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Speaker 2: Dot a U. Stuart John Reagan. He was the maniac
Speaker 2: gangster shotgun Johnny Nano, the magician gunned down at the
Speaker 2: age of just twenty nine after terrorizing the East Coast
Speaker 2: of Australia throughout the nineteen sixties and seventies. It was
Speaker 2: said he killed up to twelve people, including an innocent toddler,
Speaker 2: and vanished their bodies At the height of his notoriety, evil,
Speaker 2: his violence, his hair triggered temper. His reputation as a
Speaker 2: vendor of death was distilled into a single word, Reagan.
Speaker 2: He terrified crooks and coppers alike. He was the monster
Speaker 2: with movie star good looks. Women fawned over him, men
Speaker 2: tried to imitate the teetotaling tough guy. What set him
Speaker 2: apart was his hair trigger temper from zero to lethal
Speaker 2: boiling point in the blink of an eye. His few
Speaker 2: friends said he had a tiger inside of him. His
Speaker 2: own murder at the hands of three gunmen in a
Speaker 2: grubby Sydney laneway in broad daylight remains unsold, and half
Speaker 2: a century later, police deal don't want to know about it.
Speaker 2: He was crazy by any measure, a standout psychopath in
Speaker 2: a criminal era that had its fair share of them.
Speaker 2: Reagan roared through the underworld like a flame thrower before
Speaker 2: eight bullets to the body and the head stopped the chaos.
Speaker 2: That's where the story should have ended, but not for
Speaker 2: the Reagan family. His name and reputation have soiled a
Speaker 2: family tree from rural New South Wales that is filled
Speaker 2: with pioneers and war heroes. For them, it's time to
Speaker 2: set the record straight. Was Stuart John Reagan as bad
Speaker 2: as history has portrayed him? Did he actually kill Little
Speaker 2: Carlos in nineteen seventy four, and who in turn murdered
Speaker 2: Reagan a few months later. After years of investigation, the
Speaker 2: family now has some answers. In this podcast, we will
Speaker 2: reveal a new theory about Reagan's assassination as possible retribution
Speaker 2: for Carlos's death. How Reagan tried to kill whistleblowing Madame
Speaker 2: Shirley Brifman, who died in mysterious circumstances shortly afterwards. How
Speaker 2: domestic violence perpetrated by Reagan's terrifying mother Claire, set him
Speaker 2: on the path to crime and into history. How Reagan
Speaker 2: was brutalized at a boy's home that was little more
Speaker 2: than an academy for Australia's leading criminals, including Chow Hayes,
Speaker 2: Neddie Smith, Lenny McPherson and George Freeman. We'll expose for
Speaker 2: the first time Reagan's role in the Whiskeyer Go Go
Speaker 2: nightclub massacre in Brisbane in nineteen seventy three, which killed
Speaker 2: fifteen innocent people. And incredibly, you will hear the voice
Speaker 2: of Johnny Reagan himself from old real to real tapes
Speaker 2: hidden away for years in a black suitcase. Welcome to
Speaker 2: the nether world of Australia's last old school gangster. I'm
Speaker 2: journalist Matthew Condon and this is the gangster's ghost episode
Speaker 2: one dead man talking. How on earth did I end
Speaker 2: up here? A couple of days ago, I was at
Speaker 2: home in far northern New South Wales, having a surf
Speaker 2: with my kids, surrounded by beautiful beaches and lush rainforests
Speaker 2: now here. I am on a farm outside the country
Speaker 2: town of Young, on the southwestern slopes of New South Wales,
Speaker 2: more than one thousand, one hundred kilometers away, the landscape
Speaker 2: gently rolling with patchwork wheat and canola fields, surrounded by hundreds,
Speaker 2: no thousands, of grubby sheep. I was only here because
Speaker 2: of a local farmer, Kelly Slater. I was here because
Speaker 2: Kelly contacted me and asked if I was interested in
Speaker 2: finding out the truth about a gangster she had in
Speaker 2: her family tree. If the Reagans were looking for any
Speaker 2: redemption here, it was going to be difficult to find.
Speaker 2: What if the family came on this journey and found
Speaker 2: a monster even more vile and horrific than they could
Speaker 2: possibly imagine. They had to be prepared for the worst.
Speaker 2: But standing out there in those dusty paddocks, thinking about Reagan,
Speaker 2: how he was a boy here, how he played bush
Speaker 2: rangers in the local creeks and went to chapel with
Speaker 2: his schoolmates, how he breathed in the very same country air.
