June 19, 2025 • 67 mins
In this episode, Regan’s de facto partner Marg reveals the truth behind life with a man who was transforming from scallywag to a full-blown criminal. He introduces her to some of the top gangsters of the day. Meanwhile, Regan becomes a suspect in a gangland killing and comes under almost permanent police scrutiny. Matt and Kelly track down Regan’s longstanding solicitor hoping for a goldmine of information about The Magician but things don’t go to plan. Meanwhile, Regan, pursues whistleblowing vice queen Shirley Brifman who flees Sydney for Brisbane in fear for her life, and senses some big business opportunities in the Sunshine State.
Read more about this case and see photographs, videos, timelines and more at gangstersghost.com.au
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Before we begin.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
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 a U.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I think his life changed, He changed completely. Sometimes in
life greed and money and to be powerful came me
into his world. I think that he loved it. He
loved what he was doing. He loved the sense that
he was mixing at those people. So biggest SMIs stata
(00:49):
you have made in his life.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
This is Margaret Reagan, the gangster's widow. In the fifty
years since Stuart John Reagan was murdered by three, possibly
four gunmen in the back streets of Marrickville in Sydney,
Mark has never spoken publicly about Johnny, about the gangster life,
(01:21):
about Reagan's association with some of the most dangerous criminals
of his era. She was with him for more than
ten years, through the most volatile period of his career,
to an hour or so before his death. She had
three children with him, and she has never in her
(01:41):
own words spoken out of school. Today, she still finds
it difficult to understand why he changed from a decent
young man to thug and petty crook to a violent mobster.
She still wrestles with it. She saw the monster coming
(02:03):
in the late nineteen sixties. It all started at home,
behind closed doors. And it's still incredibly painful for marg.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, a good person when it was good. But if
he was angry and things like that, which I've seen
several occasions, I can honestly say that I had not
experiencing one occasion that he beat me. To forgive me
when he hit me. Beating me beat me was that
early on, but that time ran about that time.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
What happened when he struck you in that incident? What happened?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
You're not listening to me. I want you to do this.
I can't remember what was about. I can't even remember.
And he struck me across the first Yeah, and I
ended up needing.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Anything broken.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
No, and I'll have him at my bed betting mean
to fitness. And I also had a policeman come and say,
you told you now I know who did this to you.
I don't know what you're talking about. We had to
need to survive. That was my life. I was taught
you've got nothing to say and look at number plates
(03:15):
in the back of my revision. Just to go out
on an ordinary day out, that was my life.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
But you didn't grow up in a criminal lawn. Did
you have to just adapt to that life?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yes, and you know the reason why. I'll probably put
up with it for so long. You can't walk away
from people like this. I want you to say that
I know the real truth. I know what. I love him,
and he wasn't by someone like it. He wasn't he
(03:51):
became that person. Power and money does a lot of
things to tchange people's lives.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
So in that Paddington house, how long did you stay there?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Not long? I've always stood my peace. I learned to
speak up. I knew my limits because I won't pass
the limits. He could have done anything, you know what
I mean. But I knew my limits and I thought,
I'm God, I got nothing to do it. He would
chase me, he would please, please please. I'm sorry I
(04:23):
didn't turn up. I'm sorry I didn't do this. I'm
sorry I didn't do it. And when this went on
for so I really didn't have a real time because.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
You are bright.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
I'm journalist Matthew Condon and This is the Gangster's Ghost,
a podcast from The Australian. This podcast started out as
a clinical look at one of Australia's most reviled gangsters,
but when the Reagan family came on board, the project
took on another dimension and begged the question how does
(05:43):
a family cope with the generational stain of a murderer
whose death was celebrated by criminals and police alike.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
This is episode six heat.
Speaker 7 (06:15):
A man known as Big Barry was found yesterday with
four bullet wounds in his head in jungle like undergrowth
in Paddington. Police said the man, Barry Leonard Flock, twenty eight,
had told a friend he had been marked down for
execution by the underworld a week ago. His body was
discovered yesterday just before noon by a woman she was
(06:36):
exercising her dog in an extensive area of undergrowth part
of the Scottish Hospital. Police believe Flock was lured or
forced to march at gunpoint by his killer or killers
into the thick undergrowth. Flock apparently put up his hands
as the bullet smashed into him.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
It's Monday, January sixteenth, nineteen sixty seven, and Sydney has
woken to what appears to be another ruthless gangland killing.
The city is getting used to this sort of carnage.
One newspaper at the time asked why the city had
turned into Chicago with its open display of gangster carnage,
(07:19):
and how come Sydney's mobsters were suddenly qualified for honorary
citizenship of the Windy City in the United States. On
that Monday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Barry Flock
was a nurse cleaner and minor King's Cross identity who,
(07:40):
at one hundred and eighty eight centimeters tall and one
hundred and one kilograms in wait, worked as a bouncer
for various gambling dens and nightclubs. He had somehow been
lured into the undergrowth near the hospital and murdered.
Speaker 7 (07:56):
The report went on, baller entered his head, including one
that first passed through his left hand near the right
index finger. Detectives described the murder as a typically callous
underworld execution.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Stuart John Reagan was quickly suspected of the killing. The
public record shows that this may have been his first murder.
It was just four months since his twenty first birthday
at Chequer's nightclub with mob boss Paddles Anderson. There were
several good reasons for police to think Reagan was the shooter. Firstly,
(08:41):
Flock was murdered just a couple of streets away from
Reagan's mother's place at fifty one Liverpool Street on a
still night. The colonel and auntie Thelma could have virtually
heard the shots from their modest terrace, two blocks southwest
of the murder scene. Secondly, newspaper reports said Reagan was
(09:04):
well acquainted with the dense scrub land near the old hospital.
This was from the Sun newspaper.
Speaker 8 (09:14):
When John Reagan was a little boy, he had a
favorite hideout where the shrubs grew thick and the grass long,
a tiny jungle in the heart of Sydney. His private
world was a wasteland in the grounds of the Scottish Hospital.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Given Reagan spent his childhood in young New South Wales.
Seen beside the point. What was factual was that Flock had,
in the weeks leading up to his death, gotten caught
up in a business deal gone wrong with Reagan. Flock
had been working at a health studio in Bondai on
(09:50):
the recommendation of Reagan. The owner, Missus X, as the
newspapers called her, had employed him with reservations. She did
it as a favor to Reagan. At one point, Missus
X had given Flock eight hundred dollars to look after.
(10:11):
Reagan would later say Flock spent the money. Flock would
tell Missus X he had given it to Reagan. Someone
was lying. Reagan denied Flock's assertions. Reagan's heavies started harassing him.
Flock lived with his wife and daughter in London Street,
(10:34):
Enmore in Sydney's in a West, and at one point
the family temporarily fled to the safety of a friend's
house after being threatened. But what was the big deal
over a paltry eight hundred dollars here's the sun again.
Speaker 8 (10:57):
Naturally, Reagan was pulled in for questioning over Flock's death.
He told detectives that although he had arranged to meet
Flock at Victoria Barracks, he'd been with a bird and forgot.
When he did remember, he had telephone Flock and called
off the meeting. It was all very suspicious, and detectives
are now sure Reagan killed Big.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Barry Mark remembers Flock, thank you John of murdering Barry
flap Ye what do you think.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Of that you knew Arry?
Speaker 5 (11:27):
What?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yes? I did just now new Thocott.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
And John's relationship with him.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Oh, I could see you, as I say, Nothing was
ever discussing me. Nothing I could not see to you,
and so honestly dont to you all I would as
I heard any conversations about what he was doing or whatever.
Obviously he's out there doing it, that wouldn't relate to me.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Reagan was not charged with the murder, but according to
Reagan's official consorting records, he was being watched very closely
by police. The heat was on. Police noted he'd been
seen driving around in a sky blue nineteen sixty six
Jaguar registration EDZ double four to three. Two months later,
(12:20):
police observed him getting about town in a gun metal
gray nineteen sixty three Jaguar registration e k F nine
seven six Business. It seemed was good for Reagan. In
the months after Flock's murder, Reagan was in and out
(12:42):
of court for various matters, including consorting and possession of
an unlicensed pistol, and always by his side was his
dutyful lawyer Michael Seymour. As marg told us, no one
was closer to John than Seymour. Seymour was one of
(13:06):
a handful of people who Reagan trusted, but who was he.
With the police heat intensifying on Reagan, he needed virtually
a lawyer on tap. He found one by proxy in
the mid nineteen sixties. Michael Thomas Seymour was a young
(13:27):
solicitor doing his articles for the Sydney law firm Lang
and Anderson. When that practice dissolved, Seymour inherited one of
their more colorful clients, Stuart John Reagan. They got on instantly.
As far as Seymour knew Reagan had tow truck and
(13:47):
panel beating businesses. He thought Reagan, despite having little education,
was intelligent, enterprising, and ambitious. Seymour remained Reagan's confidante and
legal counsel until his client's murder in nineteen seventy four.
(14:07):
Seymour was struck off in the early nineteen eighties and
worked in later years as a migration agent. We'll come
to that later. Whichever way you looked at it, Seymour
would be a treasure trove of information about Reagan and
his life and times. Given Reagan's numerous prosecutions, Seymour had
(14:30):
the inside rail on how Reagan's mind worked, especially under pressure.
More importantly, he might even have a good idea about
who murdered his gangster client, if only we could get
even a fraction of what he knew held inside that
(14:51):
legal safety deposit box known as lawyer client privilege. Kelly
and I wondered if Seymour was even still alive. If so,
he'd have to be in his late seventies or possibly
nudging his eighties. So Kelly set out to find him,
(15:13):
and a few months later she phoned in, Okay.
Speaker 9 (15:18):
So I've got a bit of exciting news. I've just
got an email come up on my phone that says
Michael Seymour has sent me a message.
Speaker 10 (15:27):
So I'm just going to go into it now.
Speaker 9 (15:29):
And have a look at what that message is and
see if I have actually found Michael Seymour that was
John's solicitor.
Speaker 10 (15:40):
How exciting if it is, Like, how cool would that be?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Kelly had sent an initial message to a Michael Seymour
explaining that she was Reagan's cousin and that she and
Mark wanted to reach out to him. Was he, in fact,
the Michael Seymour who was Reagan's solicitor in the namenineteen
sixties and seventies.
Speaker 9 (16:04):
And he's just replied to me and said, wow, that
well that is a blaster in the past. Yes, I
was John Reagan's lawyer and would be interested in talking
to marg And then gave all these contact details let
me know where he's resided and said thanks for the message.
Speaker 10 (16:21):
So how exciting.
Speaker 9 (16:23):
I mean, great if my auntie mag gets to speak
to Michael. But I'd just love to speak to him.
Like for me, that's as close as I'm going to
get to speaking to John, Like he would.
Speaker 8 (16:35):
Know so much.
Speaker 9 (16:35):
Whether he wants to talk or not, I'm not sure,
but you know, just finding him was pretty is pretty cool.
So I found him.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
By Seymour is mentioned numerous times in Reagan's secret tapes.
The gangster clearly held him in high regard, so much
so that Reagan didn't hesitate to wreck amend him to
friends in trouble with the law.
Speaker 11 (17:04):
You know you've got a good defense for this down
make a statement of SayMore and say that's the reason
why you're fined. Get that Ora Worseley. But everything worsely
says then and say more statement And that's the India case.
You know that Dadger he down to discussed it all right,
if you can tie that day on, even if the
Copple just says it to you from him's way after
(17:26):
your mat if he just says it to you and
you make a statement about it, the same work and
down take steps. You gotta get a barrister. They are
going to give you a sea. Get it by called
dayson w kill oh barrister my days he killed?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
And whatever?
Speaker 12 (17:44):
Mate?
