He's like a stereotypical Mafia Don | Lennie McPherson | Australian Crime Stories

there she is birthday girl what are you doing here somebody hey it's a good Innings what's the rabbit for I don't want a rabbit what am I gonna do with a rabbit enjoy yourself yesterday you turn 70. you throw a party and you don't invite your baby boy what the [ __ ] that all about you were just a common Thief I can understand stealing but the moles and the bashing who have you been talking to I read something new about you in the paper every day I don't want a son who's a criminal and that's what you are then get the worse you get Ma I think what you did to that poor Joy she was your wife for God's sake [ __ ] you then Happy Birthday y'all [ __ ] meet Lenny McPherson Australia's Mr Big he was the feared head of the Sydney's Underworld for over 30 years you're going to hell and McPherson tonight we take you through the life and crimes of Lenny McPherson the Mr Big of Australian crime everyone knew Lenny was a criminal but he remained Untouchable for three decades MacPherson was a ruthless multiple murderer a standover man who ran extortion rackets and prostitution rings at home he was a sadist who beat and tortured his first wife Lenny McPherson stayed at the top of the post-war Sydney crime scene by selling out his friends and enemies to the police through dramatized scenes psychological analysis and interviews Australian crime stories will trace the life of Lenny McPherson from his working class Beginnings to the top of the Sydney crime scene Danny McPherson was not only just a lifetime criminal but at the same time terribly terribly ruthless Birthday y'all [ __ ] in the 1960s anybody who challenged macpherson's Empire would end up dead everything was done with him on a handshake never to be [ __ ] around in any way shape or form ing McPherson was the old school and if anyone crossed him up they were dealt with he was a real upfront black he was cunned as a [ __ ] rat gotta go out for a bit take care of a little bit of business if you got in Glenn McPherson's way he would kill you Lenny McPherson was a criminal with no code of honor and no moral compass he ruled a criminal Empire involved in prostitution gambling extortion and murder what is not well known is that the Godfather of Australian crime was a key police informant for 40 years this made him virtually Untouchable and gave him the opportunity to conduct his criminal activities without fear of prosecution he was always with Sydney's underworld he's principal Lieutenant was Delight Stan Smith and of course the other arm to the the trio was George Foreman are often referred to as the old firm they controlled a wide variety of criminal activity in Sydney Lanny McPherson was not only just a lifetime criminal and a you know our Mr big but at the same time terribly terribly ruthless and that's why he rose to the province he did he have no compunction in killing anyone you know having them killed and especially you know just bashed up for any of sort of insult or anything if you met him in a public place he'd basically have everyone scatter and any member of the public sitting down having a cup of coffee in a cafe or having having a drink in a hotel would basically just run for their lives and it wasn't just that Lynn was a big scary guy I mean there was that but he was he had the foulest mouth I did work for him for a while on and off doing odd jobs I never had any trouble whatsoever with Lynn he was always good as his word of course they made him out a monster and blokes were written books about him and you know same way to but it is just so exaggerated to Jack but I often used to say to him you know you know because he'd have me laugh and that I don't never ever know he ever got the tag Mr Big you should have been just Mr picking you can finally you know I mean he was just unbelievable he was a a real car you know they break the mole and they blur made blanks like in my dinner he was a straight shooter he was a very um in no pun intended but he was a very very very astute businessman he had connections in the best places and he had the best Connections in the highest places MacPherson ruled Australian crime for over 30 years feared and admired by friends and enemies he was a multi-millionaire but that didn't impress everyone Lenny McPherson was a black sheep of the family I think he felt that particularly and when his mother was organized her 70th birthday and didn't invite him he felt even further isolated from his own Clan you turned seven you throw a party and you don't invite your baby boy what the [ __ ] that all about she was unhappy and disappointed with uh with her son you were just a common Thief I can understand stealing but the moles and the bashings who have you been talking to and in Lenny's dark view of the world he would have sought retribution he would have sought to get back at those people who had harmed him in this case his mother well [ __ ] you then we could go into the edible implications of it all but really it was a sadistic act it was designed to make her feel as bad as possible about what she had done to him or what he perceived she had done to him his mother did to him what most boys finds a very difficult thing my older mother who professes the love and care for me who gave birth to me says to me I'm disappointed in you not only disappointed you're not welcome at our function and because he couldn't reach out and strangle his own mother he did an Xbox thing he broke the rabbit's neck