Speaker 2: I was taking in Kelly's offer of joining the family
Speaker 2: in this hunt for the real Stuart John Reagan was
Speaker 2: already irresistible. They had documents letters from Reagan in prison.
Speaker 2: Even Reagan's de facto partner and mother to three of
Speaker 2: his children, Margaret was prepared to speak for the first
Speaker 2: time about her life with the gangster. But they had
Speaker 2: something else, something I had to hear, quite literally to
Speaker 2: believe testing one, two, three for five. As a crime writer,
Speaker 2: you encounter a lot of dark and surprising things. Sometimes
Speaker 2: you hear stories you wish you could unhear. But the
Speaker 2: first time I sat down and listened to the old
Speaker 2: tapes hidden in a suitcase for decades, I was speechless.
Speaker 3: That's black man, and he said, I'll buy the diamonds
Speaker 3: back off you for that amount. He okay, when the
Speaker 3: time period elapsed, I didn't want to sell under the
Speaker 3: Norman Carter and he's how amagant.
Speaker 2: It's difficult to describe the sensation of hearing for the
Speaker 2: first time the actual voice of a notorious killer he'd
Speaker 2: only read about in books and ancient newspaper clippings. It
Speaker 2: felt like I was sitting in the same room as
Speaker 2: a ghost. This ghost, however, may have murdered a dozen
Speaker 2: people in cold blood during the mid nineteen sixties until
Speaker 2: his own death in nineteen seventy four. Police were also
Speaker 2: convinced he murdered an innocent toddler. The child's body has
Speaker 2: never been found. So let's cut to the chase here.
Speaker 2: Reagan was crazy by any measure, lethal, a dangerous, loose
Speaker 2: cannon and clearly a psychopath.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, we'll put him with the others, right Reagan, of course. Now,
Speaker 4: Reagan was shot dead by three Shepherd guns. I'm out
Speaker 4: at Mary Crew near Henson Park.
Speaker 2: This is the notorious foreman New South Wales detective and
Speaker 2: convicted murderer Roger Rogerson, who talked to me over the
Speaker 2: fern many years ago about Johnny Reagan.
Speaker 4: Lenny Macpherson said to me once, Matt, he said Roger.
Speaker 4: He said, you can control a bad man, but you
Speaker 4: can't control a madman. And I've never ever forgotten.
Speaker 2: That Roger's dead now. But he knew a bad man
Speaker 2: when he met one, and he knew Reagan was out
Speaker 2: of control.
Speaker 5: I just thought you interested in seeing I.
Speaker 2: Still vividly remember when Kelly Slater Reagan herself a former
Speaker 2: New South Wales copper, first contacted me. This is Kelly
Speaker 2: reading an email she sent me.
Speaker 6: Hi.
Speaker 5: I'm an ex police officer and cousin of Johnny Reagan.
Speaker 5: We're looking at doing a podcast on him, the good,
Speaker 5: the bad, the ugly, mostly the two latter, but his
Speaker 5: childhood as well. We have letters and recordings that have
Speaker 5: never been heard. Looking for help to make it work,
Speaker 5: Kelly Slater Reagan, so.
Speaker 2: I phone Kelly. We talked about how the family needed
Speaker 2: the truth after all these years, and almost as an afterthought,
Speaker 2: she added, then there's the tapes. The tapes. What tapes,
Speaker 2: I asked, Johnny. She said, We've got secret tapes of
Speaker 2: Johnny on the phone back in the day, hours of
Speaker 2: them before he was murdered. Opened the door, and that's
Speaker 2: how the ghost of this long dead gangster strode into
Speaker 2: the room and started talking to me and now to you.
Speaker 2: Reagan loved technology and at some stage decided to tape
Speaker 2: his home phone calls. He rigged up his nineteen sixties
Speaker 2: rotary doll telephone with a micro fern and a real
Speaker 2: to real tape deck recorder. He even took a concealed
Speaker 2: miniature cassette recorder out into the streets of King's Cross
Speaker 2: and Darlinghurst and captured conversations with other criminals and crooked cops.
Speaker 2: You know, You've got a good defense for this. Those
Speaker 2: lost tapes are filled with Reagan's wheeling and dealing, his
Speaker 2: superior knowledge of the law, and his relentless quest to
Speaker 2: get around it. You shouldn't have had that card interest
Speaker 2: in your lying in a third flight, and the names
Speaker 2: of many of the coppers he could either work with
Speaker 2: or manipulate with cash under the table? Which is him? Mate?
Speaker 2: What do you look at?