Speaker 11 (17:45):
What's his lying? You keep saying More a solicitor man
because he's the best solicit in Australia. I'm not kidding me.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
After many weeks of negotiation, see More agreed to meet me,
Kelly and marg for lunch at his favorite Chinese restaurant
in Castle Hill in outer northwestern Sydney. Kelly and I
discussed the lunch meeting and tried to work out a strategy.
(18:19):
So Simour says, and it's interesting because the second time
he's mentioned this. But he says at the end of
the email, let's see what the podcast can flush out.
He says, it's a dangerous exercise. He's used that exact
phrase twice in the last month. Then he says, but
at my age of eighty years, nothing bothers me anymore.
So I think we've hit a sweet spot with him, thankfully. Yeah,
(18:41):
it's going to be incredible.
Speaker 13 (18:43):
I love the one above it where he says, I
don't know if any of the police involved in the
matters are still on this planet or not, but if alive,
would be in their eighties and on the home run,
carrying the ailment of aging along with possible type two
diabetes and a guilty conscience, praying their sins of the
past will.
Speaker 10 (18:59):
Never catch up them, at least on this earth. It's interesting,
is it?
Speaker 9 (19:03):
Because but this is exactly what my father said to
me at the very beginning when I first said I
was going to contact you, and Dad's like, oh, just
be really careful, like and I said, tongue in cheek, Oh, Dad,
anybody around it?
Speaker 10 (19:16):
We chasing us on scooters Like I reckon. I can
outrun a scooter.
Speaker 14 (19:20):
It's interesting that Michael has probably said to me in texts,
probably four or five times, it's dangerous. I'm not seeing
the danger probably from the same level as he is.
I'm probably thinking he's paranoid, but his car was shot up.
Speaker 10 (19:35):
He lived in there.
Speaker 9 (19:35):
He got run through the mill like he stood up
to them, and the constant dialogue of fear is relevant.
Don't you reckon like these people wielded an unyielding knife
like it's just.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
The Chinese restaurant was the type you find right across
suburban Australia. The round tables, white tablecloths, the lazy Susan,
the center packed to the rafters and busy with chatter
and the clinking of plates and cutlery. Seymour was there
before we arrived. He was the opposite of what I expected.
(20:15):
I had somehow frozen him in time and thought we'd
be met by a youngish man in a good suit,
a loyally type, perhaps, with dark hair and horn rimmed glasses.
Instead we were met by an old man in a
short sleeved shirt, shorts and long socks, with disheveled gray hair.
(20:39):
He looked like any pensioner out for some spring rolls
and a bowl of sweet and sour pork. One thing
I wasn't disappointed with he talked a big game. His
language was slightly formal and jam packed with legal ease.
Though he hadn't just in New South Wales for forty years.
(21:05):
He was a little bit haughty. He had with him
a shopping bag containing some documents. The restaurant was incredibly noisy,
but for a while Seymour delved back into the past.
I asked him how he first came to legally represent
(21:25):
Reagan a warning. When we talked, we were surrounded by
dozens of other eager dynas John first became a pie.
Speaker 15 (21:35):
I think I read briefly in here that the company
you were working for dissolved and Reagan was on their books.
Speaker 16 (21:43):
But I was like the law clerk who Langy did
commercial work. Anderson came into the last year that I
was there. Anderson work with Phil Roach got good experience
(22:06):
in Pimmelwell, so.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
This is nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Four. How old were you then?
Speaker 16 (22:14):
I was a minute to practice February sixty five?
Speaker 5 (22:23):
How old were you more than forty two? So your
early twenties. So I was a young feller.
Speaker 16 (22:36):
Now Anderson was leaving the firm to go to the bar.
Anderson was a bit slippery in my view when he
talked to you. It's bent over and Phil correct harshires
free quiet Reagan wanted to follow me.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
But how did you become acquainted legally?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Initially? Was it through the law Phil.
Speaker 16 (23:00):
The FIV firm was pg le FEV and I agreed
to act for John on the right case in which
Tony Boleno and dars Anderson appeared. It was a trial
the dowling Hurst and not not killed him.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Uh after that?
Speaker 13 (23:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 16 (23:26):
When about that time John was charged with being a
possession of und licensed pistol?
Speaker 15 (23:31):
Did you appear for John from the unlicensed pistol charge?
Speaker 5 (23:36):
He was arrested take the Downinghurst.
Speaker 16 (23:40):
I went up there he was arrested and I said, no,
he's upstairs being interviewed. I wait downstairs? Whe hours? Do
I know who I was? And so you know I am,
for quite sake, my client's upstairs. So then after they
leave John wasn't but upstairs they had taken him somewhere else.
(24:04):
I think there was an unsigned regular interview with the
verbal yeah whatever. So we were able to show that
the police officer's diaries and their notebooks didn't correspond in
like two the four detectives who picked him up from
two interviewed him.
Speaker 5 (24:24):
Who had the running of the case.
Speaker 16 (24:27):
That was before one of the few motor strikes that
understood reasonable doubt. One document in Evers shot doing a fortune,
so he was acquitted on that.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Seymour clearly recalled that Reagan would often wear bulletproof vests.
He remembered the assassination attempt on Reagan by Stuart and
Finch outside Barrick Motors in Paddington in late nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
There were no love lies between Finch John.
Speaker 16 (25:02):
Because at Barrack Motors one day in broad daylight, since
she called a revolver on John badly shared him. I
just missed the bullet record showed off.
Speaker 12 (25:17):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
Finch took off. John took off another rocky drying put
in finding.
Speaker 16 (25:27):
Later Finch was chart with the Cptain murder ncamuson be
the ACRA. I said I can't, I said, yeah, Sharp
and client to kill Tyne.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
We wanted to know what Reagan was like when, as
Mark observed, his personality changed when the monster stepped out
of the shadows, when he was in and out of
police stations like well, a dish on a lazy Susan
in a suburb in Chinese restaurant.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
And how was how did he strike you?
Speaker 4 (26:06):
In those early years as.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
A like he was a likable fellow.
Speaker 12 (26:12):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
He regali intelligence.
Speaker 16 (26:17):
Ever on his guard, seeful of being loaded up by
the police. He didn't keep the best of company in
the underworld. But in reputations, what.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Was his reputation?
Speaker 5 (26:32):
Firstim to be feared physical violence?
Speaker 16 (26:38):
Yeah, I suppose, but he was only convicted of one
fun of song, which was interesting case.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
How the pencil self defense. The beginning of that was that.
Speaker 16 (26:52):
Reagan was I think of bouncing in a nightclub with
King's Christian and the closing time came, people asked to leave.
There was a bunch of Google slabs who refused to go.
They went, and I think Regan obviously made some remarks
about them. And then the place is closing down and
back come about up. A dozen Yugoslavs were the belting.
(27:18):
He tells, well, he's on the stage up there with
a chair. Kevino was bay And then whilst that if
you all was occurring, someone finds the police and the
police arrived.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
That's it. So Reagan thought, I'll get.
Speaker 16 (27:34):
One of these guys one day. So a few years
later he was in a restaurant and he tells me
that he saw one of those blogs that assaulted him
and threatened him. So his defense was, I walked up
to the tables to excuse me. I think you were
(27:55):
the person who threatened assaulted me some time go. Where
upon the Yugoslas get stuffed and sap John John retaliate
the Crown's case was up. Came John, grab a lot
of scup of the neck and said you are so
and who tried to belt me with six other Ligoslavs whacked.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
There was a difference in the evidence.
Speaker 16 (28:20):
By the time I didn't got up the trial, John
was a bit bigger, he flying up a bit.
Speaker 5 (28:27):
He looked pretty tough.
Speaker 16 (28:29):
Basically before a jury over against yugoslav The jury convicted him.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
He got tour bucks.
Speaker 17 (28:36):
Hyeah and.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Seymour had other amusing but relatively innocuous anecdotes about Reagan.
He was more preoccupied with his own legal difficulties. In
the wake of Reagan's death, which saw him struck off.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported the following. On Thursday April fifteenth,
(29:02):
nineteen eighty.
Speaker 18 (29:03):
Two, a solicitor alleged to have been involved in check forgery,
bail offenses and land fraud was struck from the role
of solicitors yesterday for professional misconduct. The Court of Appeal
made the order against Michael Thomas Seymour. Seymour did not
defend the action, and the joint application by the Law
(29:26):
Society and the Prothonotory of the Supreme Court to have
him struck off was heard exparte. The President of the
Court of Appeal, Justice Moffatt, said evidence against Seymour on
any one of four matters in the summons would have
been sufficient to warrant his being struck off.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
One of these matters reached way back to nineteen seventy
three seventy four and his client Johnny Reagan. The Paper wrote.
Speaker 18 (29:55):
In the fourth matter, it was alleged that Seymour was
an active particip and knowingly participated in a scheme set
up by John Stuart Reagan, then a well known criminal
for whom Seymour acted and with whom it was alleged
he was associated in another company.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
In the end, the three presiding Justices unanimously ordered that
Seymour be struck off over our lunch. I was keen
to quiz Seymour on Reagan's famous so called land scams,
the subject of the fourth matter. In his hearing before
the Court of Appeal forty years earlier. The scam involved
(30:37):
buying up cheap blocks of land in country areas and
falsely advertising them as fully sewered and electrified parcels with
astonishing views and access to great facilities. Will examine Reagan's
scam in detail in an upcoming episode of the podcast.
But as far as Michael Seymour was concerned, it was legit.
(31:00):
It admit real estate business.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
Luckily, I.
Speaker 16 (31:05):
Invested wisely in real estate and to build luck and
the gay mugs.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
But the pressure on all these things that builds up
in terms of your own legal votes.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
But the land, the land hers themselves, that was a scam, right.
Speaker 16 (31:23):
No, no, no, they were legitimate transactions. He got titled
and he conveyed titland.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
Now detective too.
Speaker 16 (31:35):
He just running my notes again this morning, Sill he
come to seemly, uh said, I want to interview about
Brigand's land transactions.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
And so I've had to talk you such a use
lad of professional privilege. Oh we'll just fraud here. Yeah,
I see.
Speaker 16 (31:54):
If you charge you with a fraud, I can tell
you now you'll fail and I'll be shoving you for
malicious prosecution. He then said oh, but I discovered here
that he said, I have no a bit about the law.
I'm starting law of just about finish the bab He
said he's sold some blocks of land before he had title.
(32:17):
I said, well, you don't understand what the law is.
He'd taken the contract to buy before he'd settled on
the purchase. He has a legal right to convey that
right to someone else.
Speaker 15 (32:31):
I've interviewed a couple of people in Queensland who were
involved in this sales adventure up around Harvey Bay and
around regions like that, and I've spoken to one of
the head salesman essentially contracted out by John to sell
blocks of land that they'd acquired of council. And there
(32:56):
were advertisements placed in Sydney newspapers in relation to this
is a phenomenal purchase, the use of the beach major
shopping center going up next year.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
All of it false. As he admitted to.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
Me, if you enter into a.
Speaker 16 (33:15):
Contract of sale to buy a property, he could either
as sign your interest in that or sell to a
third party pending completion of the title that you're in
the process of acquiring. There's done a lot when people
are moving home and they were to buy and sell
(33:35):
at the same time, and.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
That was that.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Besides, he had another matter he wanted to discuss. This
is what stunned the table in that Chinese restaurant that day.