and in throwing the rabbit with the broken neck back up the mother said that warm child I used to be is no longer the warm child I currently am happy Birthday y'all [ __ ] so from Mcpherson to violate his own mother's birthday space with an act of absolute toxicity with the implication that I'll break the rabbit's neck and I could do that to you means that he has no sense of of real love for his mother or compassion she was just a figurehead he wanted to have power over her and by her not inviting him to the party he was a vicious and savagely needing to have his revenge on her you're going to hell and back Leonard Arthur MacPherson was born in 1921 and he was the 10th child in the family the MacPherson family grew up in Balmain a tough working-class suburb in Sydney his father William was an honest man who found employment on the Balmain docks as a fitter and Turner he cared for his large family as best he could but Lenny was a constant problem in the 1930s children could not leave school until they had reached the age of 12 but MacPherson left school adjusted 11 years of age by that time he had racked up the first of a string of convictions for property offenses at 14 Lenny McPherson got his first taste of incarceration he was sent to a boy's home on the New South Wales Central Coast conditions in these boys homes were harsh later in life MacPherson would openly admit to suffering physical and sexual abuse at the hands of guards and the older boys find a secret of the fact that he was physically and sexually abused during his time at Gosford boys he actually told people about this he he made it public knowledge as to what impact that had on his life in future is anybody scares but certainly it made him a ruthless man and a violent man and a person who had little or no compassion for others forensic psychologist Stephen Barron believes MacPherson never recovered from his time at Gosford boys home male authority figures to a boy are about images we aspire to we want to be like our dads or our grandfathers when you're betrayed early by an authority figure that you're led to believe is there to care for you few people get over that sense of betrayal many internalize it and become better fathers some don't become fathers some see authorities are necessary evil but a small proportion see themselves as being personally betrayed and few of them very rarely get over it people who are incarcerated at Young ages whether it's in refuges or or boys homes they're at a time where they should be developing all these pro-social skills they're not having that opportunity to they're also being exposed to really anti-social influences from the people who were in Authority the people who should have been providing the deterrence or the correction that was you know hopefully gained by placing them there in the first place at age 16 MacPherson returned home to Sydney and took up a laboring job on the Balmain docks the darks were a hotbed of crime World War II had begun but as a dock worker MacPherson was exempt from military service which left him free to continue in the criminal World by the time Lenny was 24 he had a substantial criminal record for minor offenses he was widely known to police [Music] [ __ ] [Music] some prick got me out oh is that what you reckon maybe and here we are waiting for you to break in just like clockwork could turn up or maybe we're just a bunch of very smart blokes it's kind of smart about you blokes oh you may very well say then but saying I've arrested you tonight and oh by the way you are under arrest lady you know I'm thinking I'm looking a lot smarter than you someone's brassing me oh you're getting smarter by the minute Lenny now I can't teach you the secret of everlasting youth I can't teach you how to be a better bloke but I can teach you how to stay out of jail well if you want to really learn that is and I still want money he thinks we want his money now hell you gotta get money you're the most dim wooded [ __ ] crook that I have ever met in all my years of being in the force go to buggery well this is how it works Lenny you work for us and we work for you there's nothing wrong with a bit of pilfering I was covered by insurance no one gets hurt all you gotta do is put someone in a frame for something tasty and I'm not dogging for you were you had better start thinking about bile because fix your life I'll be wiring in the next [ __ ] you try to break into white [Music] well there you go you're not as stupid as I thought you were let's go down to the station or flick through a few motions while Constable Thompson here awesome a nice hot cup of tea me I think I trust you blocks oh you will Lenny you will as a young man in his late teens and early 20s when McPherson was getting caught all the time mainly for traffic offenses stealing cars breaking into the police would know where to look if a car went missing if a warehouse is broken into they would come and look for Lynn McPherson and that's because he hadn't realized how to play the game after a while the penny dropped if I can dab in a mate if I can inform on a bloke who was with me or if I hear about a job I go and tell the coppers then they will let me off when I get involved in my own crimes so he went from one botched offense to another until eventually people wouldn't work with him because if he got caught they got caught and it may well be he decided that by giving people up it allowed him to be part of the life that he led but the same time gave a major part of protection