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by VANESSA MARSH

AFTER 50 years, two coronial inquests, two murder trials, and several parliamentary probes, the mystery of why 15 people were killed in the Whiskey Au Go Go inferno is murkier than ever.

The case is a relic of policing and of the criminal justice system, relying almost exclusively on witness statements recorded on typewriters. There is no CCTV evidence, no body worn camera vision, no cell tower records, no videotaped interviews, no dashcam footage and no DNA – all the makings of a criminal case in modern day Queensland.

The timeline of the inquest and subsequent murder trial for the defendants is mindboggling by today’s standards.

The inquest began just one day after the fire, which was lit in the ground floor foyer of the building on the corner of Amelia St and St Paul’s Terrace after 2am on March 8, 1973.

James Richard Finch and John Andrew Stuart had been charged, tried, convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison just seven months after the deadly inferno. The 1973 inquest was discontinued after
hearing three days of evidence when they were arrested.

A quiet push for it be reopened became a roar in 2017 when evidence emerged at the trial of Vincent O’Dempsey and Garry Dubois, alleging they killed Barbara McCulkin and her two daughters in 1974 to stop the mother from revealing what she knew about the Whiskey blaze.

A fresh inquest held over three tranches beginning in June 2021 heard evidence from at least 65 witnesses. More than 2000 exhibits were tendered across the 30 sitting days.

State Coroner Terry Ryan is still awaiting submissions from the dozens of parties involved before he can begin the monumental task of attempting to find answers to one of the state’s biggest murder mysteries.

The inquest delved into credible evidence that Finch and Stuart did not act alone, with a number of others identified as potential suspects.

Several theories about the motive for the attack have emerged over the years, including an extortion plot by southern criminals and an elaborate insurance scam.

Geoff Plunkett knows more than most about the fire and the many opinions about who orchestrated it and why.

In 2018 he authored nonfiction novel The Whiskey Au Go Go Massacre after gaining access to the original police files. “It immediately became obvious to me that this was a cold case rather than a finalised case,” Mr Plunkett said.

He sat through every day of the modern-day inquest during 2021 and 2022, hearing new evidence and theories not contained within the original police files. He will release an updated version of his book
once tbe findings are released.

Mr Plunkett said he was sure people besides Finch and Stuart were involved, but the deaths of potential suspects and witnesses would make it difficult for anyone to face justice.

“l think it’s going to be an enigma that’s never absolutely solved,” he said. “We’ll be closer but we won’t know.”

Brisbane criminal lawyer Calvin Gnech said he had followed the story of the Whiskey fire since he was a child. He still remembers watching Finch’s infamous interviews after his extradition to England in which he confessed to the crime, only to backflip and protest his innocence a day later.

Mr Gnech, a former police officer, acted for a number of people at the recent inquest and said it would likely be one of the last major legal cases in Queensland that relied only upon verbal evidence without
the support of material such as taped interviews and CCTV. “It’s really significant,” he said. “It’s extraordinary looking back into those times the way that justice occurred, how quickly the inquest and trial were held.”

The counsel assisting the coroner is due to deliver submissions to the inquiry this month. It is hoped the findings may be released this year.

(Letter to the Editor) by Geoff Plunkett

The Whiskey Au Go Go massacre is about I5 people who either went to work or went out for a good time.

Fifteen people who burned to death.

It’s about their relatives and those in the club who escaped.

It’s about why they were murdered and who else was involved.

Why did the police fabricate James Finch’s confession to ensure that only two people were convicted for the atrocity, Finch and John Stuart?

Disgraced convicted killer cop, Roger Rogerson, bragged that he and his colleagues forged the confession because they knew Finch and Stuart were guilty but they didn’t have the evidence.

The consequence? Coconspirators walked free – and then murdered others.

When Rogerson signed the fake confession, he signed a death warrant for Barbara McCulkin and her two
daughters, Vicki and Leanne.

Mrs McCulkin knew too much – she knew the truth.

A second coroner’s inquest concluded in May 2022.

The three main hypotheses explored were:

l. Criminals from Sydney were wanting to stand over the Brisbane clubs. This was Stuart’s original hard-to believe narrative.

2. It was an insurance job as the Whiskey was bankrupt or;

3. Sydney criminals were displeased that a drug courier operation was being run from the Whiskey and undercutting their market. This was a new and surprising addition to the possible “whys”.

