May 22, 2025 • 43 mins
The five-decade mystery of who killed psychopathic pimp and murderer Stewart John ‘The Magician’ Regan at the age of 29. One of Australia’s most notorious gangsters, Regan was gunned down by three assassins in a Marrickville laneway in 1974.
Introducing The Gangster’s Ghost podcast investigation, in which Matthew Condon explores just how bad this man was and reveals the secret recordings Regan made of himself and criminal associates.
Subscribers to The Australian hear episodes of The Gangster's Ghost first, plus you can see photographs, videos, timelines and more at gangstersghost.com.au.
Read more:
- Was this Roger Rogerson's first victim?
- Mystery of The Magician: 'I never killed him. But I had been set free'
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Before we begin. This podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
This is a production by The Australian and our subscribers.
Here episodes first and get full access to photos, video,
news stories and features plus all Australia's best journalism twenty
four to seven. Join us at Gangstersghost dot com dot
(00:22):
a u.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Stewart John Reagan, he was the maniac gangster shotgun Johnny Nano,
the magician gunned down at the age of just twenty
nine after terrorizing the East Coast of Australia throughout the
nineteen sixties and seventies. It was said he killed up
(00:48):
to twelve people, including an innocent toddler, and vanished their bodies.
At the height of his notoriety, evil, his violence, his
hair triggered temper. His reputation as a vendor of death
was distilled into a single word, Reagan. He terrified crooks
(01:15):
and coppers alike. He was the monster with movie star
good looks. Women fawned over him, men tried to imitate
the teetotaling tough guy. What set him apart was his
hair trigger temper from zero to lethal boiling point in
(01:38):
the blink of an eye. His few friends said he
had a tiger inside of him. His own murder at
the hands of three gunmen in a grubby Sydney laneway
in broad daylight remains unsold, and half a century later,
(01:59):
police deal don't want to know about it. He was
crazy by any measure, a standout psychopath in a criminal
era that had its fair share of them. Reagan roared
through the underworld like a flame thrower before eight bullets
to the body and the head stopped the chaos. That's
(02:24):
where the story should have ended, but not for the
Reagan family. His name and reputation have soiled a family
tree from rural New South Wales that is filled with
pioneers and war heroes. For them, it's time to set
the record straight. Was Stuart John Reagan as bad as
(02:49):
history has portrayed him, Did he actually kill Little Carlos
in nineteen seventy four, and who in turn murdered Reagan
a few months later. After years of investigation, the family
now has some answers. In this podcast, we will reveal
(03:11):
a new theory about Reagan's assassination as possible retribution for
Carlos's death. How Reagan tried to kill whistleblowing Madame Shirley Brifman,
who died in mysterious circumstances shortly afterwards. How domestic violence
perpetrated by Reagan's terrifying mother Claire, set him on the
(03:35):
path to crime and into history. How Reagan was brutalized
at a boy's home that was little more than an
academy for Australia's leading criminals, including Chow Hayes, Neddie Smith,
Lenny McPherson and George Freeman. We'll expose for the first
(03:58):
time Reagan's role in the Whiskeyer Go Go nightclub massacre
in Brisbane in nineteen seventy three, which killed fifteen innocent people.
And incredibly, you will hear the voice of Johnny Reagan
himself from old real to real tapes hidden away for
(04:20):
years in a black suitcase. Welcome to the nether world
of Australia's last old school gangster. I'm journalist Matthew Condon
and this is the gangster's ghost episode one dead man talking.
(05:04):
How on earth did I end up here? A couple
of days ago, I was at home in far northern
New South Wales, having a surf with my kids, surrounded
by beautiful beaches, and lush rainforests. Now Here. I am
on a farm outside the country town of Young, on
(05:27):
the southwestern slopes of New South Wales, more than one thousand,
one hundred kilometers away, the landscape gently rolling with patchwork
wheat and canola fields, surrounded by hundreds, no thousands, of
grubby sheep. I was only here because of a local farmer,
(05:50):
Kelly Slater. I was here because Kelly contacted me and
asked if I was interested in finding out the truth
about a gangster she had in her family tree. If
the Reagans were looking for any redemption here, it was
going to be difficult to find. What if the family
(06:15):
came on this journey and found a monster even more
vile and horrific than they could possibly imagine, They had
to be prepared for the worst. But standing out there
in those dusty paddocks, thinking about Reagan, how he was
(06:35):
a boy here, how he played bush rangers in the
local creeks and went to chapel with his schoolmates, how
he breathed in the very same country air. I was
taking in Kelly's offer of joining the family in this
hunt for the real Stuart John Reagan was already irresistible
(06:59):
they had documents, letters from Reagan in prison. Even Reagan's
de facto partner and mother to three of his children,
Margaret was prepared to speak for the first time about
her life with the gangster. But they had something else,
(07:20):
something I had to hear, quite literally to believe testing one, two,
three for five. As a crime writer, you encounter a
lot of dark and surprising things. Sometimes you hear stories
(07:45):
you wish you could unhear. But the first time I
sat down and listened to the old tapes hidden in
a suitcase for decades, I was speechless.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
That's black man, and he said, I'll buy the diamonds
back off you for that amount.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
He's okay when the time period elapsed.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I didn't want to sell under the Norman Carter and
he's hold he had amagant.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
It's difficult to describe the sensation of hearing for the
first time the actual voice of a notorious killer he'd
only read about in books and ancient newspaper clippings. It
felt like I was sitting in the same room as
a ghost. This ghost, however, may have murdered a dozen
(08:35):
people in cold Blood during the mid nineteen sixties until
his own death in nineteen seventy four. Police were also
convinced he murdered an innocent toddler. The child's body has
never been found. So let's cut to the chase here.
(08:56):
Reagan was crazy by any measure, lethal, a dangerous, loose cannon,
and clearly a psychopath.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
Absolutely, we'll put him with the others, right Reagan, of course. Now,
Reagan was shot dead by three Shepherd guns. I'm out
at Mary Crew near Henson Park.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
This is the notorious foreman New South Wales detective and
convicted murderer Roger Rogerson, who talked to me over the
fern many years ago about Johnny Reagan.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
Lenny Macpherson said to me once, Matt, he said Roger.
He said, you can control a bad man, but you
can't control a madman. And I've never ever forgotten.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
That's Roger's dead now. But he knew a bad man
when he met one, and he knew Reagan was out
of control.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
I just thought you might be interested in seeing this.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I still vividly remember when Kelly Slater Reagan herself a
former New South Wales copper, first contacted me. This is
Kelly reading an email she sent me.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
Hi, I'm an ex police officer and cousin of Johnny Reagan.
We're looking at doing a podcast on him, the good,
the bad, the ugly, mostly the two latter, but his
childhood as well. We have letters and recordings that have
never been heard. Looking for help to make it work,
(10:47):
Kelly Slater Reagan.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So I phone Kelly. We talked about how the family
needed the truth after all these years, and almost as
an afterthought, she added, then there's the tapes. The tapes.
