June 26, 2025 • 66 mins
In this episode Stewart John Regan expands his business empire into Queensland, bringing all his street-smart Sydney savvy to what he thinks are the genteel provinces. But he walks into a landscape with its own well-established underworld supported by some of the most corrupt and dangerous police anywhere in Australia. Regan hooks up with the eccentric former judge’s associate, John Edward Milligan, who will go on to become one of the country’s earliest large-scale drug dealers. Regan wheels and deals in property and gets to know the local criminal heavies. As usual, though, he causes nothing but chaos and destruction.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Before we begin. This podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
This is a production by The Australian and our subscribers.
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Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, well, well, here he is. I found him. I'm
in the Tweedheads Memorial Gardens the Lawn Cemetery and I'm
standing above the gravestone for John Edward Milligan born thirteenth
(01:04):
of March nineteen forty four died the third of December
nineteen ninety three. Just south of the strange red towering
lego like signpost on the M one Highway that marks
the southern border between Queensland and New South Wales, you
(01:26):
cross a bridge above Terra Noorah Creek and just past
the creek you turn left into Kirkwood Road. Soon after,
on your right you'll see the entrance to the Tweedhead's
Memorial Gardens, a beautifully appointed place for a remembrance of
cremated loved ones that has been in operation since nineteen
(01:49):
seventy two. It was here I found the last resting
place of John Edward Milligans peculiar characters in this story.
His little slate stone is so bland compared to the
(02:12):
life of this incredible character. This individual, who was intelligent,
High Camp Florid, an extraordinary, dynamic individual, came from this
region amazing five lives in one real estate agent, accountant, businessman, lawyer,
(02:40):
and most importantly, near the end of his life, major
major heroin importer, one of the first wholesale heroin importers
into Australia in the nineteen seventies. So Milligan kicked around
in Brisbane in the early nineteen seventies and his life
(03:05):
became entangled with Stuart John Reagan. Reagan started spending a
lot of time expanding his criminal empire into Queensland in
the early nineteen seventies, and his go to man, his
Sunshine State sidekick, was Milligan. This thin, skinny, balding, blonde haired,
(03:30):
tousl head character who would dress up in capes where
he would dress up as a priest or a bishop,
and yet lived this extraordinarily lascivious life if you like
underground life in Brisbane came into contact with Reagan in
(03:53):
the early seventies. It's one of the more interesting odd
couples in this entire story, well in criminal history. Really
like any couple, albeit wedded by their criminality, they had
their ups and downs, and when they fell out, Milligan
was lucky Reagan didn't put a bullet in his head.
(04:17):
But Milligan was rat cunning, smart, meticulously organized, and had
lots of connections in high places. They called Milligan the
clown prints of drugs. He was that and a lot more.
He was, in fact, a very dangerous player in the
(04:39):
then infant industry of wholesale heroine importation. He was mister
Asia before mister Asia, and he could be ruthless. I'm
just looking down over the lawn cemetery where mister Milligan
is interred, and it just occurred to me, with a
(05:02):
bit of a grin on my face, that I don't
think Reagan had a clue what he was getting into
when he hooked.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Up with Milligan.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I don't think he had any idea of the roller
coaster ride he was about to embark on when he
went up to Queensland to do business on several fronts,
and there was Milligan in the fray in the picture,
(05:40):
his sort of sunshine sidekick, totally eccentric, unpredictable, a brilliant mind,
and boy was Reagan in for a shock and a
surprise off they went. Know this about Stuart John Reagan.
(06:04):
He treated his body like a temple. No fats, no sugars,
no smoking, no alcohol. He stood out as a clean
skin in a generation that was turning onto marijuana and magic,
mushrooms and psychedelics. He led a clean life, but behind
(06:25):
the facade he hooked up with the hedonistic John Edward
Milligan for one reason and one reason only drugs. I'm
journalist Matthew Condon and This is the Gangster's Ghost, a
podcast from The Australian. This podcast started out as a
(06:47):
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 the question how does a family
cope with the generational stain of a murderer whose death
(07:08):
was celebrated by criminals and police alike. This is episode seven,
Traveling North.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Life is great in the Sunshine State.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Every Queensland heart sings a song to its table.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
At the dawn of the nineteen seventy Reagan looked north
to Queensland to grow his businesses. If he was going
to be the biggest gangster in Australia, then he needed
to expand. Like everything he did, Reagan operated at breakneck speed.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
Was mannic, had.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Quickly grown over confident, and the worst thing of all,
he'd lost his manners as a gangster. North of the Tweed.
He must have thought the banana benders would be easy pickings.
It's unclear if Reagan, just in his mid twenties, was
(08:39):
aware of the unique characteristics of crime and corruption Queensland style.
It was a vastly different arrangement from the system he
was used to in New South Wales. Up north, there
were no big bosses like Paddles Andersen, Lenny McPherson and
(09:00):
George Freeman running the show from the half shadows. No
infamous overlords in control of vice, protecting their patch, staying
in their lanes and sharing the spoils of their crimes
with corrupt police. No, in Queensland, the big dogs who
(09:23):
masterminded the criminal network and its operations were the police themselves.
They decided who could do what in the underworld. This
powerful cabal of corrupt coppers owned the game. Indeed, any
criminals who decided to venture into their territory without permission
(09:46):
were summarily dealt with. Crooks from top to bottom needed
sanction from the infamous rat Pack of corrupt police Tony Murphy,
Glen Hallahan, Terry Lewis. To be able to work in
the Sunshine State, they had to get a sort of
(10:06):
criminal green card. Only then could they earn and in
turn surrender a large percentage of the spoils with the cops.
The rat Pack had been working the system in Queensland
since the nineteen fifties, and by the time Reagan decided
to put up a shingle in their backyard, they had
(10:30):
perfected their corruption machine, known colloquially as the Joke. But
would they accept a so called psychopathic Sydney gangster like
Reagan on their turf.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
All the while every mile as a sun and smile
and a welcome and jafel.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
All friendship sprang in the Sunshine State.
Speaker 8 (10:58):
The Sunshine firing.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
By Reagan had already established his deadly reputation. Cross him
and your life could be in danger. His numerous Sydney
businesses were pulling in good cash. He owned dozens of
properties throughout New South Wales none were ever listed in
(11:22):
his name, and was always looking to expand his portfolio.
Queensland seemed like a good fit and he had some
powerful incentives to flex his muscle in some new territory.
The brothel Madam Shirley Briffman was in hiding after ratting
out criminals and corrupt police in Sydney, and she needed
(11:44):
to pay for those loose lips. Reagan, ever, the parasite,
must have reasoned he could leverage her for a quid.
Then there was his curious relationship with John Edward Miller. Milligan,
(12:06):
eccentric and demonstrably gay, was a brilliant former Brisbane judges
associate who had turned his back on the law and
decided it was more fun and profitable to break it.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
He was well dressed, always wore business of color, usually
a waistcoat. He was very dabba. He was only a
smallish man, a small crying and he had a receding chin.
He was a generalist. Wonder why he saw the hair
(12:44):
receding from the front. Didn't have a lot of hair,
but he had some.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
You know. This is former Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent
Brian Bennett. I spoke to Brian years ago about his
work on the streets, just as the drug trade was
gathering momentum in the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies. Naturally,
(13:10):
Brian remembered Milligan.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
When I say he was Dabba. Recall one time I
was up in King's Cross in McClay Street doing the
var on another job, and on the old Milligan walks
down the street. He was wearing ten striped trousers spats.
Now I've never seen bats in my life left on
(13:37):
Philip and he was toiling a gold top cane. It's
not about theatrical. I mean, as I said, he was
with care for his Christal.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Milligan was fascinated with the gangster life and he found
its supreme embodiment in Reagan. They were the unlikeliest of
criminal partners, the stocky Reagan with his dark good looks
alongside the effeminate Milligan with his unconventional fashion sense that
included walking canes and capes. John Schobrook, also a former
(14:24):
Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent based in Brisbane and friend
and work colleague of Brian Bennett, would ultimately arrest Milligan
in nineteen seventy nine. And conduct a famous record of
interview that would lay bare the corrupt players in the
Queensland underworld. Shobrook would pay dearly for being an honest
(14:46):
law enforcement officer stuck in a swamp of corruption. And
even though he was only in his early twenties when
he apprehended Milligan, Schobrook knew he had dynamite on his hand.
Milligan was way ahead of his time as a crook.
He developed a filing system of small index cards. On
(15:10):
the cards, he wrote information on everyone he ever met
and kept them for future reference. Information, as they say,
is power. For some reason, during their interview, Milligan opened
up to Shobbrook, now retired and still living in Brisbane.
(15:31):
I asked John about the peculiar relationship between Milligan and Reagan.
I'm trying to understand what a flamboyant, bisexual ex lawyer,
come real estate agent, come pimp would associate with an
absolute a one alpha male Sydney gangster like Stuart John Reagan.
Speaker 9 (15:57):
Well, we've got to ask yourselves what did he offer them?
Maybe it was his intelligence. I don't know how intelligent
Stuart John Reagan was, but maybe it was Milligan's intelligence.
Maybe on a one to one basis. When you're speaking
to the man, you think he's pretty astuid, you know.
I mean, all I have was really spoke to him
(16:20):
about was his own drug involvement and his partners in that.
We never discussed the world situation or anything else for
me to assess to he's a student. Perhaps he impressed them,
or maybe he named you know that you know of
(16:40):
the infamous card file he had he used to keep. Yeah,
he had a card file anyone that he met that
he thought this person could be of use in some
capacity into the future. He'd write down everything that he
could get on or quotes from anything. And with his
(17:01):
IQ and his memory, perhaps they were impressed by his
notice he was a walking computer. If they wanted information
in a pre computer day, it's probably the fastest way
to get it was to last John Mulligan.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
In Brisbane, the eccentric Milligan ran a cafe called Willy's Bazaarre,
a known drugs hotspot at the cd northern end of
the CBD. I spoke to Brisbane identity and journalist Destiny
Rodgers about what you could expect at the cafe. Its
(17:43):
front counter commandeered by a woman called Willie Ah.
Speaker 10 (17:51):
She was this old woman that everyone thought was a trainee,
but she wasn't. With masses of piled teas, blonde hair,
and she.
Speaker 11 (18:01):
Ran up as like a coffee shop. But basically she
let them smoke dope.
Speaker 10 (18:07):
I've never ever heard that she sold it.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Wow, And it was just a marijuana cafe.
Speaker 10 (18:13):
Yes, So that was the original red light area, was there.
Speaker 11 (18:16):
So that takes you even back to the National Hotel
In earlier days.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
From Willie's, Milligan graduated to importing buddhisticks or Buddha of
Thie sticks cannabis bud skewered on a bamboo stick and
dipped in cannabis oil. In the early nineteen seventies, narcotics
agent Brian Bennett got a tip off that Milligan was
set to take possession of a large importation of buddhisticks
(18:46):
at Brisbane Airport. The drugs had been concealed in two
roles of decorative carpet from Southeast Asia.
