I Survived

By John W Ryan

Get on board for a nail-biting ride.

While you were sleeping in the 70s and 80s, when few men of integrity stood tall in Australia’s criminal justice system, John Wayne Ryan – a real life “Lethal Weapon” with a hatred of crime and corruption – was driven to take risks few would ever contemplate in a lifetime.

This is the first in a series of books by John W Ryan which will become essential reading for students of Australian modern criminal history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ReadOnTime BV
• Release date: Jul 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781742842639

Book preview

I SURVIVED

The story of

JOHN WAYNE RYAN

Private Detective

AN AUSTRALIAN (BRISBANE) UNDERBELLY SURVIVOR

Book 1 – 1971 – 1978

© Copyright 2012 by J.W. Ryan

NB: Some names have been altered or changed for privacy & safety. They are designated with (I’ll call him) behind their fictitious name.

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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I SURVIVED

Copyright © 2012 J.W. Ryan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The information, views, opinions and visuals expressed in this publication are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the publisher. The publisher disclaims any liabilities or responsibilities whatsoever for any damages, libel or liabilities arising directly or indirectly from the contents of this publication.

A copy of this publication can be found in the National Library of Australia.

ISBN: 978-1-742842-63-9 (pbk.)

Published by Book Pal

www.bookpal.com.au

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Wayne Ryan was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. As a teenager, he pioneered karate and kung fu to the Australian public in 1962 and became the first Gosei (foreigner) to ever be promoted to a black belt in Kempokan & Karate. He competed in various martial arts events throughout Australia and Asia from 1962 to 1974, becoming a Master and Open World Champion, retiring undefeated.

John spent the 60s ,70s and 80s training as a student in Australia and USA & still does. He attended the FBI Sniper School at Camp Perry, Ohio as a member of the Ashtabula County SWAT Team in 1995. He also became a certified instructor in firearms (revolver, pistol, shotgun and sub-gun) after attending the prestigious Smith and Wesson Academy.

In the interim, he became a private detective and security agent. He gained fame for his work as a stuntman in Melbourne, particularly in the popular TV series, ‘Homicide’, and also in live shows where he used genuine explosives around a ‘coffin’ to blow himself up.

His attempts at exposing the true criminal nature of the Queensland Police in the 70s put his life in jeopardy, but, as with his sojourn into many other areas of conflict, John survived. One newspaper article called him Australia’s real Lethal Weapon.

As well as martial arts, John pioneered the introduction of OC (pepper spray) into Australia, the first Defensive Tactics Training for Security & Police Officers in 1964, the first dedicated security patrols in Brisbane in 1971 for particular industries, the first Handgun Training Course for Security Officers in 1972, and the first 24-hour Community Patrol in WA at the City of Belmont in 1996, for which he earned the City Award in 1997.

John also pioneered Voice Analysis and Truth Verification in Australia and, with the contracting of Professional Scientific Instrument manufacturers and a Curtin University PhD programming graduate, developed the Forensic Voice Stress Analyser (FVSA©) currently in use in several government agencies in several countries. He is the training director for the ITVT Institute and Secureforce Protective Services headquartered in Perth, Western Australia.

John now visits many countries – including the USA, Malaysia, Singapore, Colombia, India to name a few – as a police trainer in many disciplines, particularly in forensic voice analysis and interrogation.

John is still licensed in Australia as a private investigator and security agent. He is a WA Police-approved firearms instructor for the security industry. He is active in his profession and is popular as a guest speaker on various subjects from his life of adventures. He has appeared in various media throughout Australia and also in Thailand, India and the USA.

As the 40th anniversary of the first mass murder in Brisbane at the Whisky au Go Go approaches, John has released his first book about that era and that particular part of his adventurous life.

With the wealth of adventures he has had and still having, more of them are sure to make their way into print. There is a Chinese proverb that goes: If you stand by the river long enough, you will see the bodies of your enemies and adversaries float by. As John has said on many occasions, he still stands by the river.

John is currently working on : ‘I Survived’ Book - 2

The Prequel

Fighting – Sex – Rock & Roll

The Nightclub scene and Brisbanes Underbelly during the sixties filled with wild Brawls , Go Go Dancers , Groupies , LSD , ‘Grass’ ,Purple Hearts, The Bodgie Squad , Crooked Cops and Sex .