Speaker 6: He Schnoker plaid.
Speaker 2: He's probably a mate of Sturdon. He even thinks out
Speaker 2: loud about putting a bullet in an enemy's head, just
Speaker 2: as casually as you and I might wonder out loud
Speaker 2: what we'll have for breakfast.
Speaker 6: You mark my words.
Speaker 7: I'm not telling you a line.
Speaker 3: I'll give you a to your ideas, Tomas, you want
Speaker 3: to go through with him?
Speaker 6: If not, well, you know.
Speaker 2: Reagan kept his tapes hidden away in a suitcase in
Speaker 2: his mother's house in Sydney. When he died, that suitcase
Speaker 2: stayed inside a dark cupboard until his own mother, Claire Reagan,
Speaker 2: or the Kernel, as they called her, passed away in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight. The tapes, magnetic recording reels, each as
Speaker 2: big as a bread plate, were lost for years. As
Speaker 2: recently as a couple of months ago, these historical artifacts
Speaker 2: sounded like something out of an audio museum, muffled, garbled ancients.
Speaker 2: Then lightning struck the Australians in house sound maestro Jasper
Speaker 2: Leak had come across an artificial intelligence program that he
Speaker 2: thought might just might help clean up Reagan's amateur recordings.
Speaker 2: It was worth a shot. Here's Jasper.
Speaker 8: I'm always on the lookout for new software, and I
Speaker 8: came across this one earlier in the year DX Revive.
Speaker 8: It's called by accenties. Think of it a bit like
Speaker 8: a pencil sketch that's only been partially completed. Imagine if
Speaker 8: you could put that drawing into a machine and it
Speaker 8: would finish the picture for you and make it look
Speaker 8: better than you could have done yourself. It would add
Speaker 8: color and shadows and depth. This tool does that, but
Speaker 8: for old bad audio.
Speaker 2: Then our other audio guru, Leah Sammaglu, spent hundreds of
Speaker 2: hours feeding the Reagan tapes through this AI software, fine
Speaker 2: tuning for neessing and draw out voices and sounds from
Speaker 2: half a century ago.
Speaker 9: Really, it's like now we can hear Johnny's voice clearly.
Speaker 9: We can also hear the voices of the people that
Speaker 9: he's talking to, like the ones on the other end
Speaker 9: of the phone. When I heard it for the first time,
Speaker 9: I got chills down my spine. It's like a miracle.
Speaker 2: This is Johnny captured on the raw digital file of
Speaker 2: the Reagan tapes and the cops and what they're doing
Speaker 2: and what they're trying to do.
Speaker 10: Cops, all I will.
Speaker 2: And this is the same audio after Jasper, Leah and
Speaker 2: our new best friend artificial intelligence performed their wizardry. Have
Speaker 2: you heard? Whisper learning heard? Must have read the cops
Speaker 2: and what they're doing and what they're trying to do. Look,
Speaker 2: you know yourself, nobody gallant coppers?
Speaker 5: Will I will?
Speaker 2: This journey has made me rethink all the trepidation and
Speaker 2: debate surrounding artificial intelligence, particularly in the feel of journalism.
Speaker 2: Would AI ultimately replace journalists as we'd been warned? Would
Speaker 2: it take over the world. The experience with the Reagan tapes, however,
Speaker 2: is an exciting, in this case jaw dropping example of
Speaker 2: how AI is far from the bogey man. For the podcast,
Speaker 2: it has proved to be a phenomenal tool. You will
Speaker 2: soon be hearing a lot of the gangster's ghost as
Speaker 2: clear as if the killer himself had pulled up a
Speaker 2: chair at your kitchen table and settled down for a
Speaker 2: cup of tea and a chat. The first and most
Speaker 2: obvious thing for me to do was to go to
Speaker 2: Young to meet Kelly. We needed to talk about her
Speaker 2: dead gangster cousin, which I guess from the outset made
Speaker 2: this something of a ghost story, replete as it was,
Speaker 2: with real bullets and bloodshed. Time and again, as Kelly
Speaker 2: and I burrowed closer to the truth about this complex man,
Speaker 2: strange things happened, ridiculous coincidences and wild strokes of luck.
Speaker 2: If you believed in that sort of thing, it was
Speaker 2: as if the gangster's ghost was pulling some strings and
Speaker 2: guiding our research. Here's Kelly, We're sitting at her kitchen
Speaker 2: table at that farm in Young.
Speaker 5: Honestly, I don't know exactly what we'll find. I know
Speaker 5: we'll find that he probably killed people. I've accepted that fact.
