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Speaker 1: Before we begin. This podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence

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Speaker 1: and allegations of sexual abuse and adult language. This is

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Speaker 1: a production by The Australian and our subscribers Here episodes

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Speaker 1: first and get full access to photos, video, news stories

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Speaker 1: and features plus all Australia's best journalism twenty four to seven.

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Speaker 1: Join us at Gangstersghost dot com dot a U.

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Speaker 2: Before I met Kelly Slater Reagan, before I traveled to

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Speaker 2: her and husband Rodney's farm in far Flung Young in

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Speaker 2: southwestern New South Wales, bounced about in the back of

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Speaker 2: a ute through sheep, paddicts and fields of canola, sat

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Speaker 2: down around a huge country homestead kitchen table with the

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Speaker 2: Slater Reagan clan and debated their notorious relative Stuart John Reagan,

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Speaker 2: and realized how digging up the past might upend Lowe

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Speaker 2: as we all knew it, and unleashed dark forces that

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Speaker 2: none of us had anticipated. There was, in the early

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Speaker 2: days of this investigation, an unspoken truth to the whole

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Speaker 2: saga that we all skirted around, not so much the

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Speaker 2: elephant in the room, but the dead gangster, fair and

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Speaker 2: square in the center of this family's history. And that

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Speaker 2: truth was the immovable corpse of Stuart John Reagan. The

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Speaker 2: ghost was already uncomfortably close when the audio team at

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Speaker 2: The Australian resurrected his secret telephone recordings. He could have

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Speaker 2: been sitting with us at that kitchen table.

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Speaker 3: Have they tried to steen over you on or put

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Speaker 3: the hard one on it?

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Speaker 4: So you can't charge you for civil e n gay you?

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Speaker 5: So if he paid civil action won't be a backsiler.

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Speaker 2: But given Kelly was a former New South Wales police

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Speaker 2: officer and I investigated crime as a journalist, there was

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Speaker 2: a singular question that two of us could not avoid.

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Speaker 2: Who killed Reagan exactly fifty years ago? That was something

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Speaker 2: that has remained steadfastly unresolved. Why you would think that

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Speaker 2: if a criminal was gunned down in cold blood today,

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Speaker 2: not just by one shooter but three in a Sydney

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Speaker 2: suburban street early on a Sunday evening, then answers would

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Speaker 2: be sought. You would think, given rumors circulated almost immediately

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Speaker 2: after Reagan's slaying that corrupt police might have been involved,

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Speaker 2: that answers might not only be urgently he sought, but

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Speaker 2: demanded from the top of the New South Wales police hierarchy.

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Speaker 2: Remember from episode one when Kelly was told by a

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Speaker 2: retired officer that not only were police possibly involved in

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Speaker 2: Reagan's murder, but the infamous killer cop Roger Rogerson himself.

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Speaker 6: At the same time, I said, if you were there

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Speaker 6: in seventy four, do you remember stut John Ray? Oh, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 6: I do. I said, well, he was my cousin. He said,

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Speaker 6: all right, I said, do you ever know who killed him?

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Speaker 6: He said, well, we were told that in the area

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Speaker 6: at the time there was a car with four detectives

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Speaker 6: seen in it. They were wearing these bowler hats or something,

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Speaker 6: and they had police coats on. And he said there

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Speaker 6: was always a whisper that it was Rogerson's first hit,

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Speaker 6: Roger Rogerson.

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Speaker 2: Yet, could anyone reasonably explain how a high profile criminal

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Speaker 2: could be shot dead in broad daylight, just meters from

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Speaker 2: a busy pub and a main without a single witness.

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Speaker 2: Irrespective of Reagan's infamous deeds, the appalling allegations that still

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Speaker 2: swirl around him, the certainty in some minds that he

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Speaker 2: was in fact a serial killer responsible for up to

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Speaker 2: a dozen murders, and the unthinkable possibility that he may

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Speaker 2: have slaughtered a toddler in cold blood, the assassination of

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Speaker 2: Stuart John Reagan in September nineteen seventy four was and

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Speaker 2: remains to this day a stone cold unsolved homicide case. Naturally,

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Speaker 2: as a member of Reagan's family, Kelly had dozens of

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Speaker 2: questions she wanted to ask New South Wales police had

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Speaker 2: a review into Reagan's murder ever been conducted, and if so,

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Speaker 2: what were the conclusions. Why had the family, including Reagan's

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Speaker 2: de facto wife Margaret formerly known as Margaret Yates, never

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Speaker 2: heard a word from police since he was blasted to

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Speaker 2: death on that spring afternoon in nineteen seventy four. Were

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Speaker 2: detectives still looking into this half century old unsolved case.

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Speaker 2: So Kelly did what Kelly does. She wrote an email

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Speaker 2: to Detective Inspector Nigel Warren of the New South Wales

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Speaker 2: Cold Case Homicide Squad based in Paramatta in Western Sydney,

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Speaker 2: to try and satisfy her curiosity and to get the

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Speaker 2: ball rolling. This is Kelly reading her first email, dated

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Speaker 2: Thursday March twenty four, twenty twenty five two two Detective

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Speaker 2: Inspector Nigel Warren, head of the New South Wales Cold

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Speaker 2: Case Homicide Unit.

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Speaker 6: While writing these, it occurred to me that This is

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Speaker 6: probably what you discuss with any family while dealing with

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Speaker 6: a relative's death. I am disappointed this discussion has taken

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Speaker 6: forty eight years, but that is predominantly due to my

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Speaker 6: family's lack of interest or compassion leading to this point. Also,

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Speaker 6: the lack of police in the seventies to even give

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Speaker 6: a shit helped, I imagine, but I did myself wonder

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Speaker 6: if other relatives two more palatal desks had been asked

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Speaker 6: to do similar questions.

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Speaker 2: Kelly remains incredulous that after five decades, the family had

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Speaker 2: never been contacted about Reagan's murder. She discovered that two

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Speaker 2: reviews of his cold case had been conducted without the

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Speaker 2: family's knowledge or cooperation. Both reviews had come to nothing.

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Speaker 6: Email went on, I am aware that you and the

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Speaker 6: current crop of police are not responsible for the investigation,

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Speaker 6: if you could call it that, But what both you

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Speaker 6: and I are responsible for now is what happens moving forward.

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Speaker 6: I will be upfront. I am disappointed that the two

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Speaker 6: reviews twenty fourteen and twenty nineteen did not involve any

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Speaker 6: family consultation. I would have thought finding us was not

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Speaker 6: real hard as Dad is the only Reagan in young

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Speaker 6: and has been for some time.

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Speaker 2: Kelly wanted simple answers to simple questions.

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Speaker 6: Question one, what was the motives of the killing?

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Speaker 4: Two?

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Speaker 6: Who was the first responding police? If names can't be

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Speaker 6: used in car numbers and stations they were from? How

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Speaker 6: long did they take to respond? Who compiled the p

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Speaker 6: seventy nine A? Was there an official report of a

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Speaker 6: car leaving the scene with four men wearing hats?

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Speaker 2: And Some of her queries involve some famous names and

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Speaker 2: even more infamous crimes, along with another very big and

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Speaker 2: to date unanswered query. If Reagan was the so called

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Speaker 2: millionaire gangster of his day, what happened to all his money?

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Speaker 2: She reeled off more questions.

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Speaker 6: Have you got a copy of the report to the coroner?

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Speaker 6: As the coroner's documents have been removed? What does a

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Speaker 6: review consist of? Reinterviews, DNA testing if relevant, etc. Why

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Speaker 6: has no member of the family ever been contacted or

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Speaker 6: Margaret Yates in relation to reviews? Please provide Margaret with

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Speaker 6: a copy of her statement. Was John's bank account seized

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Speaker 6: and if so, why was his accountant able to draw

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Speaker 6: dollars out of his account first thing Monday morning? How

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Speaker 6: much was recovered at the time of his death, where

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Speaker 6: is the evidence retreat.

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Speaker 2: We will come to the matter of Reagan's millions in

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Speaker 2: cash and property holdings later in this podcast, as we

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Speaker 2: will the question of whether he was a part of

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Speaker 2: the Whiskey Go Go nightclub fire bombing in Brisbane in

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three, one of the biggest mass murders in

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Speaker 2: Australian history.

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Speaker 7: The Whiskey You Go Go was bombed at ten past

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Speaker 7: two on the morning of March the eighth, nineteen seventy three.

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Speaker 7: It was a mass murder which sent a wave of

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Speaker 7: outraids through a country which is often apathetic about crime.

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Speaker 7: And the gruesome twist was that two months before the killings,

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Speaker 7: Brian Bolton had warned that a Brisbane nightclub would be bombed.

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Speaker 7: Bolden got his information from a well known.

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Speaker 2: But before we could get anywhere near the truth, Kelly

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Speaker 2: and I would become involved in a cat and mouse

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Speaker 2: saga in our search for official documents that would go

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Speaker 2: on for years. It is still playing out. We will

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Speaker 2: take you inside this bureaucratic nightmare. It started with a

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Speaker 2: simple request Stuart John Reagan's criminal history.

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Speaker 6: So today is the thirtieth of September and it's the

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Speaker 6: day after I received notification from the New South Wales

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Speaker 6: Police in relation to my GIBRA or freedom of information application,

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Speaker 6: where they've told me that I can in fact have

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Speaker 6: John's criminal history, but they can't find it.