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Cover Design by John G. Ryan of Secureforce Protective Services, Perth

Cover photograph by Russell Shakespeare, courtesy of Qweekend Magazine, The Courier-Mail, Brisbane

Catharina – my best friend, wife and lover since 1978: You are my gift from Amsterdam.

Jan and Graham, my ‘sister’ and ‘brother’ staunch and true: You were there from the beginning.

To my professional colleagues from the police, intelligence and security professions in Australia, the USA, Malaysia and other locations: My thanks for your encouragement to finally write this.

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DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to all the innocent victims of Queensland’s corrupt system and underbelly that was allowed to operate back then.

The murders, the kidnappings, the fires, the disappearances, the ‘overdoses’, the rapes, the torture, the verballing , the false convictions and also to the loved ones and families left behind without total answers or none at all.

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 - Starting Up

Chapter 2 - Building Up the Business

Chapter 3 - Brisbane Nightclubs & Bars

Chapter 4 - The Scenarios

Chapter 5 - The Aftermath – The Circus Begins

Chapter 6 - The Real Whisky A Go Go Story

Chapter 7 - Moving On

Chapter 8 - The Circus Comes to Town

Chapter 9 - Kidnappings, Floods & Fighting

Chapter 10 - A Hidden Bodyguard

Chapter 11 - A Big Case

Chapter 12 - The Biggest Cases - The Biggest Risks

Chapter 13 - The Beginning of Big Problems

Chapter 14 - Trials and More Trials

Chapter 15 - More of the Same

Chapter 16 - The Pressure Starts in Earnest

Chapter 17 - A Change of direction

Chapter 18 - The Harassment Continues

Chapter 19 - Enter Johnny Jay - But…

Chapter 20 - The End Gets Closer

Chapter 21 - Looking Ahead

Chapter 22 - Where to Next?

Chapter 23 - On and On and On

Chapter 24 - Onward Together

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Chapter 1

Starting Up

I arrived back in my hometown of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia for Christmas 1970. I saw my folks, caught up with friends, acquaintances and former karate students and took a break from my work in Melbourne looking after pop stars and entertainers, and performing as a stuntman/actor for Crawford Productions ‘Homicide’ /Division4 TV series.

I had just completed an Australian east coast tour with a live car/motorcycle/ explosives stunt show known as John Ryan’s Death Dodgers. I got the idea from a nickname I picked up from some of my compatriots in the Shadow Squad after some close calls in the jungles of Laos in ’68. It was also part of the name of an old 1930s stunt team from the USA.

I was having a quiet soda drink—I was off alcohol—at the Edinborough Castle Hotel with a few former martial art students, one of whom was a Queensland copper, when the conversation turned to my security expertise.

You know if someone was to set up a really professional private security and Investigation agency here in Brisbane, he could do very, very well, espoused my police student.

How come? I asked. There are big national companies here like in the rest of the country such as MSS and Wormalds.

Yeah, but all the scandals like breaking windows, then turning up the next day to offer security patrols has left a big gap and a nasty taste about private security here with businesses. I know, because I have attended a lot of incidents.

Well, I said, I have been seriously thinking of coming back home and reopening another karate club. Maybe I will look into it while I’m back for this few weeks.

My mind went back to the mid-sixties when I ran my karate schools, had my first failed marriage and ran a small security service that contracted out to clubs and restaurants. This was before I joined the Australian Army (I took the oath December 1966). But I soon tossed that in after I was sent to Signals Corps instead of Provost Corp (military police- I was supposedly Corps enlisted).

But an offer to go ‘private’ as a military contractor (some called us mercenaries then) for an American organisation in Vietnam / Laos saw me out of the Oz army (no longer any use) in mid ’67 and into the ‘funny’ country as we called it. After a few months, I was wounded pretty badly and back in Oz in ’68. After some recuperation I was on the road back to Melbourne to see if I could find work in the TV Industry (a suggestion from Bernard King who I had met at a couple of TV Interviews I had done in Brisbane).

I had made a great friend in ‘Nam from the 101st Airborne by the name of Terry A. Thorpe. He wanted me to go to the US and settle in Ohio where he was a deputy sheriff. He thought I would easily get sponsored for a law enforcement career there. We lost contact when I was medevaced to Thailand with my wound.

Now here I was back home, albeit temporarily on vacation.

