The witness, who can not be identified, was at one time housed with Mr O’Dempsey, and claims during one of their regular conversations he denied killing children but said their mother “had to be dealt with”.
Vicky [left], and her sister Leanne [centre] with mom Barbara McCulkin [right], all disappeared from their Brisbane, Au, home on Jan 16, 1974
For the last eight days, Mr O’Dempsey has been on trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to the murders of Barbara McCulkin and her daughters Vicki, 13, and Leanne, 11 in cold case murders, from 1974.
Friends, family, neighbours and police have given evidence about the disappearance of the McCulkins, who have not been seen since January 1974.
For the trial, O’Dempsey has pled not guilty in the Supreme Court in Brisbane to three counts of murder and one of deprivation of liberty in relation to the family’s disappearance on January 16, 1974. Brisbane mother Barbara McCulkin was allegedly strangled and buried in the bushes with her girls.
Ex-con McDonald told the court O’Dempsey told him, on January 2 this year: “In those days when you got paid to do a job, you did a job”.
He said O’Dempsey then said to him, “I wasn’t going to go down for a bunch of them”.
The informant said O’Dempsey wanted him to get bail, get out of jail and go straight to a former girlfriend and tell her word for word what she should say if asked to give evidence in court.
On Tuesday, the witness was taken through months of notes he made while in prison with Mr O’Dempsey. They included the 78-year-old accused saying “No, I’ve never laid a hand on the two kids”.
Vincent O’Dempsey in legal crosshairs after forty years
Vincent O’Dempsey first strangled Barbara [left], before doing same to her daughters
Referring to the conversation on January 2 this year, the man told the jury Mr O’Dempsey then said “she had to be dealt with”.
“He was talking about the mother of the two kids,” the witness said. “Two girls.”
A week later, Mr O’Dempsey discussed the address and routines of Warren McDonald, a former associate who had given a statement to police against him, the former inmate said.
“He was trying to arrange to get at him,” he said.
“He knew what time he left for work, which road he took, which roadhouse he stopped at for breakfast … the number of his house.”
O’Dempsey has pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court in Brisbane to three counts of murder and one of deprivation of liberty in relation to the family’s disappearance on January 16, 1974.
The former prisoner told the court O’Dempsey told him, on January 2 this year: “In those days when you got paid to do a job, you did a job”.
He said O’Dempsey then said to him, “I wasn’t going to go down for a bunch of them”.
The informant said O’Dempsey wanted him to get bail, get out of jail and go straight to a former girlfriend and tell her word for word what she should say if asked to give evidence in court.
Vincent O’Dempsey allegedly, bragged he killed Barbara McCulkin [photo], and her two daughters to his fiancée, Kerri Scully, and boasted he’d never be caught for the crime
Earlier in the trial, McDonald told the jury Mr O’Dempsey had boasted about the McCulkin murders while the pair chatted about security for their large cannabis crop.
“They’ll never catch me because they’ll never find the bodies,” O’Dempsey allegedly said.
On Tuesday, the witness also told the court he had been asked to contact other potential witnesses and provide them with answers which would “blow away” the case against O’Dempsey if they were called to give evidence.
A secretly recorded conversation between the former prisoner and O’Dempsey is expected to be played to the jury when the trial continues on Wednesday.
McDonald was followed on the witness stand by O’Dempsey’s former girlfriend Kerri Scully, who told the Brisbane Supreme Court she heard the defendant confess to the infamous triple homicide of more than four decades back. Sometime between 2010 and 2011, Scully, 35, was living in Brisbane and regularly travelling to Warwick to stay with O’Dempsey, she said.

Now 78 and under fire, Vincent O’Dempsey for decades was a feared underworld hitman who bragged he had bagged 33 hits
During one visit, he sent her to a shopping centre to buy a copy of the true crime book Shotgun and Standover, which he had said was regularly selling out. A section of the book discusses the McCulkin case and its investigations.
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