Speaker 5: Will we find did he kill that little boy like
Speaker 5: that is? That's something I'd really like to learn, Carlos,
Speaker 5: did he or did me? And I'm resigned to the
Speaker 5: fact that if he did, Like but I'm hopeful that
Speaker 5: they didn't the whiskey of go Go? What was his
Speaker 5: involvement in that? Was he a psychopath? Like they said?
Speaker 5: Is the stories that they tell about him true?
Speaker 10: Why do you want to know this right now?
Speaker 11: In history?
Speaker 5: I don't know. It's funny, isn't it, Like when you
Speaker 5: you know, they talk about war veterans and all that,
Speaker 5: and they they talk about it when they get older,
Speaker 5: and I think history you get to a certain age
Speaker 5: where you just think you want to know. But I've
Speaker 5: got a curious mind, Like I've been a day drama
Speaker 5: since the day I was born, and I've got a
Speaker 5: really curious mind. And I'm not afraid to you know,
Speaker 5: I love a chat, so I'm not afraid to ask questions.
Speaker 5: And I'm yeah, just I guess never been in the
Speaker 5: right time. But again, like who am I going to
Speaker 5: do it with? We'd get boring, wouldn't it? Like who
Speaker 5: do you share fun with?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 11: Yeah, who do you?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 11: The most important thing will be to bounce.
Speaker 2: Just a quick note here. I really want you to
Speaker 2: like Kelly. She's a great laugh, as it turns out,
Speaker 2: a ruthless researcher, and as honest as the day is long.
Speaker 2: I knew from the outset that I had well a
Speaker 2: partner in crime.
Speaker 5: Here, curious min and I'm not afraid.
Speaker 2: That first day I met Kelly and we sat at
Speaker 2: her kitchen table. We were awaiting someone else. Margaret Reagan
Speaker 2: Johnny's long term some might say long suffering, de facto
Speaker 2: wife and mother to three of his children. She was
Speaker 2: due at the farm soon. I wondered how much she knew,
Speaker 2: not just about the day Johnny Reagan was assassinated, or
Speaker 2: even about his criminal career. Did she know anything about
Speaker 2: who might have wanted him dead? The seemingly untouchable Stuart
Speaker 2: John Reagan, who often wore a bulletproof vest and always
Speaker 2: had a bodyguard by his side, was there one minute,
Speaker 2: larger than life, and gone the next, a corpse bleeding
Speaker 2: out on a Sydney side street. His substantial assets seemed
Speaker 2: to have disappeared with him. The so called millionaire gangster
Speaker 2: was a violent standover man and a pimp for sex workers,
Speaker 2: but he was also a property developer. If the family
Speaker 2: has the story right, he owned substantial real estate assets
Speaker 2: in New South Wales and Queensland. When he was murdered,
Speaker 2: he'd flip houses for a profit. He also had a
Speaker 2: taxi in car rental business, and prior to his death
Speaker 2: he had developed what may have been the greatest land
Speaker 2: scam in Australian history, which we'll examine in detail later
Speaker 2: in this podcast.
Speaker 11: What does it say that suddenly all lines of investigation,
Speaker 11: query asking questions all stopped upon his death. Well, it's
Speaker 11: still an active cold case his murder.
Speaker 5: Well you think so, wouldn't you, because they never closed.
Speaker 5: There's no statute of limitations on murder. And here is
Speaker 5: one of the biggest gangsters. So who's killed one of
Speaker 5: the biggest gangsters? Wouldn't you want to know? Out of
Speaker 5: curiosity and with all the talk because over the years
Speaker 5: I have spoken to people, I met a guy up
Speaker 5: in Nelson's Bay. So what had happened is I was
Speaker 5: at the station and a guy brought me in a
Speaker 5: scrap book. I can't even remember who he was, and
Speaker 5: he said, I just thought you might be interested in
Speaker 5: seeing this. I know he was your uncle or your cousin.
Speaker 5: I went, oh, right, and I had a look, and
Speaker 5: here's the scrapbook of Allah and he brought it in.
Speaker 5: So I was sitting out in the meal room and
Speaker 5: I was just having a look at it, and it
Speaker 5: was just sitting on the table. Now, what's the chances
Speaker 5: of Assistant commissioner, former member of the armed hold up squad?