My mother, a very switched-on person, was a senior store detective with Myers. My father was a waterfront worker who was now the Stevedores Union secretary but he had little ‘time’ for cops and security. This used to cause a bit of a strain at home now and again with mum being a senior store detective with me a security agent/private detective. After some of the stories I heard about some of the cops from the Valley and Hamilton police stations, I could understand why he felt that way. Some of the incidents my mother recounted, particularly about some detectives—the jag members (Juvenile Aid Group)—really opened my eyes.

I spent a couple of weeks in early January after my birthday calling to see different people I had known when I lived there before. I ran the idea past them and almost all agreed that there was opportunity there. In fact some business people said they would use any service I was to set up. This ranged from car yards, restaurants, stores, night clubs, and even a couple of massage parlours for their Night Safe banking.

By the time I got back to Melbourne I had a minor business plan in my head. I tossed it over with my live-in girl, Glenda (her dad was an on-course bookmaker who did not get on with me; he believed I was basically a gun-carrying gangster with a license because of some of my friends and acquaintances.) She agreed as she could get a transfer from her company to Brisbane and we could stay with my folks until we got settled. A Melbourne buddy of mine, Henry Ekselman, would store my furniture (it was new and imported) until I sent for it.

It was a bit hard saying goodbye to a lot of people in the ‘TV Industry’ where I had been a stuntman like Leonard Teale, George Mallaby, George ‘Noddy’ Miller , Igor Auzins, Norman Yemm (one of the funniest guys I knew), the crews at Thumpin’ Tum, and Berties/Sebastians, but we headed north back to good old Brisbane early in the year (1971).

Gary, one of my former students who had been working at the ‘Catcher Disco’ in Melbourne, had already left the country. We became good mates after I saved him and his offsider’s necks (Bob Jones) when they had a handful of jerks outside the ‘Catcher’ one night. They were about to be jumped from behind by two thug friends of these jerks, but I clobbered the two ambush idiots. Gary later had a nasty fight at a late-nighter called the Taxi Club. In the fight, he tore the guys ear off with his teeth and spat it out before we could calm things down. The guy who lost the ear turned out to be a crew ‘connected’ guy, so Gary went overseas (to Japan) very quickly.

With what I had experienced and saw in the ‘funny country’ plus Melbournes nightclub scene with its ‘underbelly’, I thought nothing could surprise me in my hometown of Brisbane … Was I ever wrong.

Once we’d arrived, I started cold calling old acquaintances, students, and friends with businesses or contacts that could be interested in either security or investigation work. I networked everybody plus anyone I could meet. I was fortunate that I was still fairly well known as the pioneer that introduced karate into Australia back in the very early 60s, but when it came to setting up my dojo (training hall) I ran into a new obstacle in the way of a new organisation called FAKO (Federation of Australian Karate-do Organisation). The main instigator was a politician, Don Lane, who sponsored a Japanese man I had known back in ’64. I was immediately suspect of this so-called organisation as Lane was known to be very $$$ driven & - ‘do ‘–‘ the way ‘ had nothing to do with it. It was purely a commercial enterprise. Don ‘Shady’ Lane, as he was known, was a former corrupt cop who had an incredible influence on police postings according to some of my police students. In fact, his corruption followed him into Parliament.

There’s nothing wrong with making money, but black belts (Yudansha) were becoming very easy to attain from what I could see. Lane was even trying to control the fees for entering competitions, and you had to join his organisation to compete.

None of this had much effect on me, however, as I refused to join any organisation. I ran a small dojo with the blessing of KempoKan HQ in Tokyo. In fact a branch opened later in Rockhampton, then in Newcastle and finally in Mackay.

My networking was not getting me the results in as short a time as I thought would happen. Glenda was missing her friends. Her mum and dad were constantly calling and asking her to come ‘home’ which she did after a short time. That’s one marriage plus one engagement blown – I wasn’t the type, I guess.

My savings were dwindling. While I had obtained a few small shops, a car yard for night patrols and some after-hours Night safe banking, it wasn’t enough to warrant any major expenditure for office space. I even started at Myers as a men’s suit salesman to keep from dipping into my funds. In fact I was earning more in commission on suit sales than wages. I found I liked nice quality suits. I still do.

