That no one has ever been charged with his murder is a damning indictment on the police of the time and an illustration of how far the Calabrian mafia’s tentacles reached into the corridors of power.

The murder thrust the Griffith community into a hell not of its own making.

Suddenly, Griffith became a byword for drugs and organised crime.

That sniggering word association continues to this day.

If Family Feud posed the question to 100 people, you can bet the top two answers would be “drugs” and “mafia”.

The Griffith community, a large part of it still of southern Italian extraction, has been unable to make peace with itself while justice remains a fading possibility.

There are men alive in Griffith today that know precisely what happened to Mr Mackay and where his remains are.

But they would rather stick to a ridiculous criminal code than afford Mr Mackay’s family the dignity of a funeral.

How does a community like Griffith move on from an unresolved past?

It can’t and it hasn’t.

The debate around erecting a statue to Mr Mackay in 2008 and building a “mafia museum” in 2013 in Griffith reveal how open that psychological wound still is for many.

Concerns over the city’s “snubbing” of its mafia history during its official centenary year – 2016 – also shows the community’s “cultural cringe” around the issue.

In a comprehensive souvenir booklet marking the centenary, the Bob Trimbole-era doesn’t even rate a passing mention.

We should accept that dredging up the past is uncomfortable for many.

But Griffith’s dark past is an intrinsic part of its identity.

Whitewashing history does not cleanse the community, it buries the truth deeper and plays into the hands of those in Griffith that want it that way.

There’s a reason memorials exist in Auschwitz, the Twin Towers site and Hiroshima.

They act as a permanent reminder of the barbarism of the past, and a reminder of why it can never be revisited.

The leaders of Griffith would do well to heed that lesson.