WEBVTT - Episode 1: Dead Man Talking 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:03.080 Before we begin. 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:06.439 This podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence. 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:16.320 Stuart John Reagan. He was the maniac gangster shotgun Johnny Nano, 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:20.360 the magician gunned down at the age of just twenty 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:25.119 nine after terrorizing the East Coast of Australia throughout the 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:30.600 nineteen sixties and seventies. It was said he killed up 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:37.199 to twelve people, including an innocent toddler, and vanished their bodies. 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:43.720 At the height of his notoriety, his evil, his violence, 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:48.760 his hair triggered temper. His reputation as a vendor of 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:56.080 death was distilled into a single word, Reagan. He terrified 0:00:56.160 --> 0:01:02.440 crooks and coppers alike. He was the monster with movie 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:07.959 star good looks. Women fawned over him. Men tried to 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:14.200 imitate the teetotaling tough guy. What set him apart was 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:19.160 his hair triggered temper from zero to lethal boiling point 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:23.960 in the blink of an eye. His few friends said 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:29.679 he had a tiger inside of him. His own murder 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:33.160 at the hands of free gunmen in a grubby Sydney 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:38.920 laneway in broad daylight remains unsolved, and half a century later, 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:44.240 police still don't want to know about it. He was 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:49.560 crazy by any measure, a standout psychopath in a criminal 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:54.800 era that had its fair share of them. Reagan roared 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.920 through the underworld like a flame thrower before eight bullets 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:04.080 to the body and the head stopped the chaos. That's 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:08.120 where the story should have ended, but not for the 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:14.120 Reagan family. His name and reputation have soiled a family 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.440 tree from rural New South Wales that is filled with 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:24.160 pioneers and war heroes. Was Stuart John Reagan as bad 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:29.040 as history has portrayed him? Did he actually kill little 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:34.880 Carlos in nineteen seventy four, and who in turn murdered 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:40.840 Reagan a few months later. After years of investigation, the 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:46.040 family now has some answers. In this podcast, we will 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:51.320 reveal a new theory about Reagan's assassination as possible retribution 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:57.240 for Carlos's death. How Reagan tried to kill whistleblowing Madame 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:04.119 Shirley Brifman, who died in mysterio circumstances shortly afterwards. How 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:09.960 domestic violence perpetrated by Reagan's terrifying mother Claire, set him 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:15.240 on the path to crime and into history. How Reagan 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.480 was brutalized at a boy's home that was little more 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:23.880 than an academy for Australia's leading criminals, including Chow Hayes, 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:31.400 Neddie Smith, Lenny McPherson and George Freeman. We'll expose for 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.920 the first time Reagan's role in the whiskeyer Go Go 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:40.200 nightclub massacre in Brisbane in nineteen seventy three, which killed 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:47.040 fifteen innocent people. And incredibly, you will hear the voice 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:51.720 of Johnny Reagan himself from old real to real tapes 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:59.040 hidden away for years in a black suitcase. Welcome to 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:08.440 the nether world of Australia's last old school gangster. I'm 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:14.240 journalist Matthew Condon and this is The Gangsters Ghost episode 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:31.080 one dead Man talking. How on Earth did I end 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:35.600 up here? A couple of days ago, I was at 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.599 home in far northern New South Wales, having a surf 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:43.359 with my kids, surrounded by beautiful beaches and lush rainforests. 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.880 Now Here, I am on a farm outside the country 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:54.320 town of Young on the southwestern slopes of New South Wales, 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:59.919 more than one thousand, one hundred kilometers away. The lands 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:04.480 cape gently rolling with patchwork wheat and canola fields, surrounded 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:11.880 by hundreds, no thousands, of grubby sheep. I was only 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:16.640 here because of a local farmer, Kelly Slater. I was 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:20.159 here because Kelly contacted me and asked if I was 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:24.400 interested in finding out the truth about a gangster she 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:29.840 had in her family tree. I still vividly remember when 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:33.840 Kelly Slater Reagan, herself a former New South Wales copper, 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:38.279 first contacted me. This is Kelly reading an email she 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:38.719 sent me. 