Speaker 5: So I've been told pops in and he sees this
Speaker 5: thing there and he says, oh, please looking at this
Speaker 5: and I said, oh, that's me. And he said, oh,
Speaker 5: what's what's your interest in Reagan? And I said, well,
Speaker 5: he's my dad's first cousin. Oh, oh, well, I can
Speaker 5: put you in contact with someone who can tell you.
Speaker 5: So that's when he gave me old mate's number. He said,
Speaker 5: I'll meet you at the golf course in Nelson's Bay.
Speaker 5: It was real cloak and dagger, and he handed me
Speaker 5: a letter that I had to destroy.
Speaker 11: What was the matter.
Speaker 5: It was just sort of saying that, you know, he
Speaker 5: knew John, that he'd arrested him, that he was he
Speaker 5: went to the hospital when he'd broken Marg's jaw and
Speaker 5: tried to get him, tried to get Mard to give
Speaker 5: a statement, which you wouldn't give a statement. It was
Speaker 5: sort of just about that, and I'm like, is there
Speaker 5: anything else? Do you know who killed? No? No, no, no,
Speaker 5: no no no? Do you did he kill Carr? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Dead set killed that baby. He killed that baby. And
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh right, okay, yep, yep, right here, and
Speaker 5: then off he went. So every time someone would find
Speaker 5: out that my name was Reagan and I was from
Speaker 5: young and it was a police officer they and they
Speaker 5: were senior, they'd all way, oh, yeah, yeah, do you
Speaker 5: know Johnny Reagan? Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah. In the end,
Speaker 5: sometimes I'd just say no, no, don't know. He talked
Speaker 5: about right, but yeah, it was. It was always there.
Speaker 5: And so I asked the senior, like a guy that
Speaker 5: was a detective at Newtown at the same time, I said,
Speaker 5: if you were there in seventy four, do you remember
Speaker 5: Stuart John Ray? Oh yeah, yeah I do. I said,
Speaker 5: well he was my cousin. He said, all right. I said,
Speaker 5: do you ever know who killed him? He said, well,
Speaker 5: we were told that in the area at the time
Speaker 5: there was a car with four detective you've seen in it.
Speaker 5: They were wearing these bowler hats or something and they
Speaker 5: had police coats on. And he said there was always
Speaker 5: a whisper that it was Rogerson's first hit.
Speaker 10: Roger Rogerson.
Speaker 2: Roger Caleb Rogerson, the notorious former New South Wales police
Speaker 2: detective sergeant implicated in killing's assault, verbaling, drug dealing and
Speaker 2: corruption during a tumultuous career that saw him both admired
Speaker 2: and hated. At his peak from the late nineteen sixties
Speaker 2: through to the early nineteen eighties, he associated with all
Speaker 2: the corrupt cops and Sydney gangsters that formed Johnny Reagan's milliere.
Speaker 2: Rogerson was one of the lead detectives who investigated the
Speaker 2: Whisky Go Go nightclub bombing in Brisbane in nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 2: which left fifteen people dead. This incredibly brought him into
Speaker 2: the orbit of Reagan, but more of that later. Rogerson
Speaker 2: became infamous after shooting dead drug dealer Warren Lanfranci. It
Speaker 2: was suspected too, that he was involved in the attempted
Speaker 2: murder of one of his own colleagues, police officer Michael Drury,
Speaker 2: who had refused to take a bribe. Rogerson was dismissed
Speaker 2: from the New South Wales Police Force in nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 2: hit the pub circuit telling tall stories about his infamous
Speaker 2: career before being charged in twenty fourteen with the murder
Speaker 2: of Sydney drug dealer Jamie Gow. Rogerson was found guilty
Speaker 2: of that crime. He died in Sydney's Long Bay jail.
Speaker 2: Last year. When he was convinced of the Gow murder.
Speaker 2: A Sydney newspaper ran a headline, serial killer with a badge.
Speaker 5: And I said, what do you mean, his first hit?
Speaker 5: And they said, since the forties and fifties, there's always
Speaker 5: been a hit man in the cibur. I said, you
Speaker 5: can't be generation. Yes, I said, you can't be serious.
Speaker 5: He said, Oh, the rank and file would never know
Speaker 5: about it. He said, but when detectives, when we'd all
Speaker 5: go out and we'd all be having a beer and
Speaker 5: lips would loosen a beer. He said, there was always
Speaker 5: talk of that sort of stuff.
Speaker 11: Told story.
Speaker 2: The observation that each generation of police might have a
Speaker 2: professional killer in its ranks is far from outlandish, given
Speaker 2: the history of corruption in the New South Wales Force.
