E51 | The Whiskey Au Go Go Murders (AUS)

E51 | The Whiskey Au Go Go Murders (AUS)

From The Veil by Brevity Studios

August 16, 2026 · 33 min · Season 1 · Episode 51

About this episode

This episode explores the tragic Whiskey Au Go Go murders and the surrounding events, including police misconduct and the aftermath of the firebombing.

At 2.08am on 8 March 1973, two drums of petrol were lit in the foyer beneath the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub. Fifteen people died upstairs of carbon monoxide poisoning, in a first-floor room with one obstructed exit. Every one of them was dead before the fire brigade arrived. And months earlier, a career criminal named John Andrew Stuart had told a journalist — who printed it, and who personally warned the Police Commissioner and the Police Minister — that an empty club would be firebombed first, and then the Whiskey Au Go Go would be burned while it was full of people. On 25 February an empty club burned. Eleven days later, so did the Whiskey. A NOTE ON SOURCING James Finch and John Stuart were convicted in October 1973 of one murder — that of Jennifer Denise Davie, 17. The other fourteen charges were never proceeded with. Stuart died in Boggo Road Gaol in January 1979. Finch was released in 1988 and deported to England, where he confessed to a British newspaper and retracted within a day. He died of Covid in London, and the reopened inquest was told of his death on the opening day of its second tranche. Police fabricated the evidence used to arrest Stuart. That is not in…

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Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Brevity Studios

Places: Australia, Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub

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