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.800 Hi, I'm an ex police officer and cousin of Johnny Reagan. 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.120 We're looking at doing a podcast on him, the good, 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:53.320 the bad, the ugly, mostly the two Ladder, but his 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.880 childhood as well. We have letters and recordings that have 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:59.360 never been heard. Looking for help to make it work 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:01.520 Kelly Reagan. 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.039 So I phoned Kelly. We talked about how the family 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:10.240 needed the truth after all these years. If the Reagans 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.760 were looking for any redemption here, it was going to 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.600 be difficult to find. What if the family came on 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.640 this journey and found a monster even more vile and 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:26.159 horrific than they could possibly imagine, they had to be 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:30.560 prepared for the worst. The first and most obvious thing 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:32.760 for me to do was to go to Young to 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:37.240 meet Kelly. We needed to talk about her dead gangster cousin. 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.880 Here's Kelly. We're sitting at her kitchen table at that 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:42.560 farm in. 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:49.320 Young Honestly, I don't know exactly what we'll find. I 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:53.919 know we'll find that he probably killed people. I've accepted 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.719 that fact. Will we find did he kill that little 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:00.960 boy like that? Is? That's something I'd really liked Carlos, 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:04.800 Did he or Didney? And I'm resigned to the fact 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.240 that if he did, like but I'm hopeful of it. 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:11.880 Given the whiskey of goe goo? What was his involvement 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.360 in that? Was he a psychopath? Like they said? Is 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:17.480 the stories that they tell about in truth? 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.400 Why do you want to know this right now? In history? 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:23.560 I don't know. It's funny, isn't it, Like when you 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:25.480 you know, they talk about war veterans and all that, 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.160 and they I think you get to a certain age 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:30.560 where you just think you want to know, Like in 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:32.480 my twenties, you'd think I would have wanted to know. 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.000 I knew from the outset that I had well a 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:48.920 partner in crime here. Only two people were ever truly 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:54.960 on the inside when it came to Reagan, Margaret and 0:07:55.040 --> 0:08:02.320 Reagan's mother Claire Claire Mary Rahl Reagan outlived her son 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:07.880 and only child by fourteen years, and she's been resting 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:13.239 in the Catholic lawn section of Sydney's Rookwood Cemetery, Plot 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:19.000 two six five three since September nineteen eighty eight. After 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.360 just a couple of days in Young and talking to 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:25.400 the Reagan family, it soon became apparent that this story 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:32.720 had another shadowy figure, and that was Claire Reagan, a 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:37.160 figure so malevolent that to this day she is still 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:46.360 reviled in Young. Back then, everyone called her the Colonel. 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:54.720 By all accounts, she was manipulative, controlling, violent, intimidating and cruel. 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:59.680 She horsewhipped her son and terrified his teachers at the 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:05.000 local Catholic school. I asked Kelly about the family's view 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:10.040 of Reagan's childhood and the Colonel Young look. 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:12.600 I think it was tough with his mother. She was 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:17.280 a tyrant, She was cruel. She would flog him mercilessly. 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:19.600 The other kids were terrified of that. The brothers at 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.520 the school were terrified of Oh, she was cruel, She 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:23.920 was cruel, She was a monster. 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:29.880 David Pattinson was in the same primary school class as Reagan. 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.400 He too heard about the monster that was the Colonel. 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:37.960 He actually had a fight at school with Paul Gibson, 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:43.360 who Paul gave him a body knows. Then another took 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:45.840 him down to his mother and she's working behind the 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:49.240 bar and she came out with the cloth of the bar, 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.079 wiped his face, said you get out of here and 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:55.200 get back there and give him a bleeding nose. 0:09:55.880 --> 0:10:01.040 We would discover many curious and appalling things about Colonel 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:06.160 and her strange magnetic hold on her son Stuart John Reagan, 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:13.360 about his childhood in young his alcoholic father, alf the 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:17.760 marriage breakup that saw Claire and little Johnny move to Sydney, 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:25.600 and a teenage Reagan's dissent into serious crime. Then there's 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:29.880 the enduring family rumor that when Claire Reagan went to 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:34.560 live in Sydney, she actually ran a few prostitutes out 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:38.160 of the house in Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst to survive. 