Ray Kelly was the most famous and feared police officer in Sydney McPherson soon became his informant but we're always told that MacPherson was a police informant and uh from my own ex speaking to former detectives who are well and truly retired and deceased they validated the fact that he regularly used to supply information to a former detective inspector the late Ray Kelly he developed MacPherson as a very valued informant I can't teach you the secret of everlasting youth I can't teach you how to be a better bloke but I can teach you how to stay out of jail McPherson of course as as Tom developed uh he he came close to Ray Kelly and Ray Kelly as I said in my early days he was the gun detective in the Underworld murders that took place where I was in in charge of Investigations we all looked up to Ray he was a tough guy and he was known as Gunner Kelly and I think he let a couple of shots go and killed one or two over the years Ray Gunner Kelly and Lynn McPherson both Rose to prominence one as a police officer the other is a criminal at around the same time and they both stayed top of the Heap really for the next 25 years but their relationship and the quality of the information that McPherson was able to provide Kelly made Kelly a hero within the police force and in turn the quid pro quo to that was I will turn a blind eye to your many and manifest crimes Lin there's nothing wrong with a bit of pilfering it's covered by insurance no one gets hurt now all you gotta do is put someone in a frame or something tasty becoming an Informer was a dangerous move for MacPherson it would keep him out of jail but if the criminal world found out he could get him killed the rule of thumb the the highest rule of the con code was basically don't rant don't inform don't tell on and so for McPherson to go and fly in the face of all the rules uh he must have had a great deal of confidence that he wouldn't be going to jail over this that it would never catch up with him that there would never be a consequence to that behavior at the end of the second world war McPherson was sent to jail for multiple stolen goods convictions he was finally released from prison in September 1946 and at the same time new forces arrived in Sydney one new player Frederick Anderson wanted to be the top dog MacPherson was just another mid-level crook when they first met but Anderson could see a ruthless streak in the big man in the 1950s Anderson took MacPherson under his wing the two men were Keen observers of the American Mafia Anderson marveled at their power and he knew that it came from establishing an organized structure journalist Bob bottom is an anti-corruption fighter who has traced the origins of organized crime in Australia we in Sydney had in those days Backstreet baccarat that went out in came shop front casinos we had laneway prostitution and out that went an NK massage parlors out went the friendly Fred running SP you know from the local apartment in came syndicated SP betting they operated under protection and the person since nominated as Mr Big Lenny McPherson but more particularly above Lenny was one character who'd come through from the razor gang days through the War years and a man called Frederick Charles paddles Anderson if anyone could be nominated as a boss of boss as he was it Frederick pedals Anderson was the architect of organized crime in Australia Anderson had looked at the structure of organized crime in the United States essentially through the mafia and believed that with some changes it could work here the plan was to basically run everything run every illicit racket prostitution gaming Sligo and bring it all under one organization with one man at the top and a number of people running each of these rackets directly below them MacPherson was becoming one of the most powerful men in the Sydney underworld but at home things were different it's often said that McPherson used violence in a calculating way always to advance his interests but this was not the case with Dawn Joy his long-suffering first wife I want my daddy is stupid woman give it 45 minutes and you'll love it I had starved at it before then 45. there's your 45 so what have you been doing all day sitting around eating chocolates what do you think I've been doing what have you been doing well should I say who have you been doing I have been working all day so you can live in this nice house busting my ass and all I ask is Lighting on that table when I get home half the time you don't come home and I have to throw it out okay rotten let's go for a little drop shot come on come on I'm gonna tell you what happened [ __ ] [Music] [Applause] down the person [ __ ] [Applause] [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] it was a relationship that was really never going to prosper Joy had really no idea that her husband was a a committed criminal however in his early 20s he was sentenced to a three-year stint in jail while he was away he became convinced that she had been unfaithful to him and for a man like MacPherson with the ego that he had this was completely unacceptable what have you been doing well should I say who have you been doing I have been working all day so you can live in this nice house he tied one of her legs to a tree he tied the other to the back of his car and he threatened essentially to pull her apart I'm gonna tear you and argue [ __ ] he didn't do it but he continued the violence against her such were the extent of her injuries that a charge of attempted murder was going