I had sold my handguns back to George Joseph in Melbourne (later he was convicted of selling/supplying the gun to murder Donald McKay) before I left for Brisbane, but I had kept a shortened 20g /.22 combo rifle that was a very nicely-done professional conversion.

I’d presented my old Victorian Handgun Carry License to the local police at Chermside police station and made application for a Queensland one for a .38 revolver and a Beretta semi-auto .

While at the station I ran into a detective I had met before from the Valley Station although I can’t remember his name. He told me to be careful working the streets at night by myself. I thought that that was very nice of him, although later I wondered how he knew I was a one-man show at that time. I didn’t need to license the ‘cut down’ I had bought with me, but to make sure I went into the police scientific/firearms section and spoke to Inspector Les Bardwell. He inspected it, admired the professional finish, and approved it as a non-concealable weapon, therefore not requiring licensing in Queensland. Ah, the good old days!

I got my $50 licence from the Business Names registrar. They had no interest in looking at any proof of my experience in Melbourne and Brisbane or my training certificates from the USA as there was nothing required.

I still had a fairly large collection of lever-action Winchesters at home that I had started collecting when I was a teenager, but they were very impractical for what I needed a weapon for.

Several police martial art students and acquaintances said I would be crazy to do security, bodyguard or PI work unarmed in Brisbane when I suggested it. (I had been in so many skirmishes where I had to pull or use a gun and I naively thought Brisbane was a bit laid back for armed violence.)

While at Myers in Brisbane one day I visited my mother at the security office. I stayed in the outer office visiting with her and her offside, Mona, as she had arrested a young female shop lifter now they’re shop stealers.

They were waiting for cops from the Juvenile Aid as the female was under age. When the officers turned up to take away the female, I was introduced. One of them was a Terry Lewis. I knew where I had seen him years before, but kept my mouth shut until I was at home that evening.

At dinner that night I said to my folks, That cop you introduced me to today named Lewis used to be at the Breakfast Creek Pub years ago for Bischoff (former Queensland police commissioner) from the SP bookies and also was one of the old ‘Bodgie Squad.’

My dad nodded. That’s right, mate, but keep it to yourself. Everyone already knows it but he is the golden haired little boy. He has the protection of the ‘Silver Fox.’

I knew Dad was referring to ‘Buck’ Buckley (I’ll call him), a gangster cop according to the street, who used to be part of the ‘Bodgie Squad.’ (The JD Squad for my American colleagues.)

My dad had sometimes helped out a wharfie mate that was running a book by answering his phone when he took a vacation. He was always ‘in the know’ but kept the tightest sealed lips of anyone I had ever known or have known since. I heard he had his own corner at the Hamo. Eddies Corner.

By that time I had a small patrol service running in the northern suburbs. I would be out from 10 pm until 4 – 5 am, have a meal, rest for a few hours, then to my day work until 4:30 or so. I kept this up for a few months. I had increased my client base to the point that I could just forget about the day job, which was just as well as I was also teaching martial arts three nights a week. I was wearing myself out physically.

I had been approached to do a few divorce jobs/raids. Although it wasn’t my thing, I would take the job and sub-contract the actual raid out to other PIs. I gave a lot of jobs to a Keith Schafferius and a few to a couple of others like Dennis Fritz. It was through this type of sub-contracting that I met a guy from England who wanted to join my martial art training. We became work colleagues. He would teach me SAS tactics, techniques and interrogation and I would train him in martial arts and we would work on investigations together. He was Daniel W. Clift, a former British Sergeant SAS Instructor. We became firm friends. He reminded me of my friend from Ohio, Terry Thorpe, although older. Danny became my backstop. I could turn my back on anything or anyone knowing that he had it covered and vice versa.

Before I left Myers, I spotted a new employee, Elizabeth Jane, in the Menswear section. She seemed a bit more mature than the other female staff. We started becoming friendly and went on the occasional ‘coffee date’ as my hours did not leave much time for socializing. Ironically, I did not drink coffee. I picked her as an undercover security agent as she had the speech pattern of someone ‘guarding’ what subjects she spoke about and she avoided all references to her job at Myers. Later I found out that not only was I correct about her ‘undercover status’ but my mum was her supervisor. My Kinesics training helped me when I least expected it.

Things started to progress through ’71 rather rapidly. I was approached by several people and companies to conduct inquiries into many different