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