to be placed on Lenny McPherson however with the involvement of willing police officers in this case Ray Gunner Kelly a settlement was negotiated now you too we're going to sort it out all right there'll be no more trouble now Lenny this is the way it goes sell house give her if she pisses off all right and you leave each other alone you want the [ __ ] ring back yes you make sure you give it to him all right is he understood okay fortunately for her she uh left Lenny's in brace and went on to live a relatively normal life forensic psychologist Anita McGregor believes macpherson's treatment of his first wife may be symptomatic of a psychopathic nature with the concept of psychopathy carpet was a psychopower probably have difficulty in forming attachments to anybody probably women especially in that he often would probably have seen connections within a power Continuum rather than than a connection Continuum half the time you don't come home and I have to throw it out [Music] so women were something to be dealt with women were something that where you had to teach them lessons occasionally those kinds of things were where again his behavior wouldn't have been generally how people see each other in relationship where there would be compromise and discussion and and those kinds of of behaviors in Psychopaths we generally don't see that behavior Lenny may simply have been someone who didn't like people wasn't very likable who's manipulative who is a con artist who made profit from other people and didn't really carry a relationship all that well and sometimes if you're not too bright about how you do it people see you for who the person you are how you are and you get excluded so Lenny may well have become more violent because he didn't get the respect the deference the status that he felt he was entitled to but others of his kind did by virtue of who they were and what they did MacPherson committed as many as 10 murders in the 1960s to further his criminal Empire yet many believe that the vicious assault on his first wife Dawn Joy was his most depraved but once again his police contacts ensured he didn't face the consequences of his actions in the Underworld McPherson established himself as a bludger street slang for a man who lives off the earnings of prostitution he kept Mistresses among the working girls and side children that he totally ignored despite McPherson's expanding criminal Empire his value to the police as an informant kept him out of the course any McPherson had this ongoing relationship with Kelly it'll be no fee there have been no amount of money paid it would have been just part of their relationship it was the same with me later on you knew that you could go and talk to somebody and they would give you information if they had information that would you wanted to hear they wouldn't force it to you but all along Lenny would inform on his opposition he would sometimes even inform on some people who had previously been within his outfit that he wanted to get rid of but when it came to talking to him he would never say anything at any stage to put himself in and in fact he's appeared before various inquiries including raw commissions he just played them on a break he would pop out a few smart remarks and no one could ever pin him he's just he wasn't just a rough crop he was a very smart man when he was locked up and charged every three months of his life until 1953 when he started informing on his mates and then after that well he didn't get pinched for 40 years on the 19th of December 1965 Ronald Ryan and Peter Walker escaped from Pentridge prison in Melbourne during the escape a guard was shot dead as the Victorian police closed in they fled to Sydney Ronald Ryan sought out McPherson believing the big man could assist him in getting out of the country MacPherson agreed to help Brian and organized a meeting at Concord Hospital Ryan waited for him but McPherson didn't show instead more than a hundred police officers swooped in on the scene and arrested Ryan and Walker came to Sydney they wanted some sort of protection themselves they'd go and see Lenny well when two criminals from Melbourne came up here they went to see Lenny and of course one of them was Ronald Ryan and Walker escaped from from Pentridge and and of course the heat was on on Sydney to bring about their arrest uh information was that they were here and Lenny Lenny McPherson played a a big part of of course in bringing about their successful arrests so Lenny told Kelly Kelly went out and arrested them and of course they were you know extradited back to Melbourne Kelly was made a hero and Ronald Ryan became the last man hang in Australia and Lenny wasn't publicly given the credit but that's the sort of thing he did do Ronald Ryan was convicted of murdering prison water George Hudson after an escape bid from Melbourne's Pentridge prison in December 1965 Ryan was hanged on February the 3rd 1967 after having his execution postponed twice McPherson was useful to someone and that usefulness kept him alive because if someone else had shocked Ryan there's a good chance he would simply have disappeared and woken up in concrete shoes somewhere or in pieces at the airport and the beach so I suspect he was useful I suspect his currency was sufficient enough that someone wanted him to be kept alive as a valued source of information to police Lenny McPherson was given the green light he could commit his crimes with virtual impunity his power grew and he gathered around him a group of