Seymour claimed that a on Reagan's death, his client owed
him about seven thousand dollars in outstanding legal bills. Given
(34:10):
the amount of research and effort he'd acquitted prior to
our lunch meeting, and as recompense for his future involvement
in The Gangster's Ghost, he thought it only fair that
he be paid ten thousand dollars that at the very
least would square Reagan's ledger, even though the debt had
(34:33):
allegedly been outstanding for half a century. We set our
farewells to Michael Seymour and left the restaurant and then
Castle Hill on the plane back home North. I thought
this should not be surprising, because we have ventured into
(34:54):
the world of Stuart John Reagan. No matter how many
years have passed, was still outstanding monetary debts, moral debts,
debts to historical accuracy, debts to the truth. Kell and
I discussed the extraordinary meeting with mister Seymour. I mean,
(35:16):
from my point of view, and probably both of ours,
because we've been researching this for so long. The name
Michael Seymour became almost mythical in that we knew he
was very close to John right up to his death,
had legally represented him for about nine years from about
nineteen sixty five sixty six. So we were highly excited
(35:38):
to meet a man who we thought would have all
this incredible knowledge in his head right, and.
Speaker 10 (35:43):
I thought he'd be keeper of the gate, like you know.
Speaker 19 (35:46):
He told Arnie Margie had documents, and then he tells
us he's got nothing.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Yeah, So then Mark and I showed up and absolutely
not what I expected. And he did produce some Manila
folders of some scattered documents. A lot of them were
to do with him defending himself having been struck off
in about nineteen eighty two and then losing a defamation
(36:13):
action against the ABC in the early to mid eighties.
So a lot of the documents were how he had
been hardly done by and decisions were incorrect and it
had essentially ruined his life.
Speaker 19 (36:24):
But he couldn't even get our names right, Like he
was giving me Marg's documents. Here you go, Marg, And
she wasn't even there and I'm like, no, no, I'm Kelly.
Speaker 10 (36:31):
Marg's the old girl.
Speaker 20 (36:32):
Like I think.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
When we got down to wanting to actually talk about
why we were there, and that was to get the
inside rail on Johnny Reagan, everything seemed to be a
little bit blurry.
Speaker 10 (36:44):
Well it was just weird. Like you spot on, his
recollection of himself was on point. But what strun me was,
you know, John and I were close and yeah, you know,
we had a working relationship, but we were close, and
you know, he had no father, so you know, I
tried to guide him and get him into legitimate businesses
and everything. But all he did was call him Reagan.
(37:05):
The whole time. He called him Reagan Reagan, and there
was no he was blaming. There was. It was like
he was talking about someone he'd met for five minutes.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Yeah, whether he was intentionally just being on his guard
with us. It was our first meeting with him, Yeah,
but not Mark. You know, Marg said that they'd had
a real terrific relationship from when he was Reagan's solicitor
up until Reagan's death. When Seymour simply and totally disappeared
from the scene, Off the Reagan scene, he didn't go
(37:37):
to the funeral.
Speaker 10 (37:38):
Didn't go the inquest, didn't talk.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
To marg until only a few months ago. I mean,
you know, listeners to this podcast have heard people we've
interviewed who were involved in the selling of those properties.
So it was exactly what it was. But Seymour is
standing his ground on that. But also what came out
of the meeting and has persisted now for some weeks
(38:03):
is incredibly Michael Seymour is asking for restitution of Johnny
Reagan's unpaid legal bills dating from the late nineteen sixties.
Speaker 10 (38:19):
Yes, E would produced the invoice.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
The invoice and has imposed upon us what he considers
not an unreasonable demand, and that is ten thousand dollars
to settle the Reagan account. Yes, and then photocopying in binders,
and with that money in his account, he'll then assist us.
Speaker 10 (38:42):
Yes, bless Yes.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
In the wake of the Flock murder in early nineteen
sixty seven, Reagan had a phenomenally busy year engaging with
police and the courts. He was a marked man, shadowed
relentlessly by detectives. Month after month. He faced a string
of charges which included possession of an unlicensed pistol, consorting
(39:12):
obtaining property by forged instrument, false pretenses, stealing, driving in
a dangerous manner, negligent driving, assault and robbery, uninsured vehicle conspiracy,
intimidating a witness, assault, and conspiracy to pervert and defeat
(39:34):
the course of justice. Then a milestone occurred in Reagan's life.
On December sixth, nineteen sixty seven, his partner marg gave
birth to their first child, John Patrick Reagan. He would
become known within the family as JP. At this precise time, however,
(40:00):
new father Johnny was in and out of jail for
the first time in his career. You'll remember back in
episode one when he introduced you to Reagan's secretly recorded
telephone conversations and how the tapes were hidden for years
in a suitcase. Well, not only did that suitcase contain
(40:22):
the clandestine recordings, it also held several documents. One of
those was a handwritten letter Reagan sent to his mother
from jail. It was dated September seven, nineteen sixty eight.
Little JP was just nine months old. The letter provides
(40:44):
an incredible insight into not just his interests and preoccupations,
but his manic state of mind. Here's some extracts from
that two page letter.
Speaker 21 (40:57):
Dear Mum, sorry no male. Recently, could Arnie and yourself
please send me out two books for my birthday, A
self Hypnosis by Joan Bradden and b Raji Yoga. These
books could be attained from Dimmick's Bookstore, George Street City
or Graham's Bookstore. I suggest you ring these bookstores and
(41:18):
give the authors et cetera, and they will inquire et
cetera and set aside for you, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Reagan then immediately pivots to business matters.
Speaker 21 (41:28):
Tell solicitor Tom to give your diamonds to you. Also
ask solicitor how much for woodwood QC. So far please, m'am,
this is important. Also, get solicitor to come out and
see me about four hundred pounds off a friend of mine.
This is important, and he hasn't visited me yet. If
he doesn't come soon, I will lose the four hundred
pounds priority.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Another sudden shift of focus, this time from urgent business
to personal issues involving some mysterious woman not is to
facto Margaret.
Speaker 21 (42:04):
I hope you don't think for a minute I'll marry
Joe or anyone else. I don't intend to get married
till I am at least twenty six or twenty seven
and a lot more experienced. Please Mum, when you write,
don't keep writing your opinions. I know them more. I
will do what I want to do. You, Mum, have
to be the diplomat neutral. You're involved in the middle,
(42:25):
so bear with it for my sake.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
But it's back to business this time. That inner tiger
asserts itself.
Speaker 21 (42:33):
Would appreciate some correspondence from my hotel brokers as soon
as possible. That was a good investment. How much return
till I get from the above twenty old ones it
should be they have to see more and save the
rest for rainy day. Don't let that money go to waste.
Order one more book, please, mum, Yoga Uniting East and West.
If you can also acquire a book of any nature
(42:55):
on psychokinesis, I would be glad.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
In a single letter, he is wheeling and dealing, demanding
books on yoga and psychokinesis or the ability to move
objects with the power of thought and confiding intimate relationship
information about a woman who was not his long term
partner and the mother of his first child. Who was
(43:21):
Joe and why would Reagan be confessing this to his mother,
given his infant child, and Margaret were waiting for him
to get out of jail. As we already know, there
was nothing even remotely normal about the colonel, and a
situation soon arose that would defy belief even by her standards.
(43:45):
The colonel took possession of little JP. Yes you heard
that right. Reagan gave his firstborn son to his own mother.
It was the colonel who raised JP. He and a
distraught marg was helpless to fight back.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
There JP. He loved j P. He was good to JOP.
He would always put him on his shoulders. And this
is when I was told it might not taking your
son from my mother's house. Obviously, relationship went on and
on and on because I had two other children like him.
(44:28):
But in that time when that happened, Michael Seman was
John Solister for many many years. I went to him
and said, she will not be met that JP.
Speaker 4 (44:41):
When this happened.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Oh yeah, like a todd lare no older two, so
I can't remember. Really, No, they really had one.
Speaker 4 (44:54):
Child and that child went to Claire.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, she loved JP. Clear I could see, just wanted
to have this child, to have that this is a strong reason, son.
It will stay in my house, It'll be brought up
by me and whatever. That's what happened to me.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
So Johnny told you this, our child is going to
my mother's.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Don't go into any solicitors or anything, because it won't
be happeny. That's true.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
I had difficulty comprehending what marg was telling me that
the colonel literally stole her baby.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
Boy.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
I mean, you're a young mother as your first child,
and now the child.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
Is going to clare Reagon.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
So I was like a visitor my son.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
Did you talk to Michael Seymour about the situation?
Speaker 1 (45:58):
You spoke, Yeah, he's got very angry, very angry about him.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
Why do you think the mother wanted that baby?
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Because this is John Stuart Ruthing's son. Even though there
was probably more sons out there somewhere, this is John
Ruthen's son. Everybody knew that.
Speaker 5 (46:16):
I was supposedly is a woman.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
I don't know why. So it was really hard for me. Yep,
the person can take control to that extent.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
The loss of her child still perplexes Marg. She was
left in the unenviable position of having to get permission
from the colonel to see little JP.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
So how often would you go and visit your son?
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Quite often visit my son, good presence, birthdays, whatever. I
know for a fact that when she did pass, a
lot of the things that I had given to him
over the years, even though we had that connection, was
just popped. Anything that his mother would want it would
(47:07):
be there. Different to her to me, because we've god
remember from here. She had the control of him from
when he was a child. That's why I look at
it all to be wrong. It's a CONTROLSI. This is
a grown man that hung around with crims and whatever,
but was still controlled both his word.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
To add to Marg's confusion, she says Reagan told her
nothing about his business dealings. She sensed he was involved
in criminal activity, no question, but she had no idea
about how deeply he was involved in the Sydney underworld
until he started taking her out to dinner to the
(47:52):
homes of some of his special new friends. Up to
that moment, she had been kept oblivious of this dark world.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
He hadn't anice question it it. It sounds like it's
something that you would I Okay, needs to clean all
better leaves. It don't work out way.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
But he knew at some point. Was there any specific
thing that happened that it when? I guess now I understand.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Or I just felt it, just new it. No, he
would not involve me in any of that. He would
not tell me what he was doing. I know that
he makes sweets, damn Psmith. And then my first, how
did you know that? Because I met them?
Speaker 4 (48:38):
I'm under what circumstances? Do he took me to their
houses like for dinner or meetings?
Speaker 11 (48:43):
Or do you not?
Speaker 5 (48:44):
Really?
Speaker 4 (48:45):
So tell me about lending me first?
Speaker 1 (48:48):
Well, that's I leading him at first? And was they
trade of old Chase? And his house was a Ford
terrace and things like that, which is correct. I can't
even remember where it was.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
Did you know who he was before he went there?
Speaker 7 (49:00):
No?
Speaker 1 (49:01):
I didn't know what his connection was, but later on
I did, certainly him Saint Smith. I went to San
Smith's house. He taught me to all those places.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
So socializing with these George Freeman, who do you think
John was more close to of all of those men?
Speaker 4 (49:19):
Battle mans?
Speaker 1 (49:22):
He kept popping up. He was an older man and
he he was lurged by this man into this world.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
Do you think he wanted to be him.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Yes, he wanted to have the power that this man had.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
Definitely, what do you think it is about Johnny and power?
I mean, do you think that might even come somehow
from Claire? Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Power. There's a different thing between power and greed and selfishness,
And it's a terrible thing that, you know, to hurt someone,
to hurt anybody, to acquire that he's just not quite
normal all life is about. I didn't know I was
going out with a so called monsa in which they
(50:07):
had said several times until later on, and most of
it was kept the secret, like of course, what's I
went to let my first in thousands Smith's house and
things like that. I was quite aware who they were.
Speaker 4 (50:20):
I was at that age.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
I knew who they were. But to me, there was
no occasions that I could, honestly if they did anything happen.
Speaker 7 (50:28):
They're not.
Speaker 4 (50:29):
Do you remember what they talked about?
Speaker 1 (50:32):
You don't talk about, you don't never talk about in
front of your female the woman gets in our room.
