: after he gets out of the vehicle, he goes into
Speaker 14: the shop and gets a cabanossi, and so he would
Speaker 14: have been out of eyesight and he comes out of
Speaker 14: the shop. To me, it's logical that she'd wait on
Speaker 14: the footpath for him taking down to meet her husband
Speaker 14: to talk about something. She's moved away. It's an ambush
Speaker 14: and from there she's been caught at the scene by
Speaker 14: Anna Poulos. I'm surprised that she said that the man
Speaker 14: leaning over the body was her husband to Anapoulos, I
Speaker 14: imagine that the police would have got a statement from
Speaker 14: him to miss Scott hue to say that is my husband.
Speaker 14: I think that's there very very sinister evidence from an
Speaker 14: independent witness, I think, and at Pool Loss this is
Speaker 14: fantastic because this fits perfectly to This is a setup
Speaker 14: and a sting by the family and friends.
Speaker 2: The family of Helen Scott Hughey in retaliation for the
Speaker 2: murder of Carlos. Correct I had a long discussion about
Speaker 2: this with Kelly. Helen Scott Huey formed a peculiar relationship,
Speaker 2: you'd have to say, with Reagan's de facto wife, Margaret,
Speaker 2: They in fact had a friendship. Correct and Helen Scott
Speaker 2: Huey expressed to Margaret she didn't believe Reagan had murdered
Speaker 2: her son. So you have the initial reaction that from
Speaker 2: witnesses we've spoken to that she was convinced Reagan murdered
Speaker 2: the boy. Then you have Helen Scott poling up with
Speaker 2: Margaret Reagan and saying John didn't do it. These two
Speaker 2: facts are not reconciling with each other, right.
Speaker 3: Help or have you got Lee threatening her like you
Speaker 3: know what they were like back then?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So then we come to this, if we continue
Speaker 2: this theory, Reagan spent his last day with Helen Scott
Speaker 2: Huey and his daughter to Margaret Helen yep, as we've
Speaker 2: looked at that, it was a dispute outside Barrack Motors.
Speaker 2: When Mark came to pick up Helen, she took off
Speaker 2: with the child, exasperating Reagan. She'd never stood up to
Speaker 2: him like that before. And then he was subsequently driven
Speaker 2: to this so called meeting in Marrickville by Helen Scott Huey, and.
Speaker 3: Helen Scott Huey reminded him of Oliver Meeting.
Speaker 2: This is something we've discussed at nauseam for years. But
Speaker 2: if we'd run with this theory, and it's only a theory,
Speaker 2: Stuart John Reagan was a very very cautious criminal. Extremely
Speaker 2: he was permanently alert and in the latter years constantly armed.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've spoken to one of his girlfriends for
Speaker 2: one of a better word in the sixties, and he
Speaker 2: carried a small foom in an ankle holster, so he
Speaker 2: was prepared at all time, wore a body armor, had
Speaker 2: body armor and bodyguard. But on this Sunday when he's
Speaker 2: dropped off at Merrickville, he has no weapons, no body armor,
Speaker 2: no bodyguard. Wanders into a shop by himself and buys
Speaker 2: his favorite sausage, comes out and just sallies down the
Speaker 2: road on a Sunday afternoon. Walk into this trap.
Speaker 3: And he's walked past a motor vehicle in an alley.
Speaker 3: He hasn't we raised any eyebrows. He's kept going down
Speaker 3: the dark alley.
Speaker 2: So why on this Sunday, in that moment is this
Speaker 2: man who is perpetually on guard for his own life,
Speaker 2: given what he's involved in. Why in this one moment
Speaker 2: is he totally defenseless like.
Speaker 3: He's someone with him. When you've got other people with
Speaker 3: your guard comes down a bit, don't.
Speaker 2: It, Okay? So this leads to logically exactly that was
Speaker 2: he with somebody whom he felt completely relaxed with. Was
Speaker 2: he going to meeting that? It indeed may have been
Speaker 2: appropriate for this mythical companion that had relaxed him to
Speaker 2: the point of where which is just like he was
Speaker 2: going for an afternoon.