Speaker 5 (18:58):
On raced out there from there Wid Street the Ta
Bottom Store, just in time to see Milligan, who of
course I knew by sight. Having to carry out surveillance
on walking out of the store with these two rolls
of clib over his shoulder like one I overside God.
(19:19):
He was a cunning basket and I approached him flashmow Idea,
said John Milligan, I'm the senior narcotic agent. What have
you got there? And he said, oh nothing, I'm just
picking these up for favor for a friend. I said,
you're under arrest. A handcuffed him, and he complained that
(19:40):
the cuffs were too tight. And then he said, mister Bennett.
Now I hadn't actually given my name, and of course
he knew my name. He said, mister Bennett, there's no
need for those handcuffs. You know, I'm not a violent person.
The bars had actually named me, showed he had all
(20:03):
as he carried out some countless of violence, played some
inquiries about the viewer. You know.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Incredible, Incredibly, the case against Milligan fell apart in court.
He escaped a conviction. Years later, Milligan opened up to
John Schobrook about his relationship with Stuart John Reagan.
Speaker 12 (20:28):
I first met Reagan in Sydney years ago, and through
my association with Reagan, I had a partnership with Reagan
at one stage until we fell out. Reagan recruited me
in a way in the sense that he used my expertise,
also used me up.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Schobbrook developed a rapport with Milligan. John's interview with him
derailed his police career. Showbrook, courtesy of Milligan, had uncovered
for the first time details about the inner workings of
Queensland corruption and the joke outlined the hierarchy with Lewis,
(21:02):
Murphy and Hallahan the triumvirate at the top. He exposed
how the whole system worked and its monstrous scope. So
honest John Shabrook, along with his milligant information were quickly
shut down. The revelation that Reagan appeared to have been
(21:24):
involved in the drug trade shocked Kelly.
Speaker 13 (21:29):
Wow, So I reckon it's coming back towards heroin and money,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, I mean those early years of when they were
just sorting out the importation stuff.
Speaker 13 (21:40):
Yes, yeah, when they were just getting their grounding and
what was involved in Because I've always also been told
that John despised drugs and never wanted anything to do
with that.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
My next door neighbor has a familiar and oft repeated
saying it's a small world, but I have no ordinary neighbor.
He is former New South Wales undercovered drug squad detective
Michael Drury, who way back in June nineteen eighty four,
was shot twice through the kitchen window of his home
(22:16):
in Sydney. He should have died that night, but didn't.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Michael's near death experience was dramatized in the acclaimed nineteen
ninety five television series Blue Murder, Help Me, Help Me.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Corrupt cop Roger Rogerson was later charged with conspiring to
murder Drury along with hitman Christopher mister Rentakill Flannery. Drury
had refused a bribe to get drugs charges dropped against
Melbourne drug kingpin Alan Williams. Incredibly, Rodger was acquitted. Williams
(23:02):
would later admit he attempted to bribe Drury through Rogerson.
So yes, it's a small world that a crime journalist
would end up befriending one of New South Wales's most
celebrated and incorruptible police officers. And in keeping with that saying,
Drury of course, had an encounter in his policing days
(23:26):
with Milligan in the early nineteen seventies, around the time
Milligan was doing business with Reagan. By this stage, Drury
had been secondered to the drug squad, the youngest officer
in the history of the department, not that I remember.
Speaker 7 (23:44):
But we actually charged him really, yes, very early seventies.
My two workmates and I charged him in Sydney.
Speaker 6 (23:54):
Do you remember him?
Speaker 7 (23:55):
Yes, he was a bad criminal. I was told that
he was an ex judge's associate from a judging Queens
and I couldn't believe it. Yes, John Edward Milligan. I
was only thinking about him about a month ago. He
pleaded guilty to our charge. I think our charge was
in relation to possession of heroin from memory, I mean
(24:16):
he was a bad criminal in drugs. I think he
might have been gay. Am I correct? About five ten
five eleven and he had a very very good head
on his shoulders. And I remember speaking to him in
the cells at Central Police Station underneath a day or
(24:40):
two after we charged him, because he was stilling custody
to make sure he was all right. He was going
for his first appearance before the magistrates. So we must
have charged him on a Saturday. I thought to myself
at the time, this man was a judge's associate from
Brisbane and look at him now, look at him now
(25:05):
you know? Yes, John Edward Milligan.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Drury found it interesting that Milligan would team up with Reagan.
They were almost polar opposites or were they? Well, he
hooked up with Reagan as friends as criminal associates.
Speaker 7 (25:25):
Milligan was a drugs man, So that to me is
proof that if he was running with Reagan in Sydney
and or Brisbane, Reagan was involved in drugs because I
don't think Reagan was ac DC. He may have been, but.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Wow, yes, when Reagan first decided to head up to
Queensland and do business, he was his typical bullet Gate.
He didn't ask the rat Pack for permission, he didn't
tell anyone about his plans. He just hit the ground running.
Milligan told Shobrook that Reagan caused dramas the second he
(26:08):
arrived in the Sunshine State. He particularly infuriated corrupt detective
and ratpacker Glen Hallahan. This is from the transcript between
John Schobrook and Milligan. These are their words, but not
their voices.
Speaker 12 (26:27):
Reagan just rang up without permission from anyone, and in
those days, Reagan received permission to even change suburbs from
Lenny McPherson. Reagan, without getting permission from Lenny just arrived
in Queensland, rang up Murphy from outside the Cecil Hotel
and told him to come down and meet him in
the Cecil Hotel. Murphy refused, rang Glen Hallahan. Glenn rang
Lenny McPherson in Sydney and wanted an answer to the
(26:48):
whole thing. That they weren't just going to turn up
when Reagan told them to. And anyway, apparently the phones
ran hot for a couple of days.
Speaker 10 (26:55):
How do you know that, John, How do you know
the story about Reagan?
Speaker 14 (26:58):
Who told you?
Speaker 12 (27:00):
Reagan told me when he came up there, he lived
in my flat and he told me his side of
the story, and Glenn I contacted him.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
According to Hallahan, Reagan was bad news. In late nineteen
seventy one, just as partner marg gave birth to their
second child, a daughter, Helen. Back in Sydney, Reagan was
tracking the whereabouts of Shirley Briffman, the runaway squealer who
(27:27):
was now giving everybody up in a series of formal
interviews with Queensland and New South Wales police after whistleblowing
on national television. Briffman was holed up at the time
in her sister's old Queenslander in Leafy Brindle Street in
Paddington in Brisbane's in a West. Her nerves were shot.
(27:49):
Investigating police were not sure whether to believe anything she said.
I interviewed legendary Queensland detective Abe Duncan about Briffman several
years ago before he passed away in his nursing home
in Brisbane. On the day I sat down with him
in his small unit, I noticed a classic detective's black
(28:12):
pork pie hat in the corner of the lounge room.
Old Abe instantly remembered Briffman.
Speaker 15 (28:22):
She came in and made the coup pint about the
Brisbane police. You know, I never had to round her
up and chase her. I had to wait until she
came in and he wandered the responsible offer to interview,
And I showed back night after night and took statements
from her.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
She's very sortful.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
You can't one will let she say, so, where did
you interview her in the city or he may pulish
eag bought her.
Speaker 6 (28:48):
Yes and Abra how long was that?
Speaker 15 (28:50):
Ah Viperia about three months, I think, And she willingly
came in and oh yeah, she came in. Used to
come in Old sort of might be half threats about
what would be done or nothing that we will be done.
And once or twice she walked out with you're being interviewed,
and I had to run up and start on the
(29:11):
excitement again. She said, Oh, I don't know whether anybody's
doing anything for me or not, you know, But I said, look,
I'm not taking the excitements and we'll see what happens.
Then We're going to wait and see what happens in
your health Wild first, because she was already on a
chart in your Health Wild and we worked out a
superseded chart in Queensland. Are going back checked up fifteen
(29:33):
or twenty years with something that was current in this
South Wild. I continued on this pasis and I had
to round up and continue to attack the step.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
And from Griffman's agitation was understandable. She told police she'd
been confronted at her safe house by Stuart John Reagan
and a thin young man with blonde hair that had
to have been Milligan. This is what Brifman told police.
Speaker 16 (30:04):
Johnny Reagan came to visit me here. He came to
where I'm living now. He came in a little red
sports car with a new South Wales number plate. It
was about two or three weeks ago. Reagan came to
the door and said to me, I've just come back
from up north Mariba and Herbiton and in the mining area.
He mentioned Clermont too. Have you got the lease of
(30:25):
the mind they talk about in the paper? I said yes,
but I haven't got it here. I have a mine
at Herberton, called the Last Chance. I said, how did
you find out where I live? He said, I've got
ways and means. He did not threaten me, but I
was shocked to see him.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
This was classic Reagan. He was in town on business
and used the Briffman situation to extort a tin mine
license from her and in the process do a favor
for either some of his criminal mates in Sydney or
corrupt hops or both by intimidating her. He was an
(31:05):
apex predator. He took what he could get on the fly.
In Brisbane, Reagan was Milligan's house guest. The law school
dropout had an Art Deco style apartment in fashionable New
Farm on the bend of the Brisbane River, just northeast
of the CBD. Milligan decided to give the Sydney tough
(31:29):
guy a tour of the local underground drug scene and
by complete chance, a local celebrity got caught up in
the drama.
Speaker 6 (31:44):
A very good evening, everyone, Welcome to seven National News.
I'm Mike Higgins. Very good evening everyone. My Higgins tonight
claims of widespread ripoffs in the Queensland home building industry.
Good after learn everyone, Mike Higgins for seven National News.
Australia's consumer price index rows by.
Speaker 14 (31:58):
Three point Fiveewitness.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
News in the big country town that was Brisbane in
the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies, everybody knew
newsreader Mike Higgins.
Speaker 6 (32:12):
Strongly worded telegrams were sent today to the Prime Minister,
Mister Whitlam and Acting Minister for Science Stocks.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Higgins was young, attractive and wore a trademark handlebar mustache.
He also had a velvet voice. Born in Sydney, Higgins
worked in rural radio before quickly working his way up
the TV ladder, settling at Channel seven in Brisbane as
(32:46):
a midnight cowboy style alpha male who read and reported
the news. He could have walked straight out of an
advertisement for Marlborough cigarettes. Higgins was an instant sensation and
the ratings soared at Channel seven by the early nineteen seventies.
With a short lived marriage behind him, heart throb Higgins
(33:10):
lived in a sharehouse in Kelvin Grove in the Inner
City with a group of female art and university students.
He quickly learned that the old Queenslander was some sort
of shop and go from marijuana enthusiasts. Then an eccentric
character started turning up at the house, as Higgins writes
(33:33):
in his memoir Trouserless under the news desk. Things started
to get serious when a skinny little bloke called Milligan,
who supplied the girls with most of their grass, began
to drop in. Sometimes he was a bit unhinged and
occasionally wore a priest's outfit as a disguise with a
(33:55):
gun hidden in its folds. As if Milligan wasn't alarming enough,
The arrival of Reagan, Milligan's associate, sent the dashing newsreader
into a spin. This was no longer a joke. This
was getting serious. I tracked down Mike Higgins, now in
(34:17):
his seventies on Queensland Sunshine Coast. He remembered his encounter
with the underworld like it was yesterday.