Maybe it was a combination of the above.

The coroner had to sift through the alternatives, see through the smoke that has enveloped the Whiskey for 50 years and see through the witnesses’ credibility. Some lied directly to his honour’s face.

Rogerson, while taking the oath, promised to tell “anything but the truth” and so he did.

Full justice is not possible as many of the major players are dead. The absolute truth may be difficult to obtain but a closer understanding of the whos and whys is gettable.

Regardless of the outcome of the second inquest, the relatives were grateful that, albeit belatedly, their concerns over the true motives and other actors were considered.

Grateful that they could tell his honour that the deceased were not just names or cardboard cutouts but sisters, brothers, sons or parents who deserved to remembered in life,
rather than death.

GEOFF PLUNKETT IS AUTHOR OF THE WHISKEY AU G0 G0 MASSACRE

50 years on, questions remain about who lit the deadly fire, and why, at the Brisbane nightclub by MATT CONDON

Desmae Selma Carroll, 29, onetime barmaid and loving mother, rests in peace at the Pinnaroo Cemetery, with its neat lawns and statues of angels playing hams, on Brisbane’s northside.

Near her is a young man by the name of Colin William Foister, 19. Over at Hemmant Cemetery, about 11 km east of the Brisbane CBD, Carol Anne Green, 27, the only daughter of a truck driver, is interred among clutches of gum, wattle and pine trees.

And just south of Brisbane city, David John Westren, 19, and Brian William Watson, 32, share the peaceful gardens of Mt Thompson Crematorium, with its red-brick walls of the dead’s ashes, as their last resting place.

They may be scattered across the metropolis of the Queensland capital, these young people, and some of them may have been strangers to each other, but they all share one thing in common. They all died shortly after 2.08 am on Thursday, March 8, 1973, inside the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley.

On that night, two drums of fuel were ignited in the foyer of the club at the corner of Amelia Street and St Paul’s Terrace, sending flames and fumes up a stairwell and into the first floor with its bars, kitchen and dance floor.

Within two to three minutes 15 innocent men and women were dead from smoke inhalation.

Next Wednesday, survivors of the fire and relatives of the victims, along with local politicians and members of the Queensland Police Service, will gather outside the former club to mark the 50th
anniversary of the tragedy.

Half a century on, after the trial of two perpetrators-John Andrew Stuart and James Finch – in late 1973, rumours of police corruption, allegations that more people were involved in the mass killing, evidence that at least three murders were linked to a cover-up over the crime after the event, and two inquests (one that lasted less than two days and another that concluded only last year) – mystery still hovers about the Whiskey and what actually happened on that tragic night.

Fifty years. Gangsters. Psychopathic killers. Police verballing. Crucial documents missing. A 2Ist century inquest that saw men and women in their 70s and 80s take the witness stand and muddy the waters even further.

Incredibly, theories about who lit the Whiskey and why remain legion.

Stuart, a violent criminal with links to the Sydney underworld, was telling Brisbane clubs in early 1973 that Sydney gangsters wanted to set up an extortion racket in the Queensland capital and take over the city’s clubs and restaurants.

In the weeks leading up to the Whiskey, a cafe and restaurant were torched, adding credence to Stuart’s ominous warnings.

Others were adamant the Whiskey atrocity was an insurance job, an act of arson that went horribly wrong. The club was in liquidation at the time of the fire and a former manager had been accused of pilfering the tills.

The mass murder shocked Australia.

Even a young up-and-coming detective by the name of Roger Rogerson was sent to Brisbane to help local police find the perpetrators.

Stuart and Finch ultimately were arrested and charged with murder. During their trial, a roll call of notorious criminals from Sydney gave brief evidence to debunk Stuart’s claim that southerners
were set to muscle in on Brisbane.

They included the boss of bosses, Frederick “Paddles” Anderson, Lenny “Mr Big” McPherson and Stuart John Regan.

ln the end, Stuart and Finch were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. (Stuart would die in jail in 1979.)

For years, Finch controversially would declare that the unsigned confessions that were responsible for sending them both to jail were police “verbals”, concocted by officers desperate for a conviction.

Nobody listened.

With Stuart and Finch in jail, the matter seemed settled. Both men constantly complained they had been verballed by police.

