- today
Explore Melbourne’s most notorious criminals in this episode of Suburban Gangsters. Learn about Stewart Regan and Dennis Allen, two dangerous figures who made a huge impact on Australia’s criminal scene. Dennis Allen, was a drug dealer and murderer responsible for up to 13 brutal killings. Find out how he gained power in the drug trade, his violent crimes, and his troubled family life. Stewart Regan was a criminal who thrived on violence. Discover his early life, his cruel criminal acts, and the fear he spread. This episode dives into their lives and crimes, showing how their actions shocked and scared everyone around them.
Uncover the intricate web of criminal enterprises, from notorious mob families to high-stakes heists, as we delve into the compelling stories behind the criminal masterminds and law enforcement efforts to bring them to justice.
Uncover the intricate web of criminal enterprises, from notorious mob families to high-stakes heists, as we delve into the compelling stories behind the criminal masterminds and law enforcement efforts to bring them to justice.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00He's an extremely violent person, wouldn't pull any punches. He'd kill people with swords, guns, axes.
00:20Both the police and the criminals themselves were in great fear of a man whose behaviour was totally unpredictable, but was always violent.
00:38His need for violence was so great. He embraced violence like an old friend.
00:45This is the story of the magician, Stuart John Regan.
00:50And Mr Death, Dennis Bruce Allen.
01:00Two psychopaths who shared a limitless capacity for violence.
01:06And who murdered their friends just as readily as their enemies.
01:12When they died, even the criminal underworld rejoiced.
01:20The End
01:22The End
01:24The End
01:26The End
01:28The End
01:30The End
01:40In this episode of Suburban Gangsters, we're delving into the lives of the two most despised crooks of their generations.
01:52Alan was the eldest son of crime matriarch Kath Pettingill.
01:56He became one of Melbourne's biggest drug dealers and was responsible for up to 13 murders.
02:02Many committed in his own home.
02:06How many people do you think he killed?
02:08How many people do you think he killed?
02:10I think I know about five.
02:12Some say there could be as many as 13.
02:14Yes, but I don't know all those people.
02:16Regan was a pimp, rapist, standover man and child murderer who enjoyed inflicting pain.
02:26Stuart John Regan was a malicious, vicious, violent criminal whom I would rate among one of, if not the worst, criminal I ever came across during my entire police career.
02:50Of all the criminals I ever knew or dealt with as a crime reporter, Regan would probably have been the most vicious and deadly of the lot. The most heartless.
03:04Stuart John Regan was born in the quiet country town of Yonge, New South Wales in 1945.
03:14Not much is known about his early life apart from his love of violence.
03:19Well, if you're ever looking for a psychopath, Regan ticks all the boxes.
03:24No one was surprised to learn that as a child he killed animals, he harmed animals.
03:31There was a story that he used a pitchfork to kill a possum.
03:34He killed kittens and dogs and he just had no empathy for any living being whatsoever.
03:50Regan's parents divorced when he was 10 and his mother took off with her boy for the lights of Sydney.
03:58They lived in Paddington, a seedy suburb of poor families with lots of children trying to survive.
04:04On these streets, young boys learnt to fight and Regan was a natural.
04:11Johnny Regan came from Paddington, which in those days was a very, very hard and rough suburb.
04:17The Paddo boys were renowned, they were tough and he was the toughest and most vicious of the tough.
04:22At the age of 14, Regan attacked a stranger in the street and was sent to a harsh reformatory called Gosford Boys Home.
04:34Here he was on the receiving end of brutal beatings, which instead of curbing his violent tendencies, helped to hone them.
04:44From Paddington he gravitated to King's Cross to the Darlinghurst area where illegal gambling, prostitution proliferated.
04:57He soon made a reputation for himself on the streets.
05:00I remember a story about Regan being in King's Cross with a friend and he'd come across somebody he'd had a disagreement with, bashed him to a pulp and as the guy lay on the ground, mortally wounded, Regan turned to his friend who was smoking a cigarette, made him give him the cigarette and he stubbed that lit cigarette in the person's eye.
