Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, May nine, twenty twenty five. The drama just
Speaker 1: keeps on coming. From Canberra. National Senator Jacinta NumPy in
Speaker 1: Proprice has defected to the Liberal Party and wants to
Speaker 1: be deputy leader behind would be Opposition leader Angus Taylor.
Speaker 1: As the recriminations and blame shifting for the coalition's loss
Speaker 1: continue and the now Benezi is making a brutal cabinet reshuffle.
Speaker 1: Two ministers, Mark Dreyfus and Ed Husick are top of
Speaker 1: the hit list, and the Greens are looking for a
Speaker 1: new leader. After a tearful Adam Bandt blamed Liberal and
Speaker 1: Labor for losing his seat of Melbourne and denied he'd
Speaker 1: been too vitriolic about Israel. Terrifying gangster Johnny Reagan was
Speaker 1: assassinated in a Sydney backstreet more than half a century ago.
Speaker 1: There have always been rumors it was the first kill
Speaker 1: by corrupt detective and murderer Roger Rogerson, but the murder
Speaker 1: has never been solved. Today we go inside The Australian's
Speaker 1: new cold case investigation, The Gangster's Ghost and a family
Speaker 1: search for answers.
Speaker 2: Nobody coppers will I I will.
Speaker 1: This is the real voice of one of Australia's most
Speaker 1: terrifying gangsters, Stuart John Reagan.
Speaker 3: I'll give him plenty of amberdition. I'll that much that many coppers.
Speaker 2: Are not funny.
Speaker 1: Reagan, known as Shotgun Johnny, was murdered in a Sydney
Speaker 1: lane way in nineteen seventy four. He was twenty nine.
Speaker 1: Reagan was a pimp, a rapist, a murderer and a
Speaker 1: standover man. Raised in the country town of young abused
Speaker 1: by his mother and brutalized in one of the country's
Speaker 1: worst boys homes. Reagan believed the cops were out to
Speaker 1: get him.
Speaker 2: It should happen in three of my Cashashtha Kyshire, before
Speaker 2: the car they find the clown witness.
Speaker 1: Of course they were out to get him, but remember
Speaker 1: this was the era of deep seated police corruption, like
Speaker 1: crooked Detective Roger Rogerson, who had half of Sydney's crims
Speaker 1: in his pocket and the other half under his thumb.
Speaker 1: Even Roger found Reagan scary.
Speaker 3: Lenny Macpherson said to me once, Matt, he said, Roger,
Speaker 3: he said, you can control a bad man, but you
Speaker 3: can't control a madman. And I've never ever forgotten that's
Speaker 3: a great qui.
Speaker 1: That's Rogerson speaking to The Australians senior writer Matthew Condon
Speaker 1: before his death in twenty twenty four. That interview is
Speaker 1: in our newest investigative podcast, The Gangster's Ghost, which launches today,
Speaker 1: its host by Matt Condon. There's been speculation over the
Speaker 1: years Johnny Reagan's shooting in nineteen seventy four was Roger
Speaker 1: Rogerson's first kill. Before Rogerson assassinated crook Warren Land Franchi
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one, and long before he murdered drug
Speaker 1: dealer Jamie Gow in twenty fourteen. All those crimes happened
Speaker 1: in Sydney's Inner West. Rogerson's turf at the scene of
Speaker 1: Reagan's death, bullets from three separate firearms, including the same
Speaker 1: kind of thirty eight caliber pistol issued to police at
Speaker 1: the time, were found. But it's a cold case and
Speaker 1: for the past five decades New South Wales police haven't
Speaker 1: seen too interested in finding Reagan's killers. His family wants
Speaker 1: the truth. Cousin Kelly Slater Reagan and de facto wife
Speaker 1: Margaret Yates. Here's Kelly talking to Matt Condon.
Speaker 4: You don't you get to a certain age where you
Speaker 4: just want to you just want to talk like I
Speaker 4: think he's at that age now where she probably want
Speaker 4: to and she sees how passionate I am about it.
Speaker 2: Do you think she still has a residue of fear?
Speaker 4: No, I think she's as tough as old bootstraps.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: The Jenno who's led this investigation, Matthew Condon, spoke to
Speaker 1: the Front's Kristin Amiot.