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Speaker 2: So you will see how Kelly told repeatedly that paperwork

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Speaker 2: had been lost, would, through sheer doggedness, be informed that

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Speaker 2: suddenly some fragments of paperwork had been found. And around

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Speaker 2: and around we went. But let's return to a curious

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Speaker 2: moment in Reagan's past. Reagan and his mother, Claire the Colonel,

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Speaker 2: left ruraled Young in the late nineteen fifties. She set

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Speaker 2: up in Sydney's notorious Darling Past, home to prostitution, illegal gambling, drugs,

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Speaker 2: and other vices. The Colonel and her only child, Johnny,

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Speaker 2: started their new life in Liverpool Street, a gritty, shadowy,

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Speaker 2: densely populated enclave in inner Sydney that couldn't have been

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Speaker 2: further from the wide streets and rolling hills of rural Young.

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Speaker 2: And this is where the story gets a little sketchy

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Speaker 2: and mysterious. We discovered that a teenage Johnny was for

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Speaker 2: some reason swiftly taken out of his new home and

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Speaker 2: incarcerated in a notorious boy's home, a place that equipped

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Speaker 2: him perfectly for the gloriously seedy and lawless streets of

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Speaker 2: Sydney in the nineteen sixties, and, as fate would have it,

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Speaker 2: a place he would step out of as a fully formed,

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Speaker 2: baby faced gangster. I'm journalist Matthew Condon and This is

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Speaker 2: the Gangster's Ghost, a podcast from The Australian. In this investigation,

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Speaker 2: we uncover previously unreported facts about the short lived criminal

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Speaker 2: career of Stuart John Reagan, speak to his family, friends

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Speaker 2: and business associates who go on the record for the

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Speaker 2: first time, link him to one of the most notorious

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Speaker 2: mass murders in Australian history, and uncover secret audio recordings

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Speaker 2: that will bring the ghost of Johnny Reagan back to life.

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Speaker 2: This podcast started out as a clinical look at one

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Speaker 2: of Australia's most reviled gangsters, but when the Reagan family

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Speaker 2: came on board, the project took on another dimension and

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Speaker 2: begged the question how does a family cope with the

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Speaker 2: generational stain of a murderer whose death was celebrated by

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Speaker 2: criminals and police alike. This is Episode three. Holy Stony

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Speaker 2: as Reagan's mum the colonel settled into Sydney's Red Light District.

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Speaker 2: Her only child, little Johnny, was serving his apprenticeship as

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Speaker 2: an inmate of the Gosford Home for Boys, one hundred

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Speaker 2: kilometers north of Sydney on the New South Wales Central Coast.

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Speaker 2: That home would later be renamed Mount Penang Training School

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Speaker 2: for Boys. This brief period in Reagan's life remains vague

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Speaker 2: even to his own family. I talked about this with

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Speaker 2: Kelly Fair to say that the whole Gosford Mount Penang

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Speaker 2: Home for Boys period has always been a bit of

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Speaker 2: a mystery even to the Reagan family. This little window

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Speaker 2: in his life.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, it wasn't heavily talked about. I do recall once

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Speaker 6: that Claire must have come back to young and she

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Speaker 6: went to one of his friend's houses and borrowed their

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Speaker 6: bag that he'd had in World War Two, like his

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Speaker 6: big Duffel bag, and she told them that she needed

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Speaker 6: it because John had to go to the Boy's Home

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Speaker 6: in Gosford. That's sort of all we know about the

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Speaker 6: Boy's Home, and there's that big gap from when he left,

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Speaker 6: so obviously when he came out the Boy's Home and

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Speaker 6: was a fair bit more notorious.

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Speaker 2: The missing piece of the Reagan puzzle is how and

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Speaker 2: why he was removed from his controlling mother, the Colonel

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Speaker 2: and incarcerated in one of New South Wales's most infamous boys' homes.

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Speaker 2: The Colonel had moved into her sister's house in Liverpool

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Speaker 2: Street and soon took over. But what happened to Johnny?

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Speaker 2: He goes to Sydney and we're assuming Claire maintained some

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Speaker 2: form of care. I mean it was her sister's house

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Speaker 2: that she moved to in Liverpool Street, so they had

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Speaker 2: a roof over their head. Could Reagan have just gone

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Speaker 2: wild like a switch had been flicked once he got

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Speaker 2: to the city, or is it more like the situation

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Speaker 2: whereby somehow the issue of being placed in moral endangerment

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Speaker 2: courtesy of his mother could have been the issue.

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Speaker 6: We know he went to a school down there, we're

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Speaker 6: just not quite so awhere. But has he been kicked

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Speaker 6: out of the school or has the school reported in

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Speaker 6: his behavior? Like at home, he could just walk across

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Speaker 6: the road and he's at home and it doesn't matter

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Speaker 6: if she's at home. But in Sydney, when she's running

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Speaker 6: the brothels, she's a different kettle of fish. Isn't it?

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Speaker 2: And how was the colonel surviving in big, tough Sydney town,

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Speaker 2: a far cry from her simple life in rural Young.

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Speaker 2: She'd left her former husband alf behind, the extended Reagan family,

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Speaker 2: her work at the Australian Hotel. She may have accepted

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Speaker 2: the charity of her sister, but how did she really

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Speaker 2: get by? What did she do when she got to Sydney?

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Speaker 2: Did she resume being a bar maid like she wasn't

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Speaker 2: the Australian in Young or.

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Speaker 6: We were always told that when she went to Sydney

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Speaker 6: she went straight into the brothels was running a brothel?

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Speaker 6: Remember Dad said that it was a brothel that he'd

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Speaker 6: heard that the Aussie had been as a brothel. Was

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Speaker 6: she running trick then, which would explain really why the

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Speaker 6: Reagans hated her. You can't just because she's Catholic.

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Speaker 2: How had schoolboy Reagan ended up in a home for

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Speaker 2: juvenile delinquents, truants and uncontrollable boys. School records in Young

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Speaker 2: show that one year Reagan was attending classes and appearing

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Speaker 2: in school photographs, and the next year he simply wasn't there.

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Speaker 2: His mate said, Reagan just seemed to vanish nobody knew

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Speaker 2: why he left or where he'd gone. In young he

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Speaker 2: defended smaller boys from bullies. He liked art. He enjoyed

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Speaker 2: exploring the creek near his home, although some of his

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Speaker 2: mates saw the crouching tiger inside the quiet boy. Once

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Speaker 2: outside the young town limits, he found himself inside the

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Speaker 2: Nightmare of Gosford. But why the home catered for boys

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Speaker 2: aged fourteen to eighteen years Reagan turned fourteen on September thirteenth,

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifty nine. To be placed there, you had to

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Speaker 2: be committed by a court of law or receive what

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Speaker 2: was called a general committal. Had Reagan made it to

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Speaker 2: Sydney with his mother and failed to go to school,

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Speaker 2: had he stolen something and been caught, had he come

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Speaker 2: to police attention in the show streets of Darlinghurst as

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Speaker 2: a neglected child, Or had police removed him from the

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Speaker 2: Colonel's care after authorities discovered that she was running a

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Speaker 2: house of ill repute, as the family believes, putting young

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Speaker 2: Reagan in that deliciously ambiguous state of moral danger. Former

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Speaker 2: Sydney detective and best selling author Duncan McNabb wrote The

258
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Speaker 2: Definitive Biography of Roger Rogerson and is an expert on

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Speaker 2: the era. As chance would have it, he actually lives

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Speaker 2: in the heart of Darlinghurst, not far from the Liverpool

261
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Speaker 2: Street Terrace where Claire and Reagan settled when they left young.

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Speaker 2: He has his own theory on why Reagan ended up

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Speaker 2: in Mount Penang. He says it would have been a

264
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Speaker 2: similar path to that of killer Neddie Smith.

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Speaker 4: Experience.

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Speaker 2: Why would a boy of say thirteen or fourteen, how

267
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Speaker 2: would he end up in Mount Penang?

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Speaker 8: Oh? Easily?

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Speaker 9: The Netdie Smith is pretty much the blueprint. Uncontrollable. Back

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Speaker 9: in those days there was a you could send kids

271
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Speaker 9: off because they are uncontrollable. Their parents couldn't run them.

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Speaker 9: They were getting into all sorts of strife. The coppers

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Speaker 9: were also having troubles controlling. Rather than charge them that

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Speaker 9: they substantiate offense like breaking, entering, that sort of stuff,

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Speaker 9: they just happened declared uncontrollable by the children's could, which

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Speaker 9: in those days was done in Albion, straight dreadful fucking place.

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Speaker 10: And then they'd head off to a boys home. If

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Speaker 10: they were really really problematic, they go to Mount Penang.

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Speaker 10: Neddie for example, was doing breaking edits all around the place, stealing,

280
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Speaker 10: anything was not nailed down bashing people that he decided

281
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:52,239
Speaker 10: was appropriate to stab his brother Henry, I think from them,

282
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Speaker 10: so that's why he went to Mount Penang, and the

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Speaker 10: Mount Penang was probably the roughest of the rough.