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.480 The family never liked her at all, but there was 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:47.160 always this thing that she got Johnny into crime because 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:50.560 when she went to Sydney that she ran girls herself, 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.760 and he stood over those girls that she ran. He'd 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.000 worked for her and that's how he got started in it. 0:10:56.760 --> 0:11:00.560 Well, Kelly's offer of joining the family in this hunt 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:06.600 for the real Stuart John Reagan was already irresistible. They 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:11.640 had documents letters from Reagan in prison, but they had 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:17.400 something else, something I had to hear quite literally to believe, 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:23.559 and almost as an afterthought, she added, Then there's the tapes. 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:32.440 The tapes. What tapes, I asked, Johnny. She said, We've 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:35.240 got secret tapes of Johnny on the phone back in 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:39.839 the day, hours of them before he was murdered. 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:50.160 Testing one, two, three for five. 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:53.480 As a crime writer, you encounter a lot of dark 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:58.000 and surprising things. Sometimes you hear stories you wish you 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.640 could unhear. For the first time, I sat down and 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:06.400 listened to the old tapes hidden in a suitcase for decades, 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:08.480 I was speechless. 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:09.439 You know what he's doing. 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.200 He's that's a black man, and he said, I'll buy 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.440 the diamonds back off you for that amount of okay, 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.320 when the time period elapsed, I didn't want to sell 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:19.480 him to the Norman Carter and he's how. 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:23.520 It's difficult to describe the sensation of hearing for the 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:28.559 first time the actual voice of a notorious killer. It 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:33.840 only read about in books and ancient newspaper clippings. It 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.559 felt like I was sitting in the same room as 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:43.480 a ghost. Reagan loved technology, and at some stage decided 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:47.720 to tape his home phone calls. He rigged up his 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:52.600 nineteen sixties rotary dial telephone with a microphone and a 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:57.400 real to reel tape deck recorder. He even took a 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.640 concealed miniature cassette recorder out into the streets of King's 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:07.800 Cross and Darlinghurst and captured conversations with other criminals and 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:12.560 crooked cops. You know you've got a good defense for this. 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.240 Those lost tapes are filled with Reagan's wheeling and dealing, 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:22.600 his superior knowledge of the law, and his relentless quest 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:24.000 to get around it. 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.000 You shouldn't have had that card resisted in your name 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:27.680 in the third. 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.760 Place, and the names of many of the coppers he 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:34.800 could either work with or manipulate with cash under the. 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:40.000 Table, which is him mate what he Schnakeer plaid. He's 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:42.319 probably a mate of Stirdon. 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:46.280 He even thinks out loud about putting a bullet in 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:50.599 an enemy's head, just as casually as you and I 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:54.680 might wonder out loud what we'll have for breakfast. You 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:56.360 might my word I'm not telling you a lot. 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:58.319 I'll give you to your ideas, Tom, if you want 0:13:58.320 --> 0:13:59.680 to go through with him. If not, well, you know. 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.600 Reagan kept his tapes hidden away in a suit case 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:08.920 in his mother's house in Sydney when he died. That 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:13.320 suit case stayed inside a dark cupboard until his own mother, 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:18.920 the Colonel, passed away in nineteen eighty eight. The tapes 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:23.720 magnetic recording reels, each as big as a bread plate, 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:28.480 were lost for years. As recently as a couple of 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:33.160 months ago, these historical artifacts sounded like something out of 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:44.240 an audio museum, muffled, garbled, ancient, then lightning stroke. The 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:49.760 Australian's in house sound maestro Jasper Leak had come across 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:55.040 an artificial intelligence program that he thought might help clean 0:14:55.120 --> 0:15:01.160 up Reagan's amateur recordings. Then our other audio guru, Leah Sammaglu, 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:06.280 spent hundreds of hours feeding the Reagan tapes through this 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:12.680 AI software, fine tuning, finessing, and drawing out voices and 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:18.840 sounds from half a century ago. This is Johnny captured 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.520 on the raw digital file of the Reagan tapes. 