Was it cops or crooks who killed gangster Stewart John Regan?­

The de facto wife of notorious gangster Stewart John Regan believes he was lured into a trap and murdered by corrupt police with the backing of top underworld figures. Listen now to The Australian’s new podcast investigation.

Margaret Yates Regan in the lane in Marrickville, Sydney, where John Regan was shot dead. Picture: Ryan Osland

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The de facto wife of notorious gangster Stewart John Regan ­believes he was lured into a well-planned trap and murdered by corrupt police with the backing of top figures in the underworld.

Margaret Yates Regan, 78, speaking for the first time since Regan’s assassination in 1974, told The Australian’s new investigative podcast The Gangster’s Ghost that she believed an alliance of cops and crooks killed Regan.

“I keep going back to the police,” she said. “It’s a very difficult question to answer after all these years. It’s like that old quiz show, Pick a Box. You can throw a lot of different names into the box. You could then pull out a name and argue that that person killed Johnny. You could then pick ­another name and argue the same thing. You’ve got hitmen, gangsters, corrupt police, people in high places. All of those people can go into the box as suspects.”

Marg has, in a way, broken her former gangster partner’s code of “say nothing” in a series of exclusive interviews with The Australian. She details a difficult domestic life raising three young children while never knowing where she might be living next. “We were like gypsies,” she said.

Margaret Yates Regan sometime in 1963 or 1964. Picture: Supplied

Sunday, September 22, 1974 – the last day of Regan’s life which is forensically examined in the podcast – saw him take his daughter Helen, 3, on a picnic to Sydney’s Watson’s Bay along with a then girlfriend.

By 6pm that day he was dropped off near the Henson Park Hotel in Marrickville for a mysterious appointment with persons unknown.

Regan, who was obsessively cautious about his safety, bought a snack at a Greek delicatessen ­opposite the hotel and wandered down Chapel Street at around 6.30pm. Strangely, he was not wearing his usual bulletproof vest, nor was he accompanied by his bodyguard.

Marg said the bodyguard had been with Regan virtually “night and day”. “On the day he died John was exposed, he had no protection,” she said.

“He didn’t work that way. He walked into Chapel Street, ­Marrickville, that night comfortable and confident that he was meeting someone he knew and trusted. Normally, he would never go anywhere without his bodyguard beside him. He did things with other people around him, not alone. It makes you think then – who did he trust enough to walk into a situation like that? You could have counted on one hand, less, the number of people he ­trusted to that degree. Who was he meeting?”

Marg’s suspicion that corrupt police killed Regan was bolstered by that fact that .38 calibre slugs were later retrieved from Regan’s body, the same type of ammunition used by police at that time.

In the half-century since Regan’s murder – still an active cold case – several theories have emerged about who killed him and why. One was that Regan had been murdered because in the years leading up to his death in the early 1970s he had established an anti-police corruption lobbying organisation called the Independent ­Action Group for a Better Police Force.

His partner in the group, Solon Nicola Baltinos – who was also part of the New Settlers’ Federation – was described in NSW parliament as a “dishonest, standover, unwanted migrant” accused of ripping off fresh Australian migrants.

In March 1978, then NSW premier Neville Wran told parliament that Baltinos and his settlers’ federation needed to be invest­igated by police for “alleged dishonest practices when he (Baltinos) has cheated many unsuspecting migrants of tens of thousands of dollars”.

As for Regan’s anti-corruption stance and him positioning himself as some sort of whistleblower prior to his murder, police and criminals alike saw this as a laughable ruse and a cunning smokescreen to divert attention from his criminal activities.

Margaret Yates Regan. Picture: John Feder

Marg said it was chilling to hear her former partner’s actual voice on The Gangster’s Ghost podcast. Secretly recorded phone conversations by Regan recently surfaced within the family.

The Australian’s audio experts, with the help of artificial intelligence, were able to clean up the muffled old recordings and give eerie clarity to Regan’s resurrected voice, giving an insight into his personality and cunning.

“I don’t have all the answers to the biggest mysteries,” Marg said. “Who killed him? And for what reason? I think the people who ­investigated his murder after it happened didn’t have his family’s best interests in mind.

“Things were papered over. The whole matter was kicked under the carpet. ‘OK, Johnny Regan’s dead. That’s the end of that. Forget about it.’ Well, we haven’t forgotten about it.”

Subscribers to The Australian and registered users hear episodes of The Gangster’s Ghost first. Listen to episodes 1 and 2 now at gangstersghost.com.au.