Speaker 6 (34:27):
Anyway, I got home from work one day from Channel
seven and went into my bedroom and there was a
bloke sitting on my bed, cleaning and taking apart a
most dangerous looking automatic weapon. I don't know whether it
was a sawn off weapon. I couldn't tell you exactly
what it was, but it gave me a hell of
a fright because there was also a suitcase on the
(34:50):
bed with little bags of white powder. And then the
penny dropped and I thought, these friends of my flatmates
are not really good people. I was pretty sure it
was heroin or cocaine or something. I'd never used them myself.
I'd smoked a few joints, of course, as we all
did when we were twenty. But I became quite paranoid,
(35:14):
really now. The guy on the bed was John Reagan,
and it wasn't until some years later that I discovered
how lucky I had been.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I emailed Higgins's photographs of Reagan in his twenties, and
the old newsreader confirmed that it was the magician he
saw in his bedroom that night. He had no doubt
Reagan was associated with Milligan in the drugs trade. He
recalled Milligan.
Speaker 6 (35:42):
He was a pretty smart cookie. He was also very
hyper and well for a start, he was a heroin dealer,
I discovered, and he used to wear a priest's outfit,
and I think at one stage she had a black
one like the regular black priest thing with a white collar.
But he also had a brown one with a cow
(36:05):
like a hood like a monk. And he used to
have a gun occasionally under there. And he told me
that he used to bring in heroine through the airport
in his priest's outfit, and that Clow he did it. Now,
what happened after I got home and saw John Reagan,
(36:29):
who I later discovered was a contract killer and a
murderer and a very nasty character. I decided that I
wanted to get out of the house.
Speaker 14 (36:39):
Now.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
This all happened in the course of a couple of days.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
What terrified Higgins even further was that Milligan had a
lucrative proposition for him.
Speaker 6 (36:50):
Milligan said to me, he said, I want you to
fly to Sydney. I've got an offer for you. If
you fly from Brisbane to Sydney and back again once
a mo with a suitcase full of grass, we will
give you a unit on the Gold Coast. And it
was either a Ferrari or a Jaguar or some sort
(37:11):
of sports car. I don't remember which one it was.
Did you take him seriously? I meant an extraordinary Oh.
I took him very seriously, very seriously, because I did
make the mistake of I went to a dinner one
night at a Chinese restaurant in the valley. Now there
was John Reagan, there was John Milligan, and a couple
(37:34):
of blokes allegedly who were I don't know whether they
were in the tow Cutters gang or whether they were
connected to the toe Cutters gang. I'm not sure. Anyway,
Milligan said, you know, will you go down and bring
back a bag of marijuana, a suitcase full of marijuana
once a month, because it would be you'd be beyond suspicion.
(37:57):
Being a television news reader. You know, they wouldn't think
that anyway. I realized, after having seen the contract killer
on my bed with a gun and what appeared to
be either heroine or cocaine or something. But what suitcase
that I'd been asking me, It would never just contain grass.
(38:18):
It would have had heavy, dangerous drugs in the suitcase.
So I said, sorry, no, thank you. Milligan's response was
if you don't do this, I'm going to shoot you
in the kneecaps. Now. The very next day I left Brisbane.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Higgins in fear for his life, literally bolted.
Speaker 6 (38:43):
The fear suddenly became very real, and Surge and I
and my future wife then, who worked at a radio station,
we all took off an headed north, got away from
Brisbane as soon as possible. Well, we only got a
few hundred kilometers up to Queensland coast and I walked
out one Sunday morning and my face was plastered over
(39:04):
every newsstand, you know, the little wire news stands outside newsagents,
and I thought, oh my god, I'm everywhere. So at
that point in my mind I had Reagan and Milligan
looking for me. I also had the police looking for me,
which was a fact because Channel seven had enlisted me
(39:26):
as a missing person. The police went up to my
locker at Channel seven and broke it open to try
and find where I'd gone.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Ken Digger Blanche of the popular Brisbane Sunday Sun newspaper
eventually tracked down Higgins in Mount Isa, the mining town
in the far northwest of the state. The newspaper and
Blanche trumpeted.
Speaker 8 (39:50):
Mike Higgins, former golden boy of Brisbane television, is today
running for his life. Higgins told me in an exclusive
interview that he had split from Brisbane to a ho
half months ago, fearing death or maiming at the hands
of criminals deeply involved in Australia wide drug pushing. For
the past five weeks, twenty five thousand Northwestern Queenslanders have
(40:10):
listened to the golden voice of Mike Higgins thinking they
were listening to a suave breakfast session announcer named Mike Morrison.
The radio station bosses knew who Higgins was, but they
kept it a close secret to protect him.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Higgins eventually found his way back to his news desk
at Channel seven up on Mount Coother in Brisbane.
Speaker 6 (40:31):
Thanks to you for joining us tonight from seven National
News around Australia and from Mike Higgins here in Brisbane.
Speaker 12 (40:35):
Good night to you at Gobless.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Apart from terrorizing Brisbane celebrity newsreaders, Reagan also found time
to do a few real estate deals. Noel Barbie was
a young solicitor who'd put up a shingle in the
city's historically seedy suburb of Fortitude Valley, just north of
the Brisbane, CBD. It had once been a major shopping hub,
(40:58):
but over the years its prestige had slipped away. Barbie,
who specialized in criminal law, was a sole practitioner who
mainly did business with fallow Italians. He would go on
to legally represent members of the city's reputed Bellino crime family,
particularly brothers Geraldo and Tony Geraldo or Jerry was jailed
(41:24):
following the Fitzgerald Royal Commission into Police and political corruption
in Queensland in the late nineteen eighties, but back in
the early seventies Barbie was a young talented lawyer on
the make. Barbie agreed to be interviewed in his offices
above a low rise shopping complex in the now elite
riverside suburb of Newfarm, the same suburb John Edward Milligan
(41:50):
once called home Knowls still practicing on the turf, he
claimed when he first started out as a lawyer.
Speaker 17 (41:57):
I remember Milligan, and you know there's a pale fellow,
well met and then as fair as that's concerned, sociable, affable,
you knew his way round land matters etc. And you'd
come across him if you were dealing with a client.
And then there was some transaction and there was Milligan
in the middle of it, and I think he might
have used some of that bona fides or credentials because
(42:20):
of the associate thing he was in to go and
develop that so that he could say he could use it.
But it was always something where it was shady or
some sort of problem with it. There was always something
going on like that.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
And it was through Milligan that Barbie met Stuart John
Reagan at that time.
Speaker 17 (42:40):
In relation to Reagan, the only thing that I can
recall now the sticks out a lot since you've called
me I thought about it, is that there was a fellow.
I don't know whether he frequented Brothers Rugby club or not,
but there was a fellow there called Pat Oswald at Brothers.
He was a brother stall at, a roll boy or something.
(43:00):
Reagan must have got a shine with him, or knocked
around at Brothers or mixed whatever. Oswald had an aunt
or some relation that had property here in Elliston Road
in New Farm and somewhere or other. He must have
had some sway with the yard to sell it to Reagan.
(43:21):
There's a block of flats there now or units that
they built, and I'm pretty sure I didn't do the
conveyance as such, but it was that sort of thing.
I don't think I've ever appeared for him in a
court matter.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Later I went to see Reagan's ambitious development just around
the corner from Noel Barbie's office and a stone's throw
from Milligan's former home in the Art deco apartment building
overlooking New Farm Park. So I'm standing outside of a
block of units at fifteen Elliston Road and New Farm
(43:55):
This is where Solicitor Noel Barbie said that Reagan bought
this land off the auntie of someone he met in
Brisbane and clearly demolished the house, huge block and built
this three level block of cream brick flats. It's called
(44:19):
Rosedale Lodge. It's ten second walk to Newfarm Park, beautiful spot,
incredible and it backs onto the New Farm Bowls Club.
It's a big block of apartments. It looks like garages
(44:39):
on the ground level, breethes through besser brick, cream brick
and then two levels of apartments. I'm just looking at
the letterboxes, so we've got eleven apartments. Can't believe he
had the foresight too take this huge suburban block in
(45:04):
the early seventies and had the vision to build this
massive apartment complex incredible and there's even an old Hill's
house out the back. So, according to Noel Barbie, this
(45:27):
was a Reagan investment and it must have paid off
incredibly handsomely.
Speaker 12 (45:35):
At that point.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Yet another example of Reagan's real estate entrepreneurship right here,
I'll have to rink Kelly. A huge question started to
(45:59):
loom the more we learned about Reagan's real estate activities
in Brisbane, and as we'd soon find out further up
the coast and even into rural Queensland. That question was this,
Where did Reagan, at this stage, only about twenty six
or twenty seven years old, secure the significant finances needed
(46:22):
to fund investments like Rosedale Lodge? Where did all the
money come from? Former New South Wales drug squad operative
and my neighbor Michael Drury had no doubt that Reagan,
through his association with Milligan, had to be involved in drugs.
We have the hapless newsreader Mike Higgins bumping into Reagan
(46:45):
cleaning a gun with an open suitcase of drugs beside him.
I began to suspect that Reagan was a bigger player
in the drug trade than anyone knew, a fact obscured
in the half century since his death, and that his
business partner, John Edward Milligan, too was far more than
the clown prince of a rapidly growing drug trade. I
(47:09):
turned to my mate Jim Slade for advice. Jim is
one of the most honest and decent people you'll ever meet.
His refusal to accept a bribe as a Queensland Police
officer in the nineteen seventies and eighties literally led to
the Queensland Government setting up the Royal Commission into Corruption,
headed by Tony Fitzgerald in nineteen eighty seven. That inquiry
(47:33):
brought down the rat Pack and the government of long
term Premier Jobioki Pedison. But before the Fitzgerald drama, Jim
was a prodigy as an undercover agent for the Queensland
Police's Bureau of Criminal Intelligence. He put together a picture
of drug manufacture and importation into Australia that was so
(47:56):
comprehensive that it was taken by corrupt police and disseminated
to select drug dealers. The crooks were using Jim's information
as a template on how to avoid detection and arrest.
Jim had conducted some covert surveillance on Milligan at his
(48:17):
block of flats in Newfarm and that's how he learned
about Reagan. Jim was and remains convinced that Reagan was
a serious player in the heroin trade at the time.
Speaker 4 (48:29):
Yeah, I mean, there was no doubt about it. But
what an absolute incredible man Reagan was.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
Why do you say that? Oh, you know, like, how.
Speaker 4 (48:39):
Can a human being be so different? In one minute
he's doing this thing and the next minute he's doing
another incredible body criminal act, and then he's involved with
all of these body criminals, and then he's able to
move between these groups which at that time were bloody
dead against each other, like they were adversaries, and yet
(49:04):
he was able to move freely between them all.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Do you think even Reagan could have got in over
his head with the big drug gamer?
Speaker 4 (49:14):
I think, you know, there's two ways of looking at that.