Stuart ate wire crosses and sewed his own lips shut in protest.

Nothing happened.

Then in l988, having been released and deported back to Britain, Finch would backflip, confessing to lighting the fire that night, along with local Brisbane gangsters Billy McCulkin and Tommy Hamilton. And that there were others higher in the criminal pecking order who organised the job, including corrupt police.

Still no action was taken.

Then in 2017, Queensland gangster Vince O’Dempsey and his co-accused, Garry “Shorty” Dubois, were convicted of the murders of McCulkin’s wife, Barbara, and their two daughters, Vicki, 13, and Leanne, 11, in January 1974.

During his sentencing hearing before Justice Peter Applegarth in the Queensland Supreme Court, O’Dempsey declared he had nothing to do with the Whiskey firebombing.

Applegaith, however, said there was available evidence to the contrary and that Barbara knew enough about the Whiskey fire and an earlier blaze to have her silenced.

On .I une 1, 2017, both O’Dempsey and Dubois were sentenced to jail for life. The next day, then Queensland attorney-general Yvette D’Ath announced a fresh inquest into the Whiskey tragedy.

Would the new inquest, before Queensland State Coroner Terry Ryan, finally unpick the truth from this unending saga? The inquest was held in two stages, in 2021 and last year.

O’Dempsey, with legal counsel, attended several days of inquest hearings, locked in a glass dock. .Just to fuel the conspiracy theories that have never left this complicated story, Dubois took his own life in prison weeks before the inquest resumed last year, and on the opening day of the second tranche the court learned that Finch had died of Covid-19 in London.

Dozens of witnesses took the stand. Even disgraced cop and convicted murderer Rogerson appeared via video link from his Sydney prison. His testimony offered, as expected, absolutely nothing to proceedings.

A young Kath Potter was in the club the night of the fire but left shortly before it was torched. She claimed she had seen men set the fire outside the dub entrance and was grilled at the new inquest.

She said she was left traumatised by the court experience. “I thought it would be centering more on the night and what happened and who they thought did it, and all of all the past commissioners and police and premiers and whoever else was involved, but there was nothing like that,” she told The Weekend Australian.

“I feel it was a complete waste of time and a waste of money on the taxpayer’s purse. None of us should have gone through what we went through. I was trying to tell the truth about what i saw. My story has never changed. They kept telling me what I said wasn’t true.”

Others believed the renewed inquest served an important function.

Donna Phillips, who was working in the Whiskey that night and narrowly escaped with her life, said she wanted to remain positive. “I think as humans we live in hope,” she said. “Tt’s extraordinary that it’s been
50 years.

It’s been a long and winding road. You know, we have that positive aspect in our psyche that tends to lead us forward, through the darkness that the Whiskey Au Go Go has been. And I would probably follow that line and say no more until the findings (of the coroner) are presented.”

Former Queensland police officer Hunter Nicol also was in the club that night and was convinced he was going to die. He just made it out, and to this day still suffers lung complications from the smoke inhalation. He said he was confident “there were others” behind the Whiskey but that the passage of time would preclude any further official action.

Counsel assisting the coroner Stephen Keim SC said he was unable to comment on the inquest and its outcome. He said he was working on submissions that had yet to be responded to. He said “this year is possible” for the handing down of the final report.

Sydney writer Geoff Plunkett, author of The Whiskey Au Go Go Massacre: Murder, Arson and the Crime of the Century, said despite relentless research and having attended every minute of the most recent inquest, the truth about the Whiskey remained elusive. He said the new inquest had been beneficial, particularly for the victims’ families, in that it had progressed the narrative further than ever, and that it gave those families a better understanding of the main players. It also had afforded some of the survivors greater clarity.

After all this time, what did he think really happened on that autumn morning in Brisbane in March 1973? “I don’t know,” Plunkett said. “I really don’t know any more. Do you?”

Some saw the new inquest as a lost opportunity, others as a necessary step in the healing process for many people after more than half a century. But what is the truth of the Whiskey?

Only one thing is certain. Desmae, Colin, Carol, David and Brian sleep forever across then ity. No perjury, incompetence, myths, rumours, redacted documents, historic corruption or legal theatrics is going to change that.

