Warwick man found guilty of McCulkin murders

Vincent O''Dempsey.

By Jeremy Sollars

BREAKING: Warwick man Vincent O’Dempsey has been found guilty of the murder of Barbara McCulkin and her daughters Vicki and Leanne, 43 years after they disappeared from their Brisbane home.
A Brisbane Supreme Court jury delivered its verdict a short time ago today, Friday 26 May, also finding 78-year-old O’Dempsey guilty of one charge of deprivation of liberty.
Evidence was heard from more than 60 witnesses during the trial, which began on Tuesday 2 May.
O’Dempsey’s co-accused Gary Reginald ‘Shorty’ Dubois was convicted last November of the manslaughter of Mrs McCulkin and of raping and murdering Vicki and Leanne.
The jury had heard the men tricked Barbara and her daughters into leaving their Highgate Hill home and going for a drive late on the evening of January 16, 1974.
The two men bound their victims and took them to an unknown bush location.
Once there, the girls were ordered to stay with Dubois while O’Dempsey took Barbara McCulkin a short distance away and strangled her.
Two charges of rape against O’Dempsey were dropped last December.
The court heard O’Dempsey had confessed the murders to a former associate, a former fiancee and another man he met while in prison.
The Crown’s case was that a “suspected connection” between the Torino and Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub bombings in 1973 in Brisbane might have provided a motive for Dubois and O’Dempsey to keep Barbara McCulkin – who the men suspected had knowledge of the bombings – “quiet”.
A date for O’Dempsey’s sentencing is yet to be set.
Updates to follow.