WEBVTT - Episode 3: Holystoning 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:04.439 Before we begin. This podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:09.000 and allegations of sexual abuse and adult language. This is 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:12.440 a production by The Australian and our subscribers Here episodes 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:16.320 first and get full access to photos, video, news stories 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:20.160 and features plus all Australia's best journalism twenty four to seven. 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:23.520 Join us at Gangstersghost dot com dot a U. 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:30.320 Before I met Kelly Slater Reagan, before I traveled to 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:34.080 her and husband Rodney's farm in far Flung Young in 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.880 southwestern New South Wales, bounced about in the back of 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:43.000 a ute through sheep, paddicts and fields of canola, sat 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.800 down around a huge country homestead kitchen table with the 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:53.760 Slater Reagan clan and debated their notorious relative Stuart John Reagan, 0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:00.000 and realized how digging up the past might upend Lowe 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:05.200 as we all knew it, and unleashed dark forces that 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:09.720 none of us had anticipated. There was, in the early 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:14.919 days of this investigation, an unspoken truth to the whole 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:20.760 saga that we all skirted around, not so much the 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:25.760 elephant in the room, but the dead gangster, fair and 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:32.560 square in the center of this family's history. And that 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:40.959 truth was the immovable corpse of Stuart John Reagan. The 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:46.760 ghost was already uncomfortably close when the audio team at 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:51.560 The Australian resurrected his secret telephone recordings. He could have 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:54.240 been sitting with us at that kitchen table. 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:57.440 Have they tried to steen over you on or put 0:01:57.480 --> 0:01:58.640 the hard one on it? 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.320 So you can't charge you for civil e n gay you? 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.880 So if he paid civil action won't be a backsiler. 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.440 But given Kelly was a former New South Wales police 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:14.000 officer and I investigated crime as a journalist, there was 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:17.720 a singular question that two of us could not avoid. 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:24.640 Who killed Reagan exactly fifty years ago? That was something 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:32.200 that has remained steadfastly unresolved. Why you would think that 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:35.320 if a criminal was gunned down in cold blood today, 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:40.040 not just by one shooter but three in a Sydney 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:45.080 suburban street early on a Sunday evening, then answers would 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:53.080 be sought. You would think, given rumors circulated almost immediately 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:57.119 after Reagan's slaying that corrupt police might have been involved, 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.240 that answers might not only be urgently he sought, but 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:05.080 demanded from the top of the New South Wales police hierarchy. 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.680 Remember from episode one when Kelly was told by a 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.920 retired officer that not only were police possibly involved in 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:21.080 Reagan's murder, but the infamous killer cop Roger Rogerson himself. 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:25.840 At the same time, I said, if you were there 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:28.280 in seventy four, do you remember stut John Ray? Oh, yeah, yeah, 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:31.320 I do. I said, well, he was my cousin. He said, 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:32.880 all right, I said, do you ever know who killed him? 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:36.240 He said, well, we were told that in the area 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:38.960 at the time there was a car with four detectives 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.360 seen in it. They were wearing these bowler hats or something, 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:44.400 and they had police coats on. And he said there 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:46.880 was always a whisper that it was Rogerson's first hit, 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:47.880 Roger Rogerson. 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:53.840 Yet, could anyone reasonably explain how a high profile criminal 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:58.200 could be shot dead in broad daylight, just meters from 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:02.520 a busy pub and a main without a single witness. 