What tapes, I asked Johnny. She said, We've got secret
(11:22):
tapes of Johnny on the phone back in the day,
hours of them before he was murdered. Opened the door,
and that's how the ghost of this long dead gangster
strode into the room and started talking to me and
(11:44):
now to you. Reagan loved technology and at some stage
decided to tape his home phone calls. He rigged up
his nineteen sixties rotary doll telephone with a micro fern
and a real to real tape deck recorder. He even
(12:05):
took a concealed miniature cassette recorder out into the streets
of King's Cross and Darlinghurst and captured conversations with other
criminals and crooked cops. You know you've got a good
defense for this. Those lost tapes are filled with Reagan's
wheeling and dealing, his superior knowledge of the law, and
(12:29):
his relentless quest to get around it. We shouldn't have
had that card interested in your lying in a third flight,
and the names of many of the coppers he could
either work with or manipulate with cash under the table,
which is him mate? What he look he schnoker plaid.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
He's probably a mate of Sturdon.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
He even thinks out loud about putting a bullet in
an enemy's head, just as casually as you and I
might wonder out loud what we'll have for breakfast.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
You mark my words.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I'm not telling you a line.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
I'll give you to your ideas, Tomas, you want to
go true with him?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
If not, well, you know. Reagan kept his tapes hidden
away in a suitcase in his mother's house in Sydney.
When he died, that suitcase stayed inside a dark cupboard
until his own mother, Claire Reagan, or the Kernel, as
they called her, passed away in nineteen eighty eight. The tapes,
(13:33):
magnetic recording reels, each as big as a bread plate,
were lost for years. As recently as a couple of
months ago, these historical artifacts sounded like something out of
an audio museum, muffled, garbled ancients. Then lightning struck the
(14:03):
Australians in house sound maestro Jasper Leak had come across
an artificial intelligence program that he thought might just might
help clean up Reagan's amateur recordings. It was worth a shot.
Here's Jasper.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
I'm always on the lookout for new software, and I
came across this one earlier in the year DX Revive.
It's called by accenties. Think of it a bit like
a pencil sketch that's only been partially completed. Imagine if
you could put that drawing into a machine and it
would finish the picture for you and make it look
better than you could have done yourself. It would add
color and shadows and depth. This tool does that, but
(14:44):
for old bad audio.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Then our other audio guru, Leah Sammaglu, spent hundreds of
hours feeding the Reagan tapes through this AI software, fine
tuning for neessing and draw out voices and sounds from
half a century ago.
Speaker 8 (15:06):
Really, it's like now we can hear Johnny's voice clearly,
we can also hear the voices of the people that
he's talking to, like the ones on the other end
of the phone. When I heard it for the first time,
I got chills down my spine. It's like a miracle.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
This is Johnny captured on the raw digital file of
the Reagan tapes.
Speaker 9 (15:30):
The cops and what they're doing and what they're trying
to cops, all I will.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And this is the same audio after Jasper, Leah and
our new best friend artificial intelligence performed their wizardry. Have
you heard the whispers? Learning heard wister read the cops
and what they're doing and what they're trying to do? Look,
you know yourself, nobody gallant coppers?
Speaker 6 (15:54):
Will I will?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
This journey has made me rethink all the trepidation and
debate surrounding artificial intelligence, particularly in the feel of journalism.
Would AI ultimately replace journalists as we'd been warned? Would
it take over the world. The experience with the Reagan tapes, however,
(16:21):
is an exciting, in this case jaw dropping example of
how AI is far from the bogey man. For the podcast,
it has proved to be a phenomenal tool. You will
soon be hearing a lot of the gangster's ghost as
clear as if the killer himself had pulled up a
(16:43):
chair at your kitchen table and settled down for a
cup of tea and a chat. The first and most
obvious thing for me to do was to go to
(17:03):
Young to meet Kelly. We needed to talk about her
dead gangster cousin, which I guess from the outset made
this something of a ghost story, replete as it was,
with real bullets and bloodshed. Time and again, as Kelly
and I burrowed closer to the truth about this complex man,
(17:27):
strange things happened, ridiculous coincidences and wild strokes of luck.
If you believed in that sort of thing, it was
as if the gangster's ghost was pulling some strings and
guiding our research. Here's Kelly, We're sitting at her kitchen
(17:47):
table at that farm in Young.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
Honestly, I don't know exactly what we'll find. I know
we'll find that he probably killed people. I've accepted that fact.
Will we find did he kill that little boy like
that is? That's something I'd really like to learn, Carlos,
did he or did me? And I'm resigned to the
fact that if he did, Like but I'm hopeful that
(18:16):
they didn't the whiskey of go Go? What was his
involvement in that? Was he a psychopath? Like they said?
Is the stories that they tell about him true?
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Why do you want to know this right now?
Speaker 3 (18:28):
In history?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
It's funny, isn't it, Like when you you know, they
talk about war veterans and all that, and they they
talk about it when they get older, and I think
history you get to a certain age where you just
think you want to know. But I've got a curious mind,
Like I've been a day drama since the day I
was born, and I've got a really curious mind. And
I'm not afraid to you know, I love a chat,
(18:51):
so I'm not afraid to ask questions. And I'm yeah,
just I guess never been in the right time. But again,
like who am I going to do it with? We'd
get boring, wouldn't it? Like who do you share fun with?
Speaker 5 (19:04):
So?
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Yeah, who do you?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Well?
Speaker 4 (19:06):
The most important thing will be to bounce.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Just a quick note here. I really want you to
like Kelly. She's a great laugh, as it turns out,
a ruthless researcher, and as honest as the day is long.
I knew from the outset that I had well a
partner in crime.
Speaker 6 (19:29):
Here, curious min and I'm not afraid.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
That first day I met Kelly and we sat at
her kitchen table. We were awaiting someone else. Margaret Reagan
Johnny's long term some might say long suffering, de facto
wife and mother to three of his children. She was
due at the farm soon. I wondered how much she knew,
(19:59):
not just about the day Johnny Reagan was assassinated, or
even about his criminal career. Did she know anything about
who might have wanted him dead? The seemingly untouchable Stuart
John Reagan, who often wore a bulletproof vest and always
(20:21):
had a bodyguard by his side, was there one minute,
larger than life, and gone the next, a corpse bleeding
out on a Sydney side street. His substantial assets seemed
to have disappeared with him. The so called millionaire gangster
(20:45):
was a violent standover man and a pimp for sex workers,
but he was also a property developer. If the family
has the story right, he owned substantial real estate assets
in New South Wales and Queensland. When he was murdered,
he'd flip houses for a profit. He also had a
(21:07):
taxi in car rental business, and prior to his death
he had developed what may have been the greatest land
scam in Australian history, which we'll examine in detail later
in this podcast.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
What does it say that suddenly all lines of investigation,
query asking questions all stopped upon his death. Well, it's
still an active cold case his murder.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
Well you think so, wouldn't you, because they never closed.
There's no statute of limitations on murder. And here is
one of the biggest gangsters. So who's killed one of
the biggest gangsters? Wouldn't you want to know? Out of
curiosity and with all the talk because over the years
I have spoken to people, I met a guy up
in Nelson's Bay. So what had happened is I was
(21:58):
at the station and a guy brought me in a
scrap book. I can't even remember who he was, and
he said, I just thought you might be interested in
seeing this. I know he was your uncle or your cousin.
I went, oh, right, and I had to look, and
here's the scrapbook of Allah and he brought it in.
