DOCUMENTS submitted to the Supreme Court of Queensland last week have revealed that Barbara McCulkin was allegedly murdered in front of her daughters.
The new information has come to light ahead of a bail application tomorrow by one of the co-accused, Garry Dubois, the Brisbane Times reports.
Warwick’s Vincent O’Dempsey, 76, and Dubois, 67, were charged in October with the murders of Barbara, 34, and her two young daughters Vicki, 13, and Leanne, 11, after police re-opened the cold case to coincide with the 40-year anniversary of the trio’s mysterious disappearance.
In another bombshell, police will also allege the men confessed their crimes to associates less than a week after the alleged homicides, according to the court brief submitted as part of Dubois’ bail application.
The pair deny any involvement in the killings.
Police contend that O’Dempsey, a former Clockwork Orange Gang member, and Dubois drove Barbara and her daughters to an unknown bush location and strangled the mother in the vicinity of her daughters.
The men are then alleged to have committed serious crimes against the girls before O’Dempsey is alleged to have also murdered them.
Both men are then alleged to have buried all three in a single shallow bush grave.
The trio vanished from their Highgate Hill home on the night of 16 January 1974.
Their bodies have never been found.
Police will argue Ms McCulkin knew the pair through her estranged husband Billy and the motive for the triple murders centred on her knowledge of the firebombing of Torino’s nightclub in Fortitude Valley on 25 February 1973.
Each man has been charged with three counts of murder, three counts of deprivation of liberty and two further serious charges.