284
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Speaker 2: In the wake of Reagan's murder in nineteen seventy four,

285
00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:09,800
Speaker 2: the Sydney tabloids, particularly The Sun newspaper, ran a series

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Speaker 2: of articles about the life and times of Reagan. One

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00:21:16,720 --> 00:21:24,919
Speaker 2: carried the single word headline gangster and summarized Reagan he

288
00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:29,840
Speaker 2: was a punk at fifteen, a pimp at seventeen, and

289
00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:36,240
Speaker 2: standover bully boy at nineteen, a suspected killer at twenty one.

290
00:21:37,440 --> 00:21:41,960
Speaker 2: An article by journalist Cyril Greet also provided a possible

291
00:21:42,119 --> 00:21:46,119
Speaker 2: clue into the trigger for Reagan's trip to the Gosford

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Speaker 2: Boys Home. He's a voice actor reading a section of

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Speaker 2: Greet's story.

294
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Speaker 11: When he was thirteen, he came to live with an

295
00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:57,840
Speaker 11: aunt in East Sydney. Within a couple of years, the

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00:21:57,920 --> 00:22:01,280
Speaker 11: solidly built youth was well known for painting swastikas on

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00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:05,240
Speaker 11: cars and hitting the people who objected. It was after

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Speaker 11: one of these assaults that he made his first appearance

299
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Speaker 11: in the children's court and thereafter in the Gosford Boys'

300
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Speaker 11: Home and Mount Penang Training Center.

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Speaker 2: The earliest entry in his official criminal history was dated

302
00:22:19,680 --> 00:22:24,840
Speaker 2: August thirty one, nineteen sixty two, when Reagan was still seventeen.

303
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:29,280
Speaker 2: He was charged with assault and robbery. The case was

304
00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:35,640
Speaker 2: later dismissed. Was this assault related to the swastika incident?

305
00:22:36,119 --> 00:22:42,960
Speaker 2: As alleged by reporter Cyril Greet. At the time Reagan

306
00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:48,639
Speaker 2: was held at Gosford, several children's correctional institutions up and

307
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Speaker 2: down the East coast of Australia were already notorious. In Queensland,

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Speaker 2: there was Westbrook, the boy's farm outside to Woomba, west

309
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Speaker 2: of Brisbane. It was a crucible of sexual abuse and torture.

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Speaker 2: I should know. My great uncle was an inmate of

311
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Speaker 2: Westbrook in the late nineteen thirties, and when he left

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00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 2: at eighteen, he stepped straight into a life of crime

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00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:21,880
Speaker 2: and sexual deviancy. New Southwell's juvenile institutions had their own

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00:23:22,440 --> 00:23:29,360
Speaker 2: hierarchy of horrors to the general public. Boys homes or farms,

315
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 2: as many of them were innocuously described, were places where

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Speaker 2: wayward young men were sent to learn the basic requirements

317
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 2: for model citizenry. They were given the discipline that was

318
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:50,000
Speaker 2: lacking in their young lives. They were to the outside observer,

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00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 2: taught manners and responsibility, and work ethics, and even the

320
00:23:56,040 --> 00:24:04,640
Speaker 2: skills for a future trade. Upon graduation, these floored youths

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00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:09,280
Speaker 2: came out like shiny new pennies, ready for seamless integration

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Speaker 2: into the community. Time and again, government ministers of the

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00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 2: day were photographed visiting the homes alongside smiling, healthy boys

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Speaker 2: fallen angels on the path to redemption. The old newsreel's

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00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 2: advertised picture perfect institutions.

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Speaker 12: Mount Fenang Training cor for Boys is situated fifty miles

327
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Speaker 12: north of Sydney, up seven hundred acres of farm and bushland,

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Speaker 12: high on the hills above Brisbane Waters and the town

329
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Speaker 12: of Gosford. This is a school without fences, where boys

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Speaker 12: are taught that standards of life which are built on

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00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 12: an understanding of solid responsibility make life richer and more

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00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:11,639
Speaker 12: meaningful than the irresponsible conduct which brought them here. Most

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00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:15,720
Speaker 12: of them are restless, insecure lads. The training program has

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00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 12: therefore been designed to condition them to living in an

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Speaker 12: organized community, so that they experienced the personal satisfactions which

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Speaker 12: come from acceptance in a communal group and through recognition

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Speaker 12: of their achievement.

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Speaker 2: This is from a nineteen fifty nine documentary about the

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Speaker 2: Mount Penang Boys Home called New Horizons. It was nade

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Speaker 2: by the Child Welfare Department of New South Wales just

341
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Speaker 2: before Reagan became an inmate. The twelve minute film praises

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00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 2: the boys Home to the skies and depicts it as

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Speaker 2: a rival to any of the best private boarding schools

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Speaker 2: in Sydney.

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Speaker 12: The ceremonial march and outings from Mount Penang are part

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Speaker 12: of the training plan. Parties of up to fifty boys

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00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 12: go to theaters and concerts in Sydney who visit Newcastle Steelworks,

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Speaker 12: to a motor show to serve beaches. One optor, who

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Speaker 12: regularly takes boys to symphony concerts has frequently been asked

350
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Speaker 12: what college do these boys come from?

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Speaker 2: The boys dressed immaculately a scene happily working with farm animals,

352
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Speaker 2: fixing machinery, enjoying sport, reading, studying, and warmly welcoming visiting parents.

353
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Speaker 2: Everyone the film shows is living in blissful harmony.

354
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Speaker 12: The standards of living and physical well being are no

355
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:54,439
Speaker 12: lower and sometimes higher than those in a first class

356
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Speaker 12: boarding school. The assured routine and order of a well

357
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:05,200
Speaker 12: run school helped to calm and reassure children who have

358
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 12: usually been insecure for a long while because they've felt

359
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:12,120
Speaker 12: that nobody cared for them. The new vision of an orderly, cheerful,

360
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:15,400
Speaker 12: well organized life in beautiful surroundings is the first step

361
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Speaker 12: towards rehabilitation.

362
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:24,199
Speaker 2: Only decades later would the truth about these boys' homes

363
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 2: come to light through journalistic investigations and various royal commissions.

364
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 2: The conclusions were the same across the board. The homes

365
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:43,120
Speaker 2: were vile centers of abuse and sexual assault, and nurseries

366
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Speaker 2: for future criminals, including some of the most notorious murderers

367
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Speaker 2: in Australian criminal history. In New South Wales, the number

368
00:27:54,880 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 2: one house of Horrors was in Tamworth, west of Sydney.

369
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Speaker 12: Dammouth Boys Hoim was known as the toughest institution probably

370
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Speaker 12: in the whole of Australia.

371
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Speaker 8: When you got in the Tamworth you're beaten, he said.

372
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Speaker 13: You got in the door, you were starved, you were tortured,

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Speaker 13: and you just degraded.

374
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Speaker 4: Kill will be killed.

375
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Speaker 8: Everyone come out there the same. That's why there's so

376
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Speaker 8: many buddies murders.

377
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Speaker 2: But if Tamworth was the criminal High School. There were

378
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 2: dangerous primary schools churning out students as well. One was

379
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Speaker 2: the Dearreck Home for Boys in Winter in western Sydney.

380
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 2: Respected journalist Ross coulthardt reported on Darrek for sixty minutes Australia,

381
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 2: this institution, similar to Mount Penang, was a hotbed of abuse.

382
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 2: Its horrors were only exposed thanks to a new South

383
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 2: Wales police investigation headed up by Detective Sergeant Ben Hallam.

384
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 2: He is Ross Coulthard reporting on Derek for sixty minutes.

385
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Speaker 2: Heeded by Detective Sergeant Ben Hallam.

386
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Speaker 14: When you sit down with them and listen to them

387
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 14: tell their story about what happened at Derek and then

388
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 14: they break down and cry, it's very confronted.

389
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 4: He told them to strip me down.

390
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 8: I think they were trying to break me.

391
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Speaker 14: These were vulnerable kids from broken families. The tragedy of

392
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 14: this is that the people that were entrusted to care

393
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 14: for them and help them were alleged to have abused them.

394
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Speaker 2: And the other infamous school was, of course Mount Penang

395
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 2: in Gosford. In nineteen fifty nine, on the eve of

396
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Speaker 2: Reagan's arrival at the home, The Sydney Morning Herald reported

397
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 2: that child crime in New South Wales was out of control.

398
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 2: Sexual offenses by youths had increased by three hundred percent

399
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 2: through the nineteen fifties. Institutions for boys and girls were

400
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 2: bursting at the seams. The Gosford Home, built to house

401
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 2: two hundred and eighty children, had four hundred inmates at

402
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 2: the end of nineteen fifty nine. For decades it was

403
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 2: run like a military academy, but one where sexual abuse

404
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 2: and torture were the norm. Fred was a young Indigenous

405
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 2: man from western New South Wales in the early to

406
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 2: mid nineteen sixties when he started hanging with the wrong crowd.

407
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 2: One night, he was caught by police in a car

408
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 2: stolen by some of his mates. Fred was a passenger,

409
00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 2: but it was enough to get him removed from his

410
00:30:54,000 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 2: family and installed in Darreck and then Mount Penang. Fred

411
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 2: remembers to this day the atrocities of Mount Penang. When

412
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 2: it rained, the boys were ordered to get on their

413
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 2: hands and knees with a scrubbing brush and clean the

414
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:19,280
Speaker 2: floors until they shone on work projects in bushlands surrounding

415
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:23,640
Speaker 2: the home. Young innocent kids new to Mount Penang were

416
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 2: sexually assaulted by older boys out of sight of the guards.