So I was sitting out in the meal room and
I was just having a look at it, and it
(22:19):
was just sitting on the table. Now, what's the chances
of Assistant commissioner, former member of the armed hold up squad?
So I've been told pops in and he sees this
thing there and he says, oh, please looking at this
and I said, oh, that's me. And he said, oh,
what's what's your interest in Reagan? And I said, well,
he's my dad's first cousin. Oh, oh, well, I can
(22:41):
put you in contact with someone who can tell you.
So that's when he gave me old mate's number. He said,
I'll meet you at the golf course in Nelson's Bay.
It was real cloak and dagger, and he handed me
a letter that I had to destroy.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
What was the matter.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
It was just sort of saying that, you know, he
knew John, that he'd arrested him, that he was he
went to the hospital when he'd broken Marg's jaw and
tried to get him, tried to get Mard to give
a statement, which you wouldn't give a statement. It was
sort of just about that, and I'm like, is there
anything else? Do you know who killed? No? No, no, no,
no no no? Do you did he kill Carr? Yeah?
(23:15):
Dead set killed that baby. He killed that baby. And
I'm like, oh right, okay, yep, yep, right here, and
then off he went. So every time someone would find
out that my name was Reagan and I was from
young and it was a police officer they and they
were senior, they'd all way, oh, yeah, yeah, do you
know Johnny Reagan? Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah. In the end,
sometimes I'd just say no, no, don't know who talked about, right,
(23:37):
but yeah, it was. It was always there. And so
I asked the senior, like a guy that was a
detective at Newtown at the same time, I said, if
you were there in seventy four, do you remember Stuart
John Ray? Oh yeah, yeah I do. I said, well
he was my cousin. He said, all right. I said,
do you ever know who killed him? He said, well,
we were told that in the area at the time
(23:58):
there was a car with four detective you've seen in it.
They were wearing these bowler hats or something and they
had police coats on. And he said there was always
a whisper that it was Rogerson's first hit.
Speaker 9 (24:08):
Roger Rogerson.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Roger Caleb Rogerson, the notorious former New South Wales police
detective sergeant implicated in killing's assault, verbaling, drug dealing and
corruption during a tumultuous career that saw him both admired
and hated. At his peak from the late nineteen sixties
(24:35):
through to the early nineteen eighties, he associated with all
the corrupt cops and Sydney gangsters that formed Johnny Reagan's millieure.
Rogerson was one of the lead detectives who investigated the
Whisky Go Go nightclub bombing in Brisbane in nineteen seventy three,
(24:56):
which left fifteen people dead. This incredibly brought him into
the orbit of Reagan, but more of that later. Rogerson
became infamous after shooting dead drug dealer Warren Lanfranci. It
(25:17):
was suspected too, that he was involved in the attempted
murder of one of his own colleagues, police officer Michael Drury,
who had refused to take a bribe. Rogerson was dismissed
from the New South Wales Police Force in nineteen eighty six,
hit the pub circuit telling tall stories about his infamous
(25:40):
career before being charged in twenty fourteen with the murder
of Sydney drug dealer Jamie Gow. Rogerson was found guilty
of that crime. He died in Sydney's Long Bay jail.
Last year when he was convinced of the Gow murder.
(26:01):
A Sydney newspaper ran a headline, serial killer with a badge.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
And I said, what do you mean, his first hit?
And they said, since the forties and fifties has always
been a hit man in the cibur. I said, you
can't generation. Yes, I said, you can't be serious. He said, Oh,
the rank and file would never know about it. He said,
but when detectives, when we'd all go out and we'd
all be having a beer and lips would loosen a beer.
He said, there was always talk of that sort of stuff.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Who told you that story?
Speaker 2 (26:31):
The observation that each generation of police might have a
professional killer in its ranks is far from outlandish, given
the history of corruption in the New South Wales Force.
That reputation began with the arrival of the first fleet
in seventeen eighty eight and has never abated. Corruption flourished
(26:54):
in Sydney during the Second World War and became a
fine art in the hands of men like Ray Gunner
Kelly and Fred Froggy Cray. From the nineteen fifties to
the nineteen seventies. Roger Rogerson was part of the new
generation that carried that crooked Batton forward. The Wood Royal
(27:18):
Commission into the New South Wales Police Service between nineteen
ninety five and nineteen ninety seven examined the extent of
corruption in the force. It exposed countless examples of misconduct
and hundreds of officers were forced to resign. Kelly Reagan
(27:39):
was treated with extreme suspicion when she applied to join
the police. A relative of this violent killer wanted to
sign up to keep the peace in New South Wales.
I was interested in whether having Reagan in her family
tree actually inspired Kelly to com that crime. She had
(28:02):
been fascinated with Johnny Reagan since she was a little girl.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
See, the family was always told that he was killed
by police, and it was you know, if they were,
they were very brazen because they used thirty eight's, So
it was always said that they were killed by police. Well,
he was killed by police.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
I don't want to overstretched the metaphor, but in the
one family you've got a toorious gangster and a New
Southwest Police officer.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
I know, don't worry. When I went for my job
interview I was expecting three serving senior serving, but there
was five on the panel and that's mostly all they
asked for about. So Kelly Reagan from young Yep, what's
your relationship to Stuart John Reagan? Well, I never met him.
(28:52):
Here's my dad's cousin. And then it was just question
after question after question.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Do you think you became an officer because you had
an arch villain in the family.
Speaker 6 (29:01):
No. A maide of mine joined and she dared me,
and I thought, ye, why not? As a kid grow
I've always wanted to be in the mound of police
working in the state bank, do I? And she was
at the NAB in Brooklab and we're live in together,
and she joined and she said, yeah, it's super easy
get in, all right? So put performed in the next
(29:22):
thing I'm in.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I guess one of the things we're going to have
to target is why there is so little information about them?
Is what has what the flow of information about Stuart
John Reagan. There's books on learning person, George Freeman, Abe Saffroum,
you name it. There is almost nothing on Reagan.
Speaker 6 (29:47):
And nowadays there is podcasts and this podcast on everything
to do with crooks and gangsters, isn't it like Melbourne?
If you even got arrested for a break in any
you've got a podcast on about you. But in Sydney
you've got the same players. But here you've got someone
who's supposed to be one of Sydney's biggest, most notorious gangsters,
(30:08):
and you've got sickery do squad boy, you've got the
same rhetoric as what's been marched out psychopath as a
child killed, the child killed, Ruddy Clark signed his death
Barrit got.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Only two people were ever truly on the inside when
it came to Reagan, Margaret and Reagan's mother, Claire Claire
Mary raul Reagan outlived her son and only child by
fourteen years, and she's been resting in the Catholic lawn
(30:47):
section of Sydney's Rookwood Cemetery Plot two six' five three
Since september nineteen eighty. Eight after just a couple of
days In young and talking to The reagan, family it
soon became a parent that this story had another shadowy,
figure and that Was Claire, reagan a figure so malevolent
(31:13):
that to this day she is still reviled In. Young back,
then everyone called her The colonel by all, accounts she was, manipulative, controlling, violent,
intimidating and. Cruel she horsewhipped her son and terrified his
(31:38):
teachers at the Local catholic. SCHOOL i Asked kelly about
the family's view Of reagan's childhood and the colonel childhood
and young.