Speaker 3: Walk, like a dinner, a dinner or something like that.
Speaker 2: Ye're not a high ocdane business meeting, because he kept
Speaker 2: his biness and pleasures very very separate.
Speaker 3: Very separate, very separate.
Speaker 2: So was he walking down Chapel Street with a girlfriend
Speaker 2: going to a social event, which would explain the lack
Speaker 2: of weaponry, the casualness of the moment, and also the
Speaker 2: vulnerability of a very very cautious man who ordinarily would
Speaker 2: never a million years have walked into such a trap.
Speaker 2: Detective Eric Gollan was working that Sunday when news filtered
Speaker 2: through to police that the notorious Johnny Reagan had been
Speaker 2: gunned down in Merrickville.
Speaker 16: We were working on the afternoon chist on twenty one
Speaker 16: der Vision. We all got a call to go to
Speaker 16: the SiO Boo and report to Rocky Morson.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Was that every one in the division.
Speaker 16: Or everyone available, everyone.
Speaker 2: Available, Wow, and he held a meeting there.
Speaker 16: He breathed us, all, yeah, he got all specific tasks.
Speaker 16: He is really and had so many different properties and
Speaker 16: so many different motives. People would want to get rid
Speaker 16: of him. I never ever actually met him. Everyone was
Speaker 16: aware of him. He was notorious for his activities and
Speaker 16: of course he was the number one suspect for the murderers.
Speaker 16: Carlos got Hughey, the little boy from Taylor Square.
Speaker 2: Despite a myriad of possible motives, Eric said, everything quickly
Speaker 2: came back to Carlos and his mother, Helen.
Speaker 16: The theory was that the mother of the child set
Speaker 16: him up because he was very guarded. Body guards with
Speaker 16: him at different time, but he turned up for this
Speaker 16: meeting with no one name.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the great mystery, isn't it. Yeah, that's so
Speaker 2: out of character for him.
Speaker 16: We were told given all specific jobs to do by Rocky.
Speaker 16: He knew all the addresses of the houses for the
Speaker 16: owned and the place. He's like a frequent No one
Speaker 16: had a motive at that stage for the murder, but
Speaker 16: it was a very vicious murder in the middle of
Speaker 16: the street in marytll So we went out and we
Speaker 16: had to just sit off in surveillance mode on different
Speaker 16: houses because it wasn't known whether or not it was
Speaker 16: someone who he'd upset with the girls, or whether he'd
Speaker 16: upset someone who was in the houses, or so will
Speaker 16: poor old Rocky. He's gone now, unfortunately, but just as
Speaker 16: a comed you saw it, he said. Now when you
Speaker 16: go out there, he said, make sure if you find
Speaker 16: out who did it, he said, being straight back into me.
Speaker 16: So I can pin a police friends, bad John, he says,
Speaker 16: then we'll deal with it.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. So that was that was the level
Speaker 2: of loathing that Ricka was held in.
Speaker 16: Yeah, yeah, and of course the all stories about Reagan,
Speaker 16: and then the Rocky said, well get out of here,
Speaker 16: do your job. Record back to his anything he said,
Speaker 16: and Gilligan, iye, gone down to the Maork So we're
Speaker 16: going to put a mirror under his nose, put some
Speaker 16: pins in his foot to see the bus just dead.
Speaker 2: When nothing turned up. After watching Reagan's properties, Golan and
Speaker 2: other officers decided to head over to Chapel Street, Merrickville
Speaker 2: and take a look for themselves. And was the street
Speaker 2: was sealed off when you arrived?
Speaker 17: Oh?
Speaker 16: I think they'd finished with the in those days, they'd
Speaker 16: finished with the crime scene right age.
Speaker 2: But definitely Reagan's blood on the road.
Speaker 5: I believe it to be.
Speaker 16: Anyway, you know quite a number rounds.
Speaker 2: I asked, Was there a measure of relief amongst police that,
Speaker 2: however he'd been dispatched, he was gone.