Speaker 2: That reputation began with the arrival of the first fleet
Speaker 2: in seventeen eighty eight and has never abated. Corruption flourished
Speaker 2: in Sydney during the Second World War and became a
Speaker 2: fine art in the hands of men like Ray Gunner
Speaker 2: Kelly and Fred Froggy Cray. From the nineteen fifties to
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies. Roger Rogerson was part of the new
Speaker 2: generation that carried that crooked Batton forward. The Wood Royal
Speaker 2: Commission into the New South Wales Police Service between nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety five and nineteen ninety seven examined the extent of
Speaker 2: corruption in the force. It exposed countless examples of misconduct
Speaker 2: and hundreds of officers were forced to resign. Kelly Reagan
Speaker 2: was treated with extreme suspicion when she applied to join
Speaker 2: the police. A relative of this violent killer wanted to
Speaker 2: sign up to keep the peace in New South Wales.
Speaker 2: I was interested in whether having Reagan in her family
Speaker 2: tree actually inspired Kelly to com that crime. She had
Speaker 2: been fascinated with Johnny Reagan since she was a little girl.
Speaker 5: See, the family was always told that he was killed
Speaker 5: by police, and it was you know, if they were,
Speaker 5: they were very brazen because they used thirty eight's, So
Speaker 5: it was always said that they were killed by police. Well,
Speaker 5: he was killed by police.
Speaker 10: I don't want to overstretched the metaphor, but in the
Speaker 10: one family you've got a toorious gangster and a New
Speaker 10: southlas police officer.
Speaker 5: I know, don't worry. When I went for my job interview,
Speaker 5: I was expecting three serving senior serving, but there was
Speaker 5: five on the panel and that's mostly all they asked
Speaker 5: for about. So Kelly Reagan from young Yep, what's your
Speaker 5: relationship to Stuart John Reagan? Well, I never met him.
Speaker 5: Here's my dad's cousin. And then it was just question
Speaker 5: after question after question.
Speaker 11: Do you think you became an officer because you had
Speaker 11: an arch villain in the family.
Speaker 5: No. A maide of mine joined and she dared me,
Speaker 5: and I thought, yea, why not? As a kid, g
Speaker 5: I've always wanted to be in the mound of police
Speaker 5: working in the state bank, do I? And she was
Speaker 5: at the NAB in Brooklab and we're live in together,
Speaker 5: and she joined and she said, yeah, it's super easy
Speaker 5: get in, all right, So put performed in the next
Speaker 5: thing I'm in.
Speaker 12: I guess one of the things we're going to have
Speaker 12: to target is why there is so little information about them?
Speaker 12: Is what has blocked the flow of information about Stuart
Speaker 12: John Reagan. There's books on learning person, George Freeman, Abe Saffrum,
Speaker 12: you name it. There is almost nothing on Reagan.
Speaker 5: And nowadays there is podcasts and this podcast on everything
Speaker 5: to do with crooks and gangsters, isn't it like Melbourne?
Speaker 5: If you even got arrested for a break in any
Speaker 5: you've got a podcast on about you. But in Sydney
Speaker 5: you've got the same players. But here you've got someone
Speaker 5: who's supposed to be one of Sydney's biggest, most notorious gangsters,
Speaker 5: and you've got Sicky Do squad boy. You've got the
Speaker 5: same rhetoric as what's been marched out psychopath as a
Speaker 5: child killed, the child killed. Ruddy Clark signed his death
Speaker 5: Barrit got.
Speaker 2: Only two people were ever truly on the inside when
Speaker 2: it came to Reagan, Margaret and Reagan's mother, Claire Claire
Speaker 2: Mary Raul Reagan outlived her son and only child by
Speaker 2: fourteen years, and she's been resting in the Catholic lawn
Speaker 2: section of Sydney's Rookwood Cemetery Plot two six' five three
Speaker 2: Since september nineteen eighty. Eight after just a couple of
Speaker 2: days In young and talking to The reagan, family it
Speaker 2: soon became a parent that this story had another shadowy,
Speaker 2: figure and that Was Claire, reagan a figure so malevolent
Speaker 2: that to this day she is still reviled In. Young back,
Speaker 2: then everyone called her The colonel by all. Accounts she was, manipulative, controlling, violent,
Speaker 2: intimidating and. Cruel she horsewhipped her son and terrified his
Speaker 2: teachers at the Local catholic. SCHOOL i Asked kelly about
Speaker 2: the family's view Of reagan's childhood and the colonel childhood
Speaker 2: and young.