417
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 2: Some staff sexually abused the boys. And then there was

418
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 2: the practice of holy stoning, a form of torture unique

419
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 2: to Mount Penang that went back to the nineteen forties.

420
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 2: Fred is today a respected Indigenous elder, but holy stoning

421
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 2: scarred him for life.

422
00:31:57,440 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 8: Well, I used to stand as had in front of

423
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 8: the deck, especially when we did the barking. They think

424
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 8: you were sucking it was. We had to stand there

425
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 8: and a lot of the lads were clapsy. And then

426
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 8: on the on the other side of it, when individuals

427
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 8: got into trouble, they used to put them on the

428
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 8: holy stone.

429
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 2: Tell me about the holy stone. I haven't heard about that.

430
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 8: The Holy star was up the back in the dairy

431
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 8: there was were there's a lot of the sandstones and

432
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 8: they bring about two or three and then down to

433
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 8: the deck. They put them in front of the deck

434
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 8: and if.

435
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 15: You fucked up, they'd take his shoes and socks off

436
00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 15: here to roll your trousers up, say your knees and

437
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 15: the and your toes supposed to the to the board

438
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:51,479
Speaker 15: and and then you got to get on your knees

439
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 15: and pushed this rock back and forward Jesus. And by

440
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 15: the time you got up from them, your knees were

441
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 15: all cut and plastiated your toes and then for days

442
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:11,120
Speaker 15: after your knees or where the skin sprake and could

443
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 15: even infected.

444
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 8: Or they put you out in the in the dot

445
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 8: of the little dormitory where we used to watch the pictures,

446
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,959
Speaker 8: and they'd give you a dry brush. An arling stone

447
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 8: was well, what's the one that really made the boys

448
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:32,960
Speaker 8: set up? And they didn't didn't like the holy stone.

449
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 2: There were three types of holy stoning. The one Fred

450
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:41,720
Speaker 2: described where you pushed the stone back and forth, another

451
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 2: where you moved it from side to side. The third

452
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 2: was called a holly off, where a guard would use

453
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 2: chalk to mark two places on the deck and you

454
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 2: carried the rock repeatedly from one mark to the other.

455
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty, doctor Wayne Appleby, now a distinguished academic

456
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 2: at the University of Canberra, submitted his PhD thesis on

457
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 2: the impact of social media on Indigenous people. In the manuscript, however,

458
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 2: he included some autobiographical material, including a harrowing account of

459
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,840
Speaker 2: his time as a young man spent in Mount Penang

460
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:32,920
Speaker 2: in the nineteen sixties. He recalled getting into a fight

461
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:38,279
Speaker 2: with seasoned inmates, the storeboys when he first arrived at

462
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 2: the Gosford home, and the practice of holy stoning. Here

463
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 2: are some extracts from doctor Appleby's thesis titled from Homo's

464
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:57,800
Speaker 2: Saca to Subalton Becoming Aboriginal Online. These are his words

465
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 2: read by A. Nunnawohl Man.

466
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 16: I had the misfortune of meeting the storeboys on the

467
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:07,240
Speaker 16: first day at Mount Penang. I had arrived by train

468
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 16: and was driven to Mount Penang. Then upon arrival, I

469
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 16: was ushered into the store by the storeboys. I was

470
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:17,240
Speaker 16: aft to hand over my tobacco, which in the language

471
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 16: of institutions is called grass, and over your grouse, as

472
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:24,840
Speaker 16: store boys said. I refused, resulting in an altercation with

473
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 16: the store boys. I held my own for a time,

474
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 16: but I was bashed and kicked by the three store

475
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 16: boys and then paraded for starting to fight. After that,

476
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 16: I was physically tortured through a process called holy stoning.

477
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 2: Dr Appleby's recollection was identical to Fred's.

478
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:45,880
Speaker 16: Holly stoning is where a person squats on their knees

479
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 16: with a piece of sandstone measuring between four hundred and

480
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 16: fifty mili by three hundred and two hundred deep, and

481
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 16: it entails moving the block from side to side across

482
00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:58,920
Speaker 16: the wooden boards for up to three hours. After just

483
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 16: a few minutes my knees were bleeding. It would be

484
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 16: weeks before my knees healed. Each night they would weep

485
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 16: enough to cause the sheets to stick to them.

486
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:13,799
Speaker 2: Was a young Johnny Reagan there at some point, gen

487
00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:19,839
Speaker 2: reflecting with bloodied knees before the Holy Stone, with each

488
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:29,240
Speaker 2: painful push and shove, consolidating his hatred for authority. Mount

489
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 2: Penang had its fair share of illustrious criminal graduates, and

490
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:40,359
Speaker 2: one of those was the bank robber Bernie Matthews. Here

491
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 2: is Bernie being interviewed about the art of bank robbing

492
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 2: on the ABC's Four Corners back in two thousand and four.

493
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 17: I selected the bank. I parked the car up the

494
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 17: shide lane and I had a short off twenty two

495
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:04,319
Speaker 17: twenty two automatic, a gloves balaclava. I was physicianed on

496
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:08,240
Speaker 17: a main road on Victoria Road. I selected the bank

497
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:10,840
Speaker 17: simply because it was on a main road and people

498
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,799
Speaker 17: didn't rob banks on the main road, and it had

499
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 17: the side street so I could get to to getaway car.

500
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:18,359
Speaker 1: Write it down.

501
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 17: I went in, I jumped on the counter, forced everybody

502
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 17: onto the floor, customers and bank and staff. I got

503
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:29,839
Speaker 17: one teller and I threw the bags and made him

504
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 17: go along to each individual telescage and fill the bag.

505
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:35,799
Speaker 17: In all of my robberies, I use the voice, I

506
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 17: mean mannerism as the threat, and the gun becomes an

507
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 17: extension on the threat that.

508
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 2: I interviewed Bernie just a couple of months before he

509
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 2: died in twenty twenty two. He sounded unwell on the

510
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:56,440
Speaker 2: end of the phone. Sometimes I felt he was reading

511
00:37:56,480 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 2: from prepared notes, perhaps from articles he'd written in the past.

512
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 2: After his life of crime, Bernie reinvented himself as a

513
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:11,280
Speaker 2: respected journalist. His work was even nominated for a Distinguished Award.

514
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:15,279
Speaker 2: But on the day we spoke, and when he went

515
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:21,799
Speaker 2: off script, his memories were excruciatingly clear. Bernie was born

516
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:25,759
Speaker 2: in nineteen forty nine, just four years after Reagan, and

517
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:28,440
Speaker 2: the reason I tracked him down was because in his

518
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:32,839
Speaker 2: teenage years, he too spent some time at the Mount

519
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 2: Penang Training School for boys. He doesn't recall being there

520
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:41,800
Speaker 2: at the same time as Reagan, but of course knew

521
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 2: of him.

522
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 18: If he was in Mount penajuvenile offense jish. Mount Penang

523
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:53,800
Speaker 18: was the boy's arm and like a lot of the

524
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 18: kids went through Ronnie Ferni just a hell of a lot,

525
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 18: George Freeman, and they all went through a Mount Pane.

526
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 4: At some stage. So what was like, where do we start?

527
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 18: They called it the Mount Penang Training School for boys

528
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 18: at goslein or utilized to accommodate aspiring juvenile incarceration rate.

529
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 4: Now, in those days.

530
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:23,760
Speaker 18: Magistrates were institutionalized juvenile offenders for truancy, running away from home,

531
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:27,799
Speaker 18: bringing an executed child of Berne and Charlie's, both from

532
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 18: mal dangers.

533
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:33,440
Speaker 2: It was for this reason, being a child exposed to

534
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:38,399
Speaker 2: moral dangers that Kelly and I presumed Reagan had been

535
00:39:38,560 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 2: ordered to Mount Panang. Bernie went on, when did you

536
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:45,840
Speaker 2: first go into Mount Penang.

537
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 4: Last Stary sixty five?

538
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:48,840
Speaker 2: What was that for?

539
00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 4: I was for arsenal and breaking head her?

540
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 2: How old were you?

541
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 4: I was sixteen when I got arrested.

542
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:58,040
Speaker 18: I was sixteen when I went to Gospin in nineteen

543
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:01,280
Speaker 18: sixty five. The new superintendent with a boat called Fowler,

544
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:05,480
Speaker 18: and they used to call him Chicken, and he was

545
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:09,800
Speaker 18: an autocratic disciplinarian, so inexplicable reason.

546
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 4: You just love to see the kids suffer. At the

547
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:14,759
Speaker 4: drop of a hat. That was his bag.

548
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 18: He was a public service. The progress through the show

549
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 18: offered apartment.

550
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:23,359
Speaker 2: What sort of physical work were you required to do

551
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:24,160
Speaker 2: when you were there?

552
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 4: I had what I call work gangs. You had two

553
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:32,280
Speaker 4: different types. You had school groups.

554
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 18: There were kids that could go to school and learned

555
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 18: to read and write and all the rest of it.

556
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 18: And you had work gangs where you worked out in

557
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:44,400
Speaker 18: the field and you dug up and.

558
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:47,239
Speaker 4: Acres and acres of the property. All you went.

559
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:52,080
Speaker 18: You went down to the oval and you cut rock

560
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 18: like fish and rocks. The benefit there was this, if

561
00:40:56,560 --> 00:41:00,560
Speaker 18: you're on work gangs, you've got a better relotment of points,

562
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 18: so therefore you moved up the sections quicker.