Speaker 6 (31:51):
LOOK i think it was tough with his. Mother she
was a. Tyrant she was. Cruel she would flog him.
Mercilessly the other kids were terrified of the brothers at
the school were terrified over when when he got hurt one,
day they sent the kids over to tell her because
they were terrified of her and the. Brothers you know
what the brothers could be. Like and then you, know
but he also had really good. Friends he enjoyed his you,
(32:14):
know he had a great. Imagination he played down on
the creek bed and at, school you, know they all
thought he was a lovely. Kid all his friends loved.
Him but she was. Cruel she was, Cruel she was a.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Monster we would soon be learning all about this. Monster
around the kitchen table In kelly And rod's. Farmhouse just
the mention of the colonel triggered fevered.
Speaker 6 (32:39):
Debate they think that that's what happens in everyone's head.
Exactly they tell anyone they, think they think that's. Commonplace
that's what.
Speaker 9 (32:47):
Happened so the sort of control that The colonel had
her Son, john it's so complete that the total control
is terrified to.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Me and he would always he.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Could never please.
Speaker 6 (33:05):
Her oh, yeah because you just want to.
Speaker 10 (33:07):
Please that's like when When David patterson talks about the
story of Taking john down to his mother because he'd
been had His Paul.
Speaker 6 (33:22):
Gibson it's punched him and he had a bleeding nose
and she got a dirty rag off the, thing wiped
it and, said now go back and before you came,
home make sure he's bleeding worse than what you. Were
and this.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
We would discover many curious and appalling things about the
colonel and her strange magnetic hold on her Son, stewart
about his childhood in young his alcoholic, father alf the
marriage breakup that Saw claire and Little johnny move To,
(34:12):
sydney and a Teenage reagan's descent into serious. Crime then
there's the enduring family rumor that When Claire reagan went
to live In, sydney she actually ran a few prostitutes
out of the house In, Liverpool, Street darlinghurst to.
Speaker 6 (34:34):
Survive the family never liked her at, all but there
was always this thing that she Got johnny into crime
because when she went To, sydney that she ran girls,
herself and he stood over those girls that she.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Ran so the story in the family is That Claire,
reagan when she left young and left her Husband alf
took her young son To sydney and they ended up
settling In, Livero Bull street And. Darlinghurst and the word
in the family was that she ran essentially a small
brothel to make, it to make.
Speaker 6 (35:07):
It, yep that's WHAT i always remember is that she
was the one that got him into that side of the.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
GAME i, mean if, that if that was just a wild,
rumor why did it persist in the family?
Speaker 10 (35:20):
Law?
Speaker 6 (35:22):
Oh one hundred. Percent and this is like it's always
been the same stories repeated over and over and over.
Again so far as that she had she'd run the,
brothels and that he'd worked for her and that's how
he got started in.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
It, well but.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
First we had to meet Marg Johnny reagan's de facto,
wife mother to his Daughters helen And claire and to
their Son John. Junior could she take us inside the
world of the last Of sydney's old time gangsters during
(35:56):
his heyday in the nineteen. Sixties could she help us
understand his murderous, temper his taste for, violence and why
history would attach anywhere up to twelve murders to his,
name including an innocent three year old. Boy and what
(36:19):
happened on that last day When, reagan unarmed and, unprotected
was a gunned down, mercilessly with one of the killers
delivering a final point blank headshot to make sure the
boy From cherrytown was well and truly. DEAD i had
(36:39):
a frank discussion With kelly about what marg might or
might not decide to tell. Us, cooperative you think by her,
nature she, might like most, people hold something. Back what
do you reckon.
Speaker 6 (36:53):
During mark's formative, years she's With, john and you know
the skills she's being taught by him is, it's you,
know to say, nothing to keep your mouth, Shut just
keep your mouth. Shut SO i THINK i think she
really wants to to open and tell all that she.
Knows but but you, know there's still that. Thing imagine
If anie marg did know something and then she tells
(37:15):
the family like that's you, know the backlash to that
that she would perceive would be. Huge SO i think
she'll tell. US i think she wants to tell, us
BUT i don't know if she'll get over the.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Line, well why do you think after all these decades
she's she has agreed to talk to us?
Speaker 6 (37:33):
Now, WELL i think partly because well she you, know
she loves, Us she loves. Us The reagan side don't
know she. Does what does she? Know like she lived with,
him she had three children with, Him, yes, yeah, hard hard.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
One and you.
Speaker 6 (37:52):
Know you get to a certain age where you just
want TO i just want to, talk LIKE i think
at that age now where she probably does want to
and she sees how PASSIONATE i am about.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
It do you think she still has a residue of?
Speaker 6 (38:07):
Fear, NO i think she's as tough as old.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Bootstraps now that, Afternoon Mark reagan arrived with one of her.
Daughters she hadn't been too young in many. Years now
in her, seventies you could still see the stunning good
looks that had Attracted Johnny reagan all those years ago
(38:31):
In Sydney's King's, cross where he worked as a bouncer
on the door of The Whisky Go go nightclub In Williams.
Street The slaters And reagans fired up the, barbie and
later we set up microphones At kelly's long kitchen, table
the scene of so many family, gatherings to begin our
(38:52):
interviews With. Marg the family started to drift out of the,
room But marg stop. Them she wanted them around her
when she. Talked she didn't want to do this. Alone, NO.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
I don't want to keep repeating myself for. Everybody it's best,
said everyone's. Here, okay that's. GREAT i want that you're
not putting me. Off you don't put me. OFF i
got emotional WHEN i talk about my. Father, Okay so
(39:32):
for me to do, this you won't have to ask
me what. HAPPENED i know you guys know what happened
Because i've explained it to, Her but the lights Of
daniel And jeffrey and they don't. KNOW i have a boy, Here,
daniel that asked me, today what DID i say with this?
Me i'm going to tell YOU i Told. Daniel AND
(39:55):
i appreciate That daniel was mean enough and strong enough
to ask me that, question because that means there's appearing
person there in that person that wants to know what really, happened,
okay and this is Why i'm doing, This, Okay so
what do you want to lear?
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Now in the next episode Of The Gangster's, ghost we
take you Inside reagan's earliest years in Country New South
wales and the rocky relationship between his mismatched.
Speaker 6 (40:30):
Parents that marriage never had a, chance and we.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Find another monster lurking in the shadows of this, Story
reagan's own, mother the formidable and Feared, claire known to
all as The.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Colonel she belted him hat with a Stockwet she drove
him home like he was at least so he had a.
Speaker 6 (40:54):
Tough, mother a, tough tough.
Speaker 11 (40:56):
Lady The Gangster's ghost is a production Of The. Australian
it's written and presented by senior Writer Matthew condon and
(41:17):
produced and edited by multimedia Editor leat Samaglu Our executive
producer Is, Me editorial Director Claire. Harvey special thanks To Lara,
Kamenos Erica, Rutlidge Kristin, Amiot Jasper, Leik Stephanie, Coombs Sean Callanan,
Laughlin Clear Ryan, Osland Amanda Winnie, Williams Christine, Kelle Tarren,
Blackhurst Magdalena, Zajack Gisel, Buetti Genevieve, Brammel Lauren, Bruce Sus
(41:40):
rolf And Jachini. Carlson we can only do journalism like
this with the support OF us, subscribers who hear episodes
first and get full access to, photos, video news stories and,
features plus All australia's best journalism twenty four to. Seven
join us At gangstersghost dot com dot.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
Au.