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:11.360 Irrespective of Reagan's infamous deeds, the appalling allegations that still 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:15.760 swirl around him, the certainty in some minds that he 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:20.120 was in fact a serial killer responsible for up to 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:25.160 a dozen murders, and the unthinkable possibility that he may 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:30.960 have slaughtered a toddler in cold blood, the assassination of 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:36.200 Stuart John Reagan in September nineteen seventy four was and 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:46.080 remains to this day a stone cold unsolved homicide case. Naturally, 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.719 as a member of Reagan's family, Kelly had dozens of 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:55.280 questions she wanted to ask New South Wales police had 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:59.600 a review into Reagan's murder ever been conducted, and if so, 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:06.720 what were the conclusions. Why had the family, including Reagan's 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:12.320 de facto wife Margaret formerly known as Margaret Yates, never 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.160 heard a word from police since he was blasted to 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:22.039 death on that spring afternoon in nineteen seventy four. Were 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:27.240 detectives still looking into this half century old unsolved case. 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:34.520 So Kelly did what Kelly does. She wrote an email 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.960 to Detective Inspector Nigel Warren of the New South Wales 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:43.800 Cold Case Homicide Squad based in Paramatta in Western Sydney, 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:49.039 to try and satisfy her curiosity and to get the 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:56.719 ball rolling. This is Kelly reading her first email, dated 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:01.960 Thursday March twenty four, twenty twenty five two two Detective 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:05.840 Inspector Nigel Warren, head of the New South Wales Cold 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:07.040 Case Homicide Unit. 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:11.400 While writing these, it occurred to me that This is 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:13.919 probably what you discuss with any family while dealing with 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.440 a relative's death. I am disappointed this discussion has taken 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.000 forty eight years, but that is predominantly due to my 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:23.960 family's lack of interest or compassion leading to this point. Also, 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:26.040 the lack of police in the seventies to even give 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.960 a shit helped, I imagine, but I did myself wonder 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:34.280 if other relatives two more palatal desks had been asked 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:35.599 to do similar questions. 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:42.640 Kelly remains incredulous that after five decades, the family had 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:48.880 never been contacted about Reagan's murder. She discovered that two 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:53.320 reviews of his cold case had been conducted without the 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:59.160 family's knowledge or cooperation. Both reviews had come to nothing. 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.760 Email went on, I am aware that you and the 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.760 current crop of police are not responsible for the investigation, 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.720 if you could call it that, But what both you 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.680 and I are responsible for now is what happens moving forward. 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:14.720 I will be upfront. I am disappointed that the two 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:19.160 reviews twenty fourteen and twenty nineteen did not involve any 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:22.920 family consultation. I would have thought finding us was not 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.280 real hard as Dad is the only Reagan in young 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:26.800 and has been for some time. 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:32.520 Kelly wanted simple answers to simple questions. 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.480 Question one, what was the motives of the killing? 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:37.920 Two? 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:41.720 Who was the first responding police? If names can't be 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.520 used in car numbers and stations they were from? How 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.520 long did they take to respond? Who compiled the p 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:50.400 seventy nine A? Was there an official report of a 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:52.680 car leaving the scene with four men wearing hats? 