I don't mind what they do with their wise, but
I know what he did with me. Yeah, it wasn't
that way.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
To understand Reagan's criminal miliere, you have to know about
the other side of the grubby underworld game. The corrupt
Sydney police of the day, there were a couple that
stood head and shoulders above the rest. Although he retired
in nineteen sixty, Ray Gunner Kelly set the gold standard
(51:04):
for a murderous and crooked cop. He killed in the
line of judy, arranged bank robberies and extorted abortionists. It
was said he was the master to a young apprentice
by the name of Roger Rogerson. Frederick Claude Cray or
Freddie Cray joined the New South Wales Police in nineteen
(51:27):
forty and, like Kelly, was early in his career a
respected detective. But by the nineteen sixties Cray, seemingly taking
Kelly's mantle, had devolved into a violent, drunk and criminal.
Speaker 4 (51:43):
With a badge.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
As head of the Breaking Squad, he was getting kickbacks
across the criminal spectrum and was heavily involved with the
city's sex workers, particularly Vice Queen Shirley Briffman, who operated
brothels out of Point and King's Cross. Briffman had come
down from Queensland in the early nineteen sixties after she
(52:07):
became notorious during the National Hotel role Commission in nineteen
sixty three. The inquiry was probing police corruption and prostitution
out of the National Hotel in Brisbane. Briffman was closely
associated with the corrupt trio of Brisbane officers known as
the rat Pack, Terence Murray Lewis, who would go on
(52:30):
to be Commissioner before he was jailed for corruption, Tony
Murphy and Glendon Patrick Hallahan. In Sydney. Briffman built an empire.
The operation, facilitated by graft paid regularly to crooked New
South Wales and Queensland police until she blew the whistle
(52:52):
on all of them, including Cray and Hallahan. In doing so,
Brifman signed her own death warrant and it put Stuart
John Reagan onto her tale. When Britman's loose lips blew
up the underworld, Reagan was sent in to shut her mouth.
(53:12):
Cray was rotten through and through. Years ago before his death,
I spoke to former detective and convicted murderer Roger Rogerson
about his association with Cray in the nineteen sixties and
into the early nineteen seventies.
Speaker 12 (53:29):
Well Fred, It was a tragedy about Fred. Fred was
one of the smartest bunks you'd ever met in your life.
He was a cadet when the war was on, the
Second World War, and he was a bloody a very
very clever bloke, a great organizer and you know, did
some bloody great investigations here in Sydney, a lot of
(53:50):
the thallium cases. And yet you know later on in
life now he and Neil more in my work day
they both worked together on the safe Arson squat. Fred
was a little bit saying and Il a bit older.
But Fred was. He become an alcoholic in here, you know,
he drank a bottle Scotch and his opposite day, you know,
God that he was just cranky as all shit. You know,
(54:11):
you could never you could never hold a conversation with him.
He was just lost it, you know. And I don't know,
I mean, there's no excuse for it. But as I said,
I the Brisbane thing that was all to do with prostitution,
wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
Someone who also didn't think much of Cray was the
former ratpacker Queensland Police Commissioner, a Knight of the Realm,
Terry Lewis. Lewis had been Commissioner from nineteen seventy six
to nineteen eighty seven until he was brought down by
the Fitzgerald Royal Commission into Police and political corruption in Queensland.
(54:50):
He was ultimately convicted of several counts of official corruption
and jailed. It was by any count a spectacular fall
from In two thy ten I met Lewis and he
expressed his desire to have me write his memoir. So
every fortnight for three years I went to his place
(55:12):
in Brisbane's Inner North and interviewed him as research for
my Three Crooked Kings trilogy of books about his life
and times and the history of police corruption in Queensland
from the end of the Second World War until Lewis's downfall.
Lewis passed away in twenty twenty three. In our talks,
(55:36):
Lewis had a lot of time for Gunner Kelly, whom
he met several times as a young detective in Brisbane,
but not Fred Froggy Cray. The recording is a little
scratchy given the equipment I used back in the day,
but Lewis's memories are sharp as attack. We were talking
about the importance of police having a good, solid criminal
(55:59):
informant in the nineteen fifties and sixties, and how crooks
like George Freeman and Lenny McPherson could be invaluable to
a top flight detective.
Speaker 17 (56:12):
I think that was renowned in Sydney, if you might
remember the days he was a bloody good detective to
ray Kelly, Ray Kelly and cray and all those fellows.
Was renowned that they had Freeman and others would kept
their information as long as they fed you with somebody
there on the line.
Speaker 3 (56:31):
Although Kelly and Crayon are now notorious, aren't they.
Speaker 17 (56:35):
I didn't like cray not at all, but I like Kelly.
Kelly was he was a tough man and he joined
the police, so they got twenty six years of age
or something. Been a country or a really tough man.
And I can still remember part of it. He was
in uniform by himself, I think Surry Hillson somewhere one
night and he came across four crim steel in the
(56:57):
car or something, and they all attacked him. So he
shot one, wounded the other three, and naturally that probably
got him into the c ib on. But then the
funny mote of it later on he said he really
liked ray Kelly. Said ray Kelly only shot people who
deserved to be shot coming from a jail, I said.
Speaker 3 (57:20):
As part of the investigation and research for my books,
I became obsessed with the life and ultimate death of
Shirley Briffman. Shirley had paid corrupt police for her entire
career as a sex worker and later a brotheloner. She
counted many of them as lovers. One of those lovers
was Fred Cray. In the late nineteen sixties, it was
(57:42):
proposed to Shirley that she trained her teenage daughter, mary
Anne Brifman to go into the sex trade. Shirley refused.
As a result, she was literally tortured by Fred Cray.
I was lucky enough to have lengthy conversations with Mary Anne.
She was gracious, frank and honest. She remembered detectives using
(58:08):
the Briffman household in Sydney as a storehouse for stolen
goods and Cray turning on her mother.
Speaker 1 (58:16):
Yes, Oh, he was very violent.
Speaker 22 (58:19):
You know the guy that followed him, Roger Rogerson or
whatever you know, for naughty detectives. He was boring it
to shoot people. These people did this very colorfully, you know,
there was a lot of They tortured them and tormented
them and mentally tortured them before. They may have killed
(58:40):
them because he was involved in quite a lot of
torture and it already hurt my mother physically as well.
So the thing is, nobody asked us about what happened.
Speaker 3 (58:54):
Surely had made another major mistake. She'd been talking to
the press. Suddenly stories were appearing about Shirley Brifman, Sydney's
glamorous vice queen. The last thing the police on her
payroll wanted was media attention. She was also toying with
writing a memoir, The Housewife's Best Friend.
Speaker 4 (59:16):
She was going to call it.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
And if this wasn't enough, she'd hosted a party at
her apartment in the Reef Complex in Elizabeth Bay and
invited several corrupt police, including Fred Cray. Somehow the story
of the party made it into the newspapers. It was
getting dangerous. One day, Mary Anne Riffman returned to the
(59:41):
family's Thornleigh home after school and saw a man trying
to strangle her mother to death. She's convinced it was
Johnny Reagan.
Speaker 23 (59:53):
My mother was home and when you walked in the
door of the hallway in that lounge room to that house,
it had two sliding doors that would joined together, you know,
to sline up, and it was really odd. I'd never
seen that the two doors were closed, you know, something
that the housekeeper would never have had done. And we'd
(01:00:15):
never seen the lounge room closed off from that little
bit of the hallway.
Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
But anyway, so what do you do?
Speaker 12 (01:00:21):
Straight away?
Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Me?
Speaker 23 (01:00:22):
When I come in, I opened the door, just opened
the two doors. And then my mother standing between the
lounge and the dining room where we did the ironing,
where the television you know you could best see it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
And there's this guy that's got.
Speaker 23 (01:00:40):
The wire coat hanger undone, well it was already undone,
and he was he was trying to strangle her, right,
he was in the middle of strangling her with iron
undone coat hanger. And you think it'd be a rope
or something, wouldn't you, But no, the code hanger or
(01:01:00):
maybe he got in closed the door. He must have
come in on a pretense that she let him in, yes,
because you just don't come in and close two.
Speaker 12 (01:01:11):
Doors like that.
Speaker 23 (01:01:12):
No one else was home by then, and then of
course when I just walked in, he's thinking he's waiting
to hear the car or the kids come or something else.
So I get in that and then this guy gets
such a shock he doesn't He takes bang out through
the dining room, through that kitchen to the back door
(01:01:33):
and gone. Not that I looked where he went, you know,
but he fleed out the back door that seemed to
be open to my knowledge, because he didn't nearly filling
with the door. And there's my mother and you know,
all the things that we all had to take in
our stride. But it was very fortunate that I came home.
Speaker 10 (01:01:53):
I never asked her.
Speaker 12 (01:01:54):
Who did that?
Speaker 23 (01:01:56):
You know, sometimes you just there's some question and you
didn't ask. But there's just so many things that are
just so I think that was worry, maybe a threat
because of all the wealthy people that were involved, do
you know what I mean? But that's very powerful to
(01:02:17):
come down like that. That could be if that looked
more than a scare, that guy was doing it.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
Shortly after this, Shirley Briffman was charged with an offense
for the first time ever, and her corrupt copper mates
in both Sydney and Brisbane refused to help her out.
It was the last straw she decided to blow the
whistle on the lot of them. On National TV. In
the fallout from her expose, a brifman fled north, convinced
(01:02:49):
by ratpacker Tony Murphy that she'd be safer in Brisbane
than in Sydney, with the likes of Cray and Reagan
out for her blood. In Brisbane, living in a series
of supposed safe houses, she gave several formal police interviews
and not only tipped in a lot of her former
copper mates, but had a lot to say about Johnny Reagan.
(01:03:12):
She said Reagan wasn't satisfied with being the big boss
of Sydney. He had ambitions to become the biggest gangster
in Australia. Just prior to fleeing to Brisbane, she'd hidden
out in King's Cross again in a supposed safe house.
That's when the magician came calling. She later told police
(01:03:35):
what happened.
Speaker 24 (01:03:37):
For a start, I was protected. Now I am not protected.
I paid all these years for protection. I was in
fear for my life. Do you remember the night you
two called to see me. Johnny Reagan came there at
four o'clock. He was one out. Reagan said, don't talk.
If you talk, you are dead.
Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
Shirley made it to Brisbane with her family. As it happened,
Reagan wasn't far behind. He decided to open, for want
of a better phrase, a branch office of the Reagan
Empire north of the border. He was off to Queensland.
Reagan would have been fully aware of the criminal scene
(01:04:20):
and its main players in the Deep North, but he
was the big Sydney gangster, and according to sources, he
was ready to introduce Chicago style mobster tactics to Australia's
East Coast. As usual, he reaped havoc and he just
may have gotten away with not one murder but fifteen
(01:04:44):
when the Whiskey a Go go nightclub in Brisbane's Fortitude
Valley was firebombed in March nineteen seventy three. That inferno
still smolders today, and while he didn't strike the match,
the magician just may have been a driving force behind
one of the worst mass murders in Australian history. He
(01:05:08):
hooked up with drug dealers, He did business with a
local group called the Clockwork Orange Gang. He invested in property,
and he freely displayed brutish behavior, living up to his
now well known reputation as a killer, scaring some of
the locals half to death. In the next episode of
(01:05:35):
The Gangster's Ghost, matt I was scared.
Speaker 5 (01:05:40):
I'm no hero.
Speaker 20 (01:05:41):
I've never been tough. This was something I hadn't come
into contact with before.
Speaker 5 (01:05:46):
Genuinely scary.
Speaker 20 (01:05:47):
He uttered a threat along the lines of if you
don't do this, I'm going to shoot.
Speaker 5 (01:05:51):
You in the kneecaps.
Speaker 20 (01:05:52):
Now I remember vividly it was in the kneecaps. Having
seen the other guy with the gun, I thought, these
guys aren't kid. You put all that together and that's
a pretty convincing argument that you should not be there.
Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
The Gangster's Ghost is a production of The Australian. It's
written and presented by senior writer Matthew Condon and 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 Leek, Stephanie Coombs, Sean Callanan Laughlin,
(01:06:40):
Clear Ryan Osland, Amanda Willim Williams, Christine Keller, Tarn Blackhurst,
Magdalena Zajak, Gisel Boetti, Genevieve Brammel, Lauren Bruce, sus Rolf
and Jokina 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,
(01:07:01):
plus all Australia's best journalism twenty four to seven. Join
us at Gangstersghost dot com dot au
Before we begin.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
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 a U.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I think his life changed, He changed completely. Sometimes in
life greed and money and to be powerful came me
into his world. I think that he loved it. He
loved what he was doing. He loved the sense that
he was mixing at those people. So biggest SMIs stata
(00:49):
you have made in his life.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
This is Margaret Reagan, the gangster's widow. In the fifty
years since Stuart John Reagan was murdered by three, possibly
four gunmen in the back streets of Marrickville in Sydney,
Mark has never spoken publicly about Johnny, about the gangster life,
(01:21):
about Reagan's association with some of the most dangerous criminals
of his era. She was with him for more than
ten years, through the most volatile period of his career,
to an hour or so before his death. She had
three children with him, and she has never in her
(01:41):
own words spoken out of school. Today, she still finds
it difficult to understand why he changed from a decent
young man to thug and petty crook to a violent mobster.
She still wrestles with it. She saw the monster coming
(02:03):
in the late nineteen sixties. It all started at home,
behind closed doors. And it's still incredibly painful for marg.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, a good person when it was good. But if
he was angry and things like that, which I've seen
several occasions, I can honestly say that I had not
experiencing one occasion that he beat me. To forgive me
when he hit me. Beating me beat me was that
early on, but that time ran about that time.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
What happened when he struck you in that incident? What happened?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
You're not listening to me. I want you to do this.
I can't remember what was about. I can't even remember.
And he struck me across the first Yeah, and I
ended up needing.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Anything broken.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
No, and I'll have him at my bed betting mean
to fitness. And I also had a policeman come and say,
you told you now I know who did this to you.
I don't know what you're talking about. We had to
need to survive. That was my life. I was taught
you've got nothing to say and look at number plates
(03:15):
in the back of my revision. Just to go out
on an ordinary day out, that was my life.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
But you didn't grow up in a criminal lawn. Did
you have to just adapt to that life?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yes, and you know the reason why. I'll probably put
up with it for so long. You can't walk away
from people like this. I want you to say that
I know the real truth. I know what. I love him,
and he wasn't by someone like it. He wasn't he
(03:51):
became that person. Power and money does a lot of
things to tchange people's lives.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
So in that Paddington house, how long did you stay there?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Not long? I've always stood my peace. I learned to
speak up. I knew my limits because I won't pass
the limits. He could have done anything, you know what
I mean. But I knew my limits and I thought,
I'm God, I got nothing to do it. He would
chase me, he would please, please please. I'm sorry I
(04:23):
didn't turn up. I'm sorry I didn't do this. I'm
sorry I didn't do it. And when this went on
for so I really didn't have a real time because.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
You are bright.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
I'm journalist Matthew Condon and This is the Gangster's Ghost,
a podcast from The Australian. This podcast started out as
a clinical look at one of Australia's most reviled gangsters,
but when the Reagan family came on board, the project
took on another dimension and begged the question how does
(05:43):
a family cope with the generational stain of a murderer
whose death was celebrated by criminals and police alike.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
This is episode six heat.
Speaker 7 (06:15):
A man known as Big Barry was found yesterday with
four bullet wounds in his head in jungle like undergrowth
in Paddington. Police said the man, Barry Leonard Flock, twenty eight,
had told a friend he had been marked down for
execution by the underworld a week ago. His body was
discovered yesterday just before noon by a woman she was
(06:36):
exercising her dog in an extensive area of undergrowth part
of the Scottish Hospital. Police believe Flock was lured or
forced to march at gunpoint by his killer or killers
into the thick undergrowth. Flock apparently put up his hands
as the bullet smashed into him.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
It's Monday, January sixteenth, nineteen sixty seven, and Sydney has
woken to what appears to be another ruthless gangland killing.
The city is getting used to this sort of carnage.
One newspaper at the time asked why the city had
turned into Chicago with its open display of gangster carnage,
(07:19):
and how come Sydney's mobsters were suddenly qualified for honorary
citizenship of the Windy City in the United States. On
that Monday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Barry Flock
was a nurse cleaner and minor King's Cross identity who,
(07:40):
at one hundred and eighty eight centimeters tall and one
hundred and one kilograms in wait, worked as a bouncer
for various gambling dens and nightclubs. He had somehow been
lured into the undergrowth near the hospital and murdered.
Speaker 7 (07:56):
The report went on, baller entered his head, including one
that first passed through his left hand near the right
index finger. Detectives described the murder as a typically callous
underworld execution.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Stuart John Reagan was quickly suspected of the killing. The
public record shows that this may have been his first murder.
It was just four months since his twenty first birthday
at Chequer's nightclub with mob boss Paddles Anderson. There were
several good reasons for police to think Reagan was the shooter. Firstly,
(08:41):
Flock was murdered just a couple of streets away from
Reagan's mother's place at fifty one Liverpool Street on a
still night. The colonel and auntie Thelma could have virtually
heard the shots from their modest terrace, two blocks southwest
of the murder scene. Secondly, newspaper reports said Reagan was
(09:04):
well acquainted with the dense scrub land near the old hospital.
This was from the Sun newspaper.
Speaker 8 (09:14):
When John Reagan was a little boy, he had a
favorite hideout where the shrubs grew thick and the grass long,
a tiny jungle in the heart of Sydney. His private
world was a wasteland in the grounds of the Scottish Hospital.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Given Reagan spent his childhood in young New South Wales.
Seen beside the point. What was factual was that Flock had,
in the weeks leading up to his death, gotten caught
up in a business deal gone wrong with Reagan. Flock
had been working at a health studio in Bondai on
(09:50):
the recommendation of Reagan. The owner, Missus X, as the
newspapers called her, had employed him with reservations. She did
it as a favor to Reagan. At one point, Missus
X had given Flock eight hundred dollars to look after.
(10:11):
Reagan would later say Flock spent the money. Flock would
tell Missus X he had given it to Reagan. Someone
was lying. Reagan denied Flock's assertions. Reagan's heavies started harassing him.
Flock lived with his wife and daughter in London Street,
(10:34):
Enmore in Sydney's in a West, and at one point
the family temporarily fled to the safety of a friend's
house after being threatened. But what was the big deal
over a paltry eight hundred dollars here's the sun again.
Speaker 8 (10:57):
Naturally, Reagan was pulled in for questioning over Flock's death.
He told detectives that although he had arranged to meet
Flock at Victoria Barracks, he'd been with a bird and forgot.
When he did remember, he had telephone Flock and called
off the meeting. It was all very suspicious, and detectives
are now sure Reagan killed Big.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Barry Mark remembers Flock, thank you John of murdering Barry
flap Ye what do you think.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Of that you knew Arry?
Speaker 5 (11:27):
What?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yes? I did just now new Thocott.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
And John's relationship with him.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Oh, I could see you, as I say, Nothing was
ever discussing me. Nothing I could not see to you,
and so honestly dont to you all I would as
I heard any conversations about what he was doing or whatever.
Obviously he's out there doing it, that wouldn't relate to me.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Reagan was not charged with the murder, but according to
Reagan's official consorting records, he was being watched very closely
by police. The heat was on. Police noted he'd been
seen driving around in a sky blue nineteen sixty six
Jaguar registration EDZ double four to three. Two months later,
(12:20):
police observed him getting about town in a gun metal
gray nineteen sixty three Jaguar registration e k F nine
seven six Business. It seemed was good for Reagan. In
the months after Flock's murder, Reagan was in and out
(12:42):
of court for various matters, including consorting and possession of
an unlicensed pistol, and always by his side was his
dutyful lawyer Michael Seymour. As marg told us, no one
was closer to John than Seymour. Seymour was one of
(13:06):
a handful of people who Reagan trusted, but who was he.
With the police heat intensifying on Reagan, he needed virtually
a lawyer on tap. He found one by proxy in
the mid nineteen sixties. Michael Thomas Seymour was a young
(13:27):
solicitor doing his articles for the Sydney law firm Lang
and Anderson. When that practice dissolved, Seymour inherited one of
their more colorful clients, Stuart John Reagan. They got on instantly.
As far as Seymour knew Reagan had tow truck and
(13:47):
panel beating businesses. He thought Reagan, despite having little education,
was intelligent, enterprising, and ambitious. Seymour remained Reagan's confidante and
legal counsel until his client's murder in nineteen seventy four.
(14:07):
Seymour was struck off in the early nineteen eighties and
worked in later years as a migration agent. We'll come
to that later. Whichever way you looked at it, Seymour
would be a treasure trove of information about Reagan and
his life and times. Given Reagan's numerous prosecutions, Seymour had
(14:30):
the inside rail on how Reagan's mind worked, especially under pressure.
More importantly, he might even have a good idea about
who murdered his gangster client, if only we could get
even a fraction of what he knew held inside that
(14:51):
legal safety deposit box known as lawyer client privilege. Kelly
and I wondered if Seymour was even still alive. If so,
he'd have to be in his late seventies or possibly
nudging his eighties. So Kelly set out to find him,
(15:13):
and a few months later she phoned in, Okay.
Speaker 9 (15:18):
So I've got a bit of exciting news. I've just
got an email come up on my phone that says
Michael Seymour has sent me a message.
Speaker 10 (15:27):
So I'm just going to go into it now.
Speaker 9 (15:29):
And have a look at what that message is and
see if I have actually found Michael Seymour that was
John's solicitor.
Speaker 10 (15:40):
How exciting if it is, Like, how cool would that be?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Kelly had sent an initial message to a Michael Seymour
explaining that she was Reagan's cousin and that she and
Mark wanted to reach out to him. Was he, in fact,
the Michael Seymour who was Reagan's solicitor in the namenineteen
sixties and seventies.
Speaker 9 (16:04):
And he's just replied to me and said, wow, that
well that is a blaster in the past. Yes, I
was John Reagan's lawyer and would be interested in talking
to marg And then gave all these contact details let
me know where he's resided and said thanks for the message.
Speaker 10 (16:21):
So how exciting.
Speaker 9 (16:23):
I mean, great if my auntie mag gets to speak
to Michael. But I'd just love to speak to him.
Like for me, that's as close as I'm going to
get to speaking to John, Like he would.
Speaker 8 (16:35):
Know so much.
Speaker 9 (16:35):
Whether he wants to talk or not, I'm not sure,
but you know, just finding him was pretty is pretty cool.
So I found him.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
By Seymour is mentioned numerous times in Reagan's secret tapes.
The gangster clearly held him in high regard, so much
so that Reagan didn't hesitate to wreck amend him to
friends in trouble with the law.
Speaker 11 (17:04):
You know you've got a good defense for this down
make a statement of SayMore and say that's the reason
why you're fined. Get that Ora Worseley. But everything worsely
says then and say more statement And that's the India case.
You know that Dadger he down to discussed it all right,
if you can tie that day on, even if the
Copple just says it to you from him's way after
(17:26):
your mat if he just says it to you and
you make a statement about it, the same work and
down take steps. You gotta get a barrister. They are
going to give you a sea. Get it by called
dayson w kill oh barrister my days he killed?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
And whatever?
Speaker 12 (17:44):
Mate?
Speaker 11 (17:45):
What's his lying? You keep saying More a solicitor man
because he's the best solicit in Australia. I'm not kidding me.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
After many weeks of negotiation, see More agreed to meet me,
Kelly and marg for lunch at his favorite Chinese restaurant
in Castle Hill in outer northwestern Sydney. Kelly and I
discussed the lunch meeting and tried to work out a strategy.