Speaker 2: I'd been aware of Johnny Reagan and fascinated by him
Speaker 2: for a very long time. He was one of the
Speaker 2: most notorious gangsters in Australian history, an extraordinary figure, and
Speaker 2: it was only twenty nine, so of course his life
Speaker 2: for me was fascinating. From what I could gather, the
Speaker 2: amount of damage he reeked in such a short period
Speaker 2: of time is mind boggling, and I realized over time
Speaker 2: that I was shocked that there'd been so little done
Speaker 2: about him in terms of revisiting his for one of
Speaker 2: a better term his criminal career. It only lasted from say,
Speaker 2: when he was twenty one in nineteen sixty six to
Speaker 2: when he was gunned down in Marrickville in Sydney in
Speaker 2: September nineteen seventy four. So you're looking at eight years
Speaker 2: of building a reputation, cementing it and then causing so
Speaker 2: much havoc that he had to be eliminated. And I thought,
Speaker 2: why hasn't anyone done a full length book on this
Speaker 2: or a documentary? And then completely out of nowhere, Reagan's
Speaker 2: second cousin, Kelly Slater, contacted me.
Speaker 1: The family members Reagan left behind all have their own
Speaker 1: motivations for participating in a podcast investigation about his life
Speaker 1: and brutal death. Of course, they want to know who
Speaker 1: killed him, but Kelly also wants to know if he
Speaker 1: really was as bad as he's been made out.
Speaker 5: Well, honestly, I don't know exactly what we'll find. I
Speaker 5: know we'll find that he probably killed people. I've accepted
Speaker 5: that fact. Will we find did he kill that little boy?
Speaker 5: Was he a psychopath? Like they said? Is such stories
Speaker 5: that they tell about him?
Speaker 3: Truth?
Speaker 2: Why do you want to know this? She never physically
Speaker 2: met Reagan, but she was always fascinated by him because
Speaker 2: she had been a former New South Wales police officer
Speaker 2: and in fact being a Reagan actually caused her some
Speaker 2: grief in her early career because the logical question was
Speaker 2: what the hell is a Reagan doing in the New
Speaker 2: South Wales Police Service, So that reputation followed her like
Speaker 2: a long tale, so she wanted to understand him. Then
Speaker 2: when you speak to Reagan's surviving children, they want to
Speaker 2: know more about their father. What was he really like?
Speaker 2: Was he the sort of hideous gargoyle and monster that's
Speaker 2: been depicted ever since his death in the press and
Speaker 2: in snippets in documentaries. And then you speak to Reagan's
Speaker 2: de facto wife, Margaret, and she questions, still to this
Speaker 2: day after fifty years, who killed him? Why she was
Speaker 2: left stranded after his death, His associates didn't come to
Speaker 2: help her or the family. She was left with three
Speaker 2: little children suddenly facing this void in the absence of
Speaker 2: her notorious husband. So there are many different perspectives and
Speaker 2: different questions that different people are asking.
Speaker 1: Kristin asked Matt what it was like getting to know
Speaker 1: the Reagans over those past few years.
Speaker 2: So I won't say I was trepidacious. I thought I
Speaker 2: wonder what the Reagan family is actually like now. When
Speaker 2: I met Kelly, she was an absolute delight. Now runs
Speaker 2: a sheep farm with her husband Rodney, out near Young
Speaker 2: in southwestern New South Wales. Very down to earth, straight
Speaker 2: as a die competent, just one of those people that
Speaker 2: if something needs to be done, Kelly can do it.
Speaker 2: And I really liked her instantly because she's just so
Speaker 2: honest and her motivations were very pure. Then I met
Speaker 2: Margaret Yates, Reagan's de facto wife, and what an absolutely
Speaker 2: wonderful woman too, so solid, honest, one of those great survivors,
Speaker 2: if you like. She's been through a hell of a
Speaker 2: lot and coming away as the mother of three children
Speaker 2: of one of Australia's worst gangsters is no light burden
Speaker 2: to carry, and she's done it with great grace and
Speaker 2: she's been fantastic, as has their oldest child, Helen Reagan,
Speaker 2: an extraordinary person of high achievement in her own right.
Speaker 2: It's been a remarkable journey and an unexpected pleasure to
Speaker 2: now consider these people really good friends. That's been one
Speaker 2: of the great things.