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.960 And Some of her queries involve some famous names and 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:03.000 even more infamous crimes, along with another very big and 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:09.400 to date unanswered query. If Reagan was the so called 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:14.800 millionaire gangster of his day, what happened to all his money? 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:18.080 She reeled off more questions. 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.200 Have you got a copy of the report to the coroner? 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.040 As the coroner's documents have been removed? What does a 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:29.120 review consist of? Reinterviews, DNA testing if relevant, etc. Why 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:33.000 has no member of the family ever been contacted or 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.559 Margaret Yates in relation to reviews? Please provide Margaret with 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.679 a copy of her statement. Was John's bank account seized 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:42.160 and if so, why was his accountant able to draw 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.880 dollars out of his account first thing Monday morning? How 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.040 much was recovered at the time of his death, where 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:50.080 is the evidence retreat. 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.000 We will come to the matter of Reagan's millions in 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:58.600 cash and property holdings later in this podcast, as we 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.440 will the question of whether he was a part of 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:05.800 the Whiskey Go Go nightclub fire bombing in Brisbane in 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:10.679 nineteen seventy three, one of the biggest mass murders in 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:11.680 Australian history. 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.240 The Whiskey You Go Go was bombed at ten past 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.360 two on the morning of March the eighth, nineteen seventy three. 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:23.080 It was a mass murder which sent a wave of 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.320 outraids through a country which is often apathetic about crime. 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.520 And the gruesome twist was that two months before the killings, 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.240 Brian Bolton had warned that a Brisbane nightclub would be bombed. 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.600 Bolden got his information from a well known. 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:41.040 But before we could get anywhere near the truth, Kelly 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.920 and I would become involved in a cat and mouse 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:48.680 saga in our search for official documents that would go 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:55.200 on for years. It is still playing out. We will 0:09:55.240 --> 0:10:02.080 take you inside this bureaucratic nightmare. It started with a 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:07.520 simple request Stuart John Reagan's criminal history. 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.439 So today is the thirtieth of September and it's the 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.680 day after I received notification from the New South Wales 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:19.360 Police in relation to my GIBRA or freedom of information application, 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.000 where they've told me that I can in fact have 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.800 John's criminal history, but they can't find it. 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:32.160 So you will see how Kelly told repeatedly that paperwork 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:36.959 had been lost, would, through sheer doggedness, be informed that 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:43.599 suddenly some fragments of paperwork had been found. And around 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:49.839 and around we went. But let's return to a curious 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:56.200 moment in Reagan's past. Reagan and his mother, Claire the Colonel, 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:02.040 left ruraled Young in the late nineteen fifties. She set 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:09.480 up in Sydney's notorious Darling Past, home to prostitution, illegal gambling, drugs, 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:14.920 and other vices. The Colonel and her only child, Johnny, 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:20.160 started their new life in Liverpool Street, a gritty, shadowy, 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:25.559 densely populated enclave in inner Sydney that couldn't have been 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:30.520 further from the wide streets and rolling hills of rural Young. 