Violent Men Who were happy to assist him in his crimes his mentor Anderson had told him that those who didn't comply threatened business had to be eliminated McPherson's wedding to his second wife Marlene provided him with the ideal opportunity to take out the competition [Music] Dan said you needed to speak to me that's right my lovely I gotta go out for a bit take care of some business you got all things down here for me can't you no all right I'm sorry but business is business you know that how long will you be only an hour back before the speech is a promise I mean yeah of course D I understand you're fun [Applause] and stay safe yeah [Applause] they got me we'll see you the toughest man in Sydney is now hey not him let's go stupid prick thinking he could hide out with a hooker wonder why she gave him up I don't know class you did but hey waiter is that it well look at that looks like we're doing this on the street [Music] [Applause] all right pretty boy you forget to RSVP my wedding not so pretty now are you [Music] doing see you boys can you miss me yes McPherson was told if anyone challenges you you must strike hard and fast and first and essentially that's what what occurred in the 1960s in order to secure the prostitution rackets under his name McPherson had to go out and kill people like pretty boy Walker in order to secure his power I gotta go out for a bit take care of some business you got all things down here for me can't you well Lenny McPherson got married for the second time in his 40s but it's only Lenny McPherson would use that opportunity to go and commit him there so he and his best man ducked out grabbed their guns drove down to the randwick motel where Robert pretty boy Walker was staying pretty boy at uh Put The Frighteners on in respect of their brothels businesses and Lenny decided they had to make an example of this play you're not so pretty now are you plenty shot him go back to reception had a few beers macpherson's wedding Alibi was further helped by the fact that the lead investigator was his old mate detective Ray Kelly he's a very young Detective I was sent out to randwick to work on the murder of a guy named a pretty boy Robert Walker we were told as the investigation went along in its early stages that detective inspector Kelly would be getting the information from from Lenny Lenny McPherson and for some reason that information didn't materialize and to this day the crime is still unsucked to the uninitiated would seem that human life meant so little to him he could do this and then go back and simply put on his suit or his jacket a tie and return to his previous happy existence but think about it differently would the police be looking at a man who had just got married who was at his reception where everyone could say no he's been here the entire time would the killing have been simply a clever thing to do we'll see the toughest man in Sydney is now hey not him let's go I suspect that Lenny thought it was excellent cover and I suspect in that case he would never think that people would suspect him because he just got married this is a very very Criminal Mind um so you see there are no boundaries there is no respect for institutions like like a wedding So Not only was his was he disrespectful to his wedding he was able to compartmentalize and go out and commit a ruthless murder of which obviously was advantaging him in the time all right pretty boy you forget to RSVP my wedding it's confounding to us many more normals that that anybody would be able to do that McPherson stepped up his efforts to control the streets of Sydney one by one his Rivals wound up dead standover man Charlie Burke was next to go he had begun to extort money from clubs under McPherson's control another standover man Robert Steele was shot and killed Mike Burke steel had threatened McPherson's standover rackets brotheliner joeborg was killed with a Car Bomb his death met macpherson's extortion rackets in the prostitution industry no longer had any competition while Lenny McPherson didn't personally commit all of these murders he most certainly ordered them Eleni McPherson's business Empire revolved around threats of violence standover tactics whether it was an illegal Casino a League's Club making money from poker machines the construction industry you had to pay Lenny in order to continue on in your business you're basically paying protection money against Lenny coming around in and sorting you out sometimes he did the jobs himself sometimes he would use people like Stan the Man Smith to help him along the way a particularly Wily character who would have been responsible for the deaths of as many as 15 people in his life along with Lenny McPherson at the time in wiping out opposition and whatnot was it was a group that Lenny dominated but it included Stan the Man Smith and they they really did those two in particular murdered their way to the top Lenny McPherson's major Ally was George Freeman Freeman got his start in a caper from Lenny McPherson for that Freeman was just a thief he was a shoplifter McPherson said you know what you're doing with the horses why don't you come along and start his peeing for me and so forth and that's where Freeman's empire built largely with under the Aegis of of Lanny McPherson every time something comes along they say to him in it like mcfirst and they say you know Smith and Freeman it wouldn't have easier for you if you didn't associate with them then you wouldn't have this problem we don't associate together