There's that one, but the one I look the one
that I favor, is that he saw he didn't have
to go to all of that trouble, that he could
deal with Neddie Smith and Milligan and those after the
drugs came in. So why worry about that one? Just
(49:34):
do that and he would have put money in. There's
no doubt in my mind that he was happy to
triple his money and then buy the heroine for his
own business once it got into Australia.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
And is that smart or is it more dangerous?
Speaker 6 (49:50):
No?
Speaker 4 (49:51):
No, I think it's smart because number one, all of
that group could see that Reagan wasn't going to be
a threat to them. He was being used because he
was putting money into the big imports and he was
being given a deal. And what it looks like when
you look back over from informants and history, Reagan's heroin
(50:13):
was very very strong. So that tells me that it's
being obtained very close to the importer. If that heroin
had sort of come down to about fifty percent, I
wouldn't go along with that idea that I've got, because
that heroin would have been obtained well down the line
from ready Smith and Milligan.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Right, so he was closer to the source, and then
he could cut it all down and make more.
Speaker 6 (50:36):
Profit, exactly right.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
And because he was doing that, and because he was
one of the investors, everything went along fine.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
But he didn't carry the risk of the importation exactly right, Yep.
At some point Reagan and Milligan had a huge falling
out in Brisbane. Jim Slayer believes it involved a failed
heroin importation at the time. As it turned out, Federal
Narcotic's agent Brian Bennett ended up meeting Reagan in a
(51:08):
backstreet near the Lord Alfred Hotel on Petrie Terrace, in
the shadow of the famous rugby league field Lang Park
now known as sun Corpse Stadium in the Cities Inner West.
Reagan had contacted an officer he knew in the Queensland
Police Department offering to give up a major drug dealer,
(51:29):
namely Milligan. But the Queensland cop felt the matter was
too big for the local constabulary and called in Bennett
and the Knarks. If this was true, it could be
a major bust. It also showed how there was no
honor among thieves. Reagan didn't hesitate to rat out Milligan
(51:52):
when it suited him. Bennett and his partner went to
meet Reagan, though they didn't yet know the identity of
this new drugs informer.
Speaker 5 (52:05):
The rendezvous was said there was a lame way on
the northern side of that raid. A lane went in
and then it did a dog leg to the Rock
and that's where we had to meet this side and
I drove the car. Vince was got into the back.
We pulled up and it was John Reagan. Uh huh,
(52:31):
who was later murdered at marathle in nineteen seventy four.
John Reagan, Yeah, what was he like?
Speaker 10 (52:36):
I loved him here.
Speaker 5 (52:40):
He had the colder eyes. Yeah, blue eyes, chillingly blue eyes.
He had the colder's eyes on a human being. I
have the scene there was extremely fit. I remember seeing
when he was sitting in the car his eyes sort
of bulged with muscle. He was like a you think
he been a soccer player or something, which are standing
(53:03):
knocked around the dog league in this flight waiting for us. Anyway,
he told us that he was a businessman from Sidney
and he was in Brisbane demolishing and renovating homes. He
said that he'd met this fellow Milligan, John Edward Milligan.
(53:24):
I can't recall the circumstances how he met him, but anyway,
he discovered that Milligan was heavily involved in the importation
of drugs on a large scale, and he said, I
am against drugs personally. Now I happen to know that
John Reagan did in fact former a citizens group of
(53:47):
naive people which was sort of aim mainly a corrupt police,
but it was basically under the umbrella of anti drugs.
I mean, that's documented anyway for this skin too around
that killer al right, I mean he said have been
responsible for thirday murders, thirday name murders, including that five
(54:10):
year old boy of one of his prostitutes.
Speaker 14 (54:12):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
What was the point of him giving you that information?
Speaker 5 (54:16):
You think, well, very strange because I mean obviously he
believed that Milligan had enough on him that could destroy him,
but he couldn't get at it. I mean, obviously he
believed Milligan had planted evidence in a solicitor's office or
(54:36):
with someone safe where the evidence would emerge if in
fact John just shot it. You know, obviously he was
scared of the repercussion of actually killing Milliger. Now, he
produced photagraphs, he was extremely professional. I mean, it's been said,
and I believe it that Stuart John Reagan was one
(54:59):
of the first criminal in Australia the adopted American organized
crime methods, you know, modern you sort of neplid.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
It's interesting that Brian Bennett mentioned here how Reagan had
absorbed criminal techniques from the United States, that as a
gangster he was way ahead of the curve. Time and
again in our research down the years, we've come across observers,
both police and criminals, who'd mentioned that Reagan, especially towards
(55:31):
the end of his life, had adopted a Chicago style
of gangsterism. And what did that mean? Thinking big, overwhelming
your rivals, being quicker and smarter, and taking out your
enemies when necessary, irrespective of any so called loyalty to
(55:52):
a pecking order. Brian Bennett continued with his one and
only meeting with Reagan.
Speaker 5 (56:00):
He produced these photographs big blow up Old Milligan, taken
front and side, just like a mugshot. And obviously he
or someone else had a gun on Milligan because Milligan
was pasing, not looking happy, of course front and side photographs.
And he gave us a number of quite a number
(56:20):
of documents belonging to Milligan, so he claimed, and amongst
those documents I've never forgotten this was a best ofs
card on Peter Weir. Peter Weir, of course now is
a well known Australian film director made Delipoli and so forth.
But in those days. Apparently he was only in the
(56:43):
strugg Off Street or in very early career. And Reagan
told us that the Illigan was the sort of black
who would document.
Speaker 14 (56:54):
Everyone he met.
Speaker 5 (56:55):
He'd run a little diary entry on them and indicate
their potential and their weaknesses. You know, he had an
eye for the future. And Peter Weired's card was attached
to a filing card and I forget the comments on it,
but they were. They weren't adverse to Peter Weird or complimentary. Actually,
(57:17):
something along the lines of this fire very smart and
will probably go far in his profession.
Speaker 14 (57:24):
For extraordinary thing to do for Milligon find of this well,
I mean, Reagan wasn't the only one using advance organized
prime type methods anyway, So Reagan claimed that they were
sort of business partners in this renovation business office buildings
and so forth.
Speaker 5 (57:45):
Anyway, obviously it had been a split and that was
the result someone pulled a gun on Milligan and adding
posts for photographs and ripped off all his paperwork. Ben
Reagan said, Okay, well I'm going back to Sydney. Sho
go for this blacky big time. It all pay off.
(58:05):
And I think that was the only major contact we
had with Reagan.
Speaker 2 (58:13):
In the meantime, Reagan was still buzzing around Brisbane trying
to drum up business. He wanted to expand his prostitution
business into western Queensland and up the coast. He was
also keeping track of Shirley Briffman. While she was singing
like a canary to the police down in police headquarters
(58:35):
in Roma Street, Reagan was meeting associates not far away
in the fancy Lennon's hotel. Back in Sydney, Reagan's long
suffering de facto Margaret was coping with a newborn Helen,
but Reagan's entrepreneurship took precedence and he was more intent
(58:57):
on tracking down a former lover and intitute who worked
for him, a young woman called Sheryl Ann Mitchell. She
had fled Reagan and Sydney and ultimately decided to hide
out in Brisbane. She was kicking around with a crook
called Leslie Giggler. Gigler managed some so called health studios
on the Gold Coast. Reagan was intent on killing them both.
(59:22):
As Shirley Briffman told police when this was all happening.
Speaker 16 (59:28):
I've seen Reagan four times the time I saw him
in Lennon's. He did not see me. I think informant
would probably be blondeheaded joker. They were looking for Gigler.
You must have contacts to find out where he is,
Reagan said. Nobody double crosses me or something. He's got
a girl with him that he shouldn't have. Also something
(59:49):
to do with the car. Nobody takes something which belongs
to me. I'm going to shoot him when I get him,
when I find him.
Speaker 2 (59:56):
Mitchell was found dead of a drug overdose in her
fl at on Old Burley Road in Surface Paradise in
late October nineteen seventy one. During Mitchell's inquest, it was
alleged that she had left behind a letter that predicted
her own death. Reagan featured prominently in the letter, to.
Speaker 18 (01:00:18):
Whom it may concern, this is to say that it
is my belief that a man by the name of
John Reagan, of fifty six Duke Street, Kensington, will make
an attempt on my life. Up until several months ago,
I was living with him, and he was taking the
money that I earned as a prostitute in King's Cross.
He had consistently annoyed and persecuted my friends and family.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Another witness who knew Mitchell told the inquest.
Speaker 19 (01:00:46):
She was a nice, quiet type of person. She told
me John Reagan was a gangster in Sydney and that
she used to go with him, and when she broke
up with him, that he threatened to get her. That's
why she came to Brisbane. She said she was frightened
of Reagan, very frightened of him, and that he'd probably
get her in the end.
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
It's difficult to weed out fact from fiction here, given
Mitchell's letter about her impending death somehow found its way
into the hands of ratpacker Glendon Patrick Hallahan, and it
was Hallahan who was pushing the theory that Reagan had
murdered Mitchell. Reagan was a threat to the harmony of
(01:01:31):
the corrupt system known as the Joke. If Reagan got
a foothold in Queensland, then the floodgates might open to
Southern criminals taking over. What is inescapable is that Reagan
was sowing chaos left, right and center, and what shines
(01:01:52):
through is one of his underlying character traits that made
him then and today such a disagreeable, some would say,
despicable human being. Beneath almost everything he did was violence
towards women, his de facto margh lovers sex workers in
(01:02:13):
his employ He had an infantile attitude when he said
that nobody took one of his women. How much of
this hatred stemmed back to the Colonel. Amidst the madness,
Reagan also found time to enter a business partnership with
psychopath Queensland gangster Vince o'dempsey, who not only worshiped Reagan
(01:02:37):
but modeled his entire criminal persona on him. More of
Reagan's deadly doppelganger in the next episode. And in these
later years, and at the peak of his powers, Reagan
perpetuated a monstrous cash rich real estate scam that was
so successful it outlived him. But all of this pales
(01:03:02):
in comparison to the mass murder at the Whiskey, a
go go nightclub on Saint Paul's Terrace in Brisbane's Fortitude
Valley in the early hours of March eighth, nineteen seventy three.
Fifteen innocent people perished, crooks and corrupt police ran for cover.
Reagan said he was in Sydney when the Whisky went up.
(01:03:26):
He even volunteered his services to police to track down
the dastardly killers. Yet half a century later, the true
story of who was behind the Whiskey massacre has never
been told. And the biggest question is this, on that
deadly night, was Johnny Reagan where he said he was?
(01:03:54):
But to get to the truth of the Whiskey this
story must base the court wops of Vice Queen Shirley
Margaret Briffman. In the next episode of The Gangster's Ghost.
Speaker 20 (01:04:09):
Well, obviously the rig Mornison tagging, but she was laying
back on pillows and Jahan was frozen like this, up
in the air, and she was in that position.
Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
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 Lachland, Clear,
(01:04:53):
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We can only do journalism like this with the support
of US subscribers, who hear episodes first and get full
access to photos, video, news stories and features, plus all
(01:05:14):
Australia's best journalism twenty four to seven. Join us at
Gangstersghost dot com dot au
Before we begin. This podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
This is a production by The Australian and our subscribers.