Speaker 16: Well, you got to look at it two ways. I
Speaker 16: don't think there was any release. I think there would
Speaker 16: have been a lot of release if we had found
Speaker 16: out who actual we did it, that would have been
Speaker 16: a big release because she would have got ridy to
Speaker 16: tell them then, wouldn't he or more? But it was
Speaker 16: a bad crook, and I don't think he got convicted
Speaker 16: of much at all because he was just too smart
Speaker 16: for everyone.
Speaker 2: Margare recalls when she was informed that Johnny Reagan was dead.
Speaker 2: When did you first hear about him being shot to death?
Speaker 9: The same night? I can't remember where I was when
Speaker 9: they were in me.
Speaker 2: They didn't come to the door or no.
Speaker 9: I don't know how I knew. I think I was
Speaker 9: at my father's house. I can't remember, but it.
Speaker 2: Was that Sunday evening.
Speaker 9: It was definitely that night.
Speaker 4: And they said Johnny's been shot dead. Yeah, do you
Speaker 4: vaguely even remember what your reaction was?
Speaker 5: Shock?
Speaker 9: Of course it was shot, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Of course, fears for your children without a fire.
Speaker 9: I didn't even think of that. I just thought, well,
Speaker 9: why shocked?
Speaker 5: Shocked?
Speaker 9: I put myself in that situation that I was there,
Speaker 9: I called a beatane.
Speaker 2: Were you called upon to identify the body?
Speaker 17: No?
Speaker 2: You know who was?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 3: Do you know?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 2: I mean usually it is the prerogative of the father
Speaker 2: of the family. Do you think the colonel.
Speaker 9: Definitely, I'd say it was her.
Speaker 2: Do you know how she reacted initially to her son's death?
Speaker 9: She blamed the police? She did, Yes, she did. Police
Speaker 9: to kill my son, the police to kill my son.
Speaker 2: You don't know what basis she might have had for
Speaker 2: that theory.
Speaker 9: See, his mother knew more than what everybody thought. She
Speaker 9: knew he would confine in his mother fears, since he's
Speaker 9: always confided in his mother.
Speaker 2: Do you think she knew more about his gangster activities.
Speaker 5: Than you did?
Speaker 9: Yes?
Speaker 2: Yes, what sort of mother would know that and not
Speaker 2: try and make a an intervention?
Speaker 9: Or she loved the limelight of it. My sons were
Speaker 9: out there, and my son's you know, dear my son
Speaker 9: to bring money home, bring jewelry home, bring them whatever.
Speaker 9: And he's tough, and he's tough. Some people love that
Speaker 9: kind of thing. Look at my son, look at me,
Speaker 9: and look at me. So I think that was don't
Speaker 9: muck around or my son will get you, you know
Speaker 9: that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So she think you think she sort of fed off
Speaker 2: it or lived lived off his repretation.
Speaker 9: Definitely for many years. It's a really sad story. It's
Speaker 9: a sad story. He confided in his mother and listened
Speaker 9: to his mother more than anybody, even us. I personally,
Speaker 9: myself will never forgive her. Never. First of all, she
Speaker 9: created a monster with John. She created from his childhood
Speaker 9: who as a normal kid from a country town and
Speaker 9: comes into the big city and changes completely. Was she
Speaker 9: loved it. She loved every minute of it.
Speaker 2: That's not normal.
Speaker 9: No, it's not normal.
Speaker 2: One of the first things police asked marg was did
Speaker 2: you arrange to have Reagan killed? It's a question the
Speaker 2: police had to ask. And why not? He was fueling
Speaker 2: around with plenty of other women. Had she had enough
Speaker 2: of his violent, philandering ways. Naturally, she denied the allegation.
Speaker 2: She can't remember the details, but she said she was
Speaker 2: further brought in for questioning at the Darlinghurst police station.
Speaker 2: I don't know what I knew. He was killed and
Speaker 2: they brought me in. I can't remember that right, And
Speaker 2: the purpose of bringing you in if you knew was
Speaker 2: to tell you again, or to tell you from the
Speaker 2: horse's mouth, or well, I assume so.
