Criminology - The Claremont Killer

Episode Date: October 1, 2023

In the 1990s, a series of murders rocked Perth, Western Australia. They became known as the Claremont serial killings. The murders rocked the area to the point that people were afraid to leave their homes. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the Claremont Killer. This serial killer went unidentified for twenty years. In the end, it was good old-fashioned detective work that cracked the case. Advancements in DNA allowed evidence collected at the crime scenes to identify the killer. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When a wealthy woman is found brutally murdered, there's only one suspect, her handsome young lover. An open and shut case, right? Not so fast. The Shaw Festival presents Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, a courtroom drama full of plot twists only Agatha Christie could weave. Don't miss, witness for the prosecution. For best seats at best prices, go to Shawfest.com. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 276 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Mike Morford. What is going on with you, buddy? Not a lot. Just getting ready for CrimeCon, doing some last second planning and plotting. We're getting ready to head off right after we record this episode. So it'll be interesting to see what happens at Crime. Con. Yeah. So, you know, I do want to talk about the episode last week. You know, you and I are working ahead, have been working ahead because CrimeCon is coming up. So I was editing the episode last week. And one of the things that we've had to do is kind of put a placeholder for the Patreon names. Because when you're working ahead, you know, I don't have them at the time that we're recording the episode. So, you know, I usually say something like, ah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, well, I forgot to edit that out.

And so people quickly heard that and they were like, what's going on here? And I think some people got a kick out of it. But, you know, there's just me for getting to, to record them and put them back in. Part of the podcast that you just don't see stuff like that. Yeah, a little behind the scenes, look at what happens in the making of it. But maybe, maybe we get some merch made up with blah, blah, blah, blah. And the end, blah, blah, blah, blah. I never know what to say.

for a placeholder and so I just make something up. Speaking of Patreon, let's go ahead and give our shoutouts. We had Daisy Simental, Echo Kent up their pledge, and I forgot to announce last week that Pamela Gehry jumped out to our highest level. That's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much to everyone that takes the time to support the show. It really helps a lot.

And for anyone that would like to, head over to patreon.com slash criminology. So this episode drops the weekend after CrimeCon. And like I said, we're recording it ahead of time. Hopefully everyone that went had a great time and a lot of fun. And for everyone that will have met up with us, we want to give a big things for hanging out. And I'm sure we'll have some stories over the couple of weeks after we get back.

But now it's time to jump into this episode. And this week, we're returning down under as we talk about the Claremont serial killings in Perth, Western Australia. The murders rocked the area, shaking the security of those who live there. Things were so bad. The owner of a popular nightclub in Claremont, the Continental Hotel told the Western Australian, people were afraid to go to Claremont during the day, let alone nighttime. It went from being a vibrant strong. strip, an entertainment area, to being a ghost town during the day and the night.

The Claremont killings remained unsolved for 20 years, leading many to wonder if they would ever be solved at all. But eventually, the serial killer was identified. And unlike many recently solved serial killings, forensic genealogy was not used here. Very good detective work broke the case with quick thinking officers, making the right moves during the initial investigation and then years later. Others deciding to test the right items that those before them had preserved along the way. On January 27, 1996, 18-year-old Sarah Spires and her friends celebrated Australia Day. They started with a picnic in Kings Park and then went to multiple popular spots that night, starting with Ocean Beach Hotel in Cotslow. Around midnight, her older

sister Amanda picked them up and took them the club Bayview. in Claremont. It seemed like a regular night with young people having fun. Amanda would later tell police, Sarah was drunk when I dropped her off, but she seemed okay. Sarah and her friends continued drinking and dancing until around 2 a.m. But after a while, Sarah got tired and she left alone. Her friend stayed at Club Bayview. They weren't quite ready to call tonight. Her friend Emma Waits told police, she spoke to me clearly. She wasn't upset. She was just going to leave. She seemed normal. There was nothing unusual. Sarah called a cab for her. herself from a nearby phone booth, Swan Taxis, received the call from her at 206 a.m.

Her requested destination was in Mosman Park, a neighborhood nearby. The destination wasn't where Sarah lived. She and her sister lived in South Perth at the time, but there's no way the taxi dispatcher knew that. A cab was sent out and Sarah waited for the driver near the corner of Sterling Road and Sterling Highway. Multiple people saw her there as she waited and saw a car pull up and stop. One witness told police that Sarah stood out. out, as he and his friends drove by because she was the only person out at that hour. At 2.9 a.m., the cab from Swan Taxis arrived at the intersection and couldn't find Sarah, even though it had just been three minutes since her call. Other reports mentioned that the

cab arrived eight minutes after the call, but either way, Sarah was nowhere to be found. There's no video footage from Sarah's final known whereabouts, but she did stop on her way out of the club to talk to a bouncer that she was familiar with, so this timeline is likely correct. from what we can tell from the available information about this case, there's no explanation for why she wanted to go to Mosman Park, but it seemed like she might have made it there, although briefly. And around 3 a.m., Jesse Marie Monroe, who had been asleep on the top floor of an apartment building in Mosman Park, heard what she later described in court as really, really blood-curdling, screaming and woke up her fiance to tell him, there was something going on outside. The scream was very loud and very distressing. So her fiance Wayne Stewart looked out the balcony toward Monument Street where Jesse Marie thought the scream came from and saw a light colored station wagon parked facing the wrong direction. He then