Speaker 12 (42:02):
Sing st st sting st st st st st start
(42:35):
st
Before we begin. This podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
This is a production by The Australian and our subscribers.
Here episodes first and get full access to photos, video,
news stories and features plus all Australia's best journalism twenty
four to seven. Join us at Gangstersghost dot com dot
(00:22):
a u.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Stewart John Reagan, he was the maniac gangster shotgun Johnny Nano,
the magician gunned down at the age of just twenty
nine after terrorizing the East Coast of Australia throughout the
nineteen sixties and seventies. It was said he killed up
(00:48):
to twelve people, including an innocent toddler, and vanished their bodies.
At the height of his notoriety, evil, his violence, his
hair triggered temper. His reputation as a vendor of death
was distilled into a single word, Reagan. He terrified crooks
(01:15):
and coppers alike. He was the monster with movie star
good looks. Women fawned over him, men tried to imitate
the teetotaling tough guy. What set him apart was his
hair trigger temper from zero to lethal boiling point in
(01:38):
the blink of an eye. His few friends said he
had a tiger inside of him. His own murder at
the hands of three gunmen in a grubby Sydney laneway
in broad daylight remains unsold, and half a century later,
(01:59):
police deal don't want to know about it. He was
crazy by any measure, a standout psychopath in a criminal
era that had its fair share of them. Reagan roared
through the underworld like a flame thrower before eight bullets
to the body and the head stopped the chaos. That's
(02:24):
where the story should have ended, but not for the
Reagan family. His name and reputation have soiled a family
tree from rural New South Wales that is filled with
pioneers and war heroes. For them, it's time to set
the record straight. Was Stuart John Reagan as bad as
(02:49):
history has portrayed him, Did he actually kill Little Carlos
in nineteen seventy four, and who in turn murdered Reagan
a few months later. After years of investigation, the family
now has some answers. In this podcast, we will reveal
(03:11):
a new theory about Reagan's assassination as possible retribution for
Carlos's death. How Reagan tried to kill whistleblowing Madame Shirley Brifman,
who died in mysterious circumstances shortly afterwards. How domestic violence
perpetrated by Reagan's terrifying mother Claire, set him on the
(03:35):
path to crime and into history. How Reagan was brutalized
at a boy's home that was little more than an
academy for Australia's leading criminals, including Chow Hayes, Neddie Smith,
Lenny McPherson and George Freeman. We'll expose for the first
(03:58):
time Reagan's role in the Whiskeyer Go Go nightclub massacre
in Brisbane in nineteen seventy three, which killed fifteen innocent people.
And incredibly, you will hear the voice of Johnny Reagan
himself from old real to real tapes hidden away for
(04:20):
years in a black suitcase. Welcome to the nether world
of Australia's last old school gangster. I'm journalist Matthew Condon
and this is the gangster's ghost episode one dead man talking.
(05:04):
How on earth did I end up here? A couple
of days ago, I was at home in far northern
New South Wales, having a surf with my kids, surrounded
by beautiful beaches, and lush rainforests. Now Here. I am
on a farm outside the country town of Young, on
(05:27):
the southwestern slopes of New South Wales, more than one thousand,
one hundred kilometers away, the landscape gently rolling with patchwork
wheat and canola fields, surrounded by hundreds, no thousands, of
grubby sheep. I was only here because of a local farmer,
(05:50):
Kelly Slater. I was here because Kelly contacted me and
asked if I was interested in finding out the truth
about a gangster she had in her family tree. If
the Reagans were looking for any redemption here, it was
going to be difficult to find. What if the family
(06:15):
came on this journey and found a monster even more
vile and horrific than they could possibly imagine, They had
to be prepared for the worst. But standing out there
in those dusty paddocks, thinking about Reagan, how he was
(06:35):
a boy here, how he played bush rangers in the
local creeks and went to chapel with his schoolmates, how
he breathed in the very same country air. I was
taking in Kelly's offer of joining the family in this
hunt for the real Stuart John Reagan was already irresistible
(06:59):
they had documents, letters from Reagan in prison. Even Reagan's
de facto partner and mother to three of his children,
Margaret was prepared to speak for the first time about
her life with the gangster. But they had something else,
(07:20):
something I had to hear, quite literally to believe testing one, two,
three for five. As a crime writer, you encounter a
lot of dark and surprising things. Sometimes you hear stories
(07:45):
you wish you could unhear. But the first time I
sat down and listened to the old tapes hidden in
a suitcase for decades, I was speechless.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
That's black man, and he said, I'll buy the diamonds
back off you for that amount.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
He's okay when the time period elapsed.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I didn't want to sell under the Norman Carter and
he's hold he had amagant.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
It's difficult to describe the sensation of hearing for the
first time the actual voice of a notorious killer he'd
only read about in books and ancient newspaper clippings. It
felt like I was sitting in the same room as
a ghost. This ghost, however, may have murdered a dozen
(08:35):
people in cold Blood during the mid nineteen sixties until
his own death in nineteen seventy four. Police were also
convinced he murdered an innocent toddler. The child's body has
never been found. So let's cut to the chase here.
(08:56):
Reagan was crazy by any measure, lethal, a dangerous, loose cannon,
and clearly a psychopath.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
Absolutely, we'll put him with the others, right Reagan, of course. Now,
Reagan was shot dead by three Shepherd guns. I'm out
at Mary Crew near Henson Park.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
This is the notorious foreman New South Wales detective and
convicted murderer Roger Rogerson, who talked to me over the
fern many years ago about Johnny Reagan.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
Lenny Macpherson said to me once, Matt, he said Roger.
He said, you can control a bad man, but you
can't control a madman. And I've never ever forgotten.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
That's Roger's dead now. But he knew a bad man
when he met one, and he knew Reagan was out
of control.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
I just thought you might be interested in seeing this.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I still vividly remember when Kelly Slater Reagan herself a
former New South Wales copper, first contacted me. This is
Kelly reading an email she sent me.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
Hi, I'm an ex police officer and cousin of Johnny Reagan.
We're looking at doing a podcast on him, the good,
the bad, the ugly, mostly the two latter, but his
childhood as well. We have letters and recordings that have
never been heard. Looking for help to make it work,
(10:47):
Kelly Slater Reagan.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So I phone Kelly. We talked about how the family
needed the truth after all these years, and almost as
an afterthought, she added, then there's the tapes. The tapes.