A counterpoint to Rosealie Stuart’s testimony at the Coroner’s inquest

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/dannys-inferno-2-whiskey-au-go-go/13736204

A counterpoint to Rosealie Stuart’s testimony at the Coroner’s inquest

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/dannys-inferno-1-whiskey-au-go-go/13736200

By Cheryl Goodenough

https://7news.com.au/politics/law-and-order/mother-in-fear-after-firebomb-confession-c-5553570

Murderer Vincent O’Dempsey set up the Whiskey Au Go Go firebombing so it would burn down with people inside, a Brisbane inquest into the 1973 attack has been told.

Paul Dubois recounted a conversation he had in the 1980s with his brother Garry Dubois – who was later convicted with O’Dempsey of murdering Barbara McCulkin and her daughters.

Garry Dubois claimed he had nothing to do with the Whiskey fire that killed 15 people, but Tom Hamilton who was known to the brothers had been there, Paul Dubois told the inquest on Thursday.

“He said O’Dempsey had set it up so the place would burn down with people in it. He wanted nothing to do with that,” Mr Dubois said.

“He said he couldn’t understand why that was going to happen.

“He said it was beyond his comprehension that that was even thought about.”

Mr Dubois said his brother referred to the men later convicted of the Whiskey attack – John Andrew Stuart and James Richard Finch – as “a couple of clowns”.

“He said they were set up a long time before the fire to take the fall for it and they were too stupid to wake up to it.”

Mr Dubois said his brother, who died in jail last year, knew a lot of other people including police were involved but didn’t name anyone.

The Whiskey inquest was reopened after the firebombing was mentioned in trials in which O’Dempsey and Garry Dubois were convicted of killing the McCulkins.

The trials heard the killings may have been motivated over fears Barbara McCulkin would try to implicate O’Dempsey in the firebombing.

Only Finch and Stuart were convicted over the Whiskey attack.

The evidence came as lawyers called for former police officer Roger Rogerson, who is behind bars in NSW for murder and was part of the initial investigation into the attack, to be called to testify.

Rogerson is the only person still alive who signed Finch’s confession made days after the firebombing, O’Dempsey’s lawyer Chris Minnery told the inquest.

He said Rogerson could also be asked about the possibility of any involvement by Sydney-based criminals.

The application was supported by some legal representatives, but counsel assisting Stephen Keim said information like details of a conversation between detectives and Rogerson had already been provided to the court.

Rogerson’s lawyer had also instructed that his client would not consent to giving remote evidence.

“We don’t think it’s an exercise logistically or financially justified,” Mr Keim added.

Coroner Terry Ryan is expected to rule on the request on Friday.

By Cheryl Goodenough

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7605146/whiskey-suspect-got-a-touch-up-ex-cop/

A retired police officer says a man later convicted of the fatal Whiskey Au Go Go firebombing “got a touch-up” from police during an interview days after the 1973 attack.

But it was only when John Kolence investigated the disappearance the following year of mother Barbara McCulkin and her daughters he realised the two men convicted were not the only ones involved.

Mr Kolence, a first class constable at the time of the attack, said he was in the adjacent interview room when detectives talked to James Finch, one of two men later convicted.

Mr Kolence, now 77, heard raised voices, banging and crashing from the other room, he told coroner Terry Ryan during the inquest in Brisbane on Wednesday.

“He (Finch) yelled at the top of his voice,” Mr Kolence added.

“I’m not going to f***ing jail … kill me, you bastards, f***ing kill me.”

Mr Kolence said he heard senior officer Syd Atkinson yelling out for Finch to calm down.

After more obscenities that sounded like Finch was trying to “bait” police, Mr Kolence heard furniture moving and something hit the wall next to where he was sitting.

“It clunked into the wall something fierce and it actually moved me on the chair,” he said.

“I got a hellava fright from the wall moving,” he added.

Mr Kolence poked his head into the doorway to check everything was OK, but Mr Atkinson said Finch was just “putting it on”.

Afterwards Mr Kolence saw Mr Atkinson washing his hands in a homicide squad room which he found suspicious.

He later checked Finch closely for any blood or injury, but didn’t see anything to back up his concerns.

Mr Kolence told the inquest Mr Atkinson later read out a record of Finch’s interview that “didn’t sound right”.

It quoted Finch as using the words “gentleman” and “events”, which Mr Kolence told the inquest didn’t sound like words the suspect would use.

