By Jeremy Sollars
Warwick man Vincent O’Dempsey and accomplice Garry Dubois were last week sentenced in the Brisbane Supreme Court to life in prison for murdering Queensland mother Barbara McCulkin and her two daughters Vicki, 13, and Leanne, 11, in January 1974.
O’Dempsey, 78, was last Thursday convicted by a jury of three counts of murder and Dubois, 70, was found guilty in November 2016 of the rape and murders of the sisters and manslaughter of Mrs McCulkin.
Trial and sentencing judge Justice Peter Applegarth said he expected both men to die in jail.
O’Dempsey addressed the court last Thursday morning prior to his sentencing, declaring he was innocent of the murders and that three alleged confessions heard at his trial “lacked substance” and were “completely untrue”.
He was referring to evidence from former associate Warren McDonald, former fiancee Kerri Scully and a man he met while in prison, all three of whom told the court O’Dempsey had confessed to them his part in the McCulkins’ deaths.
“I never had the slightest reason to harm the three McCulkins in any way,” O’Dempsey told the court.
Justice Peter Applegarth allowed O’Demspey to read out his statement after defence barrister Tony Glynn said his client was not ready to make the comments when he was convicted the previous week.
O’Dempsey and Dubois are both expected to appeal their convictions.
They were told by Justice Applegarth they would not be given a parole eligibility date because they were sentenced under 1974 laws.
The Brisbane Supreme Court jury in his trial also found 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.
Two charges of rape against O’Dempsey were dropped last December.
The Crown’s case was that a “suspected connection” between the Torino and Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub fires in 1973, of which Mrs McCulkin was believed to have knowledge, may have provided a motive for Dubois and O’Dempsey to keep her “quiet”.
Evidence was also given by the Crown that people in the Highgate Hill neighbourhood had sighted O’Dempsey and Dubois in the area around the time the McCulkins disappeared and that the two men left Brisbane when Mrs McCulkin’s estranged husband Billy began searching for her and their children.
The Crown alleged that O’Dempsey and Dubois lured the McCulkins into going for a drive and that the two men took them to a bushland location believed to be in the Warwick area, where they met their deaths.
Relatives of the McCulkins have since the O’Dempsey trial called for anyone with information about the location of their bodies to come forward.
Last Friday, the day after the sentencing, Queensland Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath ordered an inquest be held into the Whiskey Au Go Go case.
“There is no doubt there is significant public interest in getting answers in relation to the Whiskey Au Go Go firebombing in 1973 in which 15 people died,” she said in a statement.
“Given recent events, witnesses who have previously not been willing to come forward, might now be willing to provide new information that will give us those answers.
“I had been awaiting the outcome of recent court proceedings, and will now write to the State Coroner instructing him to hold an inquest into the Whiskey Au Go Go case.”