What tapes, I asked Johnny. She said, We've got secret
(11:22):
tapes of Johnny on the phone back in the day,
hours of them before he was murdered. Opened the door,
and that's how the ghost of this long dead gangster
strode into the room and started talking to me and
(11:44):
now to you. Reagan loved technology and at some stage
decided to tape his home phone calls. He rigged up
his nineteen sixties rotary doll telephone with a micro fern
and a real to real tape deck recorder. He even
(12:05):
took a concealed miniature cassette recorder out into the streets
of King's Cross and Darlinghurst and captured conversations with other
criminals and crooked cops. You know you've got a good
defense for this. Those lost tapes are filled with Reagan's
wheeling and dealing, his superior knowledge of the law, and
(12:29):
his relentless quest to get around it. We shouldn't have
had that card interested in your lying in a third flight,
and the names of many of the coppers he could
either work with or manipulate with cash under the table,
which is him mate? What he look he schnoker plaid.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
He's probably a mate of Sturdon.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
He even thinks out loud about putting a bullet in
an enemy's head, just as casually as you and I
might wonder out loud what we'll have for breakfast.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
You mark my words.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I'm not telling you a line.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
I'll give you to your ideas, Tomas, you want to
go true with him?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
If not, well, you know. Reagan kept his tapes hidden
away in a suitcase in his mother's house in Sydney.
When he died, that suitcase stayed inside a dark cupboard
until his own mother, Claire Reagan, or the Kernel, as
they called her, passed away in nineteen eighty eight. The tapes,
(13:33):
magnetic recording reels, each as big as a bread plate,
were lost for years. As recently as a couple of
months ago, these historical artifacts sounded like something out of
an audio museum, muffled, garbled ancients. Then lightning struck the
(14:03):
Australians in house sound maestro Jasper Leak had come across
an artificial intelligence program that he thought might just might
help clean up Reagan's amateur recordings. It was worth a shot.
Here's Jasper.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
I'm always on the lookout for new software, and I
came across this one earlier in the year DX Revive.
It's called by accenties. Think of it a bit like
a pencil sketch that's only been partially completed. Imagine if
you could put that drawing into a machine and it
would finish the picture for you and make it look
better than you could have done yourself. It would add
color and shadows and depth. This tool does that, but
(14:44):
for old bad audio.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Then our other audio guru, Leah Sammaglu, spent hundreds of
hours feeding the Reagan tapes through this AI software, fine
tuning for neessing and draw out voices and sounds from
half a century ago.
Speaker 8 (15:06):
Really, it's like now we can hear Johnny's voice clearly,
we can also hear the voices of the people that
he's talking to, like the ones on the other end
of the phone. When I heard it for the first time,
I got chills down my spine. It's like a miracle.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
This is Johnny captured on the raw digital file of
the Reagan tapes.
Speaker 9 (15:30):
The cops and what they're doing and what they're trying
to cops, all I will.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And this is the same audio after Jasper, Leah and
our new best friend artificial intelligence performed their wizardry. Have
you heard the whispers? Learning heard wister read the cops
and what they're doing and what they're trying to do? Look,
you know yourself, nobody gallant coppers?
Speaker 6 (15:54):
Will I will?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
This journey has made me rethink all the trepidation and
debate surrounding artificial intelligence, particularly in the feel of journalism.
Would AI ultimately replace journalists as we'd been warned? Would
it take over the world. The experience with the Reagan tapes, however,
(16:21):
is an exciting, in this case jaw dropping example of
how AI is far from the bogey man. For the podcast,
it has proved to be a phenomenal tool. You will
soon be hearing a lot of the gangster's ghost as
clear as if the killer himself had pulled up a
(16:43):
chair at your kitchen table and settled down for a
cup of tea and a chat. The first and most
obvious thing for me to do was to go to
(17:03):
Young to meet Kelly. We needed to talk about her
dead gangster cousin, which I guess from the outset made
this something of a ghost story, replete as it was,
with real bullets and bloodshed. Time and again, as Kelly
and I burrowed closer to the truth about this complex man,
(17:27):
strange things happened, ridiculous coincidences and wild strokes of luck.
If you believed in that sort of thing, it was
as if the gangster's ghost was pulling some strings and
guiding our research. Here's Kelly, We're sitting at her kitchen
(17:47):
table at that farm in Young.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
Honestly, I don't know exactly what we'll find. I know
we'll find that he probably killed people. I've accepted that fact.
Will we find did he kill that little boy like
that is? That's something I'd really like to learn, Carlos,
did he or did me? And I'm resigned to the
fact that if he did, Like but I'm hopeful that
(18:16):
they didn't the whiskey of go Go? What was his
involvement in that? Was he a psychopath? Like they said?
Is the stories that they tell about him true?
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Why do you want to know this right now?
Speaker 3 (18:28):
In history?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
It's funny, isn't it, Like when you you know, they
talk about war veterans and all that, and they they
talk about it when they get older, and I think
history you get to a certain age where you just
think you want to know. But I've got a curious mind,
Like I've been a day drama since the day I
was born, and I've got a really curious mind. And
I'm not afraid to you know, I love a chat,
(18:51):
so I'm not afraid to ask questions. And I'm yeah,
just I guess never been in the right time. But again,
like who am I going to do it with? We'd
get boring, wouldn't it? Like who do you share fun with?
Speaker 5 (19:04):
So?
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Yeah, who do you?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Well?
Speaker 4 (19:06):
The most important thing will be to bounce.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Just a quick note here. I really want you to
like Kelly. She's a great laugh, as it turns out,
a ruthless researcher, and as honest as the day is long.
I knew from the outset that I had well a
partner in crime.
Speaker 6 (19:29):
Here, curious min and I'm not afraid.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
That first day I met Kelly and we sat at
her kitchen table. We were awaiting someone else. Margaret Reagan
Johnny's long term some might say long suffering, de facto
wife and mother to three of his children. She was
due at the farm soon. I wondered how much she knew,
(19:59):
not just about the day Johnny Reagan was assassinated, or
even about his criminal career. Did she know anything about
who might have wanted him dead? The seemingly untouchable Stuart
John Reagan, who often wore a bulletproof vest and always
(20:21):
had a bodyguard by his side, was there one minute,
larger than life, and gone the next, a corpse bleeding
out on a Sydney side street. His substantial assets seemed
to have disappeared with him. The so called millionaire gangster
(20:45):
was a violent standover man and a pimp for sex workers,
but he was also a property developer. If the family
has the story right, he owned substantial real estate assets
in New South Wales and Queensland. When he was murdered,
he'd flip houses for a profit. He also had a
(21:07):
taxi in car rental business, and prior to his death
he had developed what may have been the greatest land
scam in Australian history, which we'll examine in detail later
in this podcast.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
What does it say that suddenly all lines of investigation,
query asking questions all stopped upon his death. Well, it's
still an active cold case his murder.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
Well you think so, wouldn't you, because they never closed.
There's no statute of limitations on murder. And here is
one of the biggest gangsters. So who's killed one of
the biggest gangsters? Wouldn't you want to know? Out of
curiosity and with all the talk because over the years
I have spoken to people, I met a guy up
in Nelson's Bay. So what had happened is I was
(21:58):
at the station and a guy brought me in a
scrap book. I can't even remember who he was, and
he said, I just thought you might be interested in
seeing this. I know he was your uncle or your cousin.
I went, oh, right, and I had to look, and
here's the scrapbook of Allah and he brought it in.
So I was sitting out in the meal room and
I was just having a look at it, and it
(22:19):
was just sitting on the table. Now, what's the chances
of Assistant commissioner, former member of the armed hold up squad?
So I've been told pops in and he sees this
thing there and he says, oh, please looking at this
and I said, oh, that's me. And he said, oh,
what's what's your interest in Reagan? And I said, well,
he's my dad's first cousin. Oh, oh, well, I can
(22:41):
put you in contact with someone who can tell you.
