The Gangster's Ghost – Details, episodes & analysis

Johnny 'The Magician' Regan was a murderer, pimp and psychopath, gunned down by three assassins in a grimy back lane in 1974. He was 29. Matthew Condon investigates gangland’s last great murder mystery.

Subscribers to The Australian and registered users hear episodes of 'The Gangster's Ghost' first at gangstersghost.com.au. Plus you can read more about this case, see exclusive stories, photos, videos and more.

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Johnny Regan's early years were completely dominated by his obsessive mother, Clare, nicknamed "The Colonel", who frowned upon his friendships, didn’t allow him to play sports, and publicly horsewhipped her young son. 

She was married to Alf Regan, the town drunk, the pair having met at The Australian Hotel where Clare worked as a barmaid. With the marriage over by the mid-1950s, Clare took her son to Sydney, starting a new life in the mean streets of Darlinghurst, where the gangster takes shape.

In this episode, Matthew Condon visits the country NSW town of Young to retrace the childhood of Stewart John Regan and delve into his troubled early years.

Subscribers to The Australian hear new episodes of The Gangster's Ghost first. Plus, you can see photographs, videos, timelines and more at gangstersghost.com.au

Read more: How ruthless mum shaped her deadly gangster son

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The five-decade mystery of who killed psychopathic pimp and murderer Stewart John ‘The Magician’ Regan at the age of 29. One of Australia’s most notorious gangsters, Regan was gunned down by three assassins in a Marrickville laneway in 1974.

Introducing The Gangster’s Ghost podcast investigation, in which Matthew Condon explores just how bad this man was and reveals the secret recordings Regan made of himself and criminal associates. 

Subscribers to The Australian hear episodes of The Gangster's Ghost first, plus you can see photographs, videos, timelines and more at gangstersghost.com.au.

Read more: 

• Was this Roger Rogerson's first victim?
• Mystery of The Magician: 'I never killed him. But I had been set free'

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Regan and his mother, Clare – The Colonel – suddenly leave rural Young for the big smoke of Sydney. 

Clare turns up in the city’s notorious red-light district of Darlinghurst, while Regan mysteriously disappears into the institutional nightmare of a Gosford boys’ home. There, he will befriend other wayward children who will ultimately emerge as the biggest and most lethal gangsters of their era.

And Regan, schooled as an apprentice criminal in the boys’ home, will enter the violent noir of Sydney’s Kings Cross in the 1960s and hone his skills as a murderous mobster, terrifying both his criminal milieu and law enforcement.

Subscribers to The Australian hear new episodes of The Gangster's Ghost first. Plus, you can see photographs, videos, timelines and more at gangstersghost.com.au

Read more: 

• The sheep farmer who hunted down a gangster
• The brutal boys’ home that created more crims than it cured
• Families sought answers about slain relatives from notorious crim Neddy Smith

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode Regan, fresh from a boys’ correctional home, steps out into the wild streets of Sydney noir. He quickly makes his mark in notorious Kings Cross as a teenage brothel lord.

Regan also cements his reputation as a violent enforcer with a hair-trigger temper, willing to eliminate anyone who gets in the way of his ambition to be the most powerful gangster not just in Sydney, but Australia.

Then he meets Margaret, the love of his life. But it’s his complicated relationship with his mother – The Colonel – that continues to fuel his rage against women, men, the police and society in general. In short shrift he becomes the archetypal Wild Child, unleashed.

Subscribers to The Australian hear new episodes of The Gangster's Ghost first. Plus, you can see photographs, videos, timelines and more at gangstersghost.com.au

Read more: 

• Gangster tried to strangle corruption whistleblower: Regan link to vice queen murder
• Who’s who of the Glittering Mile: Sydney’s one-time crim kings

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Stewart John Regan’s transition from troubled youth, tow truck driver and nightclub bouncer goes to another level.

While courting his girlfriend Marg, he announces himself as a force to be reckoned with in Sydney’s notorious Kings Cross, muscling in on other criminals’ territory and developing a reputation as a man with a lethal temper. As his list of enemies grows, he is caught up in a Wild West-style shootout in a public street.

In the late 1960s, he is also charged with various rapes and assaults, triggering his endless dance with the law and frequent visits to prison. As his reputation as a dangerous madman grows, he signals his intention to become the number one mobster in Australia. It’s not until people around him start going missing that the underworld begins to take him seriously.     

Read more about this case and see photographs, videos, timelines and more at gangstersghost.com.au

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In this episode, Regan’s de facto partner Marg reveals the truth behind life with a man who was transforming from scallywag to a full-blown criminal. He introduces her to some of the top gangsters of the day. Meanwhile, Regan becomes a suspect in a gangland killing and comes under almost permanent police scrutiny. Matt and Kelly track down Regan’s longstanding solicitor hoping for a goldmine of information about The Magician but things don’t go to plan. Meanwhile, Regan, pursues whistleblowing vice queen Shirley Brifman who flees Sydney for Brisbane in fear for her life, and senses some big business opportunities in the Sunshine State.  

Read more about this case and see photographs, videos, timelines and more at gangstersghost.com.au

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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.

Read more about this case and see photographs, videos, timelines and more at gangstersghost.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode Regan is a suspect following the suspicious death of brothel madam and whistleblower Shirley Brifman in Brisbane where the gangster is using his muscle to expand his various business ventures.

Regan hooks up with the shady Clockwork Orange Gang and rocks the Queensland capital with a series of nightclub fires as he tries to set up a lucrative extortion racket which culminates in the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub firebombing that leaves 15 innocent people dead and becomes the largest mass murder in Australian criminal history. 

For the first time Regan’s relationship with the Whiskey tragedy is exposed. And it may just have pulled the trigger on a plot not just to silence him but to get rid of him for good.

Read more about this case and see photographs, videos, timelines and more at gangstersghost.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matthew Condon and Kelly Slater Regan visit the site of the former Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, where 15 innocent people lost their lives more than half a century ago. 

Condon uncovers a document that suggests the private detective who investigated the horrific attack feared for his life if his findings – that the men convicted of the crime did not act alone – were ever made public. 

And the Regan family finally confronts an allegation that's haunted them for half a century: did Stewart John Regan murder three-year-old Karlos Scott-Huie? 

Read more about this case and see photographs, videos, timelines and more at gangstersghost.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.