By Jeremy Sollars
Warwick man Vincent O’Dempsey was last week 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 last Friday 26 May 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.
O’Dempsey’s co-accused Gary Reginald ‘Shorty’ Dubois was convicted last November of the manslaughter of Mrs McCulkin, 34, and of raping and murdering Vicki, 13, and Leanne, 11.
Two charges of rape against O’Dempsey were dropped last December.
The court heard O’Dempsey had confessed the murders to former associate Warren McDonald, former fiancee Kerri Scully 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 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 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.
O’Dempsey, 78, and Dubois, 69, were due to be sentenced together today, Thursday 1 June, in the Brisbane Supreme Court at 10am.
Both men are expected to appeal their convictions and have remained in custody awaiting sentencing.
Updates at www.freetimes.com.au