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:26.920 And the cops and what they're doing and what they're 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.960 trying to I will. 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:34.840 And this is the same audio after Jasper Leah and 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:39.320 our new best friend artificial intelligence performed their wizardry. 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.360 Have you heard HEARDing wistern Red the coppers and what 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:44.680 they're doing and what they're trying to do? 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.680 Look, you know yourself, nobody coppers will? 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:49.200 I will. 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.400 This journey has made me rethink all the trepidation and 0:15:53.480 --> 0:16:00.600 debate surrounding artificial intelligence, particularly in the field of journalism. 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:07.880 Would AI ultimately replace journalists as we'd been warned? Would 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:12.880 it take over the world. The experience with the Reagan tapes, however, 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.640 is an exciting, in this case jaw dropping example of 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:22.680 how AI is far from the bogey man. For the podcast, 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:27.720 it has proved to be a phenomenal tool. You will 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.680 soon be hearing a lot of the gangster's ghost, as 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:34.080 clear as if the killer himself had pulled up a 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:38.200 chair at your kitchen table and settled down for a 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:39.720 cup of tea and a chat. 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:48.720 Absolutely, we'll put him with the others. Reagan, of course, No. 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:54.920 Reagan was shot dead by three shepherd guns. I'm out 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:56.920 at Maryfrell near Henson Park. 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:01.800 This is the notorious Foreman, New Southwell detective and convicted 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:05.480 murderer Roger Rogerson, who talked to me over the fern 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:08.480 many years ago about Johnny Reagan. 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.800 Lenny Macpherson said to me once mat he said Roger, 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:18.960 he said, you can control a bad man, but you 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.120 can't control a madman. I've never ever forgotten. 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:26.440 Roger's dead now, but he knew a bad man when 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:30.440 he met one, and he knew Reagan was out of control. 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:37.720 The seemingly untouchable Stuart John Reagan, who often wore a 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:42.720 bulletproof vest and always had a bodyguard by his side, 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.919 was there one minute, larger than life and gone the next, 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:56.120 a corpse bleeding out on a Sydney side street. You've 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:57.120 been a police officer. 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:03.480 What does it say that suddenly all lines of investigation, 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:10.080 query asking questions all stopped upon his death. Well, it's 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:12.400 still an active cold case his murder. 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:15.160 Well you think so, wouldn't you, because they never closed 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.720 there's no statute of limitations on murder. And here is 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.879 one of the biggest gangsters. So who's killed one of 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.080 the biggest gangsters. Wouldn't you want to know out of curiosity? See, 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:27.159 the family was always told that he was killed by 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:29.879 police and it was You know, if they were. They 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:33.919 were very brazen because they used thirty eighth's, so it 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:35.840 was always said that he was killed by police. 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:41.440 Kelly Reagan was treated with extreme suspicion when she applied 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:46.639 to join the police. A relative of this violent killer 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:49.720 wanted to sign up to keep the peace in New 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:54.000 South Wales. I was interested in whether having Reagan in 0:18:54.040 --> 0:19:00.199 her family tree actually inspired Kelly to combat crime. She 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:03.520 had been fascinated with Johnny Reagan since she was a 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:04.200 little girl. 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:08.360 I don't know overstretched the metaphor, but in the one 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:11.760 family you've got a notorious gangster and a New Souls 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:12.359 police officer. 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:16.840 I know, don't worry. When I went for my job interview, 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:21.240 I was expecting three serving senior serving, but there was 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:24.480 five on the panel and that's mostly all they asked 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:29.800 for about. So Kelly Reagan from young yep, what's your 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:34.920 relationship to Stuart John Reagan? Well, I never met him. 