Speaker 5: LOOK i think it was tough with his. Mother she
Speaker 5: was a. Tyrant she was. Cruel she would flog him.
Speaker 5: Mercilessly the other kids were terrified of the brothers at
Speaker 5: the school were terrified over when when he got hurt one,
Speaker 5: day they sent the kids over to tell her because
Speaker 5: they were terrified over her and the. Brothers you know
Speaker 5: what the brothers could be. Like and then you, know
Speaker 5: but he also had really good. Friends he enjoyed his you,
Speaker 5: know he had a great. Imagination he played down on
Speaker 5: the creek bed and at. School you, know they all
Speaker 5: thought he was a lovely. Kid all his friends loved.
Speaker 5: Him but she was. Cruel she was, Cruel she was a.
Speaker 2: Monster we would soon be learning all about this. Monster
Speaker 2: around the kitchen table In kelly And rod's. Farmhouse just
Speaker 2: the mention of The colonel triggered fevered.
Speaker 5: Debate they think that that's what happens in everyone's head.
Speaker 5: Exactly they, think they think that's. Commonplace that's what.
Speaker 10: Happened so the sort of control that The colonel had
Speaker 10: her Son, john it's so complete that the total control
Speaker 10: is terrified to.
Speaker 6: Me and he would always.
Speaker 11: He could never please.
Speaker 5: Her oh, yeah because you just want to. Please that's
Speaker 5: like when When David patterson talks about the story of
Speaker 5: Taking john down to his mother because he'd been had
Speaker 5: His Paul. Gibson it's punched him and he had a
Speaker 5: bleeding nose and she got a dirty rag off the,
Speaker 5: thing wiped it and, said now go back and before
Speaker 5: you came, home make sure he's bleeding worse than what you.
Speaker 5: Were and this.
Speaker 2: We would discover many curious and appalling things about the
Speaker 2: colonel and her strange magnetic hold on her Son, stewart
Speaker 2: about his childhood in young his alcoholic, father alf the
Speaker 2: marriage breakup that Saw claire and Little johnny move To,
Speaker 2: sydney and a Teenage reagan's descent into serious. Crime then
Speaker 2: there's the enduring family rumor that When Claire reagan went
Speaker 2: to live In, sydney she actually ran a few prostitutes
Speaker 2: out of the house In Liverpool, Street darlinghurst to.
Speaker 5: Survive the family never liked her at, all but there
Speaker 5: was always this thing that she Got johnny into crime
Speaker 5: because when she went To, sydney that she ran girls,
Speaker 5: herself and he stood over those girls that she.
Speaker 2: Ran so the story in the family is That Claire,
Speaker 2: reagan when she left young and left her Husband alf
Speaker 2: took her young son To sydney and they ended up
Speaker 2: settling in Liver Pull street And. Darlinghurst and the word
Speaker 2: in the family was that she ran essentially a small
Speaker 2: brothel to make, it to make.
Speaker 5: It, yep that's WHAT i always remember is that she
Speaker 5: was the one that got him into that side of the.
Speaker 2: GAME i, mean if, that if that was just a wild,
Speaker 2: rumor why did it persist in the family?
Speaker 5: Law, oh one hundred. Percent and this is like it's
Speaker 5: always been the same stories repeated over and over and over,
Speaker 5: again so far as that she had she'd run the,
Speaker 5: brothels and that he'd worked for her and that's how
Speaker 5: he got started in.
Speaker 2: It, well but first we had to meet Marg Johnny
Speaker 2: reagan's de facto, wife mother to his Daughters helen And
Speaker 2: claire and to their Son John. Junior could she take
Speaker 2: us inside the world of the last Of sydney's old
Speaker 2: time gangsters during his heyday in the nineteen. Sixties could
Speaker 2: she help us understand his murderous, temper his taste for,
Speaker 2: violence and why history would attach anywhere up to twelve
Speaker 2: murders to his, name including an innocent three year old.
Speaker 2: Boy and what happened on that last day When, reagan
Speaker 2: unarmed and, unprotected was a gunned down, mercilessly with one
Speaker 2: of the killers delivering a, final point blank headshot to
Speaker 2: make sure the boy From cherrytown was well and truly.
Speaker 2: DEAD i had a frank discussion With kelly about what
Speaker 2: marg might or might not decide to tell. Us, cooperative
Speaker 2: you think by her, nature she, might like most, people
Speaker 2: hold something. Back what do you reckon.