Here episodes first and get full access to photos, video,
news stories and features plus all Australia's best journalism twenty
four to seven. Join us at Gangstersghost dot com dot au.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, well, well, here he is. I found him. I'm
in the Tweedheads Memorial Gardens the Lawn Cemetery and I'm
standing above the gravestone for John Edward Milligan born thirteenth
(01:04):
of March nineteen forty four died the third of December
nineteen ninety three. Just south of the strange red towering
lego like signpost on the M one Highway that marks
the southern border between Queensland and New South Wales, you
(01:26):
cross a bridge above Terra Noorah Creek and just past
the creek you turn left into Kirkwood Road. Soon after,
on your right you'll see the entrance to the Tweedhead's
Memorial Gardens, a beautifully appointed place for a remembrance of
cremated loved ones that has been in operation since nineteen
(01:49):
seventy two. It was here I found the last resting
place of John Edward Milligans peculiar characters in this story.
His little slate stone is so bland compared to the
(02:12):
life of this incredible character. This individual, who was intelligent,
High Camp Florid, an extraordinary, dynamic individual, came from this
region amazing five lives in one real estate agent, accountant, businessman, lawyer,
(02:40):
and most importantly, near the end of his life, major
major heroin importer, one of the first wholesale heroin importers
into Australia in the nineteen seventies. So Milligan kicked around
in Brisbane in the early nineteen seventies and his life
(03:05):
became entangled with Stuart John Reagan. Reagan started spending a
lot of time expanding his criminal empire into Queensland in
the early nineteen seventies, and his go to man, his
Sunshine State sidekick, was Milligan. This thin, skinny, balding, blonde haired,
(03:30):
tousl head character who would dress up in capes where
he would dress up as a priest or a bishop,
and yet lived this extraordinarily lascivious life if you like
underground life in Brisbane came into contact with Reagan in
(03:53):
the early seventies. It's one of the more interesting odd
couples in this entire story, well in criminal history. Really
like any couple, albeit wedded by their criminality, they had
their ups and downs, and when they fell out, Milligan
was lucky Reagan didn't put a bullet in his head.
(04:17):
But Milligan was rat cunning, smart, meticulously organized, and had
lots of connections in high places. They called Milligan the
clown prints of drugs. He was that and a lot more.
He was, in fact, a very dangerous player in the
(04:39):
then infant industry of wholesale heroine importation. He was mister
Asia before mister Asia, and he could be ruthless. I'm
just looking down over the lawn cemetery where mister Milligan
is interred, and it just occurred to me, with a
(05:02):
bit of a grin on my face, that I don't
think Reagan had a clue what he was getting into
when he hooked.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Up with Milligan.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I don't think he had any idea of the roller
coaster ride he was about to embark on when he
went up to Queensland to do business on several fronts,
and there was Milligan in the fray in the picture,
(05:40):
his sort of sunshine sidekick, totally eccentric, unpredictable, a brilliant mind,
and boy was Reagan in for a shock and a
surprise off they went. Know this about Stuart John Reagan.
(06:04):
He treated his body like a temple. No fats, no sugars,
no smoking, no alcohol. He stood out as a clean
skin in a generation that was turning onto marijuana and magic,
mushrooms and psychedelics. He led a clean life, but behind
(06:25):
the facade he hooked up with the hedonistic John Edward
Milligan for one reason and one reason only drugs. I'm
journalist Matthew Condon and This is the Gangster's Ghost, a
podcast from The Australian. This podcast started out as a
(06:47):
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 the question how does a family
cope with the generational stain of a murderer whose death
(07:08):
was celebrated by criminals and police alike. This is episode seven,
Traveling North.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Life is great in the Sunshine State.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Every Queensland heart sings a song to its table.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
At the dawn of the nineteen seventy Reagan looked north
to Queensland to grow his businesses. If he was going
to be the biggest gangster in Australia, then he needed
to expand. Like everything he did, Reagan operated at breakneck speed.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
Was mannic, had.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Quickly grown over confident, and the worst thing of all,
he'd lost his manners as a gangster. North of the Tweed.
He must have thought the banana benders would be easy pickings.
It's unclear if Reagan, just in his mid twenties, was
(08:39):
aware of the unique characteristics of crime and corruption Queensland style.
It was a vastly different arrangement from the system he
was used to in New South Wales. Up north, there
were no big bosses like Paddles Andersen, Lenny McPherson and
(09:00):
George Freeman running the show from the half shadows. No
infamous overlords in control of vice, protecting their patch, staying
in their lanes and sharing the spoils of their crimes
with corrupt police. No, in Queensland, the big dogs who
(09:23):
masterminded the criminal network and its operations were the police themselves.
They decided who could do what in the underworld. This
powerful cabal of corrupt coppers owned the game. Indeed, any
criminals who decided to venture into their territory without permission
(09:46):
were summarily dealt with. Crooks from top to bottom needed
sanction from the infamous rat Pack of corrupt police Tony Murphy,
Glen Hallahan, Terry Lewis. To be able to work in
the Sunshine State, they had to get a sort of
(10:06):
criminal green card. Only then could they earn and in
turn surrender a large percentage of the spoils with the cops.
The rat Pack had been working the system in Queensland
since the nineteen fifties, and by the time Reagan decided
to put up a shingle in their backyard, they had
(10:30):
perfected their corruption machine, known colloquially as the Joke. But
would they accept a so called psychopathic Sydney gangster like
Reagan on their turf.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
All the while every mile as a sun and smile
and a welcome and jafel.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
All friendship sprang in the Sunshine State.
Speaker 8 (10:58):
The Sunshine firing.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
By Reagan had already established his deadly reputation. Cross him
and your life could be in danger. His numerous Sydney
businesses were pulling in good cash. He owned dozens of
properties throughout New South Wales none were ever listed in
(11:22):
his name, and was always looking to expand his portfolio.
Queensland seemed like a good fit and he had some
powerful incentives to flex his muscle in some new territory.
The brothel Madam Shirley Briffman was in hiding after ratting
out criminals and corrupt police in Sydney, and she needed
(11:44):
to pay for those loose lips. Reagan, ever, the parasite,
must have reasoned he could leverage her for a quid.
Then there was his curious relationship with John Edward Miller. Milligan,
(12:06):
eccentric and demonstrably gay, was a brilliant former Brisbane judges
associate who had turned his back on the law and
decided it was more fun and profitable to break it.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
He was well dressed, always wore business of color, usually
a waistcoat. He was very dabba. He was only a
smallish man, a small crying and he had a receding chin.
He was a generalist. Wonder why he saw the hair
(12:44):
receding from the front. Didn't have a lot of hair,
but he had some.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
You know. This is former Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent
Brian Bennett. I spoke to Brian years ago about his
work on the streets, just as the drug trade was
gathering momentum in the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies. Naturally,
(13:10):
Brian remembered Milligan.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
When I say he was Dabba. Recall one time I
was up in King's Cross in McClay Street doing the
var on another job, and on the old Milligan walks
down the street. He was wearing ten striped trousers spats.
Now I've never seen bats in my life left on
(13:37):
Philip and he was toiling a gold top cane. It's
not about theatrical. I mean, as I said, he was
with care for his Christal.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Milligan was fascinated with the gangster life and he found
its supreme embodiment in Reagan. They were the unlikeliest of
criminal partners, the stocky Reagan with his dark good looks
alongside the effeminate Milligan with his unconventional fashion sense that
included walking canes and capes. John Schobrook, also a former
(14:24):
Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent based in Brisbane and friend
and work colleague of Brian Bennett, would ultimately arrest Milligan
in nineteen seventy nine. And conduct a famous record of
interview that would lay bare the corrupt players in the
Queensland underworld. Shobrook would pay dearly for being an honest
(14:46):
law enforcement officer stuck in a swamp of corruption. And
even though he was only in his early twenties when
he apprehended Milligan, Schobrook knew he had dynamite on his hand.
Milligan was way ahead of his time as a crook.
He developed a filing system of small index cards. On
(15:10):
the cards, he wrote information on everyone he ever met
and kept them for future reference. Information, as they say,
is power. For some reason, during their interview, Milligan opened
up to Shobbrook, now retired and still living in Brisbane.
(15:31):
I asked John about the peculiar relationship between Milligan and Reagan.
I'm trying to understand what a flamboyant, bisexual ex lawyer,
come real estate agent, come pimp would associate with an
absolute a one alpha male Sydney gangster like Stuart John Reagan.
Speaker 9 (15:57):
Well, we've got to ask yourselves what did he offer them?
Maybe it was his intelligence. I don't know how intelligent
Stuart John Reagan was, but maybe it was Milligan's intelligence.
Maybe on a one to one basis. When you're speaking
to the man, you think he's pretty astuid, you know.
I mean, all I have was really spoke to him
(16:20):
about was his own drug involvement and his partners in that.
We never discussed the world situation or anything else for
me to assess to he's a student. Perhaps he impressed them,
or maybe he named you know that you know of
(16:40):
the infamous card file he had he used to keep. Yeah,
he had a card file anyone that he met that
he thought this person could be of use in some
capacity into the future. He'd write down everything that he
could get on or quotes from anything. And with his
(17:01):
IQ and his memory, perhaps they were impressed by his
notice he was a walking computer. If they wanted information
in a pre computer day, it's probably the fastest way
to get it was to last John Mulligan.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
In Brisbane, the eccentric Milligan ran a cafe called Willy's Bazaarre,
a known drugs hotspot at the cd northern end of
the CBD. I spoke to Brisbane identity and journalist Destiny
Rodgers about what you could expect at the cafe. Its
(17:43):
front counter commandeered by a woman called Willie Ah.
Speaker 10 (17:51):
She was this old woman that everyone thought was a trainee,
but she wasn't. With masses of piled teas, blonde hair,
and she.
Speaker 11 (18:01):
Ran up as like a coffee shop. But basically she
let them smoke dope.
Speaker 10 (18:07):
I've never ever heard that she sold it.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Wow, And it was just a marijuana cafe.
Speaker 10 (18:13):
Yes, So that was the original red light area, was there.
Speaker 11 (18:16):
So that takes you even back to the National Hotel
In earlier days.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
From Willie's, Milligan graduated to importing buddhisticks or Buddha of
Thie sticks cannabis bud skewered on a bamboo stick and
dipped in cannabis oil. In the early nineteen seventies, narcotics
agent Brian Bennett got a tip off that Milligan was
set to take possession of a large importation of buddhisticks
(18:46):
at Brisbane Airport. The drugs had been concealed in two
roles of decorative carpet from Southeast Asia.
Speaker 5 (18:58):
On raced out there from there Wid Street the Ta
Bottom Store, just in time to see Milligan, who of
course I knew by sight. Having to carry out surveillance
on walking out of the store with these two rolls
of clib over his shoulder like one I overside God.