heard two car doors slam one door and then about five to ten seconds later the second door before the car sped off. Three others also reported hearing scream. around that time. Judith Borrett remembered hearing a desperate and very high-pitched scream. She told the court, I wish I'd gone outside, but I didn't. Sarah Spires was due to work hours later at her receptionist job, but never showed up. Later, she failed to meet up with friends as scheduled, and this wasn't like Sarah, so she was reported missing. At the time, Sarah's disappearance seemed like an isolated incident. Police had no idea that she was the first murder victim

in a series of deadly attacks by a serial killer. And so more if we're recounting things that were said by people nearby. And, you know, a lot of this comes from people who were inside their apartment building. And they're hearing blood-curdling screams, very distressing sounds. Judith said, you know, I wish I had gone outside, but I didn't. And, and this is something that, you know, we've heard before, you hear something, you don't know what it is. Now, later on, you find out something really bad happened. And so I think in her mind, she's thinking, is there something I could have done if I'd only gone outside? But in the moment, I don't know how

many people would go outside because number one you don't know what in the heck is going on you're hearing some very strange maybe even frightening sounds do you want to put yourself in harm's way when you literally have no idea what you would be walking into yeah it's hard to fault anybody for not going out there and seeing firsthand what's going on you don't know if something's happening out there somebody has a weapon harm's going to come to you but it boggles my mind how many cases we've talked about somebody hears a woman screaming in the night and they don't call the police i just it it never makes sense to me yeah that's a great point because there's really no danger there right you're still staying in your apartment all you're doing is picking up the phone and alerting

the authorities that something is going on you don't know what it is is, but you should probably check it out. On June 8th, 1996, about four months after Sarah Spires went missing, 23-year-old Jane Rimmer went out with a group of friends. They hit multiple locations in and around Claremont that night. First, they went to the Ocean Beach Hotel in Cotslow, around 7 p.m. and then around 9 p.m. they took a cab to the Continental Hotel. Security cameras both inside and outside of the Continental caught Jane and her friends that night as they hung out. From the footage, it was obvious that Jane was intoxicated. She used the wall to keep steady as she went down the stairs, held on to others nearby for balance, and stumbled as she walked.

At around 11.30 p.m., the group decided to head to Club Bayview, but the line to get in was too long, so they decided to end the night out and go to a friend's house. They waited to catch a cab, but Jane decided to go back to the Continental Hotel. At 12.04 a.m. on Sunday morning, she was still waiting outside, visible on security footage. leaning against a lamp post like she had been for almost 10 minutes. In the surveillance, a man can be seen approaching her, and she seems happy to see him. After this, she vanished. The hotel had four camera views that each recorded for 13 seconds before cycling to the next view. Less than a minute later, she was gone.

So was the man who was only caught on camera from behind. Kenneth and Judith Mitchell, who lived on Johnson Road and Wellard, woke up when they heard screaming in the early morning hours of June 9th. Kenneth would later say in court, I couldn't call it squealing, but certainly a very high-pitched and traumatic voice of a woman. It was very plain, very clear, and very traumatic. He jumped out of bed and saw headlights from a car. The scream dissipated into dead silence, which he said was quite frightening, just before the car

drove away quickly. After the sun came up, Kenneth went to the area where he saw the car, but he only saw tire tracks. Two other ear witnesses, Ian and Cheryl Stirk, who lived on Arundel Drive and Wellard also heard the screams. In court, Ian said, I never heard a scream of that magnitude in my life. His wife Cheryl echoed his statement. She said, without being melodramatic, It was a blood-curdling scream. After the screaming stopped, the night was silent. And I only take a minute to talk about this screaming. You know, this is at least a second time that the word blood curdling has been used.

And these people are saying, you know, I've never heard any scream like this in my life. So you can just imagine what this was like and how frightening. and how frightening it was for the people who were hearing it, let alone for the person who was making the screen. I think you can tell the difference between, say, some kids messing around, yelling at each other, laughing, that kind of thing, and somebody screaming for help or screaming for their life because they're being attacked. You know, I would hope that you could spot a difference.

To me, I'd like to think that if I was in that situation, I would be alerted to say, okay, that's just kids messing around or I need to call the police. And again, why aren't the police called here? Yeah, that part is a little mystifying, you know, at least this guy went out. But by the time he, he did go out, the car was already gone. On Sunday afternoon, Jane Rimmer didn't show up to her family's weekly lunch, which was unlike her. And then on Monday, she wasn't at work. Her family reported her missing. Linda Donovan, Jane's co-worker at the Nedlands Child Care Center. And also her neighbor was with her and other friends at night.