“He’d been calling them f***ing c***s and everything for a solid half hour earlier in afternoon so I couldn’t imagine him calling them gentlemen,” he added.

Asked whether he had expressed scepticism about Finch saying those words, Mr Kolence said he wouldn’t dare make such a suggestion to officers who were Queensland’s top investigators.

“I’m the first class constable, I’m the dunce,” he said.

Mr Kolence said he realised while investigating the deaths of Barbara McCulkin and her two daughters there were other people involved in the club attack.

He named Vincent O’Dempsey – who was convicted over the deaths of the McCulkin’s – former boxer Thomas Hamilton and Ms McCulkin’s estranged husband Billy but gave no detail.

The Whiskey inquest was reopened after the firebombing was mentioned in trials in which O’Dempsey and Garry Dubois were convicted of killing the McCulkins.

The trials heard the killings may have been motivated over fears Ms McCulkin would try to implicate O’Dempsey in the Whiskey attack.

More than 60 patrons and staff tried frantically to escape as air conditioning vents acted as chimneys, pouring black smoke into the Fortitude Valley club about 2am on March 8.

Fifteen people didn’t make it out, dying from carbon monoxide poisoning.

The inquest continues.

By Cheryl Goodenough

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7599024/cops-threat-to-blow-lid-on-firebombing/

A policeman who went to jail for years warned he would “blow the lid” on the fatal 1973 Whiskey Au Go Go firebombing, an inquest has been told.

John Bargenquast – who was charged over stolen vehicles and thought his family would be arrested too – asked the police minister’s press secretary to pass on a message to senior officers, the ministerial aide’s two sons told the Coroners Court in Brisbane on Friday.

Christopher and Graham McGetrick, friends of Mr Bargenquast’s children, gave evidence into the attack on the Brisbane nightclub that killed 15 people.

Christopher McGetrick, a former journalist, said he thought it was in 1979 when his father told him Mr Bargenquast had asked for a favour the previous day.

“He said to my dad in general terms, ‘Look, I’ll cop it myself, I’ll do the time, but I just do not want to see my family brought into this’,” Mr McGetrick said.

Mr Bargenquast asked the aide to pass on a message to then police deputy commissioner Tony Murphy.

“Basically the message was that, ‘let Murphy know if the charges against my family are not withdrawn then I will blow the lid on the Whiskey Au Go Go’, essentially words to that effect,” Mr McGetrick said.

He told the inquest his father let him know Mr Murphy became quite aggressive when approached at a police function and asked about his involvement with “that bastard” referring to Mr Bargenquast.

Mr McGetrick said his father told him Mr Murphy spoke to police commissioner Terry Lewis, then returned, saying they wouldn’t be intimidated and were calling Mr Bargenquast’s bluff.

Mr Bargenquast later thanked Mr McGetrick’s father for his help, saying the charges against his family had been dropped.

Mr McGetrick said he spoke to Mr Bargenquast about the incident and the stolen car racket on his release from prison at a family event.

The former journalist said he believed Mr Bargenquast had evidence about the Whiskey attack, but had no knowledge of what that evidence might be.

Brother Graham McGetrick told the inquest he was living with his parents when Mr Bargenquast visited, but thought his father was asked to speak to Mr Lewis.

“I knew he was going to see the hierarchy and, look, I was pretty sure it was Terry Lewis. I could have got that wrong, but I was pretty sure it was,” he added.

Graham McGetrick said he understood his father was asked to pass on a message that the lid would be blown off the Whiskey Au Go Go if the charges against Mr Bargenquast’s family were not dropped.

Two drums of fuel were thrown into the downstairs foyer of the Fortitude Valley nightclub and set alight about 2am on March 8.

Two men – John Andrew Stuart and James Richard Finch – were convicted in 1973 of murder over the attack and sentenced to life in prison.

Both men have since died.

The new inquest was ordered after the firebombing was mentioned in a trial in which Vincent O’Dempsey and Garry Dubois were convicted over the deaths of Barbara McCulkin and her daughters.

That trial was told the killings may have been motivated over fears Ms McCulkin would try to implicate O’Dempsey in the firebombing.

O’Dempsey – who has sat in the court during some testimony – is expected to testify during the last week of the sitting.

Dubois was scheduled to give evidence, but was found dead in his cell at Maryborough Correctional Centre last year.

Australian Associated Press