Unseen - The Birnie House of Horrors: The Case of Kate Moir, "Dead Girl Walking" | UNSEEN

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

“I had a 200% chance of dying, and 5% chance of getting away” On November 9th, 1986, 17 year old model Kate Moir accepts a ride from a seemingly nice couple, not knowing they’re actually the country’s most dangerous serial killers. Having murdered 4 girls already, Kate knows her time is running out, but she has a plan to escape captivity, that would result in her even being arrested herself by Australian officers. More about Kate here: https://www.change.org/p/the-attorney-general-s-reformation-of-parole-laws-in-australia Read her book: https://books.google.ca/books/about/Dead_Girl_Walking.html?id=LZtEvgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y External footage from: Murder Uncovered: David & Catherine Birnie (7News Seven Network), Catherine Birnie: Freedom Bid (9News Nine Network), Crime Investigation Australia: Moorhouse Horrors (GMN Productions, FOXTEL), Most Infamous: The Birnies (GMN Productions, CIN), Perth & Fremantle 1986 (Robert Peter, Peter Hale), Rocky 1976 (Chartoff-Winkler, United Artists), First Blood 1982 (Cinema 84, Orion Pictures). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After a concert night with her friends, 17-year-old teenage model Kate Moyer finds herself watching Rambo with two strangers she met on her way home, but this seemingly regular night is hiding a disturbing secret. Kate is actually sitting in between two of Australia's most notorious serial killers, responsible for nearly a dozen murders, all happening in the last month. Defenceless, her assailants were holding her down in front of the TV, forcing her to watch with a knife under her throat. As the movie was coming to an end, she knew her time was up.

Kidnapped, assaulted, and chained up to a bed, Kate Moyer was determined to find a way to make her captors pay, even at the cost of her own life. So she made a calculation that if the worst happened, she'd still get her revenge from beyond the grave. People react differently with fear, but hers was really,

you won't get away with this, whatever you end up doing with me. It's Monday, November 10th, a seemingly normal day in West Australia, but in the suburbs, a half-naked teenager covered in bruises and restraint marks is running for her life along the sidewalk of Morehouse Street. Barely alive, 17-year-old Kate Moyer just escaped from the infamous David and Catherine Bernie. It's pretty rare to survive serial killers.

I went from being really, really scared, terrified, to being like, I've really got to do something here. Left alone by her captor for only a minute, Kate was trapped in. a room with only a door and a small window, both locked tight. Knowing this would probably be her only chance, Kate attempted to force open the window. I finally got the courage to check the window to make the noise that was needed to break the lock. After jumping down and landing violently on her head, Kate was concussed and had a hard time getting her footing, but managed to painfully walk to the house next door. Knocked on the door, no one home. I'm hysterical. I'm crying and laughing at the same time.

Next house, no one home Next house, no one home Went to their back fence Hurtled their back fence, got attacked by a black dog As she fought off the dog behind the fence Kate couldn't help but imagine her captors down the street Looking for her Once she successfully crossed the backyard

She noticed a man smoking a cigarette Outside of a store Running like she had never ran before Kate reached him in seconds I ran up to him and said I've been Please take me inside and call the police Were you thinking at this point that she might come after you?

Absolutely, why do you think? That's why I said if a woman comes here and says I've had a fight with her, that I'm her daughter, don't believe her, I've been, can you please call the police? At the local police station, Constable Laura Hancock was eager to begin her first week as a police officer, but was taken aback when her sergeant informed her that she would be responsible for taking the statement of a roughed-up teenager they picked up on the street. When Kate was brought, that was my first panic.

because this is going to be the first statement I've ever taken as a police officer per se. Kate was hectic, insisting that her story was irrelevant that the couple who kidnapped her were serial killers and that the police should be outside looking for them, not wasting their time questioning her. Obviously, at the time I met Kate, what she did say to me, she believed

that there had been others and that they had died. And she was going to die. Had she not escaped, she was going to die, and she was very emphatic with that. After she calmed down, Kate's tone completely changed. Now talking in an almost stoic way, she tried to explain her ordeal the best she could, but some of the details didn't add up.

How did they kidnap her? Why didn't they kill her? Why was she left alone? As questions started to pile up, Hancock finally understood why her sergeant asked her, a complete rookie, to interview Kate. Her superior thought she was lying and didn't want to waste time dealing with her.

When she came back to him with Kate's statement, his following order confirmed her doubts. I'll never forget those words. That's just verbatim. I have lived those words for 30 years. I was told that it was a bizarre story and to stitch her up for a false report. Hancock was tasked to charge Kate, but couldn't help but listen to her gut. She noticed how she was solely focused on the risk her captors were to others. It was never about her, but about them, the killers, and the long list of victims that came before her. The focus was, this is who they are, go get them.

Listen to me. Here's my story. This is why, this is how, and this is who. Go get them. In downtown Perth, 30 days before Kate's escape, Detective Paul Ferguson received a file at his desk. Perth University student Mary Nielsen has gone missing. A few days later, another much younger missing girl was added to his stack of cases. Sue Candy, child, absolute child. I just, I just, it's terrible. It really is terrible. In the middle of his investigation, Ferguson was informed that, even though none of the girls had been physically located, he needed to stop investigating them. Apparently, both either called or sent letters to their parents telling them they had run away. Before he could express his doubts, a third missing person was added to his pile. The Nolian Peddenthal was doomed to begin with.

A married couple pull up and say, listen, jump in the car, we'll slip you up to the service station. She never got out of the car. Overwhelmed with what started to look like a kidnapping spree, Detective Ferguson, didn't even have a week to steer back the investigation when a fourth woman went missing, 21-year-old Denise Brown. She'd been with her friend's place in Kubler. She'd left there. She was heading off home, and she hadn't arrived home.