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:35.959 And this is where the story gets a little sketchy 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:41.440 and mysterious. We discovered that a teenage Johnny was for 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.160 some reason swiftly taken out of his new home and 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:50.920 incarcerated in a notorious boy's home, a place that equipped 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:56.240 him perfectly for the gloriously seedy and lawless streets of 0:11:56.320 --> 0:12:01.800 Sydney in the nineteen sixties, and, as fate would have it, 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:06.439 a place he would step out of as a fully formed, 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:17.080 baby faced gangster. I'm journalist Matthew Condon and This is 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:24.079 the Gangster's Ghost, a podcast from The Australian. In this investigation, 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:29.880 we uncover previously unreported facts about the short lived criminal 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:36.040 career of Stuart John Reagan, speak to his family, friends 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:40.320 and business associates who go on the record for the 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:44.960 first time, link him to one of the most notorious 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:50.640 mass murders in Australian history, and uncover secret audio recordings 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:59.119 that will bring the ghost of Johnny Reagan back to life. 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:03.000 This podcast started out as a clinical look at one 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:10.520 of Australia's most reviled gangsters, but when the Reagan family 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:15.080 came on board, the project took on another dimension and 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:20.280 begged the question how does a family cope with the 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:26.199 generational stain of a murderer whose death was celebrated by 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:36.840 criminals and police alike. This is Episode three. Holy Stony 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:58.480 as Reagan's mum the colonel settled into Sydney's Red Light District. 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:03.280 Her only child, little Johnny, was serving his apprenticeship as 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:07.520 an inmate of the Gosford Home for Boys, one hundred 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:11.200 kilometers north of Sydney on the New South Wales Central Coast. 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:17.360 That home would later be renamed Mount Penang Training School 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:23.720 for Boys. This brief period in Reagan's life remains vague 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:29.040 even to his own family. I talked about this with 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:33.680 Kelly Fair to say that the whole Gosford Mount Penang 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.760 Home for Boys period has always been a bit of 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.840 a mystery even to the Reagan family. This little window 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:41.880 in his life. 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.800 Yeah, it wasn't heavily talked about. I do recall once 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.240 that Claire must have come back to young and she 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:54.080 went to one of his friend's houses and borrowed their 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:56.560 bag that he'd had in World War Two, like his 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.680 big Duffel bag, and she told them that she needed 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.640 it because John had to go to the Boy's Home 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:06.160 in Gosford. That's sort of all we know about the 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.120 Boy's Home, and there's that big gap from when he left, 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.280 so obviously when he came out the Boy's Home and 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:15.240 was a fair bit more notorious. 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.680 The missing piece of the Reagan puzzle is how and 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:24.200 why he was removed from his controlling mother, the Colonel 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:29.440 and incarcerated in one of New South Wales's most infamous boys' homes. 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:34.360 The Colonel had moved into her sister's house in Liverpool 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:39.760 Street and soon took over. But what happened to Johnny? 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.600 He goes to Sydney and we're assuming Claire maintained some 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.440 form of care. I mean it was her sister's house 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:50.480 that she moved to in Liverpool Street, so they had 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:55.480 a roof over their head. Could Reagan have just gone 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:58.520 wild like a switch had been flicked once he got 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.920 to the city, or is it more like the situation 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:09.200 whereby somehow the issue of being placed in moral endangerment 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.240 courtesy of his mother could have been the issue. 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:14.600 We know he went to a school down there, we're 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:18.440 just not quite so awhere. But has he been kicked 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:20.560 out of the school or has the school reported in 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.560 his behavior? Like at home, he could just walk across 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.120 the road and he's at home and it doesn't matter 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:30.200 if she's at home. But in Sydney, when she's running 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:32.360 the brothels, she's a different kettle of fish. Isn't it? 