Speaker 5: During mark's formative, years she's With, john and you know
Speaker 5: the skills she's being taught by him is, it's you,
Speaker 5: know to say, nothing to keep your mouth, Shut just
Speaker 5: keep your mouth. Shut SO i THINK i think she
Speaker 5: really wants to to open and tell all that she.
Speaker 5: Knows but but you, know there's still that. Thing imagine
Speaker 5: If anie marg did know something and then she tells the,
Speaker 5: family like that's you, know the backlash to that that
Speaker 5: she would perceive would be. Huge SO i think she'll tell.
Speaker 5: US i think she wants to tell, us BUT i
Speaker 5: don't know if she'll get over the.
Speaker 2: Line, well why do you think after all these decades
Speaker 2: she's she has agreed to talk to us?
Speaker 5: Now, WELL i think partly because well she you, know
Speaker 5: she loves. Us she loves. Us The reagan side don't
Speaker 5: know she. Does what does she? Know like she lived with,
Speaker 5: him she had three children with. Him, yes, yeah hard hard.
Speaker 2: One and you, know you get.
Speaker 5: To a certain age where you just want TO i
Speaker 5: just want to, talk LIKE i think at that age
Speaker 5: now where she probably does want to and she sees
Speaker 5: how PASSIONATE i am about.
Speaker 2: It do you think she still has a residue of?
Speaker 5: Fear, NO i think she's as tough as old.
Speaker 2: Bootstraps now that, Afternoon Mark reagan arrived with one of her.
Speaker 2: Daughters she hadn't been too young in many. Years now
Speaker 2: in her, seventies you could still see the stunning good
Speaker 2: looks that had Attracted Johnny reagan all those years ago
Speaker 2: In Sydney's King's, cross where he worked as a bouncer
Speaker 2: on the door of The Whisky Go go nightclub In williams.
Speaker 2: Street The slaters And reagans fired up the, barbie and
Speaker 2: later we set up microphones At kelly's long kitchen, table
Speaker 2: the scene of so many family, gatherings to begin our
Speaker 2: interviews With. Marg the family started to drift out of the,
Speaker 2: room But marg stop. Them she wanted them around her
Speaker 2: when she. Talked she didn't want to do this. Alone, NO.
Speaker 6: I don't want to keep repeating myself for. Everybody it's best,
Speaker 6: said everyone's. Here, okay that's. GREAT i want that you're
Speaker 6: not putting me. Off you don't put me. OFF i
Speaker 6: got emotional WHEN i talk about my. Father, Okay so
Speaker 6: for me to do, this you won't have to ask
Speaker 6: me what. HAPPENED i know you guys know what happened
Speaker 6: Because i've explained it to, Her but the lights Of
Speaker 6: daniel And jeffrey and they don't. KNOW i have a boy, Here,
Speaker 6: daniel that asked me, today what DID i say with this?
Speaker 6: Me i'm going to tell YOU i Told. Daniel AND
Speaker 6: i appreciate That daniel was mean enough and strong enough
Speaker 6: to ask me that, question because that means there's appearing
Speaker 6: person there in that person that wants to know what really. Happened,
Speaker 6: okay and this is Why i'm doing, This, Okay so
Speaker 6: what do you want to learn?
Speaker 2: Now in the next episode Of The Gangster's, ghost we
Speaker 2: take you Inside reagan's earliest years in Country New South
Speaker 2: wales and the rocky relationship between his mismatched. Parents that
Speaker 2: marriage never had a, chance and we find another monster
Speaker 2: lurking in the shadows of this, Story reagan's own, mother
Speaker 2: the formidable and Feared, claire known to all as The.
Speaker 6: Colonel she belted him hat with a Stockwet she drove
Speaker 6: him home.
Speaker 3: Like he was a.
Speaker 2: Beast so he had a tough, mother a, tough tough.
Speaker 13: Lady The Gangster's ghost is a production Of The. Australian
Speaker 13: it's written and presented by senior Writer Matthew condon and
Speaker 13: produced and edited by multimedia Editor leat Samaglu. Our executive
Speaker 13: producer Is, Me editorial Director Claire. Harvey special thanks To Lara,
Speaker 13: Kamenos Erica, Rutlidge Kristin, Amiot Jasper, Leik Stephanie, Coombs Sean Callanan, Laughlin,
Speaker 13: Clear Ryan, Osland Amanda Wynn, Williams Christine, Kellet Tarren, Blackhurst Magdalena,
Speaker 13: Zajak Gisel, Buetti Genevieve, Brammel Lauren, Bruce Sus rolf And Jachini.
Speaker 13: Carlson we can only do journalism like this with the
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