(18:19):
So Simour says, and it's interesting because the second time
he's mentioned this. But he says at the end of
the email, let's see what the podcast can flush out.
He says, it's a dangerous exercise. He's used that exact
phrase twice in the last month. Then he says, but
at my age of eighty years, nothing bothers me anymore.
So I think we've hit a sweet spot with him, thankfully. Yeah,
(18:41):
it's going to be incredible.
Speaker 13 (18:43):
I love the one above it where he says, I
don't know if any of the police involved in the
matters are still on this planet or not, but if alive,
would be in their eighties and on the home run,
carrying the ailment of aging along with possible type two
diabetes and a guilty conscience, praying their sins of the
past will.
Speaker 10 (18:59):
Never catch up them, at least on this earth. It's interesting,
is it?
Speaker 9 (19:03):
Because but this is exactly what my father said to
me at the very beginning when I first said I
was going to contact you, and Dad's like, oh, just
be really careful, like and I said, tongue in cheek, Oh, Dad,
anybody around it?
Speaker 10 (19:16):
We chasing us on scooters Like I reckon. I can
outrun a scooter.
Speaker 14 (19:20):
It's interesting that Michael has probably said to me in texts,
probably four or five times, it's dangerous. I'm not seeing
the danger probably from the same level as he is.
I'm probably thinking he's paranoid, but his car was shot up.
Speaker 10 (19:35):
He lived in there.
Speaker 9 (19:35):
He got run through the mill like he stood up
to them, and the constant dialogue of fear is relevant.
Don't you reckon like these people wielded an unyielding knife
like it's just.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
The Chinese restaurant was the type you find right across
suburban Australia. The round tables, white tablecloths, the lazy Susan,
the center packed to the rafters and busy with chatter
and the clinking of plates and cutlery. Seymour was there
before we arrived. He was the opposite of what I expected.
(20:15):
I had somehow frozen him in time and thought we'd
be met by a youngish man in a good suit,
a loyally type, perhaps, with dark hair and horn rimmed glasses.
Instead we were met by an old man in a
short sleeved shirt, shorts and long socks, with disheveled gray hair.
(20:39):
He looked like any pensioner out for some spring rolls
and a bowl of sweet and sour pork. One thing
I wasn't disappointed with he talked a big game. His
language was slightly formal and jam packed with legal ease.
Though he hadn't just in New South Wales for forty years.
(21:05):
He was a little bit haughty. He had with him
a shopping bag containing some documents. The restaurant was incredibly noisy,
but for a while Seymour delved back into the past.
I asked him how he first came to legally represent
(21:25):
Reagan a warning. When we talked, we were surrounded by
dozens of other eager dynas John first became a pie.
Speaker 15 (21:35):
I think I read briefly in here that the company
you were working for dissolved and Reagan was on their books.
Speaker 16 (21:43):
But I was like the law clerk who Langy did
commercial work. Anderson came into the last year that I
was there. Anderson work with Phil Roach got good experience
(22:06):
in Pimmelwell, so.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
This is nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Four. How old were you then?
Speaker 16 (22:14):
I was a minute to practice February sixty five?
Speaker 5 (22:23):
How old were you more than forty two? So your
early twenties. So I was a young feller.
Speaker 16 (22:36):
Now Anderson was leaving the firm to go to the bar.
Anderson was a bit slippery in my view when he
talked to you. It's bent over and Phil correct harshires
free quiet Reagan wanted to follow me.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
But how did you become acquainted legally?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Initially? Was it through the law Phil.
Speaker 16 (23:00):
The FIV firm was pg le FEV and I agreed
to act for John on the right case in which
Tony Boleno and dars Anderson appeared. It was a trial
the dowling Hurst and not not killed him.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Uh after that?
Speaker 13 (23:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 16 (23:26):
When about that time John was charged with being a
possession of und licensed pistol?
Speaker 15 (23:31):
Did you appear for John from the unlicensed pistol charge?
Speaker 5 (23:36):
He was arrested take the Downinghurst.
Speaker 16 (23:40):
I went up there he was arrested and I said, no,
he's upstairs being interviewed. I wait downstairs? Whe hours? Do
I know who I was? And so you know I am,
for quite sake, my client's upstairs. So then after they
leave John wasn't but upstairs they had taken him somewhere else.
(24:04):
I think there was an unsigned regular interview with the
verbal yeah whatever. So we were able to show that
the police officer's diaries and their notebooks didn't correspond in
like two the four detectives who picked him up from
two interviewed him.
Speaker 5 (24:24):
Who had the running of the case.
Speaker 16 (24:27):
That was before one of the few motor strikes that
understood reasonable doubt. One document in Evers shot doing a fortune,
so he was acquitted on that.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Seymour clearly recalled that Reagan would often wear bulletproof vests.
He remembered the assassination attempt on Reagan by Stuart and
Finch outside Barrick Motors in Paddington in late nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
There were no love lies between Finch John.
Speaker 16 (25:02):
Because at Barrack Motors one day in broad daylight, since
she called a revolver on John badly shared him. I
just missed the bullet record showed off.
Speaker 12 (25:17):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
Finch took off. John took off another rocky drying put
in finding.
Speaker 16 (25:27):
Later Finch was chart with the Cptain murder ncamuson be
the ACRA. I said I can't, I said, yeah, Sharp
and client to kill Tyne.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
We wanted to know what Reagan was like when, as
Mark observed, his personality changed when the monster stepped out
of the shadows, when he was in and out of
police stations like well, a dish on a lazy Susan
in a suburb in Chinese restaurant.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
And how was how did he strike you?
Speaker 4 (26:06):
In those early years as.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
A like he was a likable fellow.
Speaker 12 (26:12):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
He regali intelligence.
Speaker 16 (26:17):
Ever on his guard, seeful of being loaded up by
the police. He didn't keep the best of company in
the underworld. But in reputations, what.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Was his reputation?
Speaker 5 (26:32):
Firstim to be feared physical violence?
Speaker 16 (26:38):
Yeah, I suppose, but he was only convicted of one
fun of song, which was interesting case.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
How the pencil self defense. The beginning of that was that.
Speaker 16 (26:52):
Reagan was I think of bouncing in a nightclub with
King's Christian and the closing time came, people asked to leave.
There was a bunch of Google slabs who refused to go.
They went, and I think Regan obviously made some remarks
about them. And then the place is closing down and
back come about up. A dozen Yugoslavs were the belting.
(27:18):
He tells, well, he's on the stage up there with
a chair. Kevino was bay And then whilst that if
you all was occurring, someone finds the police and the
police arrived.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
That's it. So Reagan thought, I'll get.
Speaker 16 (27:34):
One of these guys one day. So a few years
later he was in a restaurant and he tells me
that he saw one of those blogs that assaulted him
and threatened him. So his defense was, I walked up
to the tables to excuse me. I think you were
(27:55):
the person who threatened assaulted me some time go. Where
upon the Yugoslas get stuffed and sap John John retaliate
the Crown's case was up. Came John, grab a lot
of scup of the neck and said you are so
and who tried to belt me with six other Ligoslavs whacked.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
There was a difference in the evidence.
Speaker 16 (28:20):
By the time I didn't got up the trial, John
was a bit bigger, he flying up a bit.
Speaker 5 (28:27):
He looked pretty tough.
Speaker 16 (28:29):
Basically before a jury over against yugoslav The jury convicted him.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
He got tour bucks.
Speaker 17 (28:36):
Hyeah and.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Seymour had other amusing but relatively innocuous anecdotes about Reagan.
He was more preoccupied with his own legal difficulties. In
the wake of Reagan's death, which saw him struck off.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported the following. On Thursday April fifteenth,
(29:02):
nineteen eighty.
Speaker 18 (29:03):
Two, a solicitor alleged to have been involved in check forgery,
bail offenses and land fraud was struck from the role
of solicitors yesterday for professional misconduct. The Court of Appeal
made the order against Michael Thomas Seymour. Seymour did not
defend the action, and the joint application by the Law
(29:26):
Society and the Prothonotory of the Supreme Court to have
him struck off was heard exparte. The President of the
Court of Appeal, Justice Moffatt, said evidence against Seymour on
any one of four matters in the summons would have
been sufficient to warrant his being struck off.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
One of these matters reached way back to nineteen seventy
three seventy four and his client Johnny Reagan. The Paper wrote.
Speaker 18 (29:55):
In the fourth matter, it was alleged that Seymour was
an active particip and knowingly participated in a scheme set
up by John Stuart Reagan, then a well known criminal
for whom Seymour acted and with whom it was alleged
he was associated in another company.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
In the end, the three presiding Justices unanimously ordered that
Seymour be struck off over our lunch. I was keen
to quiz Seymour on Reagan's famous so called land scams,
the subject of the fourth matter. In his hearing before
the Court of Appeal forty years earlier. The scam involved
(30:37):
buying up cheap blocks of land in country areas and
falsely advertising them as fully sewered and electrified parcels with
astonishing views and access to great facilities. Will examine Reagan's
scam in detail in an upcoming episode of the podcast.
But as far as Michael Seymour was concerned, it was legit.
(31:00):
It admit real estate business.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
Luckily, I.
Speaker 16 (31:05):
Invested wisely in real estate and to build luck and
the gay mugs.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
But the pressure on all these things that builds up
in terms of your own legal votes.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
But the land, the land hers themselves, that was a scam, right.
Speaker 16 (31:23):
No, no, no, they were legitimate transactions. He got titled
and he conveyed titland.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
Now detective too.
Speaker 16 (31:35):
He just running my notes again this morning, Sill he
come to seemly, uh said, I want to interview about
Brigand's land transactions.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
And so I've had to talk you such a use
lad of professional privilege. Oh we'll just fraud here. Yeah,
I see.
Speaker 16 (31:54):
If you charge you with a fraud, I can tell
you now you'll fail and I'll be shoving you for
malicious prosecution. He then said oh, but I discovered here
that he said, I have no a bit about the law.
I'm starting law of just about finish the bab He
said he's sold some blocks of land before he had title.
(32:17):
I said, well, you don't understand what the law is.
He'd taken the contract to buy before he'd settled on
the purchase. He has a legal right to convey that
right to someone else.
Speaker 15 (32:31):
I've interviewed a couple of people in Queensland who were
involved in this sales adventure up around Harvey Bay and
around regions like that, and I've spoken to one of
the head salesman essentially contracted out by John to sell
blocks of land that they'd acquired of council. And there
(32:56):
were advertisements placed in Sydney newspapers in relation to this
is a phenomenal purchase, the use of the beach major
shopping center going up next year.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
All of it false. As he admitted to.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
Me, if you enter into a.
Speaker 16 (33:15):
Contract of sale to buy a property, he could either
as sign your interest in that or sell to a
third party pending completion of the title that you're in
the process of acquiring. There's done a lot when people
are moving home and they were to buy and sell
(33:35):
at the same time, and.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
That was that.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Besides, he had another matter he wanted to discuss. This
is what stunned the table in that Chinese restaurant that day.
Seymour claimed that a on Reagan's death, his client owed
him about seven thousand dollars in outstanding legal bills. Given
(34:10):
the amount of research and effort he'd acquitted prior to
our lunch meeting, and as recompense for his future involvement
in The Gangster's Ghost, he thought it only fair that
he be paid ten thousand dollars that at the very
least would square Reagan's ledger, even though the debt had
(34:33):
allegedly been outstanding for half a century. We set our
farewells to Michael Seymour and left the restaurant and then
Castle Hill on the plane back home North. I thought
this should not be surprising, because we have ventured into
(34:54):
the world of Stuart John Reagan. No matter how many
years have passed, was still outstanding monetary debts, moral debts,
debts to historical accuracy, debts to the truth. Kell and
I discussed the extraordinary meeting with mister Seymour. I mean,
(35:16):
from my point of view, and probably both of ours,
because we've been researching this for so long. The name
Michael Seymour became almost mythical in that we knew he
was very close to John right up to his death,
had legally represented him for about nine years from about
nineteen sixty five sixty six. So we were highly excited
(35:38):
to meet a man who we thought would have all
this incredible knowledge in his head right, and.