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:37.760 And how was the colonel surviving in big, tough Sydney town, 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:42.200 a far cry from her simple life in rural Young. 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.920 She'd left her former husband alf behind, the extended Reagan family, 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:52.720 her work at the Australian Hotel. She may have accepted 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.600 the charity of her sister, but how did she really 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:01.480 get by? What did she do when she got to Sydney? 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:04.400 Did she resume being a bar maid like she wasn't 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:05.920 the Australian in Young or. 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.880 We were always told that when she went to Sydney 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.120 she went straight into the brothels was running a brothel? 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:17.920 Remember Dad said that it was a brothel that he'd 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.280 heard that the Aussie had been as a brothel. Was 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:24.439 she running trick then, which would explain really why the 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:27.400 Reagans hated her. You can't just because she's Catholic. 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.320 How had schoolboy Reagan ended up in a home for 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:40.680 juvenile delinquents, truants and uncontrollable boys. School records in Young 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.520 show that one year Reagan was attending classes and appearing 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:49.160 in school photographs, and the next year he simply wasn't there. 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:55.320 His mate said, Reagan just seemed to vanish nobody knew 0:17:55.359 --> 0:18:00.280 why he left or where he'd gone. In young he 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:05.800 defended smaller boys from bullies. He liked art. He enjoyed 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:09.320 exploring the creek near his home, although some of his 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:16.560 mates saw the crouching tiger inside the quiet boy. Once 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.480 outside the young town limits, he found himself inside the 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:28.719 Nightmare of Gosford. But why the home catered for boys 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:34.840 aged fourteen to eighteen years Reagan turned fourteen on September thirteenth, 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:39.399 nineteen fifty nine. To be placed there, you had to 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.760 be committed by a court of law or receive what 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:49.119 was called a general committal. Had Reagan made it to 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.440 Sydney with his mother and failed to go to school, 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:58.120 had he stolen something and been caught, had he come 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:01.840 to police attention in the show streets of Darlinghurst as 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:07.280 a neglected child, Or had police removed him from the 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:12.439 Colonel's care after authorities discovered that she was running a 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:17.640 house of ill repute, as the family believes, putting young 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:25.119 Reagan in that deliciously ambiguous state of moral danger. Former 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:30.119 Sydney detective and best selling author Duncan McNabb wrote The 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:35.240 Definitive Biography of Roger Rogerson and is an expert on 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:40.479 the era. As chance would have it, he actually lives 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:44.520 in the heart of Darlinghurst, not far from the Liverpool 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:49.160 Street Terrace where Claire and Reagan settled when they left young. 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.960 He has his own theory on why Reagan ended up 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.639 in Mount Penang. He says it would have been a 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.760 similar path to that of killer Neddie Smith. 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:03.800 Experience. 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:06.879 Why would a boy of say thirteen or fourteen, how 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:08.320 would he end up in Mount Penang? 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:09.600 Oh? Easily? 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:14.280 The Netdie Smith is pretty much the blueprint. Uncontrollable. Back 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:16.359 in those days there was a you could send kids 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:19.800 off because they are uncontrollable. Their parents couldn't run them. 