Whiskey Au Go Go massacre in spotlight at McCulkin killers’ sentencing

LESS than an hour into the sentencing of the McCulkin killers, new light was shed on the 1973 mass murder at the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub.

Justice Peter Applegarth described Vincent O’Dempsey’s assertion at yesterday’s sentencing of a “prejudicial smokescreen” as “interesting”.

IT TOOK less than an hour into the sentencing of convicted McCulkin killers Garry “Shorty” Dubois and Vincent O’Dempsey in the Brisbane Supreme Court yesterday for a surprise door to spring open and shed new light on the horrific mass murder at the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub in Fortitude Valley in 1973.

In an extraordinary move, O’Dempsey, through his legal counsel Tony Glynn, QC, indicated that he wanted to ­address the court.

“If someone wants to express remorse, I’ll hear it,” Justice Peter Applegarth said. “What does he want to say?”

FIVE-PART SPECIAL REPORT BY MATTHEW CONDON

CHAPTER 1: The gangster’s wife

CHAPTER 2: Mass murder at Whiskey Au Go Go

CHAPTER 3: The night a family vanished

CHAPTER 4: The murder of Mrs X and her children

CHAPTER 5: Return to Dorchester Street

Justice Applegarth was passed a copy of the notes O’Dempsey wished to read out. “I’ll let Mr O’Dempsey make his little speech,” the judge said.

And with that, history was about to be made.

O’Dempsey stood to deny his involvement in murdering the McCulkins, saying he had been wrongly convicted on false testimony.

Vincent O’Dempsey yesterday denied any involvement in the Whiskey Au Go Go firebombing that claimed 15 lives in 1973.

O’Dempsey then took aim at a “prejudicial smokescreen” that had supposedly emerged in his trial, namely his alleged involvement in the firebombing of Torino’s nightclub in Fortitude Valley in February 1973, and the very real possibility that that crime in turn had put the spotlight on him in relation to the fire at the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub that claimed 15 lives 10 days later.

O’Dempsey said he had no involvement in either fire.

Shortly after, Justice Applegarth saw fit to challenge O’Dempsey’s assertions made in his statement from the dock.

After outlining O’Demp­sey’s lengthy criminal history, and then hearing an emotional and moving victim impact statement from Graham Ogden, brother of Barbara McCulkin, Justice Applegarth described the assertion of a “prejudicial smokescreen” as “interesting”.

Barbara McCulkin’s brother, Graham Ogden (above), wrote an emotional victim impact statement, which was read out by his son, Brian, at yesterday’s sentencing.

He said a portion of prejudicial evidence he had earlier excluded from O’Dempsey’s trial was a conversation that was overheard between the father of chief witness Warren McDonald and O’Dempsey on a boat trip in the 1990s.

In light of O’Dempsey’s challenge, Justice Applegarth told the court the nature of that conversation.

According to the evidence, O’Dempsey was told by McDonald’s father that Whiskey Au Go Go “firebomber” James Finch was coming back to Australia to implicate O’Dempsey in the atrocity.

And O’Dempsey allegedly said: “If he comes back I’m screwed, so he’ll have to be knocked (killed).”

Justice Applegarth said that despite O’Dempsey denying any involvement in the Whiskey fire, “there’s evidence in that form” that he was involved in the crime.

The judge said he was revealing this because “things should be said in the interest of completeness”.

A court drawing of Garry Dubois (left) and Vincent O’Dempsey. Illustration: Brett Lethbridge

Vincent O’Dempsey yesterday took aim at claims that supposedly emerged in his trial that he was involved in the firebombing of Torino’s nightclub in Fortitude Valley.

He later said that when O’Dempsey asserted he had nothing to do with the fire, the public needed to know there was evidence “that he was involved”.

In his sentencing remarks, Justice Applegarth underlined the point by saying that while it was “impossible to say for sure” that O’Dempsey and Dubois were involved in the Whiskey Au Go Go fire, there was evidence that O’Dempsey was so concerned about Finch’s return “and implicating you in that arson, that you told others that Finch would have to be ‘knocked’: in other words, killed”.

John Andrew Stuart and James Finch were convicted of the Whiskey firebombing in October 1973, but rumours persisted for decades that there were more people behind the mass murder.

Forty-four years later, a Brisbane court was hearing that perhaps killer Vince O’Dempsey had a hand in it as well. It was an astonishing moment in what was a charged sentencing hearing.

Earlier, as Dubois, 70, made his way into the dock, there were whispers in the public gallery. “So that’s Shorty.” And, “Du-boys. It’s Du-boys.”

A minute later O’Dempsey, 78, entered the glassed-in dock. He initially sat about four seats away from Shorty, then moved to the end of the row. Last Friday, O’Dempsey was found guilty of murdering Barbara and the girls. Someone in the gallery muttered, “psychopath”.

For much of the hearing yesterday, both men effectively sat as far away from each other as possible.