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.040 Here's my dad's cousin. And then it was just question 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:39.480 after question after question. 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:42.480 Time and again. As Kelly and I borrowed closer to 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:48.680 the truth about this complex man, strange things happened, ridiculous 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:51.880 coincidences and wild strokes of luck. 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.000 Because over the years I have spoken to people. So 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:56.760 I was at the station and a guy brought me 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.239 in a scrapbook and he said, I just thought you 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:01.359 might be interested, and seeing this, I know he was 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:03.200 your cousin. I went, oh, right, and I had a 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:05.399 look and here's the scrap book of all. So I 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:07.080 was sitting out in the meal room and I was 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:08.480 just having a look at it, and it was just 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:12.080 sitting on the table. Now, what's the chances of assistant commissioner, 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.080 former member of the armed hold up squad? So I've 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:19.040 been told pops in and he sees this thing there 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.560 and he says, ah, please looking at this, and I said, oh, 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:25.280 that's me. And he said, oh, what's your interest in Reagan? 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:29.760 And I said, well, he's my dad's first cousin. Oh, oh, well, 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:31.600 I can put you in contact with someone who can 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:34.439 tell you. So that's when he gave me old mate's number. 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.199 He said, I'll meet you at the golf course in 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:39.800 Nelson's Bay. It was real cloak and dagger, and he 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:42.160 handed me a letter that I had to destroy. 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:43.359 What was the matter. 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:45.840 It was just sort of saying that, you know, he 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:48.359 knew John, that he'd arrested him that he was. He 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:51.919 went to the hospital when he'd broken Marg's jaw and 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:54.040 tried to get him, tried to get Mark to give 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:56.560 a statement, which you wouldn't give a statement. It was 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:59.040 sort of just about that. And I'm like, is there 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:00.320 anything else do you know killed? 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:00.560 No? 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.800 No, no, no, no no no. I'm like, oh right, okay, yeah, 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:08.160 yepdo and then off he went. So every time someone 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.159 would find out that my name was Reagan and I 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:11.560 was from the young and it was a police officer 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:15.000 they and they were senior, they'd all way, oh yeah, yeah, 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:17.240 do you know Johnny Reagan? Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah, 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.000 like a guy that was a detective at Newtown at 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:21.600 the same time. I said, if you were there in 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:23.720 seventy four, do you remember Stuart John Rare Oh yeah, 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:26.680 yeah I do. I said, well he was my cousin. 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:27.919 He said, all right. I said, do you ever know 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.600 who killed him? He said, well, we were told that 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:33.439 in the area at the time there was a car 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.000 with four detectives seen in it. They were wearing these 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.280 bowler hats or something, and they had police coats on. 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.320 And he said there was always a whisper that it 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:42.520 was Rogerson's first hit. 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:43.960 Roger Rogerson. 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:52.399 Roger Caleb Rogerson, the notorious former New South Wales police 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:59.320 detective sergeant implicated in killing's assault, verbally, drug dealing and 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:05.200 corruption during a tumultuous career that saw him both admired 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:11.040 and hated. At his peak from the late nineteen sixties 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:15.240 through to the early nineteen eighties, he associated with all 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:20.560 the corrupt cops and Sydney gangsters that formed Johnny Reagan's milliere. 