05:21That's how vicious Regan was.
05:30To earn money, Regan became a pimp.
05:33He targeted prostitutes working in the slums and bashed them if they refused to work for him.
05:41At 17, he had a string of women paying for his dubious brand of protection.
05:47John Regan built up a stable of prostitutes, he made quite a lot of money out of that and he controlled them through fear and violence.
05:57If they didn't hand over as much money as he thought they should have, he slapped them around, there was no doubt about that.
06:06If he found out that there was a customer who was misbehaving or wasn't paying, they'd be beaten within an inch of their lives.
06:13He was a pretty solid luck, he was pretty hard and tough and you could not believe how strong his bastard was.
06:20If he grabbed you, he had you. You couldn't get away.
06:23His strength made him a formidable standover man and pimp.
06:30He formed multiple business partnerships, but his associates would learn that Regan was a very dangerous man to do business with.
06:40While Stuart John Regan was building his reputation in Sydney, Dennis Allen was seeking his own in Melbourne.
06:51While never as tough as Regan, Allen was smarter and more treacherous.
06:56I wouldn't trust him as far as he could throw him, he's one of them blokes that just, nah, he just had a horrible demeanour about him, mate, you know.
07:07I mean, you know, look, these blokes are all good characters and they're dangerous bastards and there's, you know, but there's certain people that are just real low-lifes.
07:17That's where I put him, mate, he was a low-life.
07:23Dennis Allen was a millionaire heroin dealer.
07:26He's believed to have committed up to 13 murders and revelled in the nickname Mr. Death or just Mr. D.
07:34Allen would murder people in his own home in front of witnesses.
07:40His nephew, Jason Ryan, would later tell police about three murders he witnessed.
07:46The most grisly was the shooting and dismemberment of Anton Kenny.
07:53Jason Ryan told me that the Outlaw Motorcycle Club, which kicked Kenny out, had asked Dennis Allen to kill him.
08:01According to Jason, Dennis and Anton were sitting across at a table at Dennis' house.
08:12But Dennis had a gun under the table.
08:17Shot Anton Kenny dead where he sat.
08:24After he shot him dead, Allen cut up his body with a chainsaw.
08:31Apparently the chainsaw became clogged and the boys had to use a meat cleaver to finish the job.
08:40Wendy Pierce told me that she actually came into the place with Victor Pierce while Dennis Allen was cutting up Anton Kenny's body with a chainsaw.
08:47And Victor Pierce had grabbed one of Kenny's feet and chased Wendy around the house with it.
08:52You know, so this was the level of madness they were living in.
08:55Anton Kenny's dismembered body was then stuffed in a 44-gallon drum, which was tossed into the Yarra River.
09:05So this is a guy who doesn't care about the consequences of his behaviour.
09:14He doesn't really care about good or wrong.
09:16He's just doing what he's doing.
09:18He's evil by our judgement, but by his judgement it's day to day stuff.
09:24And that's the thing that we all have trouble with.
09:26Because we all live our lives by rules.
09:28We understand this thing called the social contract.
09:30We won't go so far because if we go that far, then we lose something that we value.
09:35He doesn't value anything except himself.
09:38Dennis was born on Melbourne Cup Day 1951 to a 16-year-old girl called Cathy Pettingill.
09:47He was the eldest of the ten children she would bear.
09:54Cathy was probably a wild 16-year-old when she got pregnant with Dennis.
09:58The father skipped off to the Korean War as soon as he could.
10:02And then she had another child.
10:05And then they all moved in with the grandparents.
10:10And for a long time, Dennis and his younger brother Peter thought that the grandparents were his parents
10:16and that Cath was the sister.
10:20Now that was incredibly significant in Dennis' life.
10:25It must have been incredibly traumatic.
10:30It would be another 15 years before Dennis learnt that Cathy was his mother.
10:37And that his nephews and nieces were in fact step-brothers and sisters.
10:43But then she met Billy Pearce.