She recalled an argument between Jane and their friend Sean Chapman, the night she'd vanished. Linda described Chapman as an individual with a nasty temper. Police looked at Chapman but ruled him out as being involved in Jane's disappearance. Authorities pretty quickly wondered if Jane's case was linked to the disappearance of Sarah Spires. On June 10th, authorities formed the task force, known as Macro, to investigate the disappearances of Sarah and Jane. They tried to enhance the grainy surveillance footage from Jane's final known whereabouts, but even NASA couldn't provide a clearer image of the man who she was talking to after midnight. Just two months later, on August 3rd, Jane's fate became known when her body was found,

off Woolcote Road in Wellard, about 25 miles south of Claremont. Michael Evans and his wife, Tammy Van Ralt Evans, were out with their kids when they pulled over to pick some wildflowers and stumbled upon James remains in the brush. Her clothes were missing. Tammy Van Ralt Evans later recounted finding the body, saying in court that she had seen a large death-lily in the brush, which was on the outskirts of Southern Perth and decided to get a closer look. She felt something brush up against her leg and realized that it was a foot. Investigators were able to determine that Jane's throat had been cut. A folding pocket knife with a telecom logo on its brown handle was found near Jane's body. Soon after, a man contacted authorities after seeing news of Jane's body being found.

He had found a watch in the area while horseback riding on June 9th. He gave the watch to the police and showed them where he found it. Word of the two women, Jane being found murdered, and Sarah still missing, began to spread around the Claremont area. Some women were afraid to venture out alone at night wondering if there was a predator trolling the area. But after a few months, things seemed to calm in Claremont. People began to enjoy going out again. And you know, we often talk about individuals who find dead bodies. You know, here we have a man, his wife, and their kids.

And they do something very routine. They pull over, they pick some wildflowers. They're just enjoying their day when they stumble upon Jane's remains. And you think about that scenario. You're kind of having an idealic day. And then all of a sudden it's shattered by this traumatic event. Yeah, that's probably something that's going to be etched into their minds for forever. Probably won't be able to unsee that or forget what they saw.

But had they just stopped 30 seconds further up the road or 30 seconds sooner and pulled over, they may not have found the body. and who knows if and when her remains would have been found. And that is something that interests me greatly in these cases. You know, a lot of things that happen are you'd have to call random. You know, they just happened to stop right there. And like you said, what if they didn't stop at all? What if they stopped further down the road?

You know, how much longer would it have been for her remains to be found if they were found at all? But then the other thing is, you know, people being afraid. And especially it talked about women being afraid to, you know, go out alone at night, which is very natural. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible.

A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. There's a feeling that there's a predator, but then after a few months, things seem to calm down. And I think that's a normal reaction. You're scared. But at a certain point, life gets back to normal.

Now, if you have a serial predator out there, that may be exactly what that person is waiting for, for everybody to let their guard back down. On March 14, 1997, 27-year-old Kiera Glennon and her friends went out in Claremont. The young lawyer was in Perth to be a bridesmaid for her sister's upcoming wedding. She had already had some after-work drinks for St. Patrick's day, but her friends convinced her to go out. Around 11.30 p.m. They got to the Continental Hotel.

A bit after midnight, it was getting late, so Kiera decided to head home. Multiple people waiting at a bus stop saw her walking toward Stirling Highway around 1230 a.m. when a light colored car pulled up next to her. Some of these witnesses were called the Burger Boys by the media because they had been eating fast food from hungry jacks at the bus stop when they saw kiera across the street. According to the Daily Mail, one of the boys recalled telling her she was crazy for trying to hitch a ride home at that hour. He yelled to her, you're stupid for hitchhiking. But Kiera flipped him off as she walked by. Another one of the burger boys recalled that Kiera looked highly intoxicated,

saying she walked like someone you probably wouldn't let walk like that by themselves. They watched as a Holden Commodore pulled up and they saw Kira leaning over to talk to the driver. Between finishing their food, talking to each other, the boys didn't notice that Kiera and the car were gone. Kiera never made it home. After she missed a hair appointment and her sister's bachelorette party, she was reported missing. On April 3rd, her body was found in brush off of Pippodini Road in Eggleton, about 25 miles north of Claremont. Jason Atkinson had been searching for marijuana plants when he noticed what he described in court as a severely rotten stench. He went on saying, I'm nosy by nature, so yeah, I had a look, and I found her.

Her remains were only partially clothed, and her body had been intentionally covered by broken tree branches. The underneath of Kare's fingernails were scraped by investigators, and what was collected was labeled at the time, debris only, not suitable for analysis. But years later, it reproved to be very important physical evidence. After Kiera's body was found, it was now obvious to authorities that there was a serial killer operating in the Claremont area. The locations where Sarah, Jane, and Kierer were last seen before disappearing. or being killed were not coincidences. They were part of a pattern.

Because all of the girls would need to get back home very late at night. The most obvious suspects to police were taxi drivers. It wouldn't be suspicious that they were driving around at late hours or stopping near young women. And it would be easier to get a potential victim into your car as a taxi driver than it would be if you were just a random stranger. You can understand how a woman might let her guard down around a taxi driver, even if she didn't call for one. Because they might assume they want to pick up a fare as opposed to thinking that they're a kidnapper or a killer, with Sarah having already called for a taxi. It's easy to see how she could have accidentally gotten into the wrong car.