we know each other there's a little difference but if they did ring me up tomorrow night and said would you like to come for dinner I'll say certainly it was a loose Coalition rather than a gang they got together really it was rare to see them together but they all looked after each other's interests and protected one another against any threat that might come along competition had thin but there was one man that stood in macpherson's way gunman and murderer Raymond ducky O'Connor McPherson had employed the freelance Hitman services but O'Connor refused to exclusively join McPherson's team this led to a standoff with O'Connor McPherson threatening to kill each other McPherson called O'Connor to a meeting in a Sydney nightclub called the vlatan quarter Icona agreed thinking that the crowded club would provide him with protection from Mcpherson it's a really simple thing I've done a lot and better too many enjoy quack quack quack [Music] oh sorry right sorry [Music] foreign erged and became powerful one of the things he set out to do was not only to wipe out someone who might be a competitor but get rid of their henchmen one of the henchmen of those days was a man called Raymond ducky O'Connor radaki O'Connor was was a Madman really I mean MacPherson had had fueled his Madness by keeping him as an assassin but they'd fallen out O'Connor wanted his own slice of macpherson's Empire but McPherson would never let that happen ducky O'Connor Ray O'Connor he was a ruthless dangerous mad individual and who incurred the wrath of his own kind and paid the penalty a feud between O'Connor and McPherson bubbled away for a while until MacPherson called O'Connor into the Latin quarter nightclub on the basis that they would discuss a piece try and work something out we know that Lenny McPherson was there we know that there were two policemen there they popped into obviously just see what was happening in the Latin quarter and it's all fairly dark in there I'd been in there many times myself popping in the same as his other two blokes had an icon is there with an with a thick overcoat and he's clearly concealing a weapon McPherson my understanding is was unarmed but his henchmen weren't the lodge went out at the Latin quarter for no more than a minute and of course ducky O'Connell was found on the floor dead some would say it was uh was murder uh Foul Play um I really believe it was probably justifiable homicide O'Connor's gun was found afterwards and it was the gun used in his murder it was called the fastest gun in town because it had dropped to the floor and by the time it was picked up by detectives there wasn't a fingerprint on it the rumor was one of McPherson's henchmen lift Ed the gun from O'Connor's pocket then passed it to McPherson and Lenny blatantly shot him at the table and dropped the gun with a couple of New South Wales policemen sitting at a table just across it no one saw anything no one got charged it was just fairly typical of the day and MacPherson thought he may have been charged with the murder but that was the risk he's prepared to take to on anti-splug another competitor to go on and his position in the Sydney crime scene unrivaled the death of Ducky O'Connor McPherson became an Unstoppable force in the Sydney underworld when his mentor Frederick Anderson died in 1978 McPherson finally took over as the Undisputed king of Sydney crime during his time at the top Lenny McPherson survived three Royal commissions and numerous Colonial inquists examining the fate of many of his victims but eventually the police officers that had kept him on the streets moved on which left MacPherson unprotected for the first time in almost three decades a new crime-fighting body the National Crime Authority had McPherson in its sights phone taps of conversations revealed McPherson conspiring to bash and break the arm of a former business colleague ferson was convicted in 1993 and sentenced to four and a half years in jail the last thing that happened to Lenny was that he was actually targeted by the National Crime Authority at the beginning of the 1990s and they couldn't get him unorganized crime matters but when they were targeting they picked him up on phone taps or organizing the bashing of a man well Lenny and some of his business associates they're involved in the business of importing to still drink Spirits what have you bourbon's whiskeys they only had one brand that was worth anything in terms of sales but one of the partners decided he was just going to take that and run with it he negotiated the rights himself and legitimately and legally decided he was going to distribute that particular brand and when Lenny got wind of it he sent a couple of his boys around a court has been told that Sydney identity Lenny McPherson paid twenty thousand dollars to have a man's arm broken the crown alleges McPherson engaged four men in all to beat up a former employee of one of his nephews the nephew Company Kentucky importers had the sole Australian rights to Jim Beam Bourbon worth 26 million dollars a year Electronics surveillance were able to record MacPherson organizing the bashing of a a businessman that he had been Associated the NCAA claims to have tapes which support their case against McPherson they alleged two weeks before the bashing he told balish I'm telling you there's 20 grand and I don't want a dollar otherwise I'd be in it one of the quotes off the phone tips has Lenny ringing I I actually a henchman who who's had done some murders for him before he brags