Speaker 18: But because at one stage in the conversation he did
Speaker 18: ask me whether I had killed Johnny, meaning jealousy and
Speaker 18: things like that, because we knew that he was involved
Speaker 18: with other women. And did you have any input inship
Speaker 18: together with john That's really the thing that's stuck in
Speaker 18: my head, and of.
Speaker 2: Course I've gone no, of course not really.
Speaker 18: A lot of that conversation is blocking my head somewhere.
Speaker 2: What shocked Mark given at the time was why Johnny
Speaker 2: would enter Chapel Street unarmed and alone.
Speaker 18: Actually worked out as walking through Chapel Street or to Marple.
Speaker 18: He was confident that whoever he was meeting was his
Speaker 18: friend or or Isnes his partner or somebody. He went
Speaker 18: whoever they had been, with great confidence. That's what I think,
Speaker 18: because I knew how the man work. She would never
Speaker 18: go anywhere. He would have someone beside him. We think
Speaker 18: he would do things together with people, you know what
Speaker 18: I mean. Yes, So for him to go to that
Speaker 18: linking at Marathon, it was just like a Sunday walk
Speaker 18: to him, oh onto the Spawner shop had happen. Not
Speaker 18: seeing the corner and walk down the road. Whatever it did,
Speaker 18: he had no fear wherever he was going. To remember
Speaker 18: that I seen him what an hour and a half
Speaker 18: before he was killed, and he wanted me to drive Hidney,
Speaker 18: to drive him somewhere. He didn't say Martha, he didn't
Speaker 18: say link. If did, don't want you to drive me.
Speaker 18: And as you know the rest of the story, and
Speaker 18: I have his daughter in the car. So when you
Speaker 18: think about that that way, do you think that he
Speaker 18: would have been capable of taking me and his daughter
Speaker 18: if he thought there was fear, I would have probably
Speaker 18: never met who he was needy if I would have went,
Speaker 18: If he would have thought it was a setup, we
Speaker 18: have asked me to go, and I had towering the car,
Speaker 18: and that's his own child. So he's Gonel with the
Speaker 18: uppermis whoever is leading not a problem.
Speaker 2: Everybody knew that Reagan only trusted a small handful of
Speaker 2: people in his world. One at the top of the
Speaker 2: list was mob boss Frederick Paddles Anderson, the father figure
Speaker 2: sitting at the table at Checkers Nightclub celebrating Reagan's twenty
Speaker 2: first birthday in nineteen sixty six. The master to Reagan's
Speaker 2: criminal apprentice. Reagan's longtime solicitor Michael Seymour thought of Paddles
Speaker 2: down the years in relation to Reagan's murder.
Speaker 19: When when he was shot and it appeared to he
Speaker 19: was lured too, Mark Gil I someone's early fast. I
Speaker 19: thought about it.
Speaker 3: Now, the would it be Fred?
Speaker 2: Don't know really well?
Speaker 7: Was that your first thought?
Speaker 2: Why did you think that.
Speaker 19: Reagan trusted him? Would have been had to someone that
Speaker 19: Reagan trusted implicitly because I heard that he was to
Speaker 19: meet someone and there was a bit of money involved.
Speaker 2: Then there's this recollection from a criminal source of mine
Speaker 2: in Queensland. I trust this source implicitly. In over fifteen years.
Speaker 2: He has never, in a single instance provided me with
Speaker 2: even slightly inaccurate information. He's what the criminal milieu call
Speaker 2: a scaly wag or a scaly but he's as honest
Speaker 2: as the day is long. This scalley of mine was
Speaker 2: and remains friends with many leading criminals in the late
Speaker 2: sixties and early nineteen seventies. One of those friends will
Speaker 2: call Max. Max worked for Reagan in the early nineteen
Speaker 2: seventies in Reagan's lucrative land scams. Max was one of
Speaker 2: the scams salesmen who gilded the lily, sold the land
Speaker 2: and did a runner with the cash. Through Reagan, Max
Speaker 2: struck up a close relationship with the boss of bosses,
Speaker 2: Paddles Anderson in Sydney. Max and Paddles loved a punt
Speaker 2: and countless times the two of them had dinner and drinks.