563
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:05,280
Speaker 4: If you're in school groups.

564
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 18: And your point a lotment wasn't as high, and you

565
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 18: just travel through the system at a slow place. That

566
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,280
Speaker 18: allads the philosophy areas. We don't want you to study

567
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:18,399
Speaker 18: and learn school work. We're wanting to get out there

568
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,840
Speaker 18: and dig paddic. The one strange thing at Mount Nanga

569
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:25,839
Speaker 18: I found when you go in the front gate, they've

570
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:28,080
Speaker 18: got a front gate there that comes off the highway

571
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 18: and it leads up a driveway, flooding the main quarter deck.

572
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 18: And the strangest thing I ever saw was the entrance

573
00:41:39,239 --> 00:41:43,239
Speaker 18: is a boomerang. I couldn't work out why they had

574
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:47,560
Speaker 18: this boomerang over the entrance. It was really quite simple,

575
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:52,319
Speaker 18: You're going to come back. That was that. That was

576
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:55,560
Speaker 18: the message you carry now you come here, You're going

577
00:41:55,600 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 18: to come back. Obviously someone in a higher bureaucratic thought

578
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 18: of a numerous touch to the boys Zone.

579
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:06,399
Speaker 2: And if it was anything like Westbrook too, I mean

580
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 2: these places were sort of nurseries for future criminals.

581
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 18: Actually exactly what they were high school of all criminality

582
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:19,919
Speaker 18: who taught the art of resourcefulness, how to lie, how

583
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:24,800
Speaker 18: to treat, how to get what you want by manipulation.

584
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:27,320
Speaker 4: And of course that carried into the world outside.

585
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess friendships made inside too, I certainly did.

586
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:37,080
Speaker 18: I did an article at a paramount at Jaile.

587
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:38,759
Speaker 4: It was ninety seventy nine.

588
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:41,879
Speaker 18: I went through the whole jail to find out how

589
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 18: many men had come up through the Boys' Aims and

590
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 18: ended up in jail.

591
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:48,280
Speaker 4: I worked out about eighty eighty five percent.

592
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 8: Wow, it's incredible.

593
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 4: I was mind by room, but it didn't surprise me.

594
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 18: That's the whole philosophy behind the juvenile justice system, Matthew.

595
00:42:57,680 --> 00:43:01,479
Speaker 18: The whole philosophy is the treatment come went back, treat

596
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:02,680
Speaker 18: the jile cells full.

597
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 2: I ran Kelly and talked to her about the practice

598
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 2: of holy stoning. She was horrified to think that Johnny

599
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 2: Reagan most likely went through that ordeal.

600
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 6: Poor bloody git. He couldn't pull a brake. Could if

601
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 6: there's evidence that he was really good with his friends

602
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,279
Speaker 6: and everything, and then his mother, he goes home and

603
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:26,000
Speaker 6: his mother whips him at the clothesline, and then he

604
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:30,319
Speaker 6: sent away to Mount Penang and then that's virtually paw

605
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:33,279
Speaker 6: torture stuff. And you wonder, you wonder if people say, oh,

606
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 6: he was a psychopath, what did you think was going

607
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 6: to happen when you treat people like that, when you

608
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:42,440
Speaker 6: treat people and their little boys like at this stage,

609
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 6: what we don't even know what he was in there for.

610
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 6: But let's just say he's in there for a style

611
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 6: of motor vehicle or an assault, which a lot of

612
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 6: them were just in there for first offenses. Imagine if

613
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 6: that's what he's done and then you do this to

614
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:55,800
Speaker 6: him in his formative years. What did you think was

615
00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:56,360
Speaker 6: going to happen?

616
00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:56,759
Speaker 4: You know?

617
00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 6: And I just think it's I just look at my

618
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 6: family sometimes and I just think, why didn't anyone step in?

619
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:04,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, as Bernie Matthews said, in the boys' homes,

620
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:08,400
Speaker 2: there was a hierarchy. So Mount Penang was like a

621
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 2: primary school for criminals, and then you graduated to Tamworth,

622
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 2: which was the high school, and then they were unleashed

623
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:15,840
Speaker 2: into the world.

624
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 6: Absolutely absolutely no respect for authority, high paying thresholds. Violence

625
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:26,120
Speaker 6: is the way to get people to do what you

626
00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:30,320
Speaker 6: want them to do. They're the lessons, that's what you're learning.

627
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:31,319
Speaker 6: Violence one A one.

628
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:36,799
Speaker 2: One of Reagan's childhood friends from Young Brian English, who

629
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:40,000
Speaker 2: we heard from in the last episode, was working in

630
00:44:40,080 --> 00:44:44,239
Speaker 2: Sydney in the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies

631
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 2: when the matter of Reagan's incarceration in Gosford came up

632
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:55,280
Speaker 2: over drinks in a pub with police and government officials. Brian,

633
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 2: who had witnessed first hand the brutality Reagan suffered at

634
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:02,760
Speaker 2: the hands of his own mother when they were living

635
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:07,360
Speaker 2: in Young Now, by chance, became Privy to another brutal

636
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 2: phase in Reagan's life, his time at Mount Penang. Brian

637
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:17,399
Speaker 2: told Kelly about the moment in the Sydney pub when

638
00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:20,319
Speaker 2: Reagan was brought up in conversation.

639
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:23,960
Speaker 19: While I was working at Newt Wow Jenny. I was

640
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 19: also lecturing police officers in Newtown Police Station on sociology

641
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 19: and these to do with crime. And we used to

642
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:36,680
Speaker 19: have drinks. We do the electors I have have elected

643
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 19: our brid we'd all go out for a drink at

644
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 19: a hotel in Yuta. And one of the people at

645
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:45,439
Speaker 19: the hotel they would come for drinks was the head

646
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 19: of the child welfare office in that area. This is

647
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 19: before John died. And something came up in that in

648
00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:55,800
Speaker 19: one of those conversations about John Reagan for some reason,

649
00:45:56,120 --> 00:45:58,759
Speaker 19: and he said, I was in charge of the boys home,

650
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 19: the Gospet boys when Reagan was there, and John had

651
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:08,200
Speaker 19: told me that he was quite running the boy's home.

652
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:12,120
Speaker 19: John laws, that's how prisons and things work. But this

653
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:15,200
Speaker 19: guy said, ah, he used to run you. And I said,

654
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:16,040
Speaker 19: they did him up.

655
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 4: We got him.

656
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:20,120
Speaker 19: We made sure we dressed the little bastard. I mean,

657
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,799
Speaker 19: that was the nature of the times that at that date.

658
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:26,920
Speaker 19: The Premier View. Deel Wales was corrupt, the end of

659
00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:30,239
Speaker 19: the President's department. The Police commissioner was corrupt, well, the

660
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:32,759
Speaker 19: chiefs of famiary magistrate and we used to visit the

661
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:35,759
Speaker 19: Prisidon's was corrupt. Minister for Police was corrupt. And it's

662
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 19: all come out and I'm not making us out.

663
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 2: A handful of television crime documentaries have tried to understand

664
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:49,240
Speaker 2: Reagan's psychosis and in particular, to get to the heart

665
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:55,839
Speaker 2: of his rage. Exactly what was it to turn this

666
00:46:56,040 --> 00:47:04,680
Speaker 2: once innocent boy into Australia's most beard killer. Historians, journalists

667
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:09,839
Speaker 2: and psychologists have grappled with Reagan's reign of terror and

668
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:15,360
Speaker 2: his flame out. How to explain the enigma that was Reagan.

669
00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:21,400
Speaker 2: The passage of fifty years has reduced that understanding to

670
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 2: a couple of factors. The damage inflicted at the Gosford

671
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 2: Boy's home and the certainty of his psychopathy when he

672
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 2: allegedly murdered a toddler for no explicable reason a few

673
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:40,560
Speaker 2: months before he was assassinated in nineteen seventy four. Reagan

674
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 2: has been distilled into this a child killer and a psychopath.

675
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 2: One of the few full length television documentaries focusing on

676
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:57,120
Speaker 2: Reagan was Tough Nuts Australia's Toughest Criminals, hosted by respected

677
00:47:57,160 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 2: writer Tara Moss and first air on the Nine Network

678
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 2: in twoenty ten. This is Tara summarizing Reagan's childhood and

679
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:13,600
Speaker 2: hinting at the reasons behind his clearly damaged mind.

680
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:17,839
Speaker 20: Reagan's parents divorced when he was young, and he moved

681
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:20,920
Speaker 20: to Sydney with his mother. Here he progressed from hurting

682
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:25,200
Speaker 20: animals to inflicting pain on people. By his early teens,

683
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:29,120
Speaker 20: he was attacking strangers in the street, and aged just fourteen,

684
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:33,000
Speaker 20: he was sent to the brutal Gosford Reformatory. There he

685
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 20: met other up and coming criminals, including future murderer Arthur

686
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:41,040
Speaker 20: Nettie Smith, who described Reagan as having the coldest eyes

687
00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 20: he'd ever seen. Psychologists agree that children incarcerated so young

688
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:49,400
Speaker 20: inevitably have their development affected by the experience.

689
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:54,600
Speaker 2: And here are the psychologists trying to work out Reagan.