10:46They had another six kids, some of whom were adopted out because obviously there were concerns about the dysfunctional home life.
10:53And then there was Pettingill.
10:55And Pettingill had already a couple of tribes of his own.
10:58So this was a tangled up dysfunctional family.
11:03Dennis' journey to becoming a violent, twisted man began with this deception and later with domestic violence.
11:15When he was about three, Cathy's mother, Gladys, who was a pretty shocking character,
11:21Gladys used to take to Dennis with a broomstick and beat the living daylights out of him with the broom handle.
11:28Dennis grew up in a rough public housing estate called Olympic Village.
11:34It was built to house the athletes during Melbourne's Olympic Games in 1956.
11:40But soon degenerated into a ghetto and a Petri dish for crime.
11:45Dennis grew up in a criminal family.
11:49From an early age, that's what he knew.
11:52He'd grown up, you know, small armed robberies, petty thefts, assaults.
11:57He started working for a firm of panel beaters in Frankston.
12:01This is when he was in his early teens.
12:03And he would take the biggest and fastest car off for a run after everybody had left the premises at night.
12:09And he started to come to the attention of police.
12:11According to Harry Allen, they beat the living daylights out of him on more than one occasion, him and Peter, his younger brother.
12:20And I think this is when Dennis started to harden up.
12:25He had by now recognised that if you want to survive in this world, you struck the first blow.
12:31You didn't wait.
12:35At age 13, he was sent to Tirana Boys' Home for theft.
12:40The culture at Tirana was described as controlled by punishment.
12:45There was no focus on the welfare of the juvenile offenders.
12:51When people go in and they go through the juvenile justice system in the old days, certainly, where it is a gladiator school,
12:57then they come out often a lot more upset about society in general.
13:02They feel they don't fit.
13:04They're made not to fit.
13:05And because they're now labelled misfits by society, they often see that as being a reason to become a misfit.
13:12Inside Tirana's walls, Dennis was schooled in violence.
13:20His grandfather, Harry Allen, was on the receiving end of his rage when Dennis finally returned home.
13:27Now, Harry Allen adored Dennis.
13:30Dennis put Harry in hospital more than once, peaked the living daylights out of him,
13:34but then would come to the hospital the next day and say, because he called him Dad,
13:39I'm really sorry, Dad, I shouldn't have done it,
13:41and give him a kiss on the forehead as he lay in his hospital bed black and blue.
13:45And Harry Allen told me, he said, look, he did terrible things to me, but I loved him.
13:50And there was a soft side to Dennis.
13:52Dennis wasn't Cathy's only problem child.
13:59Every one of her sons, including the youngest, Jamie, had an appetite for violence.
14:05The young Jamie Pentagall's got a .22 caliber young American,
14:10and he's going like this to the cat, he's going, bang, bang, bang, bang.
14:16And he's pulled the trigger and he's gone, bang.
14:18And the cat's, the gun's gone off and he's actually shot the cat.
14:21And Dennis has turned around and says, oh, good one, Jamie.
14:25Good one.
14:26Oh, he's discharged a weapon in the lounge room and shot the cat.
14:30And Dennis Allen's looked, oh, good one, Jamie.
14:33Good one, you know, highly, highly amused.
14:40But this was just a taste of the casual brutality and horror
14:44that would later take place in Allen's home.
14:45Regan was known to be a dangerous man for his own particular ends.
15:00He made associations to suit himself.
15:02He ended associations to suit himself.
15:04He killed his peers.
15:05He killed his rivals.
15:06He killed anyone and hurt anyone who got in his way.
15:09John Regan earned the nickname, the magician,
15:14and it had nothing to do with his prestigious abilities.
15:17People who befriended John Regan tended to disappear.
15:21Regan was paranoid.
15:23He always feared that someone may have known too much about him
15:26and his activities.
15:27If he thought that, good night, Irene.
15:34In January 1967, Regan, who was well known to police for assault, robbery and rape,
15:41added murder to his criminal resume.