Speaker 2: Not long after Reagan's murder, Max and Paddles were socializing.
Speaker 2: That's when Paddles told Max something extraordinary about the day
Speaker 2: Reagan was killed in Chapel Street, Marrickville. Why did the
Speaker 2: usually ultra cautious Reagan turn up to that ill fated
Speaker 2: meeting unarmed because of Paddles. Paddles, as close to Reagan
Speaker 2: as a voting uncle, told Reagan to attend his meeting
Speaker 2: without a gun. In short, Reagan was set up by
Speaker 2: one of the only men in the world that he trusted.
Speaker 2: Here's my source relaying Max's story about what Paddles told
Speaker 2: him all those years ago. So what did he say?
Speaker 2: From your memory?
Speaker 5: Agan, paddle said, you've got a meet up with someone
Speaker 5: that he didn't say who they were, but he said,
Speaker 5: make sure you're not carrying a piece in a handcom.
Speaker 2: So Paddles said that to Reagan.
Speaker 5: To Reagan, yes, made sure you're not carrying a piece,
Speaker 5: was his words, told him directly. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But
Speaker 5: Paddles told he said, I call Reagan to make sure
Speaker 5: when he gets to meet you don't have a peace on.
Speaker 2: So Paddles was basically saying to him that he set
Speaker 2: him up for death.
Speaker 5: Well I did think so, Yeah, for sure, Yeah, obviously
Speaker 5: he set him up. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Reagan's post mortem was conducted on Monday, September twenty three,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four, at the City Morguan Glebe. The cause
Speaker 2: of death was due to bullet wounds to the head, chest,
Speaker 2: and liver. The autopsy recorded penetrating wound six millimeters in
Speaker 2: diameter to the left lumbar region, penetrating entry wound ten
Speaker 2: centimeters to the right of mid line of back. The
Speaker 2: surrounding area of this wound was tattooed and it was
Speaker 2: estimated that the shot was fired from approximately six inches
Speaker 2: from the wound. Grazing wound consistent with a bullet graze,
Speaker 2: penetrating wound in the right lumbar region, penetrating wound close
Speaker 2: to this wound, penetrating wound at the front of chest
Speaker 2: ten centimeters below right sternum, clavicular joint penetrating wound to
Speaker 2: the right occipital region of the skull, penetrating wound to
Speaker 2: the left mastoid process of the back of the skull.
Speaker 2: There was damage to Reagan's right lung, liver, spleen, stomach, pancreas,
Speaker 2: and brain due to tracking bullets. The base of his
Speaker 2: skull and left jawbone were fractured. Four bullets and shrapnel
Speaker 2: were removed from his body. Written in biro on the
Speaker 2: palm of Reagan's left hand was batteries six point zero.
Speaker 2: There it is there. It's a pretty church.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Reagan's funeral was held on Monday, September thirty at Saint
Speaker 2: Brigard's Catholic Church in Kudji. Only about sixty people attended.
Speaker 2: There were probably more undercover police observing from the streets
Speaker 2: around the church.
Speaker 4: So this was the only church that would marry that
Speaker 4: would have a service in.
Speaker 2: Father John Eldridge held a requiem mass. Saint Brigard's was
Speaker 2: the only church that agreed to stage a service for Reagan.
Speaker 2: As Claire Reagan was being helped into the church, she
Speaker 2: shouted at reporters, you bloody crucified him, you bloody robbers.
Speaker 2: As for Reagan's supposed millions in property in cash, his
Speaker 2: solicitor Michael Seymour told reporters at the funeral that Reagan's
Speaker 2: will would probably be made public in a few weeks
Speaker 2: after it had gone through probate. Fifty years later, no
Speaker 2: will has materialized. Wasn't Johnny Reagan the millionaire gangster? Where's
Speaker 2: the money? In his interview with federal narcotics agents, Reagan's
Speaker 2: former drug associate, John Edward Milligan made a curious statement
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 12: I had a partnership with Reagan at one stage until
Speaker 12: we fell out over that Queensland affair, and he never
Speaker 12: forgave me after that. He used to go around threatening
Speaker 12: to murder me and arrange statements against me in all
Speaker 12: sorts of weird things, writing newspapers about me.