Speaker 10 (35:43):
I thought he'd be keeper of the gate, like you know.
Speaker 19 (35:46):
He told Arnie Margie had documents, and then he tells
us he's got nothing.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Yeah, So then Mark and I showed up and absolutely
not what I expected. And he did produce some Manila
folders of some scattered documents. A lot of them were
to do with him defending himself having been struck off
in about nineteen eighty two and then losing a defamation
(36:13):
action against the ABC in the early to mid eighties.
So a lot of the documents were how he had
been hardly done by and decisions were incorrect and it
had essentially ruined his life.
Speaker 19 (36:24):
But he couldn't even get our names right, Like he
was giving me Marg's documents. Here you go, Marg, And
she wasn't even there and I'm like, no, no, I'm Kelly.
Speaker 10 (36:31):
Marg's the old girl.
Speaker 20 (36:32):
Like I think.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
When we got down to wanting to actually talk about
why we were there, and that was to get the
inside rail on Johnny Reagan, everything seemed to be a
little bit blurry.
Speaker 10 (36:44):
Well it was just weird. Like you spot on, his
recollection of himself was on point. But what strun me was,
you know, John and I were close and yeah, you know,
we had a working relationship, but we were close, and
you know, he had no father, so you know, I
tried to guide him and get him into legitimate businesses
and everything. But all he did was call him Reagan.
(37:05):
The whole time. He called him Reagan Reagan, and there
was no he was blaming. There was. It was like
he was talking about someone he'd met for five minutes.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Yeah, whether he was intentionally just being on his guard
with us. It was our first meeting with him, Yeah,
but not Mark. You know, Marg said that they'd had
a real terrific relationship from when he was Reagan's solicitor
up until Reagan's death. When Seymour simply and totally disappeared
from the scene, Off the Reagan scene, he didn't go
(37:37):
to the funeral.
Speaker 10 (37:38):
Didn't go the inquest, didn't talk.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
To marg until only a few months ago. I mean,
you know, listeners to this podcast have heard people we've
interviewed who were involved in the selling of those properties.
So it was exactly what it was. But Seymour is
standing his ground on that. But also what came out
of the meeting and has persisted now for some weeks
(38:03):
is incredibly Michael Seymour is asking for restitution of Johnny
Reagan's unpaid legal bills dating from the late nineteen sixties.
Speaker 10 (38:19):
Yes, E would produced the invoice.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
The invoice and has imposed upon us what he considers
not an unreasonable demand, and that is ten thousand dollars
to settle the Reagan account. Yes, and then photocopying in binders,
and with that money in his account, he'll then assist us.
Speaker 10 (38:42):
Yes, bless Yes.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
In the wake of the Flock murder in early nineteen
sixty seven, Reagan had a phenomenally busy year engaging with
police and the courts. He was a marked man, shadowed
relentlessly by detectives. Month after month. He faced a string
of charges which included possession of an unlicensed pistol, consorting
(39:12):
obtaining property by forged instrument, false pretenses, stealing, driving in
a dangerous manner, negligent driving, assault and robbery, uninsured vehicle conspiracy,
intimidating a witness, assault, and conspiracy to pervert and defeat
(39:34):
the course of justice. Then a milestone occurred in Reagan's life.
On December sixth, nineteen sixty seven, his partner marg gave
birth to their first child, John Patrick Reagan. He would
become known within the family as JP. At this precise time, however,
(40:00):
new father Johnny was in and out of jail for
the first time in his career. You'll remember back in
episode one when he introduced you to Reagan's secretly recorded
telephone conversations and how the tapes were hidden for years
in a suitcase. Well, not only did that suitcase contain
(40:22):
the clandestine recordings, it also held several documents. One of
those was a handwritten letter Reagan sent to his mother
from jail. It was dated September seven, nineteen sixty eight.
Little JP was just nine months old. The letter provides
(40:44):
an incredible insight into not just his interests and preoccupations,
but his manic state of mind. Here's some extracts from
that two page letter.
Speaker 21 (40:57):
Dear Mum, sorry no male. Recently, could Arnie and yourself
please send me out two books for my birthday, A
self Hypnosis by Joan Bradden and b Raji Yoga. These
books could be attained from Dimmick's Bookstore, George Street City
or Graham's Bookstore. I suggest you ring these bookstores and
(41:18):
give the authors et cetera, and they will inquire et
cetera and set aside for you, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Reagan then immediately pivots to business matters.
Speaker 21 (41:28):
Tell solicitor Tom to give your diamonds to you. Also
ask solicitor how much for woodwood QC. So far please, m'am,
this is important. Also, get solicitor to come out and
see me about four hundred pounds off a friend of mine.
This is important, and he hasn't visited me yet. If
he doesn't come soon, I will lose the four hundred
pounds priority.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Another sudden shift of focus, this time from urgent business
to personal issues involving some mysterious woman not is to
facto Margaret.
Speaker 21 (42:04):
I hope you don't think for a minute I'll marry
Joe or anyone else. I don't intend to get married
till I am at least twenty six or twenty seven
and a lot more experienced. Please Mum, when you write,
don't keep writing your opinions. I know them more. I
will do what I want to do. You, Mum, have
to be the diplomat neutral. You're involved in the middle,
(42:25):
so bear with it for my sake.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
But it's back to business this time. That inner tiger
asserts itself.
Speaker 21 (42:33):
Would appreciate some correspondence from my hotel brokers as soon
as possible. That was a good investment. How much return
till I get from the above twenty old ones it
should be they have to see more and save the
rest for rainy day. Don't let that money go to waste.
Order one more book, please, mum, Yoga Uniting East and West.
If you can also acquire a book of any nature
(42:55):
on psychokinesis, I would be glad.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
In a single letter, he is wheeling and dealing, demanding
books on yoga and psychokinesis or the ability to move
objects with the power of thought and confiding intimate relationship
information about a woman who was not his long term
partner and the mother of his first child. Who was
(43:21):
Joe and why would Reagan be confessing this to his mother,
given his infant child, and Margaret were waiting for him
to get out of jail. As we already know, there
was nothing even remotely normal about the colonel, and a
situation soon arose that would defy belief even by her standards.
(43:45):
The colonel took possession of little JP. Yes you heard
that right. Reagan gave his firstborn son to his own mother.
It was the colonel who raised JP. He and a
distraught marg was helpless to fight back.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
There JP. He loved j P. He was good to JOP.
He would always put him on his shoulders. And this
is when I was told it might not taking your
son from my mother's house. Obviously, relationship went on and
on and on because I had two other children like him.
(44:28):
But in that time when that happened, Michael Seman was
John Solister for many many years. I went to him
and said, she will not be met that JP.
Speaker 4 (44:41):
When this happened.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Oh yeah, like a todd lare no older two, so
I can't remember. Really, No, they really had one.
Speaker 4 (44:54):
Child and that child went to Claire.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, she loved JP. Clear I could see, just wanted
to have this child, to have that this is a strong reason, son.
It will stay in my house, It'll be brought up
by me and whatever. That's what happened to me.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
So Johnny told you this, our child is going to
my mother's.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Don't go into any solicitors or anything, because it won't
be happeny. That's true.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
I had difficulty comprehending what marg was telling me that
the colonel literally stole her baby.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
Boy.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
I mean, you're a young mother as your first child,
and now the child.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
Is going to clare Reagon.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
So I was like a visitor my son.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
Did you talk to Michael Seymour about the situation?
Speaker 1 (45:58):
You spoke, Yeah, he's got very angry, very angry about him.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
Why do you think the mother wanted that baby?
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Because this is John Stuart Ruthing's son. Even though there
was probably more sons out there somewhere, this is John
Ruthen's son. Everybody knew that.
Speaker 5 (46:16):
I was supposedly is a woman.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
I don't know why. So it was really hard for me. Yep,
the person can take control to that extent.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
The loss of her child still perplexes Marg. She was
left in the unenviable position of having to get permission
from the colonel to see little JP.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
So how often would you go and visit your son?
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Quite often visit my son, good presence, birthdays, whatever. I
know for a fact that when she did pass, a
lot of the things that I had given to him
over the years, even though we had that connection, was
just popped. Anything that his mother would want it would
(47:07):
be there. Different to her to me, because we've god
remember from here. She had the control of him from
when he was a child. That's why I look at
it all to be wrong. It's a CONTROLSI. This is
a grown man that hung around with crims and whatever,
but was still controlled both his word.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
To add to Marg's confusion, she says Reagan told her
nothing about his business dealings. She sensed he was involved
in criminal activity, no question, but she had no idea
about how deeply he was involved in the Sydney underworld
until he started taking her out to dinner to the
(47:52):
homes of some of his special new friends. Up to
that moment, she had been kept oblivious of this dark world.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
He hadn't anice question it it. It sounds like it's
something that you would I Okay, needs to clean all
better leaves. It don't work out way.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
But he knew at some point. Was there any specific
thing that happened that it when? I guess now I understand.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Or I just felt it, just new it. No, he
would not involve me in any of that. He would
not tell me what he was doing. I know that
he makes sweets, damn Psmith. And then my first, how
did you know that? Because I met them?
Speaker 4 (48:38):
I'm under what circumstances? Do he took me to their
houses like for dinner or meetings?
Speaker 11 (48:43):
Or do you not?
Speaker 5 (48:44):
Really?
Speaker 4 (48:45):
So tell me about lending me first?
Speaker 1 (48:48):
Well, that's I leading him at first? And was they
trade of old Chase? And his house was a Ford
terrace and things like that, which is correct. I can't
even remember where it was.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
Did you know who he was before he went there?
Speaker 7 (49:00):
No?
Speaker 1 (49:01):
I didn't know what his connection was, but later on
I did, certainly him Saint Smith. I went to San
Smith's house. He taught me to all those places.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
So socializing with these George Freeman, who do you think
John was more close to of all of those men?
Speaker 4 (49:19):
Battle mans?
Speaker 1 (49:22):
He kept popping up. He was an older man and
he he was lurged by this man into this world.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
Do you think he wanted to be him.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Yes, he wanted to have the power that this man had.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
Definitely, what do you think it is about Johnny and power?
I mean, do you think that might even come somehow
from Claire? Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Power. There's a different thing between power and greed and selfishness,
And it's a terrible thing that, you know, to hurt someone,
to hurt anybody, to acquire that he's just not quite
normal all life is about. I didn't know I was
going out with a so called monsa in which they
(50:07):
had said several times until later on, and most of
it was kept the secret, like of course, what's I
went to let my first in thousands Smith's house and
things like that. I was quite aware who they were.
Speaker 4 (50:20):
I was at that age.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
I knew who they were. But to me, there was
no occasions that I could, honestly if they did anything happen.
Speaker 7 (50:28):
They're not.
Speaker 4 (50:29):
Do you remember what they talked about?
Speaker 1 (50:32):
You don't talk about, you don't never talk about in
front of your female the woman gets in our room.
I don't mind what they do with their wise, but
I know what he did with me. Yeah, it wasn't
that way.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
To understand Reagan's criminal miliere, you have to know about
the other side of the grubby underworld game. The corrupt
Sydney police of the day, there were a couple that
stood head and shoulders above the rest. Although he retired
in nineteen sixty, Ray Gunner Kelly set the gold standard
(51:04):
for a murderous and crooked cop. He killed in the
line of judy, arranged bank robberies and extorted abortionists. It
was said he was the master to a young apprentice
by the name of Roger Rogerson. Frederick Claude Cray or
Freddie Cray joined the New South Wales Police in nineteen
(51:27):
forty and, like Kelly, was early in his career a
respected detective. But by the nineteen sixties Cray, seemingly taking
Kelly's mantle, had devolved into a violent, drunk and criminal.