15:44His victim was a fellow pimp and business associate called Barry Flock.
15:50Barry Flock was involved with John Regan in a car rebirthing scheme.
15:57Police arrested Barry Flock and charged him with possession of stolen cars
16:06and a bail was set at a reasonably high price.
16:11Now, not long after that, John Regan himself bailed Barry Flock out.
16:17Now, Barry Flock never turned up for court.
16:22Barry Flock disappeared.
16:24Barry Flock was another victim of the magician
16:26because Barry Flock knew too much about John Regan's involvement in car rebirthing.
16:32Police had no evidence or witnesses with which to charge Regan.
16:48Getting away with murder set the magician on a killing spree.
16:53His murders became strategic.
16:56He eliminated associates who had the potential to implicate him in one of his many crimes.
17:03One of the magician's first vanishing acts was performed on Ross Christie,
17:07a partner in a women's dress shop where they used to sell stolen goods.
17:11Next was Eric Williams, whose disappearance allowed Regan to consolidate his hold on Sydney's brothels.
17:23It's believed he got away with as many as eight murders.
17:28The police were also aware of what he was doing and what his antics were,
17:32but it was incredibly hard to get any evidence against him.
17:36In fact, I think the only time he was in jail was for a string of car offences, traffic offences.
17:44The allegations of assault, vicious assault, perverting the course of justice,
17:51burglary and other charges just fell by the wayside simply because you couldn't find witnesses who testified.
17:57They were too scared of him.
18:03He feared no one, not even the Toe Cutter gang, ruthless pirates who would torture other crooks
18:09into giving up their stolen loot rather than pulling their own jobs.
18:13The leader of the gang was Kevin Gore. He was last seen walking down a street with Regan.
18:25Gore disappeared. And I've got no doubt that Regan ended up with Gore's cash.
18:32Police found no evidence to tie Regan to his death.
18:36But rumours of his involvement only helped to cement his reputation as a man to be feared.
18:43Dennis Allen, on the other hand, was just getting started.
18:48And like Regan, Allen was a rapist.
18:53Aged 22, Dennis Allen was sentenced to nine years in jail
18:57for the kidnap and brutal gang rape of a 19-year-old woman.
19:07Inside Pentridge Prison, Allen made connections with major drug dealers.
19:13When he was released five years later, he used his contacts to help set himself up as a heroin supplier.
19:22At his peak, he was earning the equivalent of $200,000 a week in today's money.
19:28Once he got into the drug trade and was really coining big money, he became more dangerous than anything.
19:36And of course, what happens in the drug trade, there are feuds.
19:39And he was responsible for a whole series of murders.
19:52A loyal and obedient family helped Allen build his drug empire.
19:56They became known as the Klan, Victoria's most notorious criminal brood.
20:05So when you think of what became the Allen, Pettingill, Pierce family,
20:11you have to think of a very dysfunctional unit, not a real family.
20:16It was kind of a primitive urban tribe.
20:19A crime gang bound by blood in more ways than one.
20:24Nephew Jason Ryan was one of Dennis' most trusted family members and witnessed three of his uncle's murders.
20:35Jason told me he was very scared of his uncle and felt obliged to become complicit in his criminal activities a lot of the time for fear that I guess his uncle would kill him.
20:47Jason Ryan recalls the murder of Wayne Stanhope.
20:50Jason said it was his first that he witnessed at the hand of his uncle Dennis.
20:58Wayne was a so-called friend of Dennis Allen.
21:02Wayne Stanhope came out of Geelong Prison to visit me.
21:06I forgot to tell him that I didn't get on well with Dennis Allen.
21:09I should have said, because he didn't tell me he was going to go and visit Dennis Allen.
21:12And then when he left me, he goes up to see Dennis Allen.
21:15And he goes into Dennis Allen's place at Stevens Street, Richmond.
21:20And Dennis said, where have you been, Wayne?
21:22He said, I've just come back from seeing Chopper.
21:24He said, Chopper Reed?
