The Night Dragon

Matthew Condon

• Publisher: University of Queensland Press
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780702261541

'He takes you in the middle of the night, like an angel, and you're gone for good.' - Witness at Vincent O'Dempsey's committal hearing. In 2017, Vincent O'Dempsey was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murders of Barbara McCulkin and her two young daughters. It took over 40 years to bring him to justice. Feared for decades by criminals and police alike, O'Dempsey associated with convicted underworld figures and has been linked to a string of haunting cold cases, including the deadly Whiskey au Go Go nightclub firebombing that killed 15 innocent people. Award-winning investigative journalist Matthew Condon has interviewed dozens of ex-cons, police and witnesses to put together a compelling picture of the calculating killer who spent his life evading the law before he was finally brought to justice.

Table of contents

• Author Biography
• Title Page
• Imprint Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Prologue
• Day of Reckoning
• Clans
• An Ancient Knight
• A Troubled Child
• Bodgie
• The Chermside Gang
• Knife Boy
• A Disappearance
• The Sydney Mob
• Billy and Barbara
• Boggo Road
• Vince and Shorty
• The Gift
• A Black Day for Society
• Under Observation
• A Menace Returns
• The Prisoner of Dorchester Street
• Torino’s
• A Warning
• Prelude to a Tragedy
• Inferno
• Mass Murder
• They Did It
• A Hitman Comes to Town
• The Hasty Inquest
• Days and Nights at Headquarters
• Barbara Flees
• Heads Must Roll
• Caught
• The Verbal
• Drama in Court
• The Man in the White Suit
• Evidence and Amputations
• Where There’s Smoke
• Polonia
• Before the Deluge
• Margaret Grace Ward Goes Missing
• The End of the Affair
• The Vanishing
• When the Sun Came Up
• Hawks Nest
• After the Storm
• Port News
• More Heat
• The Lady Vanishes
• The High Life
• Yet Another Missing Person
• Innocent
• Onward Christian Soldiers
• An Overdue Inquest
• Mad Dog
• Domestic Entanglements
• Flight of the Birdman of Boggo Road
• Powderkeg
• The Confession
• An Unexpected Funeral
• Swami
• The Pool Shark
• Around the Campfire
• Loose Lips Sink Ships
• Return to Dorchester Street
• Shorty’s Trial
• Just Little Girls
• Silent Death in the Dock
• A Deathbed Confession
• Letters from The Dodger
• Out of Luck
• That Indescribable Night
• Author’s Note and Acknowledgements