So that's when he gave me old mate's number. He said,
I'll meet you at the golf course in Nelson's Bay.
It was real cloak and dagger, and he handed me
a letter that I had to destroy.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
What was the matter.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
It was just sort of saying that, you know, he
knew John, that he'd arrested him, that he was he
went to the hospital when he'd broken Marg's jaw and
tried to get him, tried to get Mard to give
a statement, which you wouldn't give a statement. It was
sort of just about that, and I'm like, is there
anything else? Do you know who killed? No? No, no, no,
no no no? Do you did he kill Carr? Yeah?
(23:15):
Dead set killed that baby. He killed that baby. And
I'm like, oh right, okay, yep, yep, right here, and
then off he went. So every time someone would find
out that my name was Reagan and I was from
young and it was a police officer they and they
were senior, they'd all way, oh, yeah, yeah, do you
know Johnny Reagan? Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah. In the end,
sometimes I'd just say no, no, don't know who talked about, right,
(23:37):
but yeah, it was. It was always there. And so
I asked the senior, like a guy that was a
detective at Newtown at the same time, I said, if
you were there in seventy four, do you remember Stuart
John Ray? Oh yeah, yeah I do. I said, well
he was my cousin. He said, all right. I said,
do you ever know who killed him? He said, well,
we were told that in the area at the time
(23:58):
there was a car with four detective you've seen in it.
They were wearing these bowler hats or something and they
had police coats on. And he said there was always
a whisper that it was Rogerson's first hit.
Speaker 9 (24:08):
Roger Rogerson.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Roger Caleb Rogerson, the notorious former New South Wales police
detective sergeant implicated in killing's assault, verbaling, drug dealing and
corruption during a tumultuous career that saw him both admired
and hated. At his peak from the late nineteen sixties
(24:35):
through to the early nineteen eighties, he associated with all
the corrupt cops and Sydney gangsters that formed Johnny Reagan's millieure.
Rogerson was one of the lead detectives who investigated the
Whisky Go Go nightclub bombing in Brisbane in nineteen seventy three,
(24:56):
which left fifteen people dead. This incredibly brought him into
the orbit of Reagan, but more of that later. Rogerson
became infamous after shooting dead drug dealer Warren Lanfranci. It
(25:17):
was suspected too, that he was involved in the attempted
murder of one of his own colleagues, police officer Michael Drury,
who had refused to take a bribe. Rogerson was dismissed
from the New South Wales Police Force in nineteen eighty six,
hit the pub circuit telling tall stories about his infamous
(25:40):
career before being charged in twenty fourteen with the murder
of Sydney drug dealer Jamie Gow. Rogerson was found guilty
of that crime. He died in Sydney's Long Bay jail.
Last year when he was convinced of the Gow murder.
(26:01):
A Sydney newspaper ran a headline, serial killer with a badge.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
And I said, what do you mean, his first hit?
And they said, since the forties and fifties has always
been a hit man in the cibur. I said, you
can't generation. Yes, I said, you can't be serious. He said, Oh,
the rank and file would never know about it. He said,
but when detectives, when we'd all go out and we'd
all be having a beer and lips would loosen a beer.
He said, there was always talk of that sort of stuff.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Who told you that story?
Speaker 2 (26:31):
The observation that each generation of police might have a
professional killer in its ranks is far from outlandish, given
the history of corruption in the New South Wales Force.
That reputation began with the arrival of the first fleet
in seventeen eighty eight and has never abated. Corruption flourished
(26:54):
in Sydney during the Second World War and became a
fine art in the hands of men like Ray Gunner
Kelly and Fred Froggy Cray. From the nineteen fifties to
the nineteen seventies. Roger Rogerson was part of the new
generation that carried that crooked Batton forward. The Wood Royal
(27:18):
Commission into the New South Wales Police Service between nineteen
ninety five and nineteen ninety seven examined the extent of
corruption in the force. It exposed countless examples of misconduct
and hundreds of officers were forced to resign. Kelly Reagan
(27:39):
was treated with extreme suspicion when she applied to join
the police. A relative of this violent killer wanted to
sign up to keep the peace in New South Wales.
I was interested in whether having Reagan in her family
tree actually inspired Kelly to com that crime. She had
(28:02):
been fascinated with Johnny Reagan since she was a little girl.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
See, the family was always told that he was killed
by police, and it was you know, if they were,
they were very brazen because they used thirty eight's, So
it was always said that they were killed by police. Well,
he was killed by police.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
I don't want to overstretched the metaphor, but in the
one family you've got a toorious gangster and a New
Southwest Police officer.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
I know, don't worry. When I went for my job
interview I was expecting three serving senior serving, but there
was five on the panel and that's mostly all they
asked for about. So Kelly Reagan from young Yep, what's
your relationship to Stuart John Reagan? Well, I never met him.
(28:52):
Here's my dad's cousin. And then it was just question
after question after question.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Do you think you became an officer because you had
an arch villain in the family.
Speaker 6 (29:01):
No. A maide of mine joined and she dared me,
and I thought, ye, why not? As a kid grow
I've always wanted to be in the mound of police
working in the state bank, do I? And she was
at the NAB in Brooklab and we're live in together,
and she joined and she said, yeah, it's super easy
get in, all right? So put performed in the next
(29:22):
thing I'm in.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I guess one of the things we're going to have
to target is why there is so little information about them?
Is what has what the flow of information about Stuart
John Reagan. There's books on learning person, George Freeman, Abe Saffroum,
you name it. There is almost nothing on Reagan.
Speaker 6 (29:47):
And nowadays there is podcasts and this podcast on everything
to do with crooks and gangsters, isn't it like Melbourne?
If you even got arrested for a break in any
you've got a podcast on about you. But in Sydney
you've got the same players. But here you've got someone
who's supposed to be one of Sydney's biggest, most notorious gangsters,
(30:08):
and you've got sickery do squad boy, you've got the
same rhetoric as what's been marched out psychopath as a
child killed, the child killed, Ruddy Clark signed his death
Barrit got.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Only two people were ever truly on the inside when
it came to Reagan, Margaret and Reagan's mother, Claire Claire
Mary raul Reagan outlived her son and only child by
fourteen years, and she's been resting in the Catholic lawn
(30:47):
section of Sydney's Rookwood Cemetery Plot two six' five three
Since september nineteen eighty. Eight after just a couple of
days In young and talking to The reagan, family it
soon became a parent that this story had another shadowy,
figure and that Was Claire, reagan a figure so malevolent
(31:13):
that to this day she is still reviled In. Young back,
then everyone called her The colonel by all, accounts she was, manipulative, controlling, violent,
intimidating and. Cruel she horsewhipped her son and terrified his
(31:38):
teachers at the Local catholic. SCHOOL i Asked kelly about
the family's view Of reagan's childhood and the colonel childhood
and young.
Speaker 6 (31:51):
LOOK i think it was tough with his. Mother she
was a. Tyrant she was. Cruel she would flog him.