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:22.280 They were getting into all sorts of strife. The coppers 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.760 were also having troubles controlling. Rather than charge them that 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:28.800 they substantiate offense like breaking, entering, that sort of stuff, 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:31.960 they just happened declared uncontrollable by the children's could, which 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.919 in those days was done in Albion, straight dreadful fucking place. 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:38.520 And then they'd head off to a boys home. If 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.359 they were really really problematic, they go to Mount Penang. 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:46.040 Neddie for example, was doing breaking edits all around the place, stealing, 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.280 anything was not nailed down bashing people that he decided 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.239 was appropriate to stab his brother Henry, I think from them, 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:54.920 so that's why he went to Mount Penang, and the 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.240 Mount Penang was probably the roughest of the rough. 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.400 In the wake of Reagan's murder in nineteen seventy four, 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:09.800 the Sydney tabloids, particularly The Sun newspaper, ran a series 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:16.440 of articles about the life and times of Reagan. One 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:24.919 carried the single word headline gangster and summarized Reagan he 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:29.840 was a punk at fifteen, a pimp at seventeen, and 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:36.240 standover bully boy at nineteen, a suspected killer at twenty one. 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:41.960 An article by journalist Cyril Greet also provided a possible 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:46.119 clue into the trigger for Reagan's trip to the Gosford 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.840 Boys Home. He's a voice actor reading a section of 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:51.160 Greet's story. 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:54.640 When he was thirteen, he came to live with an 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:57.840 aunt in East Sydney. Within a couple of years, the 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:01.280 solidly built youth was well known for painting swastikas on 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:05.240 cars and hitting the people who objected. It was after 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:07.840 one of these assaults that he made his first appearance 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:12.120 in the children's court and thereafter in the Gosford Boys' 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:14.240 Home and Mount Penang Training Center. 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:19.560 The earliest entry in his official criminal history was dated 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:24.840 August thirty one, nineteen sixty two, when Reagan was still seventeen. 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:29.280 He was charged with assault and robbery. The case was 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:35.640 later dismissed. Was this assault related to the swastika incident? 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:42.960 As alleged by reporter Cyril Greet. At the time Reagan 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:48.639 was held at Gosford, several children's correctional institutions up and 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:54.240 down the East coast of Australia were already notorious. In Queensland, 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:58.600 there was Westbrook, the boy's farm outside to Woomba, west 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:03.600 of Brisbane. It was a crucible of sexual abuse and torture. 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:08.119 I should know. My great uncle was an inmate of 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:12.080 Westbrook in the late nineteen thirties, and when he left 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:15.800 at eighteen, he stepped straight into a life of crime 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:21.880 and sexual deviancy. New Southwell's juvenile institutions had their own 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:29.360 hierarchy of horrors to the general public. Boys homes or farms, 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:33.800 as many of them were innocuously described, were places where 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:38.800 wayward young men were sent to learn the basic requirements 0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:44.600 for model citizenry. They were given the discipline that was 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:50.000 lacking in their young lives. They were to the outside observer, 0:23:50.560 --> 0:23:55.960 taught manners and responsibility, and work ethics, and even the 0:23:56.040 --> 0:24:04.640 skills for a future trade. Upon graduation, these floored youths 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:09.280 came out like shiny new pennies, ready for seamless integration 0:24:09.920 --> 0:24:15.639 into the community. Time and again, government ministers of the 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:22.600 day were photographed visiting the homes alongside smiling, healthy boys 0:24:22.640 --> 0:24:29.520 fallen angels on the path to redemption. The old newsreel's 0:24:29.880 --> 0:24:35.080 advertised picture perfect institutions. 