21:26I said, yeah.
21:27And he said, oh.
21:28Wayne Stanhope's got up to change his record.
21:32So Dennis Allen shot him in the back of the head with a .38.
21:41He did that because Wayne Stanhope come to visit me in Pendridge.
21:44And I bashed Dennis Allen in Pendridge with a Roland pin.
21:55Alan was heavily addicted to speed.
21:59At the height of his drug taking, he was injecting a phenomenal seven grams of pure speed every day.
22:05Kathy claimed that he used to sometimes go without sleep for 10, 11 days in a row, which is probably hard to believe.
22:14But the stories of his drug use are so stupendous that I do tend to believe her when she says that.
22:21And you didn't go near Dennis when he was like that because he didn't know who he was, who he was with.
22:28He once tried to kill Kathy because he didn't recognize her as his mother, let alone his sister.
22:32That particular drug, unlike many other drugs, very quickly leads to a sense of psychosis.
22:44It does damage to the brain.
22:45It does damage to areas of the brain that are involved in problem solving, personality.
22:49He would have had frequent episodes of psychosis, mental instability, emotional instability, lack of emotional control.
23:00One occasion when Kathy came home from a massage parlour and Dennis used to lie in the bathroom with black plastic floor ceilings and walls.
23:07And he would take people into there and bash them senseless and then he would go away and have a drink and stick some methadrine into his arm and then resume the bashing.
23:19And one night Kathy came home and there was a barely conscious body lying in the hallway with a machete in the back of his head.
23:26Dennis and his soldiers were in the room watching television and drinking and injecting speed.
23:31They were waiting to finish him off and Kathy got that boy out.
23:34The young man narrowly escaped with his life.
23:40But it was only a matter of time before Dennis would explode and commit another murder.
23:53He was one of the worst human beings that ever walked the streets of Sydney.
23:57He was a psychopath. He was a child murderer.
24:02He was just a horrible human being who ultimately got his just deserts.
24:08How are child killers seen by criminal groups?
24:12Nah, he was a fucking, he was a maggot.
24:16Stewart, Johnny Regan, he was a maggot.
24:19And, you know, I'm glad he got killed.
24:24Just a fucking maggot.
24:25She'd kill a maggot.
24:26She'd kill a maggot, you know.
24:34Well, the downfall of John Regan started with the disappearance of Carlos Scott Huey.
24:41Carlos Scott Huey was the son of prostitute Helen Scott Huey, who lived with John Regan.
24:46She was his girlfriend.
24:47John Regan claimed that he'd gone to Taylor Square in Sydney at 4am to buy a newspaper.
24:59And he'd go police this story that he'd just left Carlos briefly in the car while he went to get a newspaper, came back and Carlos was gone.
25:05Police are appealing to the public for any information that can help locate a missing two-year-old boy.
25:19Carlos Scott Huey was left alone in a car in Flinders Street, Darlinghurst, on May 22 and was later reported missing.
25:26He has not been seen or heard of since, and his present whereabouts are unknown.
25:31Everyone, the public, the media, the gangsters, the police, had no doubt whatsoever that Carlos had disappeared because Regan had killed Carlos.
25:51The theory was Regan, who had a bad temper, was babysitting Carlos while his mother was out working, earning a quid.
25:59Carlos began to cry.
26:04Regan couldn't take the crying, and he snapped.
26:10In snapping, he somehow killed Carlos.
26:15He dumped Carlos's body somewhere, went to Taylor Square as a subterfuge,
26:22and then contacted police in a panic to say that someone had taken Carlos.
26:29The Carlos incident also exemplified the fact that during that era, the criminals had no compunction about attacking each other, doing things to each other that would have appalled general society.
26:52But by and large, they had a creed which said, we won't interfere with the square heads.
26:59They thought the people who went to church and obeyed the laws were square heads.
27:03They would do terrible things to each other, there was no holds barred in dealing with each other, but as far as the square heads and most of all children was concerned, they were total no-go areas.
27:15Regan had crossed a line that the criminal milieu itself did not understand.
27:23The thing that especially abhorred both the police and indeed the other criminals of the time was that Regan then made a grab for publicity by actually offering a substantial reward for anybody who could have information about the disappearance of Carlos.
27:42Regan's heart was so cold and black that he taunted police and the boy's mother by offering up false leads as to where Carlos's remains might be found.
27:57He sent police to a house in Woolloomooloo where they found bones beneath the floorboards.
28:03I remember where he put dog bones down at Woolloomooloo and said, oh, there's bones here, you know, probably where this little bloke is.
28:14He'd do that because that would be his kick, you know, being a psychopath.
28:19That would be, he'd be getting a huge amount of fun out of that because that's how he thought.
28:25That just goes to show what a raving bloody ratbag he was, for Christ's sake.
28:30While Carlos's body could not be found, Regan remained free.
28:43Everyone knew he was guilty, but no one was brave enough to say it to his face.
28:48Except for one man, an SP bookie and standover man by the name of Ratty Jack Clark.
28:58This confrontation would lead to the eventual demise of both men.
29:03He was the sort of crook who would kill a man or a woman, for that matter, through paranoia,
29:16or if he went nuts on one of his many methylamphetamine binges.
29:20I mean, they didn't call him Mr Death for nothing.
29:26Dennis Allen's drug-induced paranoia led him to committing multiple murders.
29:31In his own home.
29:34Dennis liked to do his killing at home.
29:37He was a creature of habit.
29:39You know, people used to say that he'd ring you up and ask you over to kill you.
29:43So there was numerous murders carried out within his empire of properties
29:48in the Cremorne area of inner-city Melbourne.
29:57Among the victims was one of Allen's dealers,
29:59a prostitute and junkie named Helga Wagner.
30:03Dennis became convinced she was ratting him out to the police.
30:08He lured her to his home, offering a taste of a new supply of heroin he'd just received.
30:14He knew Helga could not resist such an invitation.
30:17According to Jason Ryan, Dennis gave her a hot shot of heroin.
30:23Didn't quite kill her.
30:27Dennis then ordered Jason to run down to the nearby Yarra River with a bucket,
30:33come back with it full of the Yarra River water.
30:36Dennis then proceeded to pour that water down Helga Wagner's throat.
30:47Jason recollects that she reminded him of a whale.
30:51She kept spitting the water out and wouldn't die very easily.
30:53Apparently it took Dennis several attempts to actually drown her.
30:58And then her body was thrown in the Yarra.
31:00As Melbourne's biggest heroin and amphetamine dealer, Allen wasn't short of money.
31:16He bought his headquarters, two houses in Stevenson Street Cremorne, for cash.
31:22Soon he was buying more properties in the adjoining streets for his family members and foot soldiers.
31:30Residents soon complained of loud music, screaming and gunshots, day and night.
31:37Police began surveillance and set up their operations in the recently closed Rosella soup cannery nearby.
31:52There's a story about how he would get in these paranoid rages and walk out and ping a few shots at them as they were doing surveillance.
32:00And other police were asked to ask Dennis, please don't shoot at the guys in the Rosella factory because they're only doing their job.
32:06And he said, oh, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, because he was a lover of police.
32:10Paradoxically, for a guy who was so on the other side of the law, he loved police, would always assist them.
32:14Dennis Allen, when it suited him, would inform to the police to keep himself out of jail.
32:22He rang me one night at about midnight and he said, you better get over here. I've got a case full of fucking money.
32:33Well, he'd already rung another policeman, so we go over to his address in Richmond.
32:38We find this fellow handcuffed around a pole in his backyard and we found a case full of forged shortening dollar notes.
32:48They're the kind of things that Dennis Allen wanted to do.
32:51Where he got the handcuffs from, I didn't ask him.
32:54But when we got there, our prisoner was there and he took us around and showed us the various places where they had done the printing.
32:58He was clearly involved in several murders, but the amount of information he was giving to members of the breaking squad and the consorting squad on other people,
33:07the crooks that he knew or was associated with, was incredible.
