Shotgun Johnny Reagan’s business of being bad
Over two hours, Shotgun Johnny Regan and his associates can be heard making threats of violence against competitors and law enforcement officers alike.
The voice of one of Australia’s most prolific criminals has been resurrected with the help of artificial intelligence almost half a century after he was assassinated in a Sydney back street.
Multiple murderer Stewart John Regan was 29 when he was fatally struck by bullets from three firearms in Marrickville in 1974.
The enduring mystery of who killed Regan – or who ordered the hit – is investigated by senior reporter Matthew Condon in The Australian’s new podcast series, The Gangster’s Ghost. Subscribers can listen to Episodes 1 and 2 now at gangstersghost.com.au
More than a decade later, in the late 1980s, tapes containing hours of recordings made by Regan were unearthed at the Kensington home in Sydney’s east of his aunt Thelma, who her family called “Dada”.
“Dada said to me ‘I’ve got something for you, and I need you to give it to your mother’,” Helen Regan told The Australian.
She is the oldest daughter of Johnny Regan and his de facto wife, Margaret, and was living with her great-aunt Thelma in Kensington when the mementos were discovered. “And then she pulled out the suitcase.”
Helen recalls her grandmother, Clare – a fearsome woman known as The Colonel – would leaf through the contents of an old leather briefcase with her grandchildren on their visits to her inner-Sydney home.
“She used to make us sit on the sofa and read … these little black-and-white cut outs,” Helen told Condon. “It was everything written about my father … She used to go through every single one while we were there.”
Also stashed in a cupboard in Thelma’s home – among hatboxes containing her ornate headwear – was a box containing Johnny Regan’s tapes. “Dada’s got me and she’s said ‘Can you get up there and get me this stuff?’ … There [were] little tapes and there was a little tape recorder that obviously Dad had,” Helen said.
Regan made the recordings by rigging a reel-to-reel tape recorder to his rotary telephone in the 1960s. He also captured interactions and conversations on the streets of Kings Cross in its notorious heyday using a smaller recording device concealed beneath his clothing.
“That was all given to me and I gave it to Mum,” Helen said. “And then … when she moved out of [her] house, it’s just disappeared.”
The location of the tapes and other items like business documents and letters penned by Regan was unknown until recently, when they were discovered to be in the possession of a family member.
Decades of neglect meant portions of the conversations were largely unintelligible – until now.
In collaboration with multimedia editor Lia Tsamoglou – who spent hundreds of hours working on the audio – audio producer Jasper Leak used the AI program X-Revive by Accentize to clarify and sharpen the tapes.
“Think of it a bit like a pencil sketch that’s only been partially completed,” Leak said.
“Imagine if you could put that drawing into a machine and it would finish the picture for you – and make it look better than you could have done yourself.
“It would add colour and shadows and depth. This tool does that for old, bad audio.”
The remastered recordings are a window into the mind of Regan, who was known alternately as Shotgun Johnny and Nano the Magician for his ability to vanish the bodies of those he was alleged to have killed.
Over two hours, Regan and his associates can be heard making threats of violence against competitors and law enforcement officers alike.
“I’ll tell you what: we’ll get our f..king heads together and we’ll figure out where this c..t is, and we’ll get him,” he said on one tape.
“If I get him, I’ll f..king choke him.”
Regan can also be heard commiserating with associates “pinched” by “coppers” and plotting his revenge against the officers he claimed to “own”.
“Nobody will have a go at coppers, will they?” Regan asks in one of the recordings. “I will.”
Regan told his criminal associates he had information about crooked cops and offered to publicly ventilate it if the “bludgers” ever attempted to charge them with a crime.
“The policemen know I got a lot on a heap of them,” he said.
“I’ll give you plenty of ammunition. I’ve got that many coppers it’s not funny.”
The young standover man complains of multiple occasions of his being framed by police, and voices his belief that his associates are also being targeted.
In one call with Arthur Moore, Regan offers his advice for skirting a conviction for drug possession.
“What’d they do, load you up?” Regan asks, referring to a kilo of drugs found by police in Moore’s vehicle. “They just put the stuff in your car and said you had it?”
When Moore gets cagey about the conversation – “What are you asking me questions for?” – Regan explains he’s only trying to help.
“I just wanna know, mate, because you might be able to find a way out of it,” he says.
Regan alternately suggests paying the cops off, blackmailing the arresting officer, and fighting them.
He also offers to “dress him down in the middle of court” on Moore’s behalf, believing Moore was framed because he refused to testify against Regan in another matter.
“Mate, this has happened in three of my cases, Arthur. The case I had before – the car case – they framed the crown witness. Their own witness!” Regan can be heard saying on the tape.
“Anything you want me to do, I’ll bend over backwards for you, Arthur … to see anyone, or to do anything, or to go anywhere, or to do anything with you.”
On another tape, Regan can be heard telling a woman: “It’s not that I didn’t like you but I couldn’t afford to hang around with you, or to go with you, because you bring me undone.”
When he asks the woman if she knows why, she said “[It’s] the people I know”.
“I live in a different bracket of people, you know?” Regan asks, before telling the woman she doesn’t need to wear make-up because she’s “pretty without it”.
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