Mercilessly the other kids were terrified of the brothers at
the school were terrified over when when he got hurt one,
day they sent the kids over to tell her because
they were terrified of her and the. Brothers you know
what the brothers could be. Like and then you, know
but he also had really good. Friends he enjoyed his you,
(32:14):
know he had a great. Imagination he played down on
the creek bed and at, school you, know they all
thought he was a lovely. Kid all his friends loved.
Him but she was. Cruel she was, Cruel she was a.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Monster we would soon be learning all about this. Monster
around the kitchen table In kelly And rod's. Farmhouse just
the mention of the colonel triggered fevered.
Speaker 6 (32:39):
Debate they think that that's what happens in everyone's head.
Exactly they tell anyone they, think they think that's. Commonplace
that's what.
Speaker 9 (32:47):
Happened so the sort of control that The colonel had
her Son, john it's so complete that the total control
is terrified to.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Me and he would always he.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Could never please.
Speaker 6 (33:05):
Her oh, yeah because you just want to.
Speaker 10 (33:07):
Please that's like when When David patterson talks about the
story of Taking john down to his mother because he'd
been had His Paul.
Speaker 6 (33:22):
Gibson it's punched him and he had a bleeding nose
and she got a dirty rag off the, thing wiped
it and, said now go back and before you came,
home make sure he's bleeding worse than what you. Were
and this.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
We would discover many curious and appalling things about the
colonel and her strange magnetic hold on her Son, stewart
about his childhood in young his alcoholic, father alf the
marriage breakup that Saw claire and Little johnny move To,
(34:12):
sydney and a Teenage reagan's descent into serious. Crime then
there's the enduring family rumor that When Claire reagan went
to live In, sydney she actually ran a few prostitutes
out of the house In, Liverpool, Street darlinghurst to.
Speaker 6 (34:34):
Survive the family never liked her at, all but there
was always this thing that she Got johnny into crime
because when she went To, sydney that she ran girls,
herself and he stood over those girls that she.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Ran so the story in the family is That Claire,
reagan when she left young and left her Husband alf
took her young son To sydney and they ended up
settling In, Livero Bull street And. Darlinghurst and the word
in the family was that she ran essentially a small
brothel to make, it to make.
Speaker 6 (35:07):
It, yep that's WHAT i always remember is that she
was the one that got him into that side of the.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
GAME i, mean if, that if that was just a wild,
rumor why did it persist in the family?
Speaker 10 (35:20):
Law?
Speaker 6 (35:22):
Oh one hundred. Percent and this is like it's always
been the same stories repeated over and over and over.
Again so far as that she had she'd run the,
brothels and that he'd worked for her and that's how
he got started in.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
It, well but.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
First we had to meet Marg Johnny reagan's de facto,
wife mother to his Daughters helen And claire and to
their Son John. Junior could she take us inside the
world of the last Of sydney's old time gangsters during
(35:56):
his heyday in the nineteen. Sixties could she help us
understand his murderous, temper his taste for, violence and why
history would attach anywhere up to twelve murders to his,
name including an innocent three year old. Boy and what
(36:19):
happened on that last day When, reagan unarmed and, unprotected
was a gunned down, mercilessly with one of the killers
delivering a final point blank headshot to make sure the
boy From cherrytown was well and truly. DEAD i had
(36:39):
a frank discussion With kelly about what marg might or
might not decide to tell. Us, cooperative you think by her,
nature she, might like most, people hold something. Back what
do you reckon.
Speaker 6 (36:53):
During mark's formative, years she's With, john and you know
the skills she's being taught by him is, it's you,
know to say, nothing to keep your mouth, Shut just
keep your mouth. Shut SO i THINK i think she
really wants to to open and tell all that she.
Knows but but you, know there's still that. Thing imagine
If anie marg did know something and then she tells
(37:15):
the family like that's you, know the backlash to that
that she would perceive would be. Huge SO i think
she'll tell. US i think she wants to tell, us
BUT i don't know if she'll get over the.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Line, well why do you think after all these decades
she's she has agreed to talk to us?
Speaker 6 (37:33):
Now, WELL i think partly because well she you, know
she loves, Us she loves. Us The reagan side don't
know she. Does what does she? Know like she lived with,
him she had three children with, Him, yes, yeah, hard hard.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
One and you.
Speaker 6 (37:52):
Know you get to a certain age where you just
want TO i just want to, talk LIKE i think
at that age now where she probably does want to
and she sees how PASSIONATE i am about.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
It do you think she still has a residue of?
Speaker 6 (38:07):
Fear, NO i think she's as tough as old.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Bootstraps now that, Afternoon Mark reagan arrived with one of her.
Daughters she hadn't been too young in many. Years now
in her, seventies you could still see the stunning good
looks that had Attracted Johnny reagan all those years ago
(38:31):
In Sydney's King's, cross where he worked as a bouncer
on the door of The Whisky Go go nightclub In Williams.
Street The slaters And reagans fired up the, barbie and
later we set up microphones At kelly's long kitchen, table
the scene of so many family, gatherings to begin our
(38:52):
interviews With. Marg the family started to drift out of the,
room But marg stop. Them she wanted them around her
when she. Talked she didn't want to do this. Alone, NO.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
I don't want to keep repeating myself for. Everybody it's best,
said everyone's. Here, okay that's. GREAT i want that you're
not putting me. Off you don't put me. OFF i
got emotional WHEN i talk about my. Father, Okay so
(39:32):
for me to do, this you won't have to ask
me what. HAPPENED i know you guys know what happened
Because i've explained it to, Her but the lights Of
daniel And jeffrey and they don't. KNOW i have a boy, Here,
daniel that asked me, today what DID i say with this?
Me i'm going to tell YOU i Told. Daniel AND
(39:55):
i appreciate That daniel was mean enough and strong enough
to ask me that, question because that means there's appearing
person there in that person that wants to know what really, happened,
okay and this is Why i'm doing, This, Okay so
what do you want to lear?
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Now in the next episode Of The Gangster's, ghost we
take you Inside reagan's earliest years in Country New South
wales and the rocky relationship between his mismatched.
Speaker 6 (40:30):
Parents that marriage never had a, chance and we.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Find another monster lurking in the shadows of this, Story
reagan's own, mother the formidable and Feared, claire known to
all as The.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Colonel she belted him hat with a Stockwet she drove
him home like he was at least so he had a.
Speaker 6 (40:54):
Tough, mother a, tough tough.
Speaker 11 (40:56):
Lady The Gangster's ghost is a production Of The. Australian
it's written and presented by senior Writer Matthew condon and
(41:17):
produced and edited by multimedia Editor leat Samaglu Our executive
producer Is, Me editorial Director Claire. Harvey special thanks To Lara,
Kamenos Erica, Rutlidge Kristin, Amiot Jasper, Leik Stephanie, Coombs Sean Callanan,
Laughlin Clear Ryan, Osland Amanda Winnie, Williams Christine, Kelle Tarren,
Blackhurst Magdalena, Zajack Gisel, Buetti Genevieve, Brammel Lauren, Bruce Sus
(41:40):
rolf And Jachini. Carlson we can only do journalism like
this with the support OF us, subscribers who hear episodes
first and get full access to, photos, video news stories and,
features plus All australia's best journalism twenty four to. Seven
join us At gangstersghost dot com dot.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
Au.
Speaker 12 (42:02):
Sing st st sting st st st st st start
(42:35):
st
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