I was relatively certain that this was out of character for Denise Brown, and that she was subject of foul play. Ferguson then contacted Denise's mother and was surprised to learn that. Again, the victim called a relative after their own disappearance. The mother said that was out of character. If she was going to be staying at Friends Place, she would have run her. She was very, very concerned. The fact that Denise had run the girlfriend at Kubal up and said that she was staying over a friend's place.

Now convinced that a pattern of behavior was emerging amongst the victims, the detective sent Superintendent Vince Kadditch to interview an eyewitness, located close to where Denise Brown was last seen. We showed a photo to a lady across the road from where this victim number four had been cited. She identified her as having a witness. been there catching a bus at the Fremantle. Fremantle, a port town located close to Perth, was usually a calm area with a relatively small police force.

But now that he knew this was the final destination of Denise Brown, Ferguson informed them that he would pay them a visit later that day. It wasn't long before the station sergeant called him back. I got a call over the radio from Chris Cassidy, who was another sergeant down at Fremantle at the time, to say that they were speaking to a young lady, and it could be connected to the Denise Brown file and that I should come and speak with her.

Back at the Palmyra Station, both Kate and Hancock were relieved to learn that another investigator was on his way to meet them. So far, it seemed like only Hancock believed her. But when Ferguson arrived and started to question Kate about Denise Brown, she knew she could trust him. She started by telling the name of the culprits, a couple living together in the Palmyra suburbs,

Catherine and David Bernie. She went on to explain why she was convinced they were the ones behind Denise's disappearance and murder. During her captivity, she witnessed Catherine acting strangely when she stumbled upon Denise Brown's missing person poster in the newspaper. And we were sitting in the lounge room together, Catherine and I, and Monday's paper was there, and there was a picture of Denise Brown's head. And Catherine started laughing, I said, what's funny? And she said, you think a big girl like that could look after herself. And you couldn't tell from the photo that she was a big girl. So I knew for a fact that they'd killed Denise Brown.

And she was laughing. She was laughing. Did you ask her at that point? Of course not. I didn't want to die. It was disnoted. As Ferguson tried to piece together what happened to Denise Brown and the other girls, he asked for the whole story.

Two days ago, Kate went to a concert in downtown Perth with some of her friends in the evening. After the show, one of them picked her up, and they headed toward her parents' home on the other side of the city. Halfway through the ride, Kate told them that the place was too far and that she'd rather walk the rest of the way herself. After a little while, a young couple driving a brand new car, stopped by and offered her a ride. Without any cause for concern, she gladly accepted and hopped on the backseat.

They drive behind, pulled up outside my house. I went to get out of the car, there was no door handle. I can't open the door. They said, used the window handle. And I went for the window handle, and there was no window handle. At this exact moment, David grabbed. her head and slammed it in between the two front seats. Catherine then pulled out a butcher knife and pulled it to her throat.

Next, they stopped the car, tied her hands together, and wrapped her inside a large blanket before driving off. I said, can I ask a question? And I said, what? And I said, am I going to rap you? Are you going to kill me? And I said, well, I only rap you if you're good. I wasn't there first.

They'd done this before. They were good at it. All I was thinking about was, well, that I was going to die, that I couldn't believe this has happened to me. why'd I be so fucking stupid? Once they arrived at their home, she was dragged inside. Catherine freed Kate from her bond and asked her to undress. David then put all her clothes into plastic bags and labeled them with her full name, age, and address.

It is at this point that Ferguson started to understand that the Bernies weren't cut from the same cloth as most criminals. The purpose of that was to ensure that there was no evidence left at the house to say, well, that's what come off this victim. Now let's get rid of it. After this, Kate's capture put on a movie, 1982's Rambo, with a knife sitting under her throat. The couple questioned her about her life, her family, and her boyfriend. But Kate wasn't duped. She understood they were dressing a list of people that could come looking for her after her death. Sadly, this was nothing compared to what was about to happen to her.

I would have been talking to them for two hours before the first rape, and that was just all about mental torture. He made me dance in front of him to Romeo and Juliet. I cried when I danced. I ended up getting raped at about 12.30 at night. She sat on a chair at the end of the bed and watched. They've put four chains on the posts of a single bed. They chain my left ankle to the left post, my right ankle to the right post, my left hand to the left, my right to the right, right to me again.

I cry throughout this one. After the second rape, David pulled out a pair of handcuffs and attached his and Kate's ankles together. It gives me a couple of sleeping pills. It tells me to have them and go to sleep. So I put them in my mouth under my tongue. I then take the sleeping pills out of my mouth, hide them under the mattress, and spend the whole night going, I'm in a fucking nightmare. Paralyzed by fear, Kate was convinced that if she fell asleep, she would never wake up.

So instead, she started to scheme. During the past evening, Catherine kept making fun of the other girls, calling them names and laughing out loud. It only took Kate a minute to realize that the people she was referring to were probably her past victims. This led her to believe that she would probably be murdered at some point during the next day. but she had an idea, not an escape plan per se, but rather a way to make sure she could eventually come back at them, even in death. People react differently with fear, but hers was really,

you won't get away with this, whatever you end up doing with me. So she made a calculation that if the worst happened, she'd still get her revenge from beyond the grave. Yeah, someone's going to know, someone will find out. The next morning, David removed the handcuffs before leaving for work, and Catherine led Kate back into the living room. Catherine then went on with the same kind of activities she imposed on her the night before. Kate was forced to watch another Stallone movie with her, under threat.

But this time, Kate was the one talