Margaret Ward, 18, disappeared on November 13, 1973, after
visiting a Brisbane solicitor's office about a summons she had received while
working in a massage parlour at Chermside, Brisbane, QLD. She was last seen with a known
criminal and a woman who ran the massage parlour.
Police said they believed she knew and talked too much and referred to a
series of domino effects after a firebombing at the Whiskey Au Go Go
nightclub in Fortitude Valley in March 1973 that had killed 15 people.
(Fox, Kylie /
Wykes, Ruth: Invisble Women. Powerful and Disturbing Stores of Murdered Sex
Workers, Echo Publishing: 2016)
McCulkin cold case investigation could 'rewrite Queensland history',
investigative reporter says
A police breakthrough on a 40-year-old triple murder cold case has been
described as "astonishing", with the potential to rewrite Queensland history.
Barbara McCulkin, 34, and her daughters Leanne, 11, and Vicki, 13, disappeared
from their home in the inner-Brisbane suburb of Highgate Hill on the night of
January 16, 1974.
They have not been heard from since, their bodies were never found, and police
believe they were murdered.
Cold case investigators aided by regional detectives and Crime and Corruption
Commission investigators have been examining the murders for most of this year.
Investigative journalist Matthew Condon explored the McCulkin murders in his
book Jacks and Jokers, which details the extent of official corruption in
Queensland through the 1970s and early 1980s.
In the book, he quoted witnesses who suggested Barbara McCulkin was murdered
because she was ready to publicly name her estranged husband, Billy McCulkin,
over his supposed involvement in the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub fire in 1973.
Fifteen people died in the fire in what was at the time Australia's largest mass
murder.
James Finch and John Andrew Stuart were convicted of the crime.
Solving the murders could 'turn history on its head'
Speaking on 612
ABC Brisbane on Wednesday, Mr Condon said the latest police investigation
should be "loudly applauded".
"Clearly they have not taken this case lightly, they have vigorously
reinvestigated this murder," he said.
"I spoke to individuals who were in Boggo Road [jail] in the late '70s and the
murder was discussed.
"There were rumours and allegations that the two young girls had been sexually
assaulted - there was even a rumour that those young women had been beheaded
before their mother's eyes.
"There were rumours of police involvement, that corrupt police played a part in
their disappearance.
"All these things have swirled around quite literally for decades.
"Which is why it is so astonishing yesterday to learn from the police that they
have raided properties outside Warwick.
"If we get to the truth courtesy of this investigation it will turn history on
its head in this state, there is no question about that.
"It might have happened 40 years ago ... the community needs to know that
authorities are trying to heal a wound of that magnitude for us.
"We need clarity - that period, the early to mid '70s, was a very violent, very
aggressive, very blurry period in our history.
"We had people going missing - Simone Vogel, Margaret
Ward, Norman 'the Doorman' Ford and a dozen more unsolved crimes."
Yesterday, Detective Steve Holahan said they were confident of solving the case.
Political historian and former Brisbane journalist Tony Koch said corruption had
been rife in Queensland in the early 1970s and solving the McCulkin case was not
in the interests of police at the time.
"Really Queenslanders have to thank Tony Fitzgerald for his subsequent inquiry
for one, cleaning out the police force, and two, giving us today a much cleaner
and much more aggressive and honest and decent police force that now go over
cold cases and treat them honestly."
Claim Angel of Death said missing man ‘wouldn’t be talking to anybody
any more’
Thomas Chamberlin, Matthew Condon
July 10, 2019 - 00:00AM
The Courier-Mail
A MAN claimed triple murderer Vince O’Dempsey once declared that a man who
ratted him out to police “wouldn’t be talking to anybody any more” after the
young worker vanished.
In the early 1960s, O’Dempsey – who has been dubbed the Angel of Death –
worked on the construction of the Leslie Dam near Warwick where he
befriended co-worker Mr Allen.
Mr Allen would later assist police in relation to the robbery of two
jewellery stores near Warwick.
Police questioned him in 1964 and he agreed to give evidence against
O’Dempsey in court.
But he disappeared and the charges against O’Dempsey were dropped.
Mr Allen, 22, was working as a railway labourer at Karara, near Warwick,
when he vanished on April 18, 1964.
He was last seen in Grafton St, Warwick, getting into a maroon Holden
vehicle with a white roof.
Mr Allen was due to play for Eastern Suburbs Rugby League team the next day.
Homicide squad Detective Inspector Damien Hansen yesterday said police
wanted to speak to a member of the public who spoke to a football team
player in the dressing room on Sunday, April 19, 1964.
“That conversation concerned what we believe is the murder of Mr Allen,” he
said.
“And we ask that anyone who has any knowledge of that conversation or was
present that day to make contact with us.”
Det Insp Hansen said police had a person of interest but declined to reveal
who it was.
In 1980 a joint inquest was held into the disappearance of the McCulkins, Mr
Allen and prostitute Margaret Ward.
Mrs McCulkin’s husband Billy McCulkin spoke at the inquest about a
conversation he claimed to have had with O’Dempsey over a drink in a hotel
in 1974 when the gangland figure talked about putting people in a dam at
Warwick.
“He made a statement to me that there was a person in Warwick or near
Warwick … that wouldn’t be talking to the police any more,” Mr McCulkin told
the inquest.
“I asked what he meant by that and his reply was, ‘old Vince (Tommy Allen)
won’t be talking to anybody any more’.”
The coroner was unable to find how or where Mr Allen died.
“The cause of his disappearance would seem to be directly linked to the fact
that he was required to give evidence against Vincent O’Dempsey in a
criminal proceeding, and there is ample evidence of a motive for his
death,’’ the coroner said at the time.
At the time of his disappearance Mr Allen was described as being a
flamboyant man who wore “loud shirts” and leopard skin pants.
He was described as a member of the “bodgie cult” who talked tough.
He was said to be about 160cm tall, with fair hair and blue eyes, large,
protruding ears and a nose slightly bent to the left.
Mr Allen had a scar between his eyes, above his nose.
He had a tattoo on his right arm of a girl’s head in a heart with an arrow.
Police Minister Mark Ryan said cold case detectives would never give up and
appealed for people to come forward and “let justice be done” for Allen, his
family and friends.
The reward also offers an indemnity from prosecution for any accomplice who
did not commit the crime.