Speaker 2: And I got a guy called the job of.
Speaker 12: Being Reagan's accountant and wound up very wealthy out of
Speaker 12: his association. He made all what the money that was
Speaker 12: left in the bank. When Reagan was murdered assassinated.
Speaker 2: Stuart John Reagan was cremated. The urn containing his ashes
Speaker 2: was then taken by his loving mother the Colonel and
Speaker 2: brought home to Duke Street, Kensington. She in turn displayed
Speaker 2: the urn in the bedroom of Reagan's son, JP, the
Speaker 2: boy she had also taken possession of from his mother
Speaker 2: marg and there the urn stayed until the Colonel died
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty eight, and still she held onto her
Speaker 2: beloved Johnny. His ashes went in with her, into his
Speaker 2: mother's arms, into her coffin and plot in Sydney's Rookwood Cemetery.
Speaker 2: One cold windy day, Kelly and I went out to
Speaker 2: see the grave. This is it.
Speaker 3: That's it. Yeah, Claire Mary Reagan always loved and remembered. Wow,
Speaker 3: that's her.
Speaker 2: Underneath your knees kel It's Stuart John Reagan. Yes, the
Speaker 2: gangster is here. Yes, nobody knows that outside the family.
Speaker 4: In turn with his mother, she had the last laugh right.
Speaker 2: Recently, after years of agitation by Kelly's later Reagan, second
Speaker 2: cousin to murdered gangster Stuart John Reagan, members of Sydney's
Speaker 2: Cold Case homicide Squad drove out to Young to explain
Speaker 2: the status of Reagan's unsolved murder. It was a personal
Speaker 2: and respectful gesture to a family that had waited so
Speaker 2: long for some answers. So, Kelly, the police came and
Speaker 2: visited you in Young Yep.
Speaker 3: So they showed up and we had a fair few
Speaker 3: of the family were there, and we had Inspector Nigel Warren.
Speaker 2: We had The news was as expected. With a fifty
Speaker 2: year cold case murder, police have decided for the moment
Speaker 2: not to actively reopen the investigation. How was everybody feeling
Speaker 2: about the police arriving?
Speaker 3: God, look, Lorraine got the best china out, even got
Speaker 3: out the milk jug and all the good cups and sources.
Speaker 3: Mind you, they didn't have a cup of tea.
Speaker 2: Too much time had passed, too many potential witnesses had
Speaker 2: passed away. The chances of any sort of charges being laid,
Speaker 2: let alone a prosecution, were close to zero. Who were
Speaker 2: the killers? As marg told us so aptly, you may
Speaker 2: as well be playing a game of pick a box? Well,
Speaker 2: what did we learn after years of probing Reagan's life
Speaker 2: and death. We had a lot of rumors that had
Speaker 2: persisted for decades. We had some criminals who believed the
Speaker 2: police finally decided to rid the world of the deadly
Speaker 2: pest that was Johnny Reagan after he crossed the line
Speaker 2: and became a child killer. We had police who blamed
Speaker 2: criminals like Paddles Anderson, Lenny McPherson and George Freeman for
Speaker 2: the assassination after he crossed the line and became a
Speaker 2: child killer. We had observers who believed corrupt police and
Speaker 2: gangsters a life came together to acquit the execution, and
Speaker 2: we had a theory that the murder was closer to home,
Speaker 2: organized as family revenge for the killing of Carlos Scott Huey,
Speaker 2: as Mark z pick a box. To be honest, we
Speaker 2: never expected to drag the real killers out from beneath
Speaker 2: a fifty year mountain of life, death, lies, red herrings,
Speaker 2: lost documents, scattered paperwork, faulty memories, and innumerable conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2: What we wanted to achieve was a fuller picture of
Speaker 2: this man's life and death, especially for the Reagan family.