690
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 21: So in psychology we talk about how people learn to

691
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 21: be the people they are, and so we learned through

692
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:06,520
Speaker 21: modeling is copying others. The other way we learn is

693
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 21: in response to our environment or what happens to us.

694
00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:12,400
Speaker 2: So if somebody's been.

695
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:17,480
Speaker 21: Abused and violated punished, they learned that perhaps that's something

696
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:20,840
Speaker 21: that makes you feel bad, but it gives you a

697
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:23,600
Speaker 21: sense of power to inflict it on somebody else.

698
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:27,439
Speaker 22: Especially in places like Gosford Boys Home, not only were

699
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 22: they not being given the pro social kinds of skills

700
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 22: that they needed, but they're also being exposed to really

701
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:36,440
Speaker 22: anti social influences, not just from their peers, but also

702
00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:38,600
Speaker 22: from the people who are in authority, the people who

703
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:43,640
Speaker 22: should have been providing the deterrence or the correction that

704
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 22: was hopefully gained by placing them there in the first place.

705
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:51,320
Speaker 2: And this is former Sydney Morning Herald editor and true

706
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:53,320
Speaker 2: crime author David Hickey.

707
00:49:55,120 --> 00:50:02,120
Speaker 13: Amazingly, at seventeen, Reagan hurts up his first conviction for

708
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 13: living off the earnings of prostitution. He's a person who,

709
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:10,720
Speaker 13: because he's not very smart but he is so violent

710
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:17,319
Speaker 13: and unpredictable, is immediately feared by madams who run suburban

711
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 13: brothels in Sydney. He literally arrived at the door of

712
00:50:21,120 --> 00:50:25,920
Speaker 13: some of these places and demands standover money, and the madams,

713
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:31,000
Speaker 13: who are already paying standover money elsewhere, quickly find that

714
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:34,160
Speaker 13: the protection they thought they had doesn't exist because a

715
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:36,920
Speaker 13: lot of the criminals who are in the world supposedly

716
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:40,160
Speaker 13: providing standover do not want to deal with Reagan.

717
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 2: Tara again returns to Reagan's past to try and explain

718
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:46,800
Speaker 2: his state of mind.

719
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:51,200
Speaker 20: Reagan was a man who inspired fear wherever he went,

720
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 20: as Nettie Smith, who was incarcerated with Reagan at Gosford,

721
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 20: would later rate, Reagan had always wanted to join the

722
00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 20: army so we could kill people with no questions asked,

723
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:05,400
Speaker 20: but he had been rejected. Unable to satisfy his bloodlust

724
00:51:05,440 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 20: through legal means, Reagan unleashed his own personal war on

725
00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 20: the streets of Sydney and on the prostitutes to seventeen

726
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:14,640
Speaker 20: year old Pemp Controlled.

727
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:19,000
Speaker 2: The Psychologists and commentators would go on to describe the

728
00:51:19,120 --> 00:51:23,520
Speaker 2: characteristics of a psychopath like Reagan, that he was a

729
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:29,319
Speaker 2: pimp because disempowering women empowered him, that he got what

730
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:36,000
Speaker 2: he wanted through violence and fear, and the final assessment.

731
00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:39,880
Speaker 3: Reagan was dangerous man. Reagan had always been a dangerous man.

732
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 3: He ended associations asuit himself. He killed his peers, he

733
00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:45,960
Speaker 3: killed his rivals, he killed anyone and heard anyone who

734
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:49,759
Speaker 3: got in his way. Reagan was a significantly unattractive man

735
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:50,760
Speaker 3: in gangster terms.

736
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:04,120
Speaker 2: Let's think about Mount Penang, Gosford had many illustrious graduates. Lenny,

737
00:52:04,200 --> 00:52:05,360
Speaker 2: mister big, McPherson.

738
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:09,960
Speaker 11: Let's say that mister big, mister big, now Dancy, now

739
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 11: mister big enough.

740
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:15,520
Speaker 2: All these things, George Freeman.

741
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:18,399
Speaker 8: All my crimes are association.

742
00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:21,080
Speaker 19: People know me, knowing me, And if you want me

743
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:23,279
Speaker 19: to stop taking the people, I'm not going to do that.

744
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:26,759
Speaker 2: A man called Anthony Zizza, who would go on to

745
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:31,719
Speaker 2: be one of Reagan's closest friends and personal bodyguard right

746
00:52:31,800 --> 00:52:35,160
Speaker 2: up until the day the magician was murdered. You'll be

747
00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:39,560
Speaker 2: hearing more about Tony Zizza later in this podcast. And

748
00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 2: one of the underworld's most beard psychopaths, Arthur Lennie Smith,

749
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:51,719
Speaker 2: who was also a Mount Penang graduate. I wasn't surprised

750
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 2: to learn that long before Kelly Slater, Reagan contacted me

751
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:59,080
Speaker 2: to help her investigate her cousin. She had tried to

752
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 2: get in touch with me Neddie Smith in Long Bay

753
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 2: Jail in Sydney before he passed away in September twenty

754
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 2: twenty one. This was the funny thing about Reagan for

755
00:53:13,719 --> 00:53:18,080
Speaker 2: his outsized reputation. Close to nothing had been written about

756
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:23,160
Speaker 2: his complicated life. He had become the cliche of a gangster.

757
00:53:24,560 --> 00:53:29,160
Speaker 2: Kelly wanted more, so she wrote to Neddie and she

758
00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:32,480
Speaker 2: asked him what parts of the story that we know

759
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:37,360
Speaker 2: about him are true? How big a monster was he?

760
00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 2: Neddie Smith never wrote back for years. He'd been suffering

761
00:53:43,800 --> 00:53:48,399
Speaker 2: from advanced dementia. It's not known if he ever got

762
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:52,799
Speaker 2: Kelly's letter in the first place. I talked to Kell

763
00:53:53,120 --> 00:53:58,560
Speaker 2: about why she reached out to this killer. So, Kell,

764
00:53:58,760 --> 00:54:03,319
Speaker 2: you learned that one of Johnnie Reagan's little cohorts in

765
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:06,800
Speaker 2: the Gosford Boys' Home was a young boy called Arthur

766
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:10,440
Speaker 2: Smith who would go on to evolve as the notorious

767
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:16,680
Speaker 2: killer Neddie Smith. And you read well Neddie's autobiography. Do

768
00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:19,759
Speaker 2: you remember what he had to say about Reagan and

769
00:54:19,880 --> 00:54:21,920
Speaker 2: Mount Penang in that book?

770
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:25,120
Speaker 6: I think with Mount Panang he just said that he

771
00:54:25,200 --> 00:54:27,560
Speaker 6: met him there, but he really bagged him out along

772
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:30,040
Speaker 6: the same lines of psychopath blah blah blah blah blah.

773
00:54:30,040 --> 00:54:31,920
Speaker 6: But then he goes on. Then he flips and he

774
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:35,280
Speaker 6: says when he was in solitary confinement in Long Bay, jail.

775
00:54:35,680 --> 00:54:37,799
Speaker 6: John was the only one that brought in books and

776
00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 6: helped him out and did stuff for him. And one

777
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 6: of the kids, I think it was Helen, actually was

778
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:47,000
Speaker 6: asked to visit Nettie Smith in jail when he still

779
00:54:47,040 --> 00:54:50,480
Speaker 6: had his marbles, and he said, I always promised your

780
00:54:50,480 --> 00:54:52,839
Speaker 6: father I'd look after you. Is there anything you need

781
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:56,359
Speaker 6: me to do before I can't function anymore? And gave

782
00:54:56,400 --> 00:55:00,080
Speaker 6: her a little house or something made out of well,

783
00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:03,200
Speaker 6: what do you call it? Bollipop? Yes, bizarre. I think

784
00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:07,879
Speaker 6: his book was pretty rubbish. I write him a letter

785
00:55:08,040 --> 00:55:11,839
Speaker 6: to get some clarification, but Neddie never wrote back.

786
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:14,440
Speaker 2: And what did you want to know from Neddie?

787
00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:18,520
Speaker 6: I just I asked him what his relationship with was John.

788
00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:21,439
Speaker 6: I said, I've read your book and what you said

789
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:25,759
Speaker 6: in there, and I find it contradicts itself. So when

790
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:28,799
Speaker 6: did you first meet him? You said he was good

791
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:31,560
Speaker 6: to you in jail. Can we talk? Can you tell

792
00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:33,560
Speaker 6: me what your recollection of it is it? And do

793
00:55:33,600 --> 00:55:35,560
Speaker 6: you know who killed him?

794
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:39,520
Speaker 2: Earlier in this episode, you heard about Kelly's attempts to

795
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:43,040
Speaker 2: try and get some answers from the New South Wales

796
00:55:43,080 --> 00:55:47,960
Speaker 2: Police Unsolved Homicide Team about the murder of her gangster cousin.

797
00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:53,719
Speaker 2: She eventually heard back from Detective Inspector Nigel Warren on

798
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 2: March twenty nine, twenty twenty two. These are his written words,

799
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:01,280
Speaker 2: but not his voice.