33:11There were times when you had one set of Victoria police who were trying to load Dennis Allen up with a gun
33:17and another lot who were trying to cut them off and give Dennis a warning.
33:21It got to a ludicrous situation where he got bail in the most ridiculous circumstances.
33:27But he was that useful to certain police.
33:30I mean, it got to the stage where he felt so untouchable that he hatched a plot to blow up a court, for instance.
33:35Still got bail.
33:40And there's absolutely no doubt given the number of times that Dennis appeared in court on serious charges ranging from murder on down
33:48and was granted bail time after time after time.
33:50And quite often the reason that he was granted bail was because a police officer stood in the dock and said,
33:58I support this man's application for bail.
34:01Their whole attitude was that Dennis is much more used to us on the outside as an informer
34:05and passing on information to us than if he stuck behind bars.
34:12However, Dennis Allen's days as a protected species were soon to end
34:18and his greatest threat came not from the police or the underworld, but from himself.
34:23His drug-fuelled lifestyle would eventually catch up with him.
34:27He had a hair-trigger temper. He immediately resorted to violence, a sort of violence that you couldn't predict.
34:39Regan's murder of a two-year-old boy had put a target on his back.
34:50But without a body, the police were powerless to charge him.
34:54The arrogant Regan then waged a media war against the police.
34:58He was in the habit of ringing newspapers constantly, alleging that police were threatening to load him up with false evidence,
35:16to verbal him, which means make false statements against him.
35:21It was all untrue, but this was part of Regan's tactics to put the heat on the police and keep them off his back.
35:26Unlike the hardheads who'd been involved in Sydney's organised crime scene for many years,
35:35who understood that they cooperated with the key police and kept a low profile,
35:40Regan had started dealing with the afternoon newspapers
35:44and for the police that he couldn't make an arrangement with,
35:50he decided to form what he called a citizens vigilante group
35:54and he supplied the newspapers and the police hierarchy with documentation of who he believed were corrupt police that he wasn't dealing with.
36:09Killing a kid and taking on the cops was reason enough to get rid of Regan.
36:14However, it was when Regan killed Ratty Jack Clark that he signed his death warrant.
36:21Clark was a good mate of Sydney's criminal godfather, Lenny McPherson.
36:28Ratty Jack accused John Regan, and he was the first person to do it to his face,
36:33accused John Regan of having killed the boy.
36:35Well, not long after that, Regan shot Ratty Jack Clark.
36:46You're going back to Lenny McPherson's famous saying,
36:49Roger, you can control a bad man, you cannot control a mad man.
36:56And he was the perfect example of a mad, mad man,
37:00who had overstepped the mark, even amongst criminal milieu,
37:03and he had to be made an example of.
37:07And that's exactly what they did.
37:09The reaction of the major crime figures like McPherson and Freeman
37:12was to want some sort of justice and retribution.
37:14So a fellow called Paddles Anderson was brought into the picture.
37:18Now, Paddles was a very vicious old standover man in Sydney from the 30s.
37:23By this stage, of course, he was a lot older,
37:25but he still was trading on a very substantial reputation
37:29and he was also involved in the criminal element as a mediator,
37:33as a fix-it, as a go-to man to smooth over problems.
37:37And this was a problem.
37:39Frederick Paddles Anderson was one of the few men Regan trusted,
37:43and so he was the natural choice to entice Regan to his death.
37:50Getting close enough to murder Regan was no easy feat.
37:54With some justification, he was always armed to the teeth
37:58and seldom travelled without bodyguards.
38:03Unusually, Regan arrived at the meeting without any protection.
38:08Three gunmen stepped forward, each shot him several times,
38:14and that solved the problem.
38:19While it's never been proven,
38:22it's believed that the gunmen were the men who ran Sydney at that time.
38:26Stan Smith, Lenny McPherson and George Freeman.
38:30It was a public execution on a city street.
38:34A ritualised killing that sent a message to any others of Regan's ilk.