Speaker 1: Coming up. How our team of audio experts resurrected Johnny
Speaker 1: Reagan's voice using long lost tapes. Johnny Reagan spent his
Speaker 1: days wheeling and dealing over the phone and in person
Speaker 1: in King's Cross, the heart of Sydney's Underworld, and he
Speaker 1: captured some of those conversations on a real to real
Speaker 1: tape recorder which he'd rigged up to his rotary telephone.
Speaker 5: One two, three, four, five.
Speaker 2: Seven.
Speaker 1: The tapes were hidden away or forgotten about following Reagan's
Speaker 1: death in nineteen seventy four. In the late eighties, they
Speaker 1: were unearthed in the home of his auntie. Here's Reagan's
Speaker 1: oldest daughter, Helen.
Speaker 6: Anyway, Data's got me and so can you get up
Speaker 6: there and get me this stuff? So I brought it down.
Speaker 6: There was little tapes, and there was a little tape
Speaker 6: recorder that obviously Dad had had, and there was all
Speaker 6: these letter and stationery of.
Speaker 1: On the old tapes, Reagan can be heard conspiring with
Speaker 1: criminal associates like Arthur Moore to skirt convictions and exact
Speaker 1: revenge against the cops.
Speaker 2: What they do.
Speaker 1: Loud, Yo, put the stuff in your cans?
Speaker 3: Would you had it?
Speaker 4: Ah?
Speaker 2: Anything I want me to do, I will bend out
Speaker 2: of back.
Speaker 1: What you do it for you now, I'm mean it.
Speaker 1: The recordings are scratchy and muddled in places, so that's
Speaker 1: where our audio experts Jasper Leik and Lea Samaglue come in.
Speaker 1: Here's Jasper.
Speaker 7: I'm always on the lookout for new software, and I
Speaker 7: came across this one earlier in the year DX revive.
Speaker 7: It's called by accenties. Think of it a bit like
Speaker 7: a pencil sketch that's only been partially completed. Imagine if
Speaker 7: you could put that drawing into a machine and it
Speaker 7: would finish the picture for you and make it look
Speaker 7: better than you could have done yourself. It would add
Speaker 7: color and shadows and depth. This tool does that, but
Speaker 7: for old bad audio.
Speaker 1: Leah then spent hundreds of hours restoring the tapes with
Speaker 1: the help of DX revive.
Speaker 2: I was astonished by the tapes, over two hours of private,
Speaker 2: secret conversations Reagan recorded obviously back in the sixties with
Speaker 2: rustic equipment. For what purpose we can only guess. Was
Speaker 2: it insurance for himself? Was at leverage? And it is
Speaker 2: a million to one that you will do a story
Speaker 2: about a criminal who's been dead for half a century
Speaker 2: and then actually have the opportunity to hear him speaking.
Speaker 2: That still blows my mind, the fact that we can
Speaker 2: do that, and I think too for fans of true
Speaker 2: crime podcasts. This is a very rare thing that is
Speaker 2: available here, and I think they'll be as thrilled as
Speaker 2: I continue to be. It is just so unique.
Speaker 1: So can this fifty year old mystery be solved?
Speaker 2: It is a cold case, which means it is in theory,
Speaker 2: a live and active murder case. I can say that
Speaker 2: the New South Wales Cold Case Homicide Unit did visit
Speaker 2: Kelly Reagan and her parents just in the last fortnight
Speaker 2: to clarify what police had done and what they don't
Speaker 2: see being resolved into the future. In this sort of instance,
Speaker 2: because of the passage of time, it would be incredibly
Speaker 2: difficult to ever resolve this nineteen seventy four murder. The
Speaker 2: passage of time unfortunately allows conspiracies and rumors to spread,
Speaker 2: so you get this gigantic sort of mushroom cloud of
Speaker 2: falsity and made up yarns that are impossible to delineate
Speaker 2: the truth out of. Having said that, the beauty of
Speaker 2: the podcast is that it does throw itself out into
Speaker 2: the world and there may be just maybe someone out
Speaker 2: there who has a piece of information that might change
Speaker 2: the whole game, even after five decades.
Speaker 1: Matthew Condon is a senior reporter with The Australian. Subscribers
Speaker 1: can listen to the first two episodes of our investigative
Speaker 1: podcast series, The Gangster's Ghost right now at Gangstersghost dot
Speaker 1: com dot au. And remember, you can access the nation's
Speaker 1: best journalism anytime at The Australian dot com dot au