(19:19):
He was a cunning basket and I approached him flashmow Idea,
said John Milligan, I'm the senior narcotic agent. What have
you got there? And he said, oh nothing, I'm just
picking these up for favor for a friend. I said,
you're under arrest. A handcuffed him, and he complained that
(19:40):
the cuffs were too tight. And then he said, mister Bennett.
Now I hadn't actually given my name, and of course
he knew my name. He said, mister Bennett, there's no
need for those handcuffs. You know, I'm not a violent person.
The bars had actually named me, showed he had all
(20:03):
as he carried out some countless of violence, played some
inquiries about the viewer. You know.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Incredible, Incredibly, the case against Milligan fell apart in court.
He escaped a conviction. Years later, Milligan opened up to
John Schobrook about his relationship with Stuart John Reagan.
Speaker 12 (20:28):
I first met Reagan in Sydney years ago, and through
my association with Reagan, I had a partnership with Reagan
at one stage until we fell out. Reagan recruited me
in a way in the sense that he used my expertise,
also used me up.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Schobbrook developed a rapport with Milligan. John's interview with him
derailed his police career. Showbrook, courtesy of Milligan, had uncovered
for the first time details about the inner workings of
Queensland corruption and the joke outlined the hierarchy with Lewis,
(21:02):
Murphy and Hallahan the triumvirate at the top. He exposed
how the whole system worked and its monstrous scope. So
honest John Shabrook, along with his milligant information were quickly
shut down. The revelation that Reagan appeared to have been
(21:24):
involved in the drug trade shocked Kelly.
Speaker 13 (21:29):
Wow, So I reckon it's coming back towards heroin and money,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, I mean those early years of when they were
just sorting out the importation stuff.
Speaker 13 (21:40):
Yes, yeah, when they were just getting their grounding and
what was involved in Because I've always also been told
that John despised drugs and never wanted anything to do
with that.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
My next door neighbor has a familiar and oft repeated
saying it's a small world, but I have no ordinary neighbor.
He is former New South Wales undercovered drug squad detective
Michael Drury, who way back in June nineteen eighty four,
was shot twice through the kitchen window of his home
(22:16):
in Sydney. He should have died that night, but didn't.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Michael's near death experience was dramatized in the acclaimed nineteen
ninety five television series Blue Murder, Help Me, Help Me.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Corrupt cop Roger Rogerson was later charged with conspiring to
murder Drury along with hitman Christopher mister Rentakill Flannery. Drury
had refused a bribe to get drugs charges dropped against
Melbourne drug kingpin Alan Williams. Incredibly, Rodger was acquitted. Williams
(23:02):
would later admit he attempted to bribe Drury through Rogerson.
So yes, it's a small world that a crime journalist
would end up befriending one of New South Wales's most
celebrated and incorruptible police officers. And in keeping with that saying,
Drury of course, had an encounter in his policing days
(23:26):
with Milligan in the early nineteen seventies, around the time
Milligan was doing business with Reagan. By this stage, Drury
had been secondered to the drug squad, the youngest officer
in the history of the department, not that I remember.
Speaker 7 (23:44):
But we actually charged him really, yes, very early seventies.
My two workmates and I charged him in Sydney.
Speaker 6 (23:54):
Do you remember him?
Speaker 7 (23:55):
Yes, he was a bad criminal. I was told that
he was an ex judge's associate from a judging Queens
and I couldn't believe it. Yes, John Edward Milligan. I
was only thinking about him about a month ago. He
pleaded guilty to our charge. I think our charge was
in relation to possession of heroin from memory, I mean
(24:16):
he was a bad criminal in drugs. I think he
might have been gay. Am I correct? About five ten
five eleven and he had a very very good head
on his shoulders. And I remember speaking to him in
the cells at Central Police Station underneath a day or
(24:40):
two after we charged him, because he was stilling custody
to make sure he was all right. He was going
for his first appearance before the magistrates. So we must
have charged him on a Saturday. I thought to myself
at the time, this man was a judge's associate from
Brisbane and look at him now, look at him now
(25:05):
you know? Yes, John Edward Milligan.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Drury found it interesting that Milligan would team up with Reagan.
They were almost polar opposites or were they? Well, he
hooked up with Reagan as friends as criminal associates.
Speaker 7 (25:25):
Milligan was a drugs man, So that to me is
proof that if he was running with Reagan in Sydney
and or Brisbane, Reagan was involved in drugs because I
don't think Reagan was ac DC. He may have been, but.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Wow, yes, when Reagan first decided to head up to
Queensland and do business, he was his typical bullet Gate.
He didn't ask the rat Pack for permission, he didn't
tell anyone about his plans. He just hit the ground running.
Milligan told Shobrook that Reagan caused dramas the second he
(26:08):
arrived in the Sunshine State. He particularly infuriated corrupt detective
and ratpacker Glen Hallahan. This is from the transcript between
John Schobrook and Milligan. These are their words, but not
their voices.
Speaker 12 (26:27):
Reagan just rang up without permission from anyone, and in
those days, Reagan received permission to even change suburbs from
Lenny McPherson. Reagan, without getting permission from Lenny just arrived
in Queensland, rang up Murphy from outside the Cecil Hotel
and told him to come down and meet him in
the Cecil Hotel. Murphy refused, rang Glen Hallahan. Glenn rang
Lenny McPherson in Sydney and wanted an answer to the
(26:48):
whole thing. That they weren't just going to turn up
when Reagan told them to. And anyway, apparently the phones
ran hot for a couple of days.
Speaker 10 (26:55):
How do you know that, John, How do you know
the story about Reagan?
Speaker 14 (26:58):
Who told you?
Speaker 12 (27:00):
Reagan told me when he came up there, he lived
in my flat and he told me his side of
the story, and Glenn I contacted him.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
According to Hallahan, Reagan was bad news. In late nineteen
seventy one, just as partner marg gave birth to their
second child, a daughter, Helen. Back in Sydney, Reagan was
tracking the whereabouts of Shirley Briffman, the runaway squealer who
(27:27):
was now giving everybody up in a series of formal
interviews with Queensland and New South Wales police after whistleblowing
on national television. Briffman was holed up at the time
in her sister's old Queenslander in Leafy Brindle Street in
Paddington in Brisbane's in a West. Her nerves were shot.
(27:49):
Investigating police were not sure whether to believe anything she said.
I interviewed legendary Queensland detective Abe Duncan about Briffman several
years ago before he passed away in his nursing home
in Brisbane. On the day I sat down with him
in his small unit, I noticed a classic detective's black
(28:12):
pork pie hat in the corner of the lounge room.
Old Abe instantly remembered Briffman.
Speaker 15 (28:22):
She came in and made the coup pint about the
Brisbane police. You know, I never had to round her
up and chase her. I had to wait until she
came in and he wandered the responsible offer to interview,
And I showed back night after night and took statements
from her.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
She's very sortful.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
You can't one will let she say, so, where did
you interview her in the city or he may pulish
eag bought her.
Speaker 6 (28:48):
Yes and Abra how long was that?
Speaker 15 (28:50):
Ah Viperia about three months, I think, And she willingly
came in and oh yeah, she came in. Used to
come in Old sort of might be half threats about
what would be done or nothing that we will be done.
And once or twice she walked out with you're being interviewed,
and I had to run up and start on the
(29:11):
excitement again. She said, Oh, I don't know whether anybody's
doing anything for me or not, you know, But I said, look,
I'm not taking the excitements and we'll see what happens.
Then We're going to wait and see what happens in
your health Wild first, because she was already on a
chart in your Health Wild and we worked out a
superseded chart in Queensland. Are going back checked up fifteen
(29:33):
or twenty years with something that was current in this
South Wild. I continued on this pasis and I had
to round up and continue to attack the step.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
And from Griffman's agitation was understandable. She told police she'd
been confronted at her safe house by Stuart John Reagan
and a thin young man with blonde hair that had
to have been Milligan. This is what Brifman told police.
Speaker 16 (30:04):
Johnny Reagan came to visit me here. He came to
where I'm living now. He came in a little red
sports car with a new South Wales number plate. It
was about two or three weeks ago. Reagan came to
the door and said to me, I've just come back
from up north Mariba and Herbiton and in the mining area.
He mentioned Clermont too. Have you got the lease of
(30:25):
the mind they talk about in the paper? I said yes,
but I haven't got it here. I have a mine
at Herberton, called the Last Chance. I said, how did
you find out where I live? He said, I've got
ways and means. He did not threaten me, but I
was shocked to see him.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
This was classic Reagan. He was in town on business
and used the Briffman situation to extort a tin mine
license from her and in the process do a favor
for either some of his criminal mates in Sydney or
corrupt hops or both by intimidating her. He was an
(31:05):
apex predator. He took what he could get on the fly.
In Brisbane, Reagan was Milligan's house guest. The law school
dropout had an Art Deco style apartment in fashionable New
Farm on the bend of the Brisbane River, just northeast
of the CBD. Milligan decided to give the Sydney tough
(31:29):
guy a tour of the local underground drug scene and
by complete chance, a local celebrity got caught up in
the drama.
Speaker 6 (31:44):
A very good evening, everyone, Welcome to seven National News.
I'm Mike Higgins. Very good evening everyone. My Higgins tonight
claims of widespread ripoffs in the Queensland home building industry.
Good after learn everyone, Mike Higgins for seven National News.
Australia's consumer price index rows by.
Speaker 14 (31:58):
Three point Fiveewitness.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
News in the big country town that was Brisbane in
the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies, everybody knew
newsreader Mike Higgins.
Speaker 6 (32:12):
Strongly worded telegrams were sent today to the Prime Minister,
Mister Whitlam and Acting Minister for Science Stocks.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Higgins was young, attractive and wore a trademark handlebar mustache.
He also had a velvet voice. Born in Sydney, Higgins
worked in rural radio before quickly working his way up
the TV ladder, settling at Channel seven in Brisbane as
(32:46):
a midnight cowboy style alpha male who read and reported
the news. He could have walked straight out of an
advertisement for Marlborough cigarettes. Higgins was an instant sensation and
the ratings soared at Channel seven by the early nineteen seventies.
With a short lived marriage behind him, heart throb Higgins
(33:10):
lived in a sharehouse in Kelvin Grove in the Inner
City with a group of female art and university students.
He quickly learned that the old Queenslander was some sort
of shop and go from marijuana enthusiasts. Then an eccentric
character started turning up at the house, as Higgins writes
(33:33):
in his memoir Trouserless under the news desk. Things started
to get serious when a skinny little bloke called Milligan,
who supplied the girls with most of their grass, began
to drop in. Sometimes he was a bit unhinged and
occasionally wore a priest's outfit as a disguise with a
(33:55):
gun hidden in its folds. As if Milligan wasn't alarming enough,
The arrival of Reagan, Milligan's associate, sent the dashing newsreader
into a spin. This was no longer a joke. This
was getting serious. I tracked down Mike Higgins, now in
(34:17):
his seventies on Queensland Sunshine Coast. He remembered his encounter
with the underworld like it was yesterday.