800
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:07,920
Speaker 5: Dear Kelly, thank you for your email. Your request is

801
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:12,799
Speaker 5: comprehensive and has raised several issues. The Unsolved Homicide Team

802
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:15,800
Speaker 5: does not, as a matter of course, discuss with members

803
00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:19,360
Speaker 5: of the family or senior next of kin detailed information

804
00:56:19,560 --> 00:56:25,440
Speaker 5: about unsolved homicide investigations, investigative processes, or the unsolved homicide

805
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:30,360
Speaker 5: review process. We have an ongoing unsolved homicide review process

806
00:56:30,440 --> 00:56:34,880
Speaker 5: that continually assesses information that comes to light. If the

807
00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:39,480
Speaker 5: information leads to something substantial which significantly progresses the matter,

808
00:56:39,840 --> 00:56:42,200
Speaker 5: then we would look to contact and consult with the

809
00:56:42,239 --> 00:56:44,800
Speaker 5: senior next of kin at an appropriate time.

810
00:56:46,040 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 2: Detective Inspector Warren wanted to set the record straight with

811
00:56:49,560 --> 00:56:54,239
Speaker 2: Kelly about cold case murders and the police responsibilities in

812
00:56:54,360 --> 00:56:57,360
Speaker 2: speaking with the relatives of the dead over the years.

813
00:56:58,640 --> 00:57:01,120
Speaker 5: At this stage, whilst if I am happy to meet,

814
00:57:01,360 --> 00:57:04,400
Speaker 5: I will be unable to answer your detailed questions during

815
00:57:04,480 --> 00:57:09,120
Speaker 5: any meeting. If you are unsatisfied with this response, you

816
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:12,359
Speaker 5: may seek a response through the appropriate channels, such as

817
00:57:12,440 --> 00:57:15,920
Speaker 5: the Government Information Privacy Act GIPA.

818
00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:23,280
Speaker 2: Kelly saw this as a hiccup, not an obstacle, so

819
00:57:23,520 --> 00:57:27,280
Speaker 2: she pushed for an actual in person meeting with the

820
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:33,680
Speaker 2: cold case unit, and she got it. The Unsolved Homicide

821
00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:38,200
Speaker 2: team agreed to meet Kelly and Reagan's de facto wife, Margaret,

822
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:42,960
Speaker 2: in their offices in Parramatta in Western Sydney, almost fifty

823
00:57:43,040 --> 00:57:49,680
Speaker 2: years after Reagan was gunned down in the streets of Marrickville. Kel,

824
00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:52,800
Speaker 2: as far as I could tell, was happy with this development,

825
00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:58,440
Speaker 2: but also frustrated. For Kell, out on the farm in

826
00:57:58,520 --> 00:58:05,280
Speaker 2: young problem's surface and obstacles present themselves on the land,

827
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:12,320
Speaker 2: you solve the issue and move on. Farmers like Kel,

828
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:16,240
Speaker 2: even as a former cop, are not used to modern

829
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:22,840
Speaker 2: double talk or the hidden complications of bureaucracy. But she

830
00:58:23,120 --> 00:58:27,800
Speaker 2: wouldn't miss the appointment for quins. Here was a chance,

831
00:58:28,160 --> 00:58:35,000
Speaker 2: finally to talk to law enforcement about Reagan. Marg had

832
00:58:35,080 --> 00:58:39,840
Speaker 2: never spoken with police since Reagan's murder. Her partner was

833
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:44,160
Speaker 2: killed with eight bullets. He went to the morgue, he

834
00:58:44,280 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 2: was cremated. There was a brief inquest, killer or killers unknown.

835
00:58:51,480 --> 00:58:57,000
Speaker 2: Marg was never even called to give evidence. Then life

836
00:58:57,320 --> 00:59:01,760
Speaker 2: went on. The meeting with the Cold Case team was

837
00:59:01,800 --> 00:59:06,080
Speaker 2: a big moment for Marg. She risked having to relieve

838
00:59:06,120 --> 00:59:11,640
Speaker 2: a time she wanted to forget, or learning something she'd

839
00:59:11,760 --> 00:59:17,480
Speaker 2: rather not know. This was another lifetime ago. She was

840
00:59:17,520 --> 00:59:21,960
Speaker 2: now a grandmother, in her seventies and living quietly on

841
00:59:22,000 --> 00:59:28,640
Speaker 2: the New South Wales central Coast. Why risk derailing everything now?

842
00:59:31,440 --> 00:59:34,400
Speaker 2: Even Kel was unsure what Marg wanted out of the

843
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:38,520
Speaker 2: meeting with the Cold Case team, out of this podcast

844
00:59:38,640 --> 00:59:44,640
Speaker 2: investigation itself. What if the whole situation was the reverse

845
00:59:45,840 --> 00:59:49,400
Speaker 2: that it was Marg who was holding onto information that

846
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:55,040
Speaker 2: might have helped police solve Reagan's murder decades ago. What

847
00:59:55,160 --> 01:00:01,480
Speaker 2: if she possessed the key the identity of her husband's killers.

848
01:00:03,000 --> 01:00:07,440
Speaker 2: What if the loyal gangster's wife actually knew all that

849
01:00:08,200 --> 01:00:14,560
Speaker 2: and was never going to tell Ever, she'll be fully cooperative.

850
01:00:14,600 --> 01:00:17,120
Speaker 2: Do you think by her nature she might, like most people,

851
01:00:17,160 --> 01:00:17,960
Speaker 2: hold something back.

852
01:00:18,000 --> 01:00:20,760
Speaker 6: What do you reckon the skills she's been taught by

853
01:00:20,840 --> 01:00:23,400
Speaker 6: him is to say nothing, to keep your mouth shut,

854
01:00:23,800 --> 01:00:26,320
Speaker 6: Just keep your mouth shut. So I think she really

855
01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:30,000
Speaker 6: wants to open and tell all that she knows. Imagine

856
01:00:30,000 --> 01:00:33,080
Speaker 6: if Ani Mah did know something and then she tells

857
01:00:33,080 --> 01:00:36,040
Speaker 6: the family like that's the backlash to that that she

858
01:00:36,080 --> 01:00:39,280
Speaker 6: would perceive would be huge. I think she wants to

859
01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:41,720
Speaker 6: tell us, but I don't know if she'll get over

860
01:00:41,720 --> 01:00:42,120
Speaker 6: the line.

861
01:00:43,040 --> 01:00:46,400
Speaker 2: Why do you think, after all these decade she has

862
01:00:46,440 --> 01:00:48,200
Speaker 2: agreed to talk to us now?

863
01:00:48,920 --> 01:00:52,080
Speaker 6: I think partly because she loves us. She loves us

864
01:00:52,160 --> 01:00:55,280
Speaker 6: the reaganside. I know she does. She's the one when

865
01:00:55,280 --> 01:00:57,360
Speaker 6: we had all the fallout. She was the one who

866
01:00:57,360 --> 01:00:59,600
Speaker 6: said to me, I want you to do this. I

867
01:00:59,640 --> 01:01:00,560
Speaker 6: want you to do this.

868
01:01:03,200 --> 01:01:07,640
Speaker 2: Marg is a huge part of this story. She lived

869
01:01:07,640 --> 01:01:12,720
Speaker 2: with the man, was inside the gangster's life, yet she

870
01:01:12,840 --> 01:01:18,200
Speaker 2: has never spoken publicly about him or their relationship. Ever,

871
01:01:18,960 --> 01:01:26,000
Speaker 2: in over fifty years, she knows a lot. Not even

872
01:01:26,120 --> 01:01:29,160
Speaker 2: Call and I were confident we'd ever get to the

873
01:01:29,200 --> 01:01:35,280
Speaker 2: bottom of what Marg actually knew. But the meeting with

874
01:01:35,440 --> 01:01:42,200
Speaker 2: police was set. Was it a genuine sit down? Did

875
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:45,840
Speaker 2: the cold case team really want to progress Reagan's case

876
01:01:46,480 --> 01:01:51,000
Speaker 2: after it had gathered dust for decades? Would they listen

877
01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:55,440
Speaker 2: to Kelly and Marg or would this be an exercise

878
01:01:55,600 --> 01:01:59,760
Speaker 2: in satisfying Kelly with a face to face than expecting

879
01:01:59,800 --> 01:02:05,240
Speaker 2: her to go away? Were police hoping to get the

880
01:02:05,320 --> 01:02:10,920
Speaker 2: Reagans off their backs once and for all. Kell and

881
01:02:10,960 --> 01:02:17,040
Speaker 2: I molded over the idea of what will happen, what's

882
01:02:17,120 --> 01:02:17,680
Speaker 2: the setup.

883
01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:20,600
Speaker 6: I had to submit a list of questions, but he

884
01:02:20,640 --> 01:02:22,760
Speaker 6: wanted to know what I wanted to know about. I'll

885
01:02:22,800 --> 01:02:25,200
Speaker 6: send him those And so now he's come back and

886
01:02:25,240 --> 01:02:29,120
Speaker 6: said that he can't answer those, but he's willing to

887
01:02:29,160 --> 01:02:32,720
Speaker 6: meet both Margaret and I, which that's very kind of him.

888
01:02:32,760 --> 01:02:36,760
Speaker 6: It's what forty eight years later and you're going to, well,

889
01:02:36,920 --> 01:02:38,520
Speaker 6: what do you do next? Of kin chat?

890
01:02:39,880 --> 01:02:44,600
Speaker 2: What does the family think of the meeting arranged after

891
01:02:44,800 --> 01:02:48,520
Speaker 2: as you said, forty eight long years, There's never been

892
01:02:48,560 --> 01:02:51,680
Speaker 2: anything remotely like this as there in the Fast and

893
01:02:51,760 --> 01:02:55,520
Speaker 2: its relationship with the police in terms of Reagan's murder.