38:39The magician was shot eight times, one for each of his kills.
38:45His executioners believed they'd performed a community service
38:50for the people of Sydney.
38:51The minute that the news reached prisons in New South Wales,
38:57particularly Long Bay Jail, the cheers erupted.
39:01You could hear them for miles and miles.
39:05Everyone was happy that Regan was gone. Everyone.
39:08Everyone, including the police.
39:11John Burke and Roger Rogerson visited Regan's corpse in the morgue.
39:19There he was lying on this slab, like all dead people
39:23who were about to have a post-mortem performed upon them, naked.
39:28And we were all amazed, he still had this smirk on his face.
39:33He had a scar on his face, I remember, and he had a smirk,
39:36even in death.
39:40He'd been a thorn in the side of so many police for so many years
39:46and he was such an evil, vicious man.
39:50To see him dead brought no sorrow to me.
39:55To have built up a reputation the way he had
39:57and to have been feared and despised,
40:00you just can't believe that he only lived 29 years.
40:03He did all of that, all those evil things, in 29 years.
40:09At 29, he was dead.
40:18Only his mother, Claire, lamented his passing.
40:21But she, of all people, knew he would never make old bones.
40:25I'm sure John knew his days were numbered.
40:28I did too.
40:29I've known for at least two years that it had to happen like this.
40:33Sometimes I feared he would die in my arms,
40:36out the front of this house.
40:38Only a few weeks ago I pleaded with him to change his ways.
40:42Mother, he said, I don't drink, I don't smoke, and I don't gamble.
40:47I keep a clear head.
40:49They've nailed John to the cross this week.
40:52They've crucified him and broken my heart.
40:53I loved him dearly.
40:55Regan's mother mourned her son's death.
40:59And she went to her grave believing he was not guilty of killing a toddler.
41:06Mothers always remain loyal.
41:15But not Dennis Allen's mum, Kath Pettingill.
41:19She knew there was pure evil in Dennis.
41:22It got to a stage where I didn't know how it was going to end,
41:28because we were all in trouble.
41:31I was out on bail.
41:32My young son was out on bail.
41:34My other young son had been murdered.
41:37I thought, where's it all going to end?
41:39I want a normal life.
41:41So I said to young Jason, I'm going in there and I'm going to have to kill Dennis.
41:44So you actually seriously thought about killing your own son?
41:48Yes, I did. I did.
41:50I was driven that far.
41:51To protect the others, I would have had to kill Dennis.
41:54This is just before his stroke on January the 19th, 1987.
42:02Yeah, I was seriously thinking about it all over Christmas.
42:06Before his death, the once terrifying psychopath was frail and wheelchair bound.
42:18A rare heart condition and a lifetime of drug abuse had taken its toll.
42:24He was no longer a threat or a useful police informant.
42:28Witnesses once too scared to talk found their voices.
42:32And police, who'd once protected him, turned their backs.
42:34To me, he served a purpose.
42:38To a lot of people, he was just a drug dealer and a murderer.
42:42And he lived by the sword and he died by the same sword.
42:46He died of overdose of drugs and alcohol and he got his right whack.
42:55At the time of his death, aged just 35, he faced a total of more than 60 charges.
43:00Ranging from possession of firearms and explosives right through to murder.
43:06News of Dennis Allen's death elicited the same outpouring of joy that Regan's had.
43:14Regan and Allen faded quickly into history.
43:20But there were many more like them coming.
43:23From dysfunctional families and boys' homes, they emerged with hate in their hearts.
43:29And a cold disregard for the consequences.
43:31By administrating, the story is covered with non-spot any bad choice.
43:32By certificating so bad, it lacks its ease.
43:34Outside, the road is in existence.
43:36However, it could damage the consequences.
Recommended
20:26
|
Up next
11:49
1:27:57
51:08
26:30
1:20:15
2:38
9:54
27:10
1:34:50
44:11
1:00:03
1:58:34
1:43:40
3:07
45:00