Speaker 6 (34:27):
Anyway, I got home from work one day from Channel
seven and went into my bedroom and there was a
bloke sitting on my bed, cleaning and taking apart a
most dangerous looking automatic weapon. I don't know whether it
was a sawn off weapon. I couldn't tell you exactly
what it was, but it gave me a hell of
a fright because there was also a suitcase on the
(34:50):
bed with little bags of white powder. And then the
penny dropped and I thought, these friends of my flatmates
are not really good people. I was pretty sure it
was heroin or cocaine or something. I'd never used them myself.
I'd smoked a few joints, of course, as we all
did when we were twenty. But I became quite paranoid,
(35:14):
really now. The guy on the bed was John Reagan,
and it wasn't until some years later that I discovered
how lucky I had been.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I emailed Higgins's photographs of Reagan in his twenties, and
the old newsreader confirmed that it was the magician he
saw in his bedroom that night. He had no doubt
Reagan was associated with Milligan in the drugs trade. He
recalled Milligan.
Speaker 6 (35:42):
He was a pretty smart cookie. He was also very
hyper and well for a start, he was a heroin dealer,
I discovered, and he used to wear a priest's outfit,
and I think at one stage she had a black
one like the regular black priest thing with a white collar.
But he also had a brown one with a cow
(36:05):
like a hood like a monk. And he used to
have a gun occasionally under there. And he told me
that he used to bring in heroine through the airport
in his priest's outfit, and that Clow he did it. Now,
what happened after I got home and saw John Reagan,
(36:29):
who I later discovered was a contract killer and a
murderer and a very nasty character. I decided that I
wanted to get out of the house.
Speaker 14 (36:39):
Now.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
This all happened in the course of a couple of days.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
What terrified Higgins even further was that Milligan had a
lucrative proposition for him.
Speaker 6 (36:50):
Milligan said to me, he said, I want you to
fly to Sydney. I've got an offer for you. If
you fly from Brisbane to Sydney and back again once
a mo with a suitcase full of grass, we will
give you a unit on the Gold Coast. And it
was either a Ferrari or a Jaguar or some sort
(37:11):
of sports car. I don't remember which one it was.
Did you take him seriously? I meant an extraordinary Oh.
I took him very seriously, very seriously, because I did
make the mistake of I went to a dinner one
night at a Chinese restaurant in the valley. Now there
was John Reagan, there was John Milligan, and a couple
(37:34):
of blokes allegedly who were I don't know whether they
were in the tow Cutters gang or whether they were
connected to the toe Cutters gang. I'm not sure. Anyway,
Milligan said, you know, will you go down and bring
back a bag of marijuana, a suitcase full of marijuana
once a month, because it would be you'd be beyond suspicion.
(37:57):
Being a television news reader. You know, they wouldn't think
that anyway. I realized, after having seen the contract killer
on my bed with a gun and what appeared to
be either heroine or cocaine or something. But what suitcase
that I'd been asking me, It would never just contain grass.
(38:18):
It would have had heavy, dangerous drugs in the suitcase.
So I said, sorry, no, thank you. Milligan's response was
if you don't do this, I'm going to shoot you
in the kneecaps. Now. The very next day I left Brisbane.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Higgins in fear for his life, literally bolted.
Speaker 6 (38:43):
The fear suddenly became very real, and Surge and I
and my future wife then, who worked at a radio station,
we all took off an headed north, got away from
Brisbane as soon as possible. Well, we only got a
few hundred kilometers up to Queensland coast and I walked
out one Sunday morning and my face was plastered over
(39:04):
every newsstand, you know, the little wire news stands outside newsagents,
and I thought, oh my god, I'm everywhere. So at
that point in my mind I had Reagan and Milligan
looking for me. I also had the police looking for me,
which was a fact because Channel seven had enlisted me
(39:26):
as a missing person. The police went up to my
locker at Channel seven and broke it open to try
and find where I'd gone.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Ken Digger Blanche of the popular Brisbane Sunday Sun newspaper
eventually tracked down Higgins in Mount Isa, the mining town
in the far northwest of the state. The newspaper and
Blanche trumpeted.
Speaker 8 (39:50):
Mike Higgins, former golden boy of Brisbane television, is today
running for his life. Higgins told me in an exclusive
interview that he had split from Brisbane to a ho
half months ago, fearing death or maiming at the hands
of criminals deeply involved in Australia wide drug pushing. For
the past five weeks, twenty five thousand Northwestern Queenslanders have
(40:10):
listened to the golden voice of Mike Higgins thinking they
were listening to a suave breakfast session announcer named Mike Morrison.
The radio station bosses knew who Higgins was, but they
kept it a close secret to protect him.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Higgins eventually found his way back to his news desk
at Channel seven up on Mount Coother in Brisbane.
Speaker 6 (40:31):
Thanks to you for joining us tonight from seven National
News around Australia and from Mike Higgins here in Brisbane.
Speaker 12 (40:35):
Good night to you at Gobless.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Apart from terrorizing Brisbane celebrity newsreaders, Reagan also found time
to do a few real estate deals. Noel Barbie was
a young solicitor who'd put up a shingle in the
city's historically seedy suburb of Fortitude Valley, just north of
the Brisbane, CBD. It had once been a major shopping hub,
(40:58):
but over the years its prestige had slipped away. Barbie,
who specialized in criminal law, was a sole practitioner who
mainly did business with fallow Italians. He would go on
to legally represent members of the city's reputed Bellino crime family,
particularly brothers Geraldo and Tony Geraldo or Jerry was jailed
(41:24):
following the Fitzgerald Royal Commission into Police and political corruption
in Queensland in the late nineteen eighties, but back in
the early seventies Barbie was a young talented lawyer on
the make. Barbie agreed to be interviewed in his offices
above a low rise shopping complex in the now elite
riverside suburb of Newfarm, the same suburb John Edward Milligan
(41:50):
once called home Knowls still practicing on the turf, he
claimed when he first started out as a lawyer.
Speaker 17 (41:57):
I remember Milligan, and you know there's a pale fellow,
well met and then as fair as that's concerned, sociable, affable,
you knew his way round land matters etc. And you'd
come across him if you were dealing with a client.
And then there was some transaction and there was Milligan
in the middle of it, and I think he might
have used some of that bona fides or credentials because
(42:20):
of the associate thing he was in to go and
develop that so that he could say he could use it.
But it was always something where it was shady or
some sort of problem with it. There was always something
going on like that.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
And it was through Milligan that Barbie met Stuart John
Reagan at that time.
Speaker 17 (42:40):
In relation to Reagan, the only thing that I can
recall now the sticks out a lot since you've called
me I thought about it, is that there was a fellow.
I don't know whether he frequented Brothers Rugby club or not,
but there was a fellow there called Pat Oswald at Brothers.
He was a brother stall at, a roll boy or something.
(43:00):
Reagan must have got a shine with him, or knocked
around at Brothers or mixed whatever. Oswald had an aunt
or some relation that had property here in Elliston Road
in New Farm and somewhere or other. He must have
had some sway with the yard to sell it to Reagan.
(43:21):
There's a block of flats there now or units that
they built, and I'm pretty sure I didn't do the
conveyance as such, but it was that sort of thing.
I don't think I've ever appeared for him in a
court matter.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Later I went to see Reagan's ambitious development just around
the corner from Noel Barbie's office and a stone's throw
from Milligan's former home in the Art deco apartment building
overlooking New Farm Park. So I'm standing outside of a
block of units at fifteen Elliston Road and New Farm
(43:55):
This is where Solicitor Noel Barbie said that Reagan bought
this land off the auntie of someone he met in
Brisbane and clearly demolished the house, huge block and built
this three level block of cream brick flats. It's called
(44:19):
Rosedale Lodge. It's ten second walk to Newfarm Park, beautiful spot,
incredible and it backs onto the New Farm Bowls Club.
It's a big block of apartments. It looks like garages
(44:39):
on the ground level, breethes through besser brick, cream brick
and then two levels of apartments. I'm just looking at
the letterboxes, so we've got eleven apartments. Can't believe he
had the foresight too take this huge suburban block in
(45:04):
the early seventies and had the vision to build this
massive apartment complex incredible and there's even an old Hill's
house out the back. So, according to Noel Barbie, this
(45:27):
was a Reagan investment and it must have paid off
incredibly handsomely.
Speaker 12 (45:35):
At that point.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Yet another example of Reagan's real estate entrepreneurship right here,
I'll have to rink Kelly. A huge question started to
(45:59):
loom the more we learned about Reagan's real estate activities
in Brisbane, and as we'd soon find out further up
the coast and even into rural Queensland. That question was this,
Where did Reagan, at this stage, only about twenty six
or twenty seven years old, secure the significant finances needed
(46:22):
to fund investments like Rosedale Lodge? Where did all the
money come from? Former New South Wales drug squad operative
and my neighbor Michael Drury had no doubt that Reagan,
through his association with Milligan, had to be involved in drugs.
We have the hapless newsreader Mike Higgins bumping into Reagan
(46:45):
cleaning a gun with an open suitcase of drugs beside him.
I began to suspect that Reagan was a bigger player
in the drug trade than anyone knew, a fact obscured
in the half century since his death, and that his
business partner, John Edward Milligan, too was far more than
the clown prince of a rapidly growing drug trade. I
(47:09):
turned to my mate Jim Slade for advice. Jim is
one of the most honest and decent people you'll ever meet.
His refusal to accept a bribe as a Queensland Police
officer in the nineteen seventies and eighties literally led to
the Queensland Government setting up the Royal Commission into Corruption,
headed by Tony Fitzgerald in nineteen eighty seven. That inquiry
(47:33):
brought down the rat Pack and the government of long
term Premier Jobioki Pedison. But before the Fitzgerald drama, Jim
was a prodigy as an undercover agent for the Queensland
Police's Bureau of Criminal Intelligence. He put together a picture
of drug manufacture and importation into Australia that was so
(47:56):
comprehensive that it was taken by corrupt police and disseminated
to select drug dealers. The crooks were using Jim's information
as a template on how to avoid detection and arrest.
Jim had conducted some covert surveillance on Milligan at his
(48:17):
block of flats in Newfarm and that's how he learned
about Reagan. Jim was and remains convinced that Reagan was
a serious player in the heroin trade at the time.
Speaker 4 (48:29):
Yeah, I mean, there was no doubt about it. But
what an absolute incredible man Reagan was.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
Why do you say that? Oh, you know, like, how.
Speaker 4 (48:39):
Can a human being be so different? In one minute
he's doing this thing and the next minute he's doing
another incredible body criminal act, and then he's involved with
all of these body criminals, and then he's able to
move between these groups which at that time were bloody
dead against each other, like they were adversaries, and yet
(49:04):
he was able to move freely between them all.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Do you think even Reagan could have got in over
his head with the big drug gamer?
Speaker 4 (49:14):
I think, you know, there's two ways of looking at that.
There's that one, but the one I look the one
that I favor, is that he saw he didn't have
to go to all of that trouble, that he could
deal with Neddie Smith and Milligan and those after the
drugs came in. So why worry about that one? Just
(49:34):
do that and he would have put money in. There's
no doubt in my mind that he was happy to
triple his money and then buy the heroine for his
own business once it got into Australia.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
And is that smart or is it more dangerous?