how the Blake said broke his arm and bashed his head in you know just sort of like normal sort of chortling you know conversation but um no compunction whatsoever McPherson was charged with ordering the bashing but fought with everything he had to stay out of prison McPherson had a terrible fear of dying in jail and that he would do anything that he could to avoid that for a long period of time he pretended that he had Alzheimer's disease his lawyers would seek appeals on the basis of compassionate grounds and so Lenny for a number of years went through this act of stumbling his way around courtrooms forgetting who he was his wife went to Alzheimer's and learned all about it so she could watch me and she knows I am slowly you don't want to put them through it because you see what I know has happened to me Brothers and just nothing his sister's dead no one wants to know you sociopaths absolutely adore being in a position of power however when they no longer have that they're very very good at playing the victim where it's all about poor me because it's never been their fault of course in their own mind so then they go into this new compartment of I'm the victim it's all your fault and and you should feel sorry for me are you frightened of going to jail got it not really frightly going to tell but I think I'll die there I think I'll lose my memory there and that's what I'm thriving for Lenny McPherson into jail as a 73 year old whose physical health was fading but those close to him said his mind was as sharp as ever nevertheless his lawyers made numerous efforts to have him released on compassionate grounds saying that MacPherson was suffering from Alzheimer's disease the courts rejected it if Lenny McPherson was suffering at all it seems the Demons of his life of crime were the cause [Music] visiting through the cops is all you've ever been great [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] final years in prison you know he was constantly angry and frustrated because he feared dying in jail and that is ultimately what happened to me I think that McPherson you know is hard to imagine what it would have been like for him in prison given that he'd had this lifelong behavior of informing on everybody I'm sure he probably wouldn't have been the most popular guy there physics of the cups is all you've ever been glad he probably like most other people would have valued his freedom and would have been happy to go and manipulate or deceive or try any option that he could to get out if he was tormented by demons at all it was only the great fear of dying in jail McPherson wanted to die in his bed surrounded by his family and that did not happen McPherson finally died as a result of a heart attack in cessnock jail on Wednesday August 28 1996. I know talking to uh to have our Henry because he was there the night or the day that Lenny died and he said to me when he got out himself he said Roger said I I think he really died of a broken heart he said I think he thought that that he he should have been released he was old and decrepit in the end and and I said I'm really thinking you don't have a broken heart I really like Lenny McPherson I got on really well with him and I actually minded him in the last part of his life in prison but right in the end mate I can remember him that actually the day he died and uh he was land walking along and he's wide outfit ready to go over to work in the kitchen and and I said what's wrong with you and he just used to thruff from the mouth you know ain't angry he was always angry he said I'll die in here I freaking know it and I said well be careful what you wish for instead of dying with his family around him he died in the company of crooks and criminals prison hospital of a massive heart attack to have been Mr Big for so long he would have felt like he was the king of the castle there was just no other way for him you've got to take me out after him he was there for a long time no real Supreme for a long long time longer than any other gang very successful ruthless and extremely reliable and that was the sort of person that you wanted to work for and with if you take it from face 1966 which is around about the time Lenny really did the first murder I think in Sydney in the gang wars of the 60s it's three decades neither Al Capone or any other crime leader anyone can identify in America ever survived for 33 decades Lenny McPherson started Life as a petty criminal and ended up as the Undisputed head of the Sydney Underworld for nearly half a century he murdered extorted robbed bashed ran prostitution and Drug rings and informed on his friends and enemies as his mother expressed at his 70th birthday if hell exists Lenny McPherson has well and truly earned a place there in the end a heart attack did what his enemies had found impossible it took out Mr Big [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Australian Crime

Views: 67,614

Keywords: Australia, Australian Crime, Australian crime documentary, Australian crime series, Gangs & Mobs, Psychology of Crime, Stalkers, child crime, con artists, crime, crime documentary, crime series, disappearances, murder, police, serial killer, true crime, true crime documentary, true crime series, Lennie McPherson, Australian Crime Stories, True Crime Central, crime stories, murder mystery, australian crime stories 2023, true crime series game, police chases, police cam

Id: 6SWqkcvyED8

Length: 49min 45sec (2985 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 11 2022