Speaker 4 (51:43):
With a badge.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
As head of the Breaking Squad, he was getting kickbacks
across the criminal spectrum and was heavily involved with the
city's sex workers, particularly Vice Queen Shirley Briffman, who operated
brothels out of Point and King's Cross. Briffman had come
down from Queensland in the early nineteen sixties after she
(52:07):
became notorious during the National Hotel role Commission in nineteen
sixty three. The inquiry was probing police corruption and prostitution
out of the National Hotel in Brisbane. Briffman was closely
associated with the corrupt trio of Brisbane officers known as
the rat Pack, Terence Murray Lewis, who would go on
(52:30):
to be Commissioner before he was jailed for corruption, Tony
Murphy and Glendon Patrick Hallahan. In Sydney. Briffman built an empire.
The operation, facilitated by graft paid regularly to crooked New
South Wales and Queensland police until she blew the whistle
(52:52):
on all of them, including Cray and Hallahan. In doing so,
Brifman signed her own death warrant and it put Stuart
John Reagan onto her tale. When Britman's loose lips blew
up the underworld, Reagan was sent in to shut her mouth.
(53:12):
Cray was rotten through and through. Years ago before his death,
I spoke to former detective and convicted murderer Roger Rogerson
about his association with Cray in the nineteen sixties and
into the early nineteen seventies.
Speaker 12 (53:29):
Well Fred, It was a tragedy about Fred. Fred was
one of the smartest bunks you'd ever met in your life.
He was a cadet when the war was on, the
Second World War, and he was a bloody a very
very clever bloke, a great organizer and you know, did
some bloody great investigations here in Sydney, a lot of
(53:50):
the thallium cases. And yet you know later on in
life now he and Neil more in my work day
they both worked together on the safe Arson squat. Fred
was a little bit saying and Il a bit older.
But Fred was. He become an alcoholic in here, you know,
he drank a bottle Scotch and his opposite day, you know,
God that he was just cranky as all shit. You know,
(54:11):
you could never you could never hold a conversation with him.
He was just lost it, you know. And I don't know,
I mean, there's no excuse for it. But as I said,
I the Brisbane thing that was all to do with prostitution,
wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
Someone who also didn't think much of Cray was the
former ratpacker Queensland Police Commissioner, a Knight of the Realm,
Terry Lewis. Lewis had been Commissioner from nineteen seventy six
to nineteen eighty seven until he was brought down by
the Fitzgerald Royal Commission into Police and political corruption in Queensland.
(54:50):
He was ultimately convicted of several counts of official corruption
and jailed. It was by any count a spectacular fall
from In two thy ten I met Lewis and he
expressed his desire to have me write his memoir. So
every fortnight for three years I went to his place
(55:12):
in Brisbane's Inner North and interviewed him as research for
my Three Crooked Kings trilogy of books about his life
and times and the history of police corruption in Queensland
from the end of the Second World War until Lewis's downfall.
Lewis passed away in twenty twenty three. In our talks,
(55:36):
Lewis had a lot of time for Gunner Kelly, whom
he met several times as a young detective in Brisbane,
but not Fred Froggy Cray. The recording is a little
scratchy given the equipment I used back in the day,
but Lewis's memories are sharp as attack. We were talking
about the importance of police having a good, solid criminal
(55:59):
informant in the nineteen fifties and sixties, and how crooks
like George Freeman and Lenny McPherson could be invaluable to
a top flight detective.
Speaker 17 (56:12):
I think that was renowned in Sydney, if you might
remember the days he was a bloody good detective to
ray Kelly, Ray Kelly and cray and all those fellows.
Was renowned that they had Freeman and others would kept
their information as long as they fed you with somebody
there on the line.
Speaker 3 (56:31):
Although Kelly and Crayon are now notorious, aren't they.
Speaker 17 (56:35):
I didn't like cray not at all, but I like Kelly.
Kelly was he was a tough man and he joined
the police, so they got twenty six years of age
or something. Been a country or a really tough man.
And I can still remember part of it. He was
in uniform by himself, I think Surry Hillson somewhere one
night and he came across four crim steel in the
(56:57):
car or something, and they all attacked him. So he
shot one, wounded the other three, and naturally that probably
got him into the c ib on. But then the
funny mote of it later on he said he really
liked ray Kelly. Said ray Kelly only shot people who
deserved to be shot coming from a jail, I said.
Speaker 3 (57:20):
As part of the investigation and research for my books,
I became obsessed with the life and ultimate death of
Shirley Briffman. Shirley had paid corrupt police for her entire
career as a sex worker and later a brotheloner. She
counted many of them as lovers. One of those lovers
was Fred Cray. In the late nineteen sixties, it was
(57:42):
proposed to Shirley that she trained her teenage daughter, mary
Anne Brifman to go into the sex trade. Shirley refused.
As a result, she was literally tortured by Fred Cray.
I was lucky enough to have lengthy conversations with Mary Anne.
She was gracious, frank and honest. She remembered detectives using
(58:08):
the Briffman household in Sydney as a storehouse for stolen
goods and Cray turning on her mother.
Speaker 1 (58:16):
Yes, Oh, he was very violent.
Speaker 22 (58:19):
You know the guy that followed him, Roger Rogerson or
whatever you know, for naughty detectives. He was boring it
to shoot people. These people did this very colorfully, you know,
there was a lot of They tortured them and tormented
them and mentally tortured them before. They may have killed
(58:40):
them because he was involved in quite a lot of
torture and it already hurt my mother physically as well.
So the thing is, nobody asked us about what happened.
Speaker 3 (58:54):
Surely had made another major mistake. She'd been talking to
the press. Suddenly stories were appearing about Shirley Brifman, Sydney's
glamorous vice queen. The last thing the police on her
payroll wanted was media attention. She was also toying with
writing a memoir, The Housewife's Best Friend.
Speaker 4 (59:16):
She was going to call it.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
And if this wasn't enough, she'd hosted a party at
her apartment in the Reef Complex in Elizabeth Bay and
invited several corrupt police, including Fred Cray. Somehow the story
of the party made it into the newspapers. It was
getting dangerous. One day, Mary Anne Riffman returned to the
(59:41):
family's Thornleigh home after school and saw a man trying
to strangle her mother to death. She's convinced it was
Johnny Reagan.
Speaker 23 (59:53):
My mother was home and when you walked in the
door of the hallway in that lounge room to that house,
it had two sliding doors that would joined together, you know,
to sline up, and it was really odd. I'd never
seen that the two doors were closed, you know, something
that the housekeeper would never have had done. And we'd
(01:00:15):
never seen the lounge room closed off from that little
bit of the hallway.
Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
But anyway, so what do you do?
Speaker 12 (01:00:21):
Straight away?
Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Me?
Speaker 23 (01:00:22):
When I come in, I opened the door, just opened
the two doors. And then my mother standing between the
lounge and the dining room where we did the ironing,
where the television you know you could best see it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
And there's this guy that's got.
Speaker 23 (01:00:40):
The wire coat hanger undone, well it was already undone,
and he was he was trying to strangle her, right,
he was in the middle of strangling her with iron
undone coat hanger. And you think it'd be a rope
or something, wouldn't you, But no, the code hanger or
(01:01:00):
maybe he got in closed the door. He must have
come in on a pretense that she let him in, yes,
because you just don't come in and close two.
Speaker 12 (01:01:11):
Doors like that.
Speaker 23 (01:01:12):
No one else was home by then, and then of
course when I just walked in, he's thinking he's waiting
to hear the car or the kids come or something else.
So I get in that and then this guy gets
such a shock he doesn't He takes bang out through
the dining room, through that kitchen to the back door
(01:01:33):
and gone. Not that I looked where he went, you know,
but he fleed out the back door that seemed to
be open to my knowledge, because he didn't nearly filling
with the door. And there's my mother and you know,
all the things that we all had to take in
our stride. But it was very fortunate that I came home.
Speaker 10 (01:01:53):
I never asked her.
Speaker 12 (01:01:54):
Who did that?
Speaker 23 (01:01:56):
You know, sometimes you just there's some question and you
didn't ask. But there's just so many things that are
just so I think that was worry, maybe a threat
because of all the wealthy people that were involved, do
you know what I mean? But that's very powerful to
(01:02:17):
come down like that. That could be if that looked
more than a scare, that guy was doing it.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
Shortly after this, Shirley Briffman was charged with an offense
for the first time ever, and her corrupt copper mates
in both Sydney and Brisbane refused to help her out.
It was the last straw she decided to blow the
whistle on the lot of them. On National TV. In
the fallout from her expose, a brifman fled north, convinced
(01:02:49):
by ratpacker Tony Murphy that she'd be safer in Brisbane
than in Sydney, with the likes of Cray and Reagan
out for her blood. In Brisbane, living in a series
of supposed safe houses, she gave several formal police interviews
and not only tipped in a lot of her former
copper mates, but had a lot to say about Johnny Reagan.
(01:03:12):
She said Reagan wasn't satisfied with being the big boss
of Sydney. He had ambitions to become the biggest gangster
in Australia. Just prior to fleeing to Brisbane, she'd hidden
out in King's Cross again in a supposed safe house.
That's when the magician came calling. She later told police
(01:03:35):
what happened.
Speaker 24 (01:03:37):
For a start, I was protected. Now I am not protected.
I paid all these years for protection. I was in
fear for my life. Do you remember the night you
two called to see me. Johnny Reagan came there at
four o'clock. He was one out. Reagan said, don't talk.
If you talk, you are dead.
Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
Shirley made it to Brisbane with her family. As it happened,
Reagan wasn't far behind. He decided to open, for want
of a better phrase, a branch office of the Reagan
Empire north of the border. He was off to Queensland.
Reagan would have been fully aware of the criminal scene
(01:04:20):
and its main players in the Deep North, but he
was the big Sydney gangster, and according to sources, he
was ready to introduce Chicago style mobster tactics to Australia's
East Coast. As usual, he reaped havoc and he just
may have gotten away with not one murder but fifteen
(01:04:44):
when the Whiskey a Go go nightclub in Brisbane's Fortitude
Valley was firebombed in March nineteen seventy three. That inferno
still smolders today, and while he didn't strike the match,
the magician just may have been a driving force behind
one of the worst mass murders in Australian history. He
(01:05:08):
hooked up with drug dealers, He did business with a
local group called the Clockwork Orange Gang. He invested in property,
and he freely displayed brutish behavior, living up to his
now well known reputation as a killer, scaring some of
the locals half to death. In the next episode of
(01:05:35):
The Gangster's Ghost, matt I was scared.
Speaker 5 (01:05:40):
I'm no hero.
Speaker 20 (01:05:41):
I've never been tough. This was something I hadn't come
into contact with before.
Speaker 5 (01:05:46):
Genuinely scary.
Speaker 20 (01:05:47):
He uttered a threat along the lines of if you
don't do this, I'm going to shoot.
Speaker 5 (01:05:51):
You in the kneecaps.
Speaker 20 (01:05:52):
Now I remember vividly it was in the kneecaps. Having
seen the other guy with the gun, I thought, these
guys aren't kid. You put all that together and that's
a pretty convincing argument that you should not be there.
Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
The Gangster's Ghost is a production of The Australian. It's
written and presented by senior writer Matthew Condon and 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 Leek, Stephanie Coombs, Sean Callanan Laughlin,
(01:06:40):
Clear Ryan Osland, Amanda Willim Williams, Christine Keller, Tarn Blackhurst,
Magdalena Zajak, Gisel Boetti, Genevieve Brammel, Lauren Bruce, sus Rolf
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