Speaker 2: Kelly reflected on our epic adventure into the underworld. What
Speaker 2: do you think this is all meant to Margaret and
Speaker 2: the and the larger Reagan family the journey of the podcast.
Speaker 3: I don't think Mark fully comprehended how much we had
Speaker 3: until we went to Chapel Street. She probably just thought, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, we're going to go out and collect a
Speaker 3: few things. Now it's really got her cogs turning me. Certainly,
Speaker 3: I am seeing things in a different light because Dad
Speaker 3: was kept so insulated from this. Dad's now saying my
Speaker 3: family knew more. What I think is imagine what he
Speaker 3: could have been if it had a great upbringing and
Speaker 3: run his own businesses like multi multi millionaire. But that
Speaker 3: one thing I found absolutely astounding from the very first
Speaker 3: time I ever spoke to you, was that our family
Speaker 3: always knew that John was involved in the Whiskey Go Go,
Speaker 3: and I thought everybody else did, but clearly nobody else
Speaker 3: did other than a few.
Speaker 2: Kelly still wasn't convinced that Reagan had killed Carlos Scott Huey.
Speaker 2: Was this, no matter how long ago, a bridge too
Speaker 2: far for any family. For marg the pain, the surprises,
Speaker 2: the repercussions of having been partner to one of Australia's
Speaker 2: most notorious gangsters are still being felt. Some of his
Speaker 2: children are still popping out of the woodwork, correct, which
Speaker 2: is incredible to think about. Yep, how does that affect you?
Speaker 9: I don't blame the children, but I won't be involved
Speaker 9: in that I want to be involved. Oh, this is
Speaker 9: Johnny Reagan's child, and you've got to meet them.
Speaker 2: The answer is no, you removed yourself from that. I
Speaker 2: remember myself from that and never go back.
Speaker 9: No.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 4: In a way, it's well, it's unusual and it's extraordinary
Speaker 4: in the respect that he Stuart John Reagan, is still
Speaker 4: impacting your family.
Speaker 9: When you talk about my family, think about the other
Speaker 9: women that they've got children. True, still affecting their family.
Speaker 2: I think you said to me this it just never
Speaker 2: seems to end.
Speaker 9: It doesn't seem to end. So this is what we're
Speaker 9: doing now, is the final thing that I can do.
Speaker 9: Whatever comes of it, what.
Speaker 2: Comes of it the podcast.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, I'm here to try and finalize this so
Speaker 9: we can all get on with our lives. As I
Speaker 9: said before, I didn't meet a beast. I didn't meet
Speaker 9: an ugly man. I didn't meet it. I didn't meet
Speaker 9: that person. That person became alive in my eyes later on.
Speaker 2: Marg might just have to wait a little bit longer
Speaker 2: for this story to end. We said right at the
Speaker 2: start of The Gangster's Ghost that this wasn't just an
Speaker 2: investigation into the life and death of an toorious Lobster.
Speaker 2: It was also the story of a family and how
Speaker 2: it carries the generational stain of a black Sheep, a
Speaker 2: man whose shocking deeds have entered the history books. Along
Speaker 2: with the magician's many victims. The Reagans have to heal too,
Speaker 2: and Shotgun Johnny's oldest daughter, Helen, has come up with
Speaker 2: a way she hopes will make that happen.
Speaker 20: Earn that held my father's ashes, sat in the living
Speaker 20: room for years and years. I'd like to bury it
Speaker 20: for once and for all, but in a peaceful where
Speaker 20: his roots and where he had a good life.
Speaker 2: So you'd like to retrieve he's earned from Rookwood.
Speaker 20: Yes, from my grandmother's gravesite, take him back to his
Speaker 20: hometown and be close to his father and the rest
Speaker 20: of the Reagan clan, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 20: he's a Reagan, you know, and that's where he grew up.
Speaker 20: That was probably some of his days too, you know.
Speaker 2: Is it a case where you'd like to well, can
Speaker 2: I say, rest him away from his mother? And would
Speaker 2: you bury him in alf his father's grave. I mean,
Speaker 2: I've stood at the foot of your grandfather's grave, alf
Speaker 2: In young.
