The burning desire that left 15 people dead
Arsonist … Reginald John Little. Source: IN the Kings Cross of 1975, the Pink Panther strip joint and the brothel above it – the Kingsdore Motel – were both owned by the original boss of the Cross, Abe “Mr Sin” Saffron.
Next door on Darlinghurst Rd, the Savoy Private Hotel was a low-price but tidy establishment packed for the Christmas holidays.
Inside room 33 was homosexual cook Reginald John Little. On this Christmas Eve 1975, he had been let down by his friend Warren who had broken his promise to spend the night with Reg at the Savoy and then have Christmas Day together.
Little had prowled the seedy streets and bars that night but there was no Warren. He couldn’t even pick up a date in the gay nightclubs.
Unhappy, he returned to the Savoy about 5am, letting himself in through the back door with a residents’ key.
Little, a petty thief not above stealing from a church, was also an arsonist fascinated with two things- fire and making it into the news.
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In the rear foyer was a stack of newspapers. Frustrated and angry, the 24-year-old loser set the papers alight, then walked up the stairs and got into bed. Merry Christmas.
Within minutes the flames had roared up four floors, funnelled by the old-fashioned staircase. Guests smashed windows to escape. One man threw his baby son out of a window to rescuers, a woman climbed naked down a drainpipe.
Prostitutes from the Kingsdore helped guests as they leapt from the Savoy roof.
Little tripped while escaping, knocking himself unconscious. When he came to, he was calling for Warren.
Out of the 60 guests, 15 died and 25 were seriously injured in what was then Australia’s worst fire tragedy.
Within days, cocky and confident, Little was helping gather signatures for a petition for stricter fire precautions in older hotels. He drove newsrooms mad as he repeatedly called offering himself for interviews.
He made the front page he had craved when he was charged with arson and 15 murders. Jailed for life, he was later given a 28-year non-parole period.
As Little walked free on parole from Silverwater jail yesterday after what the State Parole Authority called 34 years as a “model prisoner”, prisons boss Ron Woodham warned Little had never accepted his guilt and remained unable to adapt to life in the community.
Little – who in 1993 was captain of a volunteer bushfire brigade unit while on day release – has been banned from joining the Rural Fire Service and will be monitored via an electronic bracelet until his sentence expires next year.
After he was locked up, life in the Cross went on as usual. Then in 1989, the former Kingsdore Motel – by then the Downunder backpacker’s hostel – was destroyed in a fire lit by arsonist Gregory Alan Brown that killed six people. Brown, who was convicted of six counts of manslaughter, was freed from jail last year.