Speaker 6 (49:50):
No?
Speaker 4 (49:51):
No, I think it's smart because number one, all of
that group could see that Reagan wasn't going to be
a threat to them. He was being used because he
was putting money into the big imports and he was
being given a deal. And what it looks like when
you look back over from informants and history, Reagan's heroin
(50:13):
was very very strong. So that tells me that it's
being obtained very close to the importer. If that heroin
had sort of come down to about fifty percent, I
wouldn't go along with that idea that I've got, because
that heroin would have been obtained well down the line
from ready Smith and Milligan.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Right, so he was closer to the source, and then
he could cut it all down and make more.
Speaker 6 (50:36):
Profit, exactly right.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
And because he was doing that, and because he was
one of the investors, everything went along fine.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
But he didn't carry the risk of the importation exactly right, Yep.
At some point Reagan and Milligan had a huge falling
out in Brisbane. Jim Slayer believes it involved a failed
heroin importation at the time. As it turned out, Federal
Narcotic's agent Brian Bennett ended up meeting Reagan in a
(51:08):
backstreet near the Lord Alfred Hotel on Petrie Terrace, in
the shadow of the famous rugby league field Lang Park
now known as sun Corpse Stadium in the Cities Inner West.
Reagan had contacted an officer he knew in the Queensland
Police Department offering to give up a major drug dealer,
(51:29):
namely Milligan. But the Queensland cop felt the matter was
too big for the local constabulary and called in Bennett
and the Knarks. If this was true, it could be
a major bust. It also showed how there was no
honor among thieves. Reagan didn't hesitate to rat out Milligan
(51:52):
when it suited him. Bennett and his partner went to
meet Reagan, though they didn't yet know the identity of
this new drugs informer.
Speaker 5 (52:05):
The rendezvous was said there was a lame way on
the northern side of that raid. A lane went in
and then it did a dog leg to the Rock
and that's where we had to meet this side and
I drove the car. Vince was got into the back.
We pulled up and it was John Reagan. Uh huh,
(52:31):
who was later murdered at marathle in nineteen seventy four.
John Reagan, Yeah, what was he like?
Speaker 10 (52:36):
I loved him here.
Speaker 5 (52:40):
He had the colder eyes. Yeah, blue eyes, chillingly blue eyes.
He had the colder's eyes on a human being. I
have the scene there was extremely fit. I remember seeing
when he was sitting in the car his eyes sort
of bulged with muscle. He was like a you think
he been a soccer player or something, which are standing
(53:03):
knocked around the dog league in this flight waiting for us. Anyway,
he told us that he was a businessman from Sidney
and he was in Brisbane demolishing and renovating homes. He
said that he'd met this fellow Milligan, John Edward Milligan.
(53:24):
I can't recall the circumstances how he met him, but anyway,
he discovered that Milligan was heavily involved in the importation
of drugs on a large scale, and he said, I
am against drugs personally. Now I happen to know that
John Reagan did in fact former a citizens group of
(53:47):
naive people which was sort of aim mainly a corrupt police,
but it was basically under the umbrella of anti drugs.
I mean, that's documented anyway for this skin too around
that killer al right, I mean he said have been
responsible for thirday murders, thirday name murders, including that five
(54:10):
year old boy of one of his prostitutes.
Speaker 14 (54:12):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
What was the point of him giving you that information?
Speaker 5 (54:16):
You think, well, very strange because I mean obviously he
believed that Milligan had enough on him that could destroy him,
but he couldn't get at it. I mean, obviously he
believed Milligan had planted evidence in a solicitor's office or
(54:36):
with someone safe where the evidence would emerge if in
fact John just shot it. You know, obviously he was
scared of the repercussion of actually killing Milliger. Now, he
produced photagraphs, he was extremely professional. I mean, it's been said,
and I believe it that Stuart John Reagan was one
(54:59):
of the first criminal in Australia the adopted American organized
crime methods, you know, modern you sort of neplid.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
It's interesting that Brian Bennett mentioned here how Reagan had
absorbed criminal techniques from the United States, that as a
gangster he was way ahead of the curve. Time and
again in our research down the years, we've come across observers,
both police and criminals, who'd mentioned that Reagan, especially towards
(55:31):
the end of his life, had adopted a Chicago style
of gangsterism. And what did that mean? Thinking big, overwhelming
your rivals, being quicker and smarter, and taking out your
enemies when necessary, irrespective of any so called loyalty to
(55:52):
a pecking order. Brian Bennett continued with his one and
only meeting with Reagan.
Speaker 5 (56:00):
He produced these photographs big blow up Old Milligan, taken
front and side, just like a mugshot. And obviously he
or someone else had a gun on Milligan because Milligan
was pasing, not looking happy, of course front and side photographs.
And he gave us a number of quite a number
(56:20):
of documents belonging to Milligan, so he claimed, and amongst
those documents I've never forgotten this was a best ofs
card on Peter Weir. Peter Weir, of course now is
a well known Australian film director made Delipoli and so forth.
But in those days. Apparently he was only in the
(56:43):
strugg Off Street or in very early career. And Reagan
told us that the Illigan was the sort of black
who would document.
Speaker 14 (56:54):
Everyone he met.
Speaker 5 (56:55):
He'd run a little diary entry on them and indicate
their potential and their weaknesses. You know, he had an
eye for the future. And Peter Weired's card was attached
to a filing card and I forget the comments on it,
but they were. They weren't adverse to Peter Weird or complimentary. Actually,
(57:17):
something along the lines of this fire very smart and
will probably go far in his profession.
Speaker 14 (57:24):
For extraordinary thing to do for Milligon find of this well,
I mean, Reagan wasn't the only one using advance organized
prime type methods anyway, So Reagan claimed that they were
sort of business partners in this renovation business office buildings
and so forth.
Speaker 5 (57:45):
Anyway, obviously it had been a split and that was
the result someone pulled a gun on Milligan and adding
posts for photographs and ripped off all his paperwork. Ben
Reagan said, Okay, well I'm going back to Sydney. Sho
go for this blacky big time. It all pay off.
(58:05):
And I think that was the only major contact we
had with Reagan.
Speaker 2 (58:13):
In the meantime, Reagan was still buzzing around Brisbane trying
to drum up business. He wanted to expand his prostitution
business into western Queensland and up the coast. He was
also keeping track of Shirley Briffman. While she was singing
like a canary to the police down in police headquarters
(58:35):
in Roma Street, Reagan was meeting associates not far away
in the fancy Lennon's hotel. Back in Sydney, Reagan's long
suffering de facto Margaret was coping with a newborn Helen,
but Reagan's entrepreneurship took precedence and he was more intent
(58:57):
on tracking down a former lover and intitute who worked
for him, a young woman called Sheryl Ann Mitchell. She
had fled Reagan and Sydney and ultimately decided to hide
out in Brisbane. She was kicking around with a crook
called Leslie Giggler. Gigler managed some so called health studios
on the Gold Coast. Reagan was intent on killing them both.
(59:22):
As Shirley Briffman told police when this was all happening.
Speaker 16 (59:28):
I've seen Reagan four times the time I saw him
in Lennon's. He did not see me. I think informant
would probably be blondeheaded joker. They were looking for Gigler.
You must have contacts to find out where he is,
Reagan said. Nobody double crosses me or something. He's got
a girl with him that he shouldn't have. Also something
(59:49):
to do with the car. Nobody takes something which belongs
to me. I'm going to shoot him when I get him,
when I find him.
Speaker 2 (59:56):
Mitchell was found dead of a drug overdose in her
fl at on Old Burley Road in Surface Paradise in
late October nineteen seventy one. During Mitchell's inquest, it was
alleged that she had left behind a letter that predicted
her own death. Reagan featured prominently in the letter, to.
Speaker 18 (01:00:18):
Whom it may concern, this is to say that it
is my belief that a man by the name of
John Reagan, of fifty six Duke Street, Kensington, will make
an attempt on my life. Up until several months ago,
I was living with him, and he was taking the
money that I earned as a prostitute in King's Cross.
He had consistently annoyed and persecuted my friends and family.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Another witness who knew Mitchell told the inquest.
Speaker 19 (01:00:46):
She was a nice, quiet type of person. She told
me John Reagan was a gangster in Sydney and that
she used to go with him, and when she broke
up with him, that he threatened to get her. That's
why she came to Brisbane. She said she was frightened
of Reagan, very frightened of him, and that he'd probably
get her in the end.
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
It's difficult to weed out fact from fiction here, given
Mitchell's letter about her impending death somehow found its way
into the hands of ratpacker Glendon Patrick Hallahan, and it
was Hallahan who was pushing the theory that Reagan had
murdered Mitchell. Reagan was a threat to the harmony of
(01:01:31):
the corrupt system known as the Joke. If Reagan got
a foothold in Queensland, then the floodgates might open to
Southern criminals taking over. What is inescapable is that Reagan
was sowing chaos left, right and center, and what shines
(01:01:52):
through is one of his underlying character traits that made
him then and today such a disagreeable, some would say,
despicable human being. Beneath almost everything he did was violence
towards women, his de facto margh lovers sex workers in
(01:02:13):
his employ He had an infantile attitude when he said
that nobody took one of his women. How much of
this hatred stemmed back to the Colonel. Amidst the madness,
Reagan also found time to enter a business partnership with
psychopath Queensland gangster Vince o'dempsey, who not only worshiped Reagan
(01:02:37):
but modeled his entire criminal persona on him. More of
Reagan's deadly doppelganger in the next episode. And in these
later years, and at the peak of his powers, Reagan
perpetuated a monstrous cash rich real estate scam that was
so successful it outlived him. But all of this pales
(01:03:02):
in comparison to the mass murder at the Whiskey, a
go go nightclub on Saint Paul's Terrace in Brisbane's Fortitude
Valley in the early hours of March eighth, nineteen seventy three.
Fifteen innocent people perished, crooks and corrupt police ran for cover.
Reagan said he was in Sydney when the Whisky went up.
(01:03:26):
He even volunteered his services to police to track down
the dastardly killers. Yet half a century later, the true
story of who was behind the Whiskey massacre has never
been told. And the biggest question is this, on that
deadly night, was Johnny Reagan where he said he was?
(01:03:54):
But to get to the truth of the Whiskey this
story must base the court wops of Vice Queen Shirley
Margaret Briffman. In the next episode of The Gangster's Ghost.
Speaker 20 (01:04:09):
Well, obviously the rig Mornison tagging, but she was laying
back on pillows and Jahan was frozen like this, up
in the air, and she was in that position.
Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
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 Lachland, Clear,
(01:04:53):
Ryan Osland, Amanda Winn Williams, Christine Keller, Tarn Blackhurst, Magdalena Zajak,
Gisel Buetti, Jennefer Rammel, Lauren Bruce Sus Rolf and Yaquina Carlson.
We can only do journalism like this with the support
of US subscribers, who hear episodes first and get full
access to photos, video, news stories and features, plus all
(01:05:14):
Australia's best journalism twenty four to seven. Join us at
Gangstersghost dot com dot au
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