894
01:02:57,120 --> 01:03:00,000
Speaker 6: And what they say is they probably didn't know Dad

895
01:03:00,160 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 6: was the next of King John comes from young back

896
01:03:02,640 --> 01:03:03,960
Speaker 6: then you could look it up in a phone book.

897
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:07,200
Speaker 6: There was only two Reagans, Uncle, Ron and Dad. You're

898
01:03:07,240 --> 01:03:10,000
Speaker 6: going to get a hit either way, So why wouldn't

899
01:03:10,000 --> 01:03:12,320
Speaker 6: anybody just contact us and ask They don't even know

900
01:03:12,360 --> 01:03:15,720
Speaker 6: what the family knows. And then Arnie Mark they knew

901
01:03:15,760 --> 01:03:18,320
Speaker 6: because they interviewed her. They took a statement of her,

902
01:03:18,480 --> 01:03:20,880
Speaker 6: so they knew she was his partner. She didn't even

903
01:03:20,880 --> 01:03:23,880
Speaker 6: get called to the coronial inquiry. Nobody. Forty eight years

904
01:03:23,960 --> 01:03:25,960
Speaker 6: later and you've virtually got a beg for a chat.

905
01:03:28,000 --> 01:03:29,920
Speaker 2: I'm going to I'm going to be the devil's advocate

906
01:03:29,920 --> 01:03:34,080
Speaker 2: here and say, okay, say there's hundreds of cold case

907
01:03:34,600 --> 01:03:38,880
Speaker 2: murders on their books, A family member of those hundreds

908
01:03:38,920 --> 01:03:42,640
Speaker 2: and hundreds of cold cases to be contacted on rotation.

909
01:03:42,760 --> 01:03:45,840
Speaker 2: I guess it would take thousands of manails to do that.

910
01:03:46,040 --> 01:03:50,120
Speaker 2: But having said that, all murders are shocking. But this,

911
01:03:50,120 --> 01:03:54,080
Speaker 2: this is a murder that is still captivating the public

912
01:03:54,200 --> 01:03:56,320
Speaker 2: after forty eight plus years.

913
01:03:57,080 --> 01:03:59,160
Speaker 6: And I get this how people say, oh, he was

914
01:03:59,160 --> 01:04:01,080
Speaker 6: a shit bag, you know, is a crook, He was this,

915
01:04:01,160 --> 01:04:03,640
Speaker 6: he was that. Okay, well, let's still find out why

916
01:04:03,640 --> 01:04:06,400
Speaker 6: he was killed because the reasons we're being told is wrong.

917
01:04:06,800 --> 01:04:10,360
Speaker 6: There's still a little boy that was murdered in relation

918
01:04:10,520 --> 01:04:14,960
Speaker 6: to him. Nothing's been done there. And there's more things

919
01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:17,920
Speaker 6: that contribute around this. And I agree with you because

920
01:04:18,080 --> 01:04:21,200
Speaker 6: being an ex police officer, you can't keep up with everything.

921
01:04:21,280 --> 01:04:25,000
Speaker 6: But when you do a review, it's one courtesy call.

922
01:04:25,560 --> 01:04:27,480
Speaker 6: You know, you could say that we didn't know who

923
01:04:27,520 --> 01:04:30,200
Speaker 6: his relations were. Well, I'm pretty sure people did know

924
01:04:30,240 --> 01:04:33,040
Speaker 6: who his relations were. They certainly knew at my interview

925
01:04:33,080 --> 01:04:35,000
Speaker 6: who I was and who he was. You know, it

926
01:04:35,000 --> 01:04:37,200
Speaker 6: wouldn't be hard to go up during a review. We're

927
01:04:37,200 --> 01:04:39,360
Speaker 6: going to look for his background. Let's look up and

928
01:04:39,360 --> 01:04:40,760
Speaker 6: see if there's any reagans in young.

929
01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:45,000
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this, and it's no criticism of Marg,

930
01:04:45,080 --> 01:04:48,960
Speaker 2: but do you have any sense that marg actually wants

931
01:04:49,040 --> 01:04:52,800
Speaker 2: to see this resolve? You could argue from the other

932
01:04:52,840 --> 01:04:54,880
Speaker 2: side of the coin that if she was that interested

933
01:04:54,920 --> 01:04:59,280
Speaker 2: in resolving the murder of her partner, she might have

934
01:04:59,400 --> 01:05:01,600
Speaker 2: contacted them, the police.

935
01:05:02,920 --> 01:05:05,360
Speaker 6: I think Mark is doing it more for me and

936
01:05:05,440 --> 01:05:09,560
Speaker 6: for her children. I don't We don't know what Mark knows.

937
01:05:09,760 --> 01:05:12,520
Speaker 6: And I think when John died, and I would not

938
01:05:12,560 --> 01:05:15,560
Speaker 6: blame Annie Mark if she just felt released. The night

939
01:05:15,640 --> 01:05:18,320
Speaker 6: he was killed, he brings his lover into her house

940
01:05:18,360 --> 01:05:22,120
Speaker 6: and shares his like and she lived in fear, and

941
01:05:22,200 --> 01:05:26,760
Speaker 6: she left and names were changed and things like that happened.

942
01:05:27,600 --> 01:05:29,640
Speaker 6: So I think she she'd have to be curious.

943
01:05:30,160 --> 01:05:34,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean his death released her, absolutely, let her free,

944
01:05:34,200 --> 01:05:36,000
Speaker 2: really so absolutely?

945
01:05:36,200 --> 01:05:40,840
Speaker 6: Could you know she could cut her hair? She could

946
01:05:40,880 --> 01:05:44,440
Speaker 6: wear makeup, she could go out when she wanted to

947
01:05:44,440 --> 01:05:46,800
Speaker 6: go out. We till take that for granted. You sit

948
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:49,000
Speaker 6: in judgment of you. You've got to wear shoes, haven't you.

949
01:06:07,160 --> 01:06:11,080
Speaker 2: In the next episode of The Gangster's Ghost, we'll take

950
01:06:11,120 --> 01:06:15,720
Speaker 2: you inside the smoky nightclubs, go go bars and shadowy

951
01:06:15,840 --> 01:06:21,840
Speaker 2: saloons of Sydney's King's Cross in the swinging sixties, and

952
01:06:21,880 --> 01:06:25,560
Speaker 2: you'll meet the woman who captured Johnny Reagan's heart the

953
01:06:25,680 --> 01:06:30,360
Speaker 2: moment he saw her and would become the Gangster's wife.

954
01:06:31,000 --> 01:06:34,320
Speaker 19: He comes up to me again and he leans over

955
01:06:35,400 --> 01:06:37,560
Speaker 19: and he says to me, I'm going to marry you.

956
01:06:48,640 --> 01:06:51,480
Speaker 1: The Gangster's Ghost is a production of The Australian. It's

957
01:06:51,520 --> 01:06:55,000
Speaker 1: written and presented by senior writer Matthew Condon and produced

958
01:06:55,040 --> 01:06:59,200
Speaker 1: and edited by Multimedia editor Leat samaglu Our. Executive producer

959
01:06:59,280 --> 01:07:02,600
Speaker 1: is Me editor Oryeals director Claire Harvey. Special thanks to

960
01:07:02,880 --> 01:07:07,120
Speaker 1: Lara Kamenos, Erica Rutlidge, Kristin Amiot, Jasper Leek, Stephanie Coombs,

961
01:07:07,200 --> 01:07:12,160
Speaker 1: Sean Callanan Lachland, Clear Ryan Osland, Amanda Winn Williams, Christine Keller,

962
01:07:12,360 --> 01:07:17,080
Speaker 1: Tarn Blackhurst, Magdalena Zajak, Gisel Boetti, Genevieve Rammel, Lauren Bruce,

963
01:07:17,440 --> 01:07:21,240
Speaker 1: Sus Rolf and Yaquina Carlson. We can only do journalism

964
01:07:21,320 --> 01:07:23,919
Speaker 1: like this with the support of US subscribers, who hear

965
01:07:23,960 --> 01:07:28,000
Speaker 1: episodes first and get full access to photos, video, news

966
01:07:28,040 --> 01:07:32,000
Speaker 1: stories and features plus all Australia's best journalism twenty four

967
01:07:32,040 --> 01:07:35,600
Speaker 1: to seven. Join us at gangstersghost dot com dot a you.

968
01:08:19,640 --> 01:08:20,040
Speaker 4: Or reading.

969
01:08:21,080 --> 01:08:23,599
Speaker 12: Mount Penang is a school in which the emphasis is

970
01:08:23,640 --> 01:08:26,680
Speaker 12: not on formal school education, but on the art of

971
01:08:26,720 --> 01:08:31,040
Speaker 12: living with others and being an acceptable member of our society.

972
01:08:31,800 --> 01:08:33,519
Speaker 12: It is a place in which a new spirit is

973
01:08:33,560 --> 01:08:36,960
Speaker 12: engendered in wayward boys, so that they leave Mount Penang

974
01:08:37,320 --> 01:08:39,120
Speaker 12: with a new horizon to steer by.

975
01:09:00,160 --> 01:09:00,200
Speaker 4: U