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:25.479 Rogerson was one of the lead detectives who investigated the 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:31.160 Whisky Go Go nightclub bombing in Brisbane in nineteen seventy three, 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:37.760 which left fifteen people dead. This incredibly brought him into 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:44.280 the orbit of Reagan, but more of that later. Rogerson 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:52.159 became infamous after shooting dead drug dealer Warren Lanfranchi. It 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:54.879 was suspected too, that he was involved in the attempted 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:59.920 murder of one of his own colleagues, police officer Michael Drew, 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:06.600 who had refused to take a bribe. Rogerson was dismissed 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:09.680 from the New South Wales Police Force in nineteen eighty six, 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:14.439 hit the pub circuit telling tall stories about his infamous 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:19.400 career before being charged in twenty fourteen with the murder 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:25.440 of Sydney drug dealer Jamie Gow. Rogerson was found guilty 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:30.360 of that crime. He died in Sydney's Long Bay jail. 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:34.520 Last year when he was convicted of the Gow murder. 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:40.680 A Sydney newspaper ran a headline, serial killer with a badge. 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:42.200 And I said, what do you mean, his first hit? 0:23:42.240 --> 0:23:44.800 And they said, since the forties and fifties, there's always 0:23:44.840 --> 0:23:47.600 been a hit man in the ci burn. I said, 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:50.879 you can't be a generation yes, I said, you can't 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:53.240 be serious. He said, Oh, the rank and file would 0:23:53.320 --> 0:23:55.480 never know about it. He said, but when detectives, when 0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:57.800 we'd all go out and we'd all be having a 0:23:57.840 --> 0:24:00.399 beer and lips would loosen a bit. Said, there was 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:02.560 always talk of that sort of stuff. Who told you 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:03.680 that story. 0:24:03.880 --> 0:24:08.040 The observation that each generation of police might have a 0:24:08.080 --> 0:24:12.920 professional killer in its ranks is far from outlandish, given 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:15.840 the history of corruption in the New South Wales Force. 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:20.080 That reputation began with the arrival of the first fleet 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:26.160 in seventeen eighty eight and has never abated. Corruption flourished 0:24:26.160 --> 0:24:29.840 in Sydney during the Second World War and became a 0:24:29.960 --> 0:24:33.359 fine art in the hands of men like Ray Gunner, 0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:38.359 Kelly and Fred Froggy Cray from the nineteen fifties to 0:24:38.480 --> 0:24:43.800 the nineteen seventies. Roger Rogerson was part of the new 0:24:43.880 --> 0:24:49.520 generation that carried that crooked baton forward. The Wood Role 0:24:49.560 --> 0:24:53.320 Commission into the New South Wales Police Service between nineteen 0:24:53.440 --> 0:24:57.480 ninety five and nineteen ninety seven examined the extent of 0:24:57.600 --> 0:25:03.359 corruption in the force. It exposed countless examples of misconduct 0:25:03.840 --> 0:25:09.600 and hundreds of officers were forced to resign. That first 0:25:09.680 --> 0:25:12.879 day I met Kelly and we sat at her kitchen table. 0:25:13.320 --> 0:25:18.520 We were awaiting some one else. Margaret Reagan, Johnny's long 0:25:18.640 --> 0:25:24.280 term some might say long suffering, de facto wife, mother 0:25:24.400 --> 0:25:28.440 to his daughters Helen and Claire, and to their son, 0:25:28.680 --> 0:25:34.359 John Junior. Could she take us inside the world of 0:25:34.440 --> 0:25:39.160 the last of Sydney's old time gangsters during his heyday 0:25:39.200 --> 0:25:44.439 in the nineteen sixties. Could she help us understand his 0:25:44.720 --> 0:25:50.880 murderous temper, his taste for violence, and why history would 0:25:50.880 --> 0:25:56.159 attach anywhere up to twelve murders to his name, including 0:25:56.400 --> 0:26:00.960 an innocent three year old boy. And what happened on 0:26:01.040 --> 0:26:06.919 that last day when Reagan, unarmed and unprotected, was a 0:26:06.960 --> 0:26:11.199 gunned down mercilessly, with one of the killers delivering a 0:26:11.320 --> 0:26:16.120 final point blank headshot to make sure the boy from 0:26:16.280 --> 0:26:20.919 Cherrytown was well and truly dead. I had a frank 0:26:21.080 --> 0:26:25.119 discussion with Kelly about what marg might or might not 0:26:26.000 --> 0:26:31.560 decide to tell us. Cooperative? Do you think by her nature, 0:26:31.600 --> 0:26:33.879 she might, like most people, hold something back. What do 0:26:33.920 --> 0:26:34.680 you reckon. 0:26:35.040 --> 0:26:39.760 During Mark's formative years, she's with John and you know 0:26:39.840 --> 0:26:42.800 the skills she's being taught by him. Is you know 0:26:43.040 --> 0:26:45.520 to say nothing, to keep your mouth shut? I think 0:26:45.560 --> 0:26:49.920 she really wants to open and tell all that she knows. 0:26:50.600 --> 0:26:53.399 Do you think she still has a residue of fear. 0:26:54.240 --> 0:26:56.320 No, I think she's as tough as old bootstraps. 0:26:56.359 --> 0:27:02.840 Now that afternoon, Mark Reagan arrived with one of her daughters. 0:27:03.680 --> 0:27:08.919 She hadn't been too young in many years. Now in 0:27:08.960 --> 0:27:12.679 her seventies, you could still see the stunning good looks 0:27:13.000 --> 0:27:17.000 that had attracted Johnny Reagan all those years ago in 0:27:17.119 --> 0:27:21.439 Sydney's King's Cross, where he worked as a bouncer. On 0:27:21.560 --> 0:27:25.200 the door of the Whisky Go Go nightclub in Williams Street, 0:27:26.160 --> 0:27:29.200 the Slaters and Reagans fired up the barbie and later 0:27:29.600 --> 0:27:33.840 we set up microphones at Kelly's long kitchen table, the 0:27:33.880 --> 0:27:38.200 scene of so many family gatherings, to begin our interviews 0:27:38.280 --> 0:27:43.960 with Marg. The family started to drift out of the room, 0:27:44.320 --> 0:27:48.880 but Marg stopped them. She wanted them around her when 0:27:48.880 --> 0:27:54.119 she talked. She didn't want to do this alone. Now. 0:27:55.880 --> 0:27:58.840 I don't want to keep repeating myself for everybody. It's 0:27:58.920 --> 0:28:05.080 best to every one here, Okay, Okay, that's I want that. 0:28:06.880 --> 0:28:12.800 You're not putting me off. So for me to do this, 0:28:13.480 --> 0:28:17.640 you won't have to ask me what happened? Okay, And 0:28:17.680 --> 0:28:21.320 this is why I'm doing this, okay, So what do 0:28:21.359 --> 0:28:22.120 you want to know now? 0:28:25.280 --> 0:28:28.840 In the next episode of The Gangster's Ghost, we take 0:28:28.880 --> 0:28:33.000 you inside Reagan's earliest years in country New South Wales 0:28:34.000 --> 0:28:38.160 and the rocky relationship between his mismatched parents. 0:28:39.080 --> 0:28:41.360 That marriage never had a chance, and. 0:28:41.360 --> 0:28:45.320 We find another monster lurking in the shadows of this story, 0:28:46.000 --> 0:28:51.160