0:24:38.920 --> 0:24:42.800 Mount Fenang Training cor for Boys is situated fifty miles 0:24:42.880 --> 0:24:46.399 north of Sydney, up seven hundred acres of farm and bushland, 0:24:46.840 --> 0:24:49.800 high on the hills above Brisbane Waters and the town 0:24:49.840 --> 0:25:01.000 of Gosford. This is a school without fences, where boys 0:25:01.000 --> 0:25:02.960 are taught that standards of life which are built on 0:25:03.000 --> 0:25:07.000 an understanding of solid responsibility make life richer and more 0:25:07.080 --> 0:25:11.639 meaningful than the irresponsible conduct which brought them here. Most 0:25:11.640 --> 0:25:15.720 of them are restless, insecure lads. The training program has 0:25:15.760 --> 0:25:18.600 therefore been designed to condition them to living in an 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:23.080 organized community, so that they experienced the personal satisfactions which 0:25:23.119 --> 0:25:26.240 come from acceptance in a communal group and through recognition 0:25:26.280 --> 0:25:27.040 of their achievement. 0:25:30.920 --> 0:25:34.679 This is from a nineteen fifty nine documentary about the 0:25:34.800 --> 0:25:40.440 Mount Penang Boys Home called New Horizons. It was nade 0:25:40.520 --> 0:25:43.960 by the Child Welfare Department of New South Wales just 0:25:44.080 --> 0:25:50.000 before Reagan became an inmate. The twelve minute film praises 0:25:50.080 --> 0:25:54.119 the boys Home to the skies and depicts it as 0:25:54.200 --> 0:25:58.520 a rival to any of the best private boarding schools 0:25:58.880 --> 0:25:59.560 in Sydney. 0:26:02.480 --> 0:26:06.480 The ceremonial march and outings from Mount Penang are part 0:26:06.520 --> 0:26:09.359 of the training plan. Parties of up to fifty boys 0:26:09.400 --> 0:26:13.440 go to theaters and concerts in Sydney who visit Newcastle Steelworks, 0:26:13.560 --> 0:26:17.280 to a motor show to serve beaches. One optor, who 0:26:17.320 --> 0:26:20.919 regularly takes boys to symphony concerts has frequently been asked 0:26:21.000 --> 0:26:24.400 what college do these boys come from? 0:26:24.520 --> 0:26:30.040 The boys dressed immaculately a scene happily working with farm animals, 0:26:30.560 --> 0:26:39.280 fixing machinery, enjoying sport, reading, studying, and warmly welcoming visiting parents. 0:26:40.600 --> 0:26:45.359 Everyone the film shows is living in blissful harmony. 0:26:48.400 --> 0:26:51.240 The standards of living and physical well being are no 0:26:51.359 --> 0:26:54.439 lower and sometimes higher than those in a first class 0:26:54.440 --> 0:27:01.960 boarding school. The assured routine and order of a well 0:27:02.040 --> 0:27:05.200 run school helped to calm and reassure children who have 0:27:05.359 --> 0:27:08.560 usually been insecure for a long while because they've felt 0:27:08.560 --> 0:27:12.120 that nobody cared for them. The new vision of an orderly, cheerful, 0:27:12.160 --> 0:27:15.400 well organized life in beautiful surroundings is the first step 0:27:15.440 --> 0:27:16.560 towards rehabilitation. 0:27:20.520 --> 0:27:24.199 Only decades later would the truth about these boys' homes 0:27:24.280 --> 0:27:29.800 come to light through journalistic investigations and various royal commissions. 0:27:30.760 --> 0:27:37.480 The conclusions were the same across the board. The homes 0:27:37.520 --> 0:27:43.120 were vile centers of abuse and sexual assault, and nurseries 0:27:43.600 --> 0:27:49.200 for future criminals, including some of the most notorious murderers 0:27:49.240 --> 0:27:54.800 in Australian criminal history. In New South Wales, the number 0:27:54.880 --> 0:28:00.840 one house of Horrors was in Tamworth, west of Sydney. 0:28:01.320 --> 0:28:06.120 Dammouth Boys Hoim was known as the toughest institution probably 0:28:06.119 --> 0:28:07.359 in the whole of Australia. 0:28:08.240 --> 0:28:10.800 When you got in the Tamworth you're beaten, he said. 0:28:10.840 --> 0:28:13.520 You got in the door, you were starved, you were tortured, 0:28:14.440 --> 0:28:15.840 and you just degraded. 0:28:16.880 --> 0:28:17.680 Kill will be killed. 0:28:18.520 --> 0:28:21.720 Everyone come out there the same. That's why there's so 0:28:21.840 --> 0:28:23.640 many buddies murders. 0:28:26.440 --> 0:28:30.360 But if Tamworth was the criminal High School. There were 0:28:30.480 --> 0:28:36.639 dangerous primary schools churning out students as well. One was 0:28:36.720 --> 0:28:41.000 the Dearreck Home for Boys in Winter in western Sydney. 0:28:41.600 --> 0:28:47.200 Respected journalist Ross coulthardt reported on Darrek for sixty minutes Australia, 0:28:48.120 --> 0:28:52.880 this institution, similar to Mount Penang, was a hotbed of abuse. 0:28:54.520 --> 0:28:57.760 Its horrors were only exposed thanks to a new South 0:28:57.760 --> 0:29:04.960 Wales police investigation headed up by Detective Sergeant Ben Hallam. 0:29:05.160 --> 0:29:09.040 He is Ross Coulthard reporting on Derek for sixty minutes. 0:29:10.120 --> 0:29:12.960 Heeded by Detective Sergeant Ben Hallam. 0:29:13.240 --> 0:29:15.760 When you sit down with them and listen to them 0:29:15.800 --> 0:29:17.520 tell their story about what happened at Derek and then 0:29:17.520 --> 0:29:21.920 they break down and cry, it's very confronted. 0:29:22.920 --> 0:29:24.920 He told them to strip me down. 0:29:25.280 --> 0:29:26.560 I think they were trying to break me. 0:29:27.840 --> 0:29:30.760 These were vulnerable kids from broken families. The tragedy of 0:29:30.800 --> 0:29:34.440 this is that the people that were entrusted to care 0:29:34.480 --> 0:29:37.360 for them and help them were alleged to have abused them. 0:29:38.640 --> 0:29:42.280 And the other infamous school was, of course Mount Penang 0:29:42.480 --> 0:29:47.160 in Gosford. In nineteen fifty nine, on the eve of 0:29:47.240 --> 0:29:51.520 Reagan's arrival at the home, The Sydney Morning Herald reported 0:29:51.720 --> 0:29:55.960 that child crime in New South Wales was out of control. 0:29:58.200 --> 0:30:02.560 Sexual offenses by youths had increased by three hundred percent 0:30:03.040 --> 0:30:07.800 through the nineteen fifties. Institutions for boys and girls were 0:30:07.920 --> 0:30:13.360 bursting at the seams. The Gosford Home, built to house 0:30:13.440 --> 0:30:18.040