Either another taxi pulled up, one with the driver up to no good, or Sarah mistook the car that pulled up next to her as the taxi she had called, perhaps making the fatal mistake of getting in while she was intoxicated. Police pursued this taxi driver theory hard. Taxi drivers in Western Australia, at least those that were properly credentialed and licensed, were fingerprinted and DNA tested. Authorities tried to rule out all of them, over 3,000 drivers in all. Then police focused on a large number of unlicensed taxi drivers. and as a result, authorities changed the standards for licensing eligibility, which resulted in 78 operators with criminal records losing their licenses. They also approved the decommissioning of old taxis, making sure that they all had insignias and official equipment removed.

But none of the taxi drivers looked at, whether licensed or not, could be connected to the victims. The Continental Hotel and other hotspots in the area tried to improve their security, the Continental installed more security cameras, hired more security guards, and actually got the taxi stand moved closer to the hotel. So women wouldn't have to walk down the street alone, but it didn't really help. Barry Jones, who co-owned the Continental Hotel, told the Western Australia, it was devastating for the whole of Claremont. The retailers were affected. He added, people were afraid to go to Claremont during the day, let alone,

nighttime, it went from being a vibrant strip and entertainment area to being a ghost town during the day and the night. In April 1998, 41-year Lance Williams, a public servant in the main Rhodes Department, was named publicly by police as the number one suspect. It's not clear how or why police were interested in him, but he stayed on their radar for a decade. In late 2008, Lance Williams was cleared thanks to DNA, DNA collected from under the fingernails of care. Glennon. Initially, police wrote off the material collected from under her fingernails, but by 2008 had been able to use it to rule out suspects, and it didn't match Lance Williams. But the same DNA would later be linked to another case. In late November 2000, a pair of women's underwear with the

initials CG written on the tag was left near Kiera Glennon's grape at Kira Kata Cemetery. authorities tested the underwear for DNA, and it turned out that this DNA proved that this was Kiera's underwear. Police believed these were in her workbag, a work bag she was carrying, which has never been recovered. It seemed as if the killer taunting police had come to Kiera's grave and laid these underwear there. Investigators set up a hidden camera at her grave, hoping to catch the killer on another visit, but he never really did. As we mentioned, DNA evidence developed from undercar's nails was linked to another attack that happened in 1995. On February 11th at around 2 a.m., a 17-year-old girl walking home from

Club Bay View was abducted from a park in Claremont and sexually assaulted in Caracotta Cemetery in Shetton Park. A man grabbed her from behind, threw her into a van, and bound her wrist and ankles together with electrical cables. A sock was shoved into her mouth, and a bag was forced over her head before he carried her into the cemetery. She was sexually assaulted multiple times. Her attacker left her bound and nude from the waist down, but she was alive and was eventually able to free herself and go for help. After DNA was collected from her,

it would later be connected to Keer at Glendon's killer. In December 2015, investigators revealed that fibers found on Jane Rimmer's body indicated she had been in a VS Series 1 Holden Commodore. That kind of car matched one of the witnesses' statements from the night of her disappearance. Despite this very important clue, it didn't lead police directly to anyone's suspect. Police did look into several persons of interest, but none of them with a strong enough case to press charges. Even Peter Wagers, Mayor of Claremont, was looked at by the Macro Task Force.

He had an alibi for only one of the murders. and refused to cooperate with searches and DNA testing. It's a bit suspicious to some, but he was also the president of the Civil Liberties Association of Western Australia. So that actually seems a little bit natural. He told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, it's the most outrageous abuse of a fundamental right, a basic civil liberty.

It's a gross invasion of privacy, a gross invasion of your right to have some, anonymity. So kind of interesting that they were actually looking at the mayor, but what I really want to talk about is someone refusing to cooperate with searches, DNA testing, things like that. In a lot of cases, that mere fact alone cast suspicion on that person. But here you have a guy in Peter Weggers who is, the president of the Civil Liberties Association of Western Australia. So undoubtedly, he takes that very seriously.

And I think you can take it from, you know, what he said to ABC. It's the most outrageous abuse of a fundamental right, a basic civil liberty. He's not saying, I have anything to hide. What he's saying is, I don't believe you have the right to do this. and I'm going to exercise my right. Yeah, on one hand, I can understand being president of the Civil Liberties Association why he would take this approach and sort of fight back against this. But on the other hand, as mayor, you'd think he'd want to see these crimes solved

and do everything in his power to help police go on the right path to finding the killer, which would I would think would include getting himself properly ruled out so they could move on to someone else. Yeah, I'm sure it was not an easy decision for him, but, you know, a lot of people look at that civil liberties type stuff as a pretty slippery slope. You know, once you start to give a lot of that up, some people think that the government will try to take more and more. In 2004, the home of a taxi driver, Stephen Ross was raided and he was questioned in the

murders. He thought he had given a ride to Sarah Spires the night before she went missing, but claimed to have nothing to do with her disappearance. It turned out he had been driving on the night's all three girls were last seen. Authorities forced him to give a DNA sample and seized his cab. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, he said, They're trying to frame me. They can't find the killer and they're trying to put someone away.

Ironically, Stephen Ross lived in a granny flat at the back of a house owned by a then-Claramont mayor, Peter Wagers, who we mentioned earlier was another person looked at by police. Authorities ruled out other known criminals, including convicted killer Bradley Murdoch, who in 2011 killed backpacker Stephen Falconio and abducted his girlfriend Joanne Leeds. Experts in the United States in Australia helped profile the Claremont killer. Claude Minicini, a criminal profiler from Victoria. believe the suspect would be employed. David Caldwell, head of forensics at the South Carolina Police Department, thought people would be surprised by the eventual arrest. Perthnail.com quoted

Caldwell saying, they're going to say, I worked with this guy. He's my next door neighbor. Surely it can't be. So we talk about profiles, you know, quite a bit. The first person said the suspect would be employed. Okay, I don't think you're going out on a limb too far there. And then this second person said that people were going to be surprised because they worked with this guy or he was their next door neighbor and they just didn't see this person as a killer. And that's again, not going out on a limb either because we see that quite often. People are shocked to find out that their co-worker or their next-door neighbor is this, you know, predator, serial killer, because they don't know them as that. You know, the, the killer doesn't show that side to their

coworkers and neighbors. They just know them as a person that they might have a beer with or they might barbecue with. They might say hi to, you know, as a next door neighbor. Yeah, I think these types of people try and blend in and fit in and not draw attention themselves. And most of them look normal. And like you mentioned, somebody that you might have a beer with, most of them don't look like Otis Tool. Like if Otis Tool was arrested,

I could see his neighbors coming out and saying, oh my God, I knew he was a serial killer. He was so creepy. But most of these killers we talk about, they just don't look like that. So they don't draw that much attention. Yeah,

we're always bringing up Otis Tool and Henry Lee Lucas as the kind of, poster boys for what a serial killer may look like. Obviously, we know that most of them don't look like that. But, you know, if oddest tool moved in next door to you, and I hate to say that because we're always taught not to judge a book by its cover, but all right, you're going to be a little leery. Yeah, probably so. In 2016, DNA that matched the DNA profile taken from under Kiera Glennon's fingernails, and in the 1995 attack in Karakata Cemetery, was matched to yet another victim, one who's attacked in 1988. On February 14th of that year, an 18-year-old girl in the

suburb of Huntingdale, which is still in Perth, but far from Claremont, was attacked in her home as she slept. She was laying on her stomach when a man got on top of her and shud fabric into her mouth like a gag. She scratched his face and he ran off. The girl saw him in the doorway of her room, wearing what looked like a woman's nightgown. A kimono was found at the scene that did not belong to anyone in the home. The doors to her parents' room had been shut by the attacker, who had also implug the family's phone. A canine unit was used to track the source of the kimono.

It turned out to have been stolen from the clothesline of a nearby home. DNA from a semen stain on that stolen kimono matched the other unsolved cases. Now, there were multiple DNA matches, but no identity of its contributor. Investors reviewed prowling and burglary cases from the neighborhood where the kimono was stolen and tried to find a clue. It turned out that in 1988, eight homes within a half mile radius of each other experienced prowling incidents. The prowler sometimes just stole laundry from the clothesline outside, but sometimes he made it inside, rifling through drawers and once even assaulting a woman in her home. The prowler was seen wearing a kimono, women's nightgowns, and once was reported to have worn women's underwear on his head. One of these homes had a sliding glass door. Investigators back in 1988 had taken into evidence four different prints they recovered and filed them away after not finding a match in the system.

Almost 30 years later, these prints were re-examined and entered into the system and police got a hit. hit. They matched a man convicted of an assault in 1990. Two years after the prowling incidents, a man named Bradley Edwards. In 1990, a 21-year-old Telstra worker named Bradley Edwards had been fixing phones at Hollywood Hospital when he attacked a 40-year-old social worker. He grabbed her from behind, shoved fabric in her mouth, and dragged her away from her desk to a bathroom. The victim in that case told 9 News Australia, I was trying desperately not to bring breathe because I thought there was something on the cloth. But for some reason, mid-attack, Edwards stopped, apologized, and ran away. The victim said, one minute I was, I felt fighting for my

life, and the next minute, he's just saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. When Edwards was caught soon after, there were zip ties in his pocket. He was charged with assault and ended up being sentenced to two years of probation, but as a result, his fingerprints were entered into the system. At the time, he wasn't connected to the prowling incidents, and it's unclear why the prints from those incidents were never checked in the system periodically. But 30 years later, those prints had led police to the man that they thought very well may be the Claremont killer. Authorities began covert surveillance on Bradley Edwards to try and obtain a DNA sample. Eventually, they found what they needed. Edwards and his adult stepdaughter had gone to the movies. And when they

were done, he threw away his bottle of spray. Detectives collected and tested it. The DNA on the rim matched the DNA in the Claremont attacks. They had found the killer. One of the jars containing fingernail scrapings from Kira's autopsy had never been opened because technology hadn't been good enough to test it. As they labeled it back when Kira was killed, debris only not suitable for analysis. But once technology had to be,

advanced to the point it could be tested, it was used to prove that Bradley Edwards was the serial predator. Police had been hunting for almost three decades. On December 22nd, 2016, 48-year-old Bradley Robert Edwards was arrested at his home in Q-Dowell. He was charged with the murders of Jane Rimmer and Kiera Glennon and the presumed murder of Sarah Spires, as well as the attacks dating back before these murders from 1988 and 1995. Looking at photos of Edwards from throughout his life until his 40s. It seems possible that his first victim from 1988, when he was just 19 years old, must have scratched him very deeply while fighting him off,

because he has a thin vertical scar under his eye, still visible decades later. Edwards seemed shocked that he was being arrested and claimed to have no knowledge of any of the murders following his arrest. He told police, I just want to go to sleep and wake up and this will all be a bad dream. He maintained his innocence saying, all the stuff you've accused me of, I'm not involved in any of. Edwards was a Telstra technician and had been for his entire career. He and his first wife, who had been together since he... Fresh air, longer days, a chance to reset.

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Growtherapy.com slash book now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. It was 20 divorced in 1997. They had been separated for almost a year by then and their relationship had been going downhill as early as 1994. He claims she cheated on him and became pregnant by another man. She doesn't dispute this at all, but adds that their marriage became strained when Edwards began to stay on a new computer late into the night, often leaving her to go to bed by herself. She would still be alone in the morning.

Do not only to the graphic nature of the evidence that would be seen by a jury at trial, but also to the large amount of media interest in the case, the prosecution requested that Edwards, who pleaded not guilty, be tried by a judge, not a jury. In October 2019, Edwards pleaded guilty to the charge of a sexual assault, deprivation of liberty, an unlawful detention for the attack on the 18-year-old in 1988 and the 17-year-old in 1995. On November 19, 2019, the trial began with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Hall presiding. Edwards drove multiple Telstra cars throughout his career with the company, including a Holden Commodore, a Toyota Camry, and a white van. Each of these cars was given as part of a description of attacks were of a suspicious driver as part of something called the Telstra Living Witness Project. Blue and gray fibers consistent with Telstra's uniform at the time

were found in both Kiera and Jane's hair, as well as on the body of the girl who was attacked in the cemetery in 1995. Fiber evidence, morph, to me, is just fascinating. The thought that something can be transferred from you, your clothing to someone else that you come in contact with. You wouldn't even notice it. But a skilled forensic person would collect that. And many, many years later, it could prove to be your downfall.

Yeah, that makes me think of like the Wayne Williams case back in the 70s when they said that fibers were found that were similar to carpeting he had. But I think the difference between then and now is, back then they would just say they were similar and now I think they have the ability to firmly determine that they are an exact match so I think that science has come a little bit further along yeah I actually think it's come a long way and you know we look back at some of those cases from the 70s the 80s where whether it was hair or fibers or whatever you know the experts just kept saying it was microscopically similar. Now, we now know that that didn't mean

what a jury thought it meant because it turned out that some of those didn't match at all. Some of some of that stuff wasn't even the same type of fiber or hair. But it was said to be microscopically similar. To your point, now the testing is so advanced that they can and definitively tell in many cases that one fiber is the exact same as another. One woman testified that in December 1995, a Telstra worker in a white van had attacked her. She and her boyfriend had been at the Albion Hotel in Cotslow, but they had argued. And she ended up walking down Stirling Highway in the middle of the night to try and catch a cab. The van pulled up next to her, and the driver offered her a ride.

She accepted and asked what the driver was doing out late. The man said, I was heading to Cotslow, picking up damsels in distress like yourself. When they got to her destination in Inaloo, where the woman's car was parked at her boyfriend's parents' house, the driver got out and tried to kiss her grabbing her arm. She warned him, she had a blue belt in Taekwondo, and the man backed off. getting back in the van and driving off. And already in this episode, Mor, if we've talked about a number of women who were not only savvy

in the way that they handled themselves, but we're also fighters. I mean, this woman basically said, hey, I've got a blue belt in Taekwondo. I'm going to kick your ass. And that was enough to scare this guy back into his van.

You know, I got my youngest dog. her into taekwondo at a pretty early age. She ultimately earned her black belt. And while I'm not saying that she can beat up everyone, I do feel a little comfort in the fact that she can, to a degree, defend herself. And I don't know if this woman actually had a blue belt for real, but it was certainly something that was enough to make him think twice.

So maybe it was just something she thought of, spur of them. moment and, you know, had her wits about her and it was enough to scare him off. Yeah, it seems pretty specific to say Bluebell. I think if you were going to lie, you probably go all the way to black, but I don't know. Another woman came forward saying that in January 1996, she was walking alone from Club Bayview to the bus stop when a white toy at a Camry pulled up next to her and began to follow her. She tried to ignore the driver before finally staring at him. confronting him, and he drove away. She described the driver with longer hair than the other women did.

Then, just before Christmas in 1996, another woman recounted going out for drinks at Ocean Beach Hotel, and seeing a Holden Commodore with a Telstra logo circle past multiple times. When she and her friends left on foot later, she saw the same car again, but because it was from behind them, she thought it was a cab, so she stepped out and waved to halet, before realizing it telling the driver she didn't need a ride. He drove past two more times as they walked. More potential victims came forward. Two women were hitchhiking in late 1996 from the Ocean Beach Hotel when they saw a white vehicle described as a work vehicle or a Camry wagon with a Telstra logo on it driving slowly.

So they stuck out their thumbs to hail what they thought was a cat. Telstra's old logo when they were Telcom Australia was. was an orange circle with a white tea in it. The car stopped and they both got in. But as they drove through Claremont, one of the women got a strong instinct to get out of the car and jumped out at a stoplight, pulling her friend with her. It's not confirmed that any of these drivers in the previous incidents was Edwards, but with what we know about the attacks linked to him, it's a large coincidence if it's not him. Multiple unrelated men driving white Telstra vehicles in the same area that Edwards did and offering young women rides just seems like too big of a coincidence to many

people. And what really jumped out of me here was that this woman had an instinct and she acted on that instinct, right? Jumping out at a stoplight, pulling her friend out with her. You know, these types of story where it turns out that they probably were with a serial killer. We don't know if it was Edwards for sure. But my thought is always been if you're in a situation and you get a bad vibe, you get a bad feeling. Get out of that situation. And that's exactly what these two women did. Ultimately, it could have saved their life.

Yeah. Sometimes you get a gut feeling about something or someone. in a situation and you just have to go with that gut feeling. And in the long run, you don't know if it does save your life, but at the time, it seems like a good thing you should do. One of Edwards' former coworkers, David Minchin, recalled in court they both were issued identical brown-handled knives. He remembered Edwards once losing a knife issued to them on the job.

It's likely that Edwards used not only his work vehicles, but work equipment in his attacks. folding pocket knife with the telecom logo on its brown handle was found near Jane Rummer's body. But it's not clear if this was the knife that Edwards had lost. And we've talked a lot in this episode about things that were or are seen by many to be just too big of a coincidence. I think here's another to add to the list. You know, this folding knife is found near Jane Rummer's body. it just happens to have the telecom logo on it.

No way to know for sure if this was the knife that Edwards lost, but doesn't it seem like that would just be too big of a coincidence? Yeah, it's just one more thing on top of a bunch of coincidences. He's driving or has access to the same types of cars that people are reporting in different incidents. Now you've got this knife. And one thing I wondered, and I didn't see the information out there about this, but was there any fingerprints found on that knife?

Because that might have led to him even sooner. Prosecutors found evidence that on Australia Day in 1996, the day Sarah Spires disappeared, Bradley Edwards went to the home of his first wife's parents to try and convince her to go see fireworks with him, but she rejected him. Early that year, Edwards, who was 28 at the time, was treated at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital Sleep Clinic,

where he admitted to drinking heavily. He met his second wife on April 1st, 1997, just 17 days after the murder of Kiera Glennon, and the two married in 2000. The same year, they bought their house in Cudale. By the time of his arrest, they were estranged. She had moved out in 2015. It seemed that she was suspicious of him.

possibly being the Claremont killer, as she hand-copied bank statements from before she had ever met Edwards. And no matter where she looked, she couldn't find a specific statement from the month of Kiera's murder. Bradley Edwards found his wife's nose and confronted her at which point she said she feared for her life. In looking at Bradley Edwards' background, there were stories going back to his childhood of neighborhood women and girls, finding that their underwear and not. nightgowns have been stolen from outdoor clotheslines. An Edwards family friend remembers her underwear missing from her bedroom after Bradley had been over for a barbecue. In the book, Stalking Claremont, author Brett Christian claims that ex-girlfriends of Edwards described that he had an exceptionally thin penis. All right. Not something that any man wants to have said about them. You certainly

don't want someone to write that in a book, but obviously this came out after. after Bradley Edwards was known to be what he really was. And I'm not sure how the thin penis kind of fits into, you know, what he ultimately did. But the one thing I am seeing and something that we've seen in other cases is this kind of escalation pattern. And I think we're seeing it here as well, right? stories from his childhood about stealing women's underwear and nightgowns off of clothes lines.

We hear that a lot. And then it progresses to something else, ultimately progressing to sexual assaults and even murder. And one thing that really jumps out to me is how similar some of this is to Joseph DeAngelo and his early behaviors. that people have pointed out. So, you know, I wonder if that's a common thing for some of these predators that they have a lot of things in common. Yeah, I think it is. Was it also written about him that he had an exceptionally thin penis?

Yeah, multiple victims mentioned that. So some similarities here. At trial, the prosecution laid out evidence that each murder, including the disappearance of Sarah Spires, had a distinct and identifiable. trigger. For Sarah, it was a refusal by his estranged wife to go see fireworks with him. For Jane, it was when he learned that his wife was pregnant with someone else's child. And for Kiera, it was when he and his wife were finalizing the sale of the home they had purchased together when they got married. Even the attack on the social worker had a trigger related to his relationship.

his first wife had apparently confessed to being unfaithful the night before. On the next day, they were talking again, but Edwards didn't pick her up from work like he usually would since he had been arrested at the hospital. And for the girl, he left tied up in the cemetery before he and his first wife were married. When they were just dating and living together, they argued after she asked if they were ever going to get married. It was February 13th, 1995. The timeline of all these events perfectly lined up with the attacks. And I thought more that this was a very interesting revelation, that they were able to tie very specific triggers in Bradley Edwards' life with his attacks.

It's almost as if, you know, a big event in his personal. life triggered him to want to commit some of these heinous acts. And maybe that's not all that uncommon for some of these killers. It's actually very common. Police in a lot of cases look for different triggers of suspects that line up. And using the Golden State killer cases as an example, we see that when he gets fired from his job, when his relationships break up when his kids are born,

they all coincide with the attacks that he did. So these trigger things are legit and things that investigators search for trying to connect dots and see if they line up and often they do. While it's not known for sure, it's possible that Bradley Edwards and Jane Rimmer knew each other somehow. A friend of hers recalls mentioning a friend called Bogsy, who she trusted to get her home. It turns out that in the yearbook for Gossnell's Senior High School, it lists Bogi. as a nickname for Brad Edwards. Could this be why Jane decided not to take a cab with the rest of her friends? She did look at her watching the CCTV footage and was looking around, maybe like she was

waiting for someone. This doesn't seem to have been proven, but it will explain why she stayed behind and why she got into his car. If it was him in the footage, it explains why she was happy to see him and not afraid. At trial, the victim in the Huntingdale attack, who scratched Edwards, recounted how how she still suffers greatly from his attack. Bradley Edwards now features as the villain of my nightmares and I can't make it stop, she said. The victim from Caracatta Cemetery called him pathetic because he preyed on weak, vulnerable young women who didn't stand a chance. She was able to leave her

attack in the past saying something can break you, but you can still survive it and you can thrive as I have. During the trial, Edwards shoved the pencil into his own ear and had to be taken to the hospital for treatment, but this tactic didn't delay the outcome for long. On September 24, 2020, after 200 witnesses and over 85 days of testimony, Judge Hall found Bradley Edwards guilty of the murders of Jane Rimmer and Cara Glennon, but found that there was not enough evidence to prove he killed Sarah Spires, though he found it likely. Edwards was sentenced to life in prison and has to serve at least 40 years before parole is considered. This was the longest period of time before parole consideration ever handed down in a sentence in Western Australia. As he passed down

the sentence, the judge said to Edwards, I recognize that there is a high likelihood that you will die in prison. Bradley Edwards seemed unfazed by the sentence and was sent to prison. He still to this day refuses to say anything about Sarah Spires. Her body has never been found. But police commissioner Chris Dawson said that the police will always keep looking for remains and that the quest for justice for Sarah will continue. At the end of the day, Bradley Edwards is right where he belongs and, you know, he can never hurt anyone else. At the time of this recording, he's 55 years old. So after serving a full 40 years, he'd be in his 90s before he'd even be eligible for release. So as the judge said, he'll likely die in prison. But one question,

question remains. Are there any more victims of his out there that still haven't been identified? And, you know, it's a question that we have to ask in so many cases. And I'll be honest with you, my initial gut reaction is that there almost always are. You know, that's a scary thought, but I just don't know how many killers are going to add information that the police. don't already know about. It's not in their best interest to do so unless they just want to brag about it or up their numbers, which some do. But I think by and large, and especially in the case of Bradley Edwards, you know, he maintains that he's innocent. And so he's definitely not going to

add anything about other murders that the police don't already know about. I also think it's so cowardly to refuse to say anything about Sarah Spires. I get it. He doesn't want to say that he did it, but to not give that closure for her family. You're just talking about a real coward here. You know, you did what you did. Now you have to face up to it. You're probably going to die in prison anyway. Could you at least help the family out by telling them what happened trying to help the police recover her remain. No, you have to remain a low life coward to the very end. And that's just what some of these guys are. Most of them, I think. I think it just shows a complete lack of empathy on his part. He's going to die in prison. And even if he came clean and said,

okay, I did it. Here's where he can find her body. It doesn't change the outcome. Even if they tack on more time, he's still going to die in prison. So he could do the right thing, but as we see with many of these people, you know, they just don't for whatever reason. But I want to go back to one thing we talked about, and that's the thought that there might be other victims out here. As we know, rape is a very underreported crime. So with all these brave women that did come forward to talk about these attacks that they experienced that were thought to be at the hands of this guy, there's probably some that were just too afraid to come forward. And, you know, I think it'd be a safe assumption that there are some out there.

Yeah, I think additional sexual assaults, no doubt about it. But I also believe there's probably more murders. And maybe they were just different enough that police couldn't connect them. I don't know. I just always lean towards the likelihood that these really bad individuals did more, hurt more people than what police were able to pin on them. I think at the end of the day, this is just a really bad guy who's clearly a predator and fits the profile of many predators we've talked about.

And he's right where he belongs. Yeah. Yeah, no doubt about it. But that's it for our episode on the Claremont Killer. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave a a review, give us a five-star rating, all of that is helpful. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth is amazing. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter or X at CriminologyPod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to Facebook.com slash criminology

podcast. Or you can join our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast, Discussion and Fans. I refuse to call it X, by the way, because I didn't understand. understand Twitter all that much as it was, but I knew what sending a tweet meant. So now that it's X, what do you send? Do you send an X? I don't know. Or do they still call it sending a tweet? I'm very confused. It's just like Facebook, changing their name to meta or whatever it is. Why don't we have to keep changing the name of everything? Well, maybe if Elon Musk is out there listening to this episode, he'll reach out to us and clarify. Oh, I'm sure he is. He's not that busy of a guy. But that is it for another episode of criminology. Morph and I will be back with all of you next

Saturday night with a brand new episode. So for Mike and Morph, we'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.