For an hour, about 150 people stood somberly under umbrellas in the rain watching a smoking ceremony where wispy smoke from gently-burning lemon myrtle tree branches “released” the spirits of the 15 people murdered at the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub.
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Two men were convicted of firebombing the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub fire bombing in Fortitude Valley around 2am on the morning of March 8, 1973.
Their names are at the bottom of this story. However the 15 people they murdered, musicians, club patrons and military police, are:
- Colin William Folster, 19, Red Hill, musician with Trinity:
- Darcy Thomas Day, 22, Holland Park, musician with Trinity:
- William David Nolan, 22, Indooroopilly, military police:
- Ernest John Peters, 50, Rockhampton, farmer:
- Desmond John Peters, 31, Rockhampton, farmer:
- Carol Ann Green, 27, Camp Hill:
- Wendy Leonne Drew, 24, Norman Park:
- Brian William Watson, 32, Goodna:
- Peter Marcus, 23, Petrie Terrace:
- Fay Ellen Will, 19, Nundah:
- Jennifer Denise Davie, 17, New Farm:
- Desmae Selma Carroll, 29, of New Farm:
- Leslie Gordon Palethorpe, 20, Indooroopilly, Lance Corporal:
- David John Western Green, 19, Norman Park, and;
- Paul Zoller, National Hotel, kitchen hand.
To the gentle bluesy-chug of Daniel “Goothala” Doyle’s didgeridoo and the smell of crushed lemon myrtle leaves, the spirits of these 15 people were set free.
“The smoking ceremony is to release their spirits,” Aboriginal elder Des Sandy told the crowd.
“Their spirits are not going anywhere and they are being tormented.
“May they not be forgotten and may they rest in peace.”
In gently falling rain, their families and friends, police, military police and fire officers stood quietly for a minute’s silence, waiting their turn to file past the small, smoking fire to add their sprig of lemon myrtle leaf to the flame.
Since March 8, 2013, family members of friends of these people had gathered quietly in Amelia Street where the Whiskey Au Go Go once pumped out live rock and roll until the early morning.
Previously, they would quietly pay their respects virtually unnoticed.
Then, in 2013, Helen Palethorpe, the sister of 20-year-old soldier Leslie Palethorpe, told her story of the sadness of having no memorial for her brother, one of the 15 largely unknown victims of what was then Australia’s worst mass murder.
Local politicians finally recognised a memorial, in the form of a plaque for the victims of Whiskey Au Go Go killings, was appropriate in 2014.
And then former Whiskey Au Go Go waitress and advertising manager Donna Phillips told of her horror on the night where the Delltones and Trinity played to the Thursday night crowd.
Since then, she has co-ordinated a Facebook page and built contact with people who discover they are part of the wider “Whiskey Au Go Go family” and now have a way to pay their respects.
“The event itself was astounding and it has been bought back up to date because of recent legal proceedings,” she said.
“Which means it will move into a coroner’s inquest over the coming events and hopefully the background to the Whiskey Au Go Go, if it is different to the initial reports, may be exposed.
“And those who have lost loved ones in the fire can have some peace and move on in their lives.”
Karin Carter went to the Whiskey Au Go Go for the first and only time on the night of the disaster to see the Delltones. She is one of the blessed ones. A survivor. A member of the Whiskey Au Go Go family.
After watching the Delltones, she ended up being huddled out through the windows of the upstairs section of the nightclub by her then-boyfriend as smoke blacked out the nightclub interior.
“It was around 2am, quarter to two in the morning when my boyfriend at the time said there was some commotion at the front stairs,” she said.
“He said we’d better get out.
“We were trying to get out and we didn’t know where to go. It was dark. I couldn’t breathe because it was full of smoke. But he found a way out. He smashed a window and pushed me out and I ended up out on a ledge."
The Queensland Coroners’ office is quietly gathering witnesses in the new Whiskey Au Go Go inquest announced by Attorney General Yvette D’Ath in June 2017.
Two career criminals were convicted of putting two 23-litre drums of diesel fuel in the downstairs nightclub foyer before lighting it.
Brisbane and Sydney underworld figure John Andrew Stuart, then 33, and James Richard Finch, 29, flown to Brisbane from London reportedly by Stuart, were arrested in Jindalee on the weekend after the nightclub fire.
They were both convicted of murder and sent to the now-closed Boggo Road Prison, where they both continually protested their innocence.
Stuart died in his cell in 1979. Finch was deported back to London in 1988 and has disappeared from the public spotlight.
Former Boggo Road prison officer Stephen Gage knew both Stuart and Finch in his 14 years at Boggo Road. He now runs a prison exhibit at Caboolture where he exhibits seven of the barbed wire crosses that Stuart swallowed covered in bread and spit to get to hospital.
Mr Gage said he believed both were responsible for the Whiskey Au Go Go fire bombing, but thought others were involved.
He said Stuart was a hard man who was feared in Boggo Road. He was kept in a cell within a cell.
“He lived in the cages," Mr Gage said.
"He lived in a cage within a cage within another cage. For security. We just couldn't afford to take the chance of him getting out.”