Speaker 9: Would yeah, it'd be lovely.
Speaker 2: It's a lumary spot.
Speaker 9: I mean, I visited it many years ago.
Speaker 20: When I first went there, it was one of the
Speaker 20: first things I asked to do is to see my
Speaker 20: grandfather's grave, and my uncle Lindsey and of the family
Speaker 20: took me there, and it's a beautiful spot, sort of
Speaker 20: on a hill.
Speaker 9: I think it would be just idellic for Dad to
Speaker 9: be there, you know.
Speaker 20: I know for a fact that he would always escape
Speaker 20: down there but never tell the colonel. I think that
Speaker 20: would be nice to them to be together again. It
Speaker 20: would be a homage to my father because I never
Speaker 20: really got the opportunity to say goodbye.
Speaker 2: Did I never got there.
Speaker 20: You know, when I look back at this map, I
Speaker 20: never cried from my father. I never I was too
Speaker 20: young to understand it if he was there one day
Speaker 20: and gone. So this would be my time to actually
Speaker 20: grieve top place and say goodbye, not only for me,
Speaker 20: but you know the readers. You know, we all have
Speaker 20: the same blood in our veins, and you know, I
Speaker 20: think it would be a fitting way to say goodbye.
Speaker 20: And yeah, I think it would be a lot of
Speaker 20: closure for my family.
Speaker 2: Definitely, now seems the right time to go all the
Speaker 2: way back to the country town of Young to that
Speaker 2: kitchen table on the Slater Reagan farm where the whole
Speaker 2: family first came together at the start of this odyssey.
Speaker 2: After a great meal and a few drinks, Kelly went
Speaker 2: over to the stereo and pulled out a CD by
Speaker 2: local artist Dave Debs. Years ago, Dave wrote a song
Speaker 2: about alf Reagan, Johnny's father. He had gotten to know
Speaker 2: the old man when he was a teenager and never
Speaker 2: forgot him. Penniless and living in a tin shed on
Speaker 2: the outskirts of town. An emotional Kelly went to press
Speaker 2: play who is this?
Speaker 3: So this is David Debs's song Still a Pioneer off
Speaker 3: his album Lover's Highway. So this is about Uncle Al.
Speaker 8: And I'm not going to bubble.
Speaker 2: Guarantee that I know.
Speaker 3: How embarrassing. Yeah, I know, but I don't do public
Speaker 3: displays of affection.
Speaker 7: And it's very jail, it's very ban jail on the flatball.
Speaker 17: When I was at school on town and you're an
Speaker 17: old man weather Brown outside his car gates.
Speaker 2: He's still a pining.
Speaker 21: I listened to his starvings before I was on and
Speaker 21: a small champion movie like his only friend I covered
Speaker 21: the way.
Speaker 17: He still a piny.
Speaker 2: The Gangster's Ghost is dedicated to the memory of my
Speaker 2: old mate John Shakespeare, friend confidante, brother, a million mind.
Speaker 21: I'm half close stories sharp Goldy's gone by, Still a pony.
Speaker 8: Then I moved to the city and the.
Speaker 22: Word came down and all Elf Reagan was no longer
Speaker 22: I look less good, Telly ho Chang, look see.
Speaker 2: You finger the spine.
Speaker 20: What's a man?
Speaker 22: He walked about a million b.
Speaker 2: Clos dies shall.
Speaker 20: Please gone on bye.
Speaker 17: Still he's still a pie. It's still APIs still.
Speaker 1: The Gangsters Ghost is a production of The Australian. It's
Speaker 1: written and presented by Senior Writing Mathew Condon and edited
Speaker 1: by Multimedia editor Leat sammagloom Our Executive producer is Me,
Speaker 1: Editorial Director Claire Harvey. Special thanks to Lara Kamenos, Rika Rutliche,
Speaker 1: Kristin Amiot, Jasper Leik, Stephanie Coombs, Sean Callanan Laughlin, Clear,
Speaker 1: Ryan Osland, Amanda Wynn Williams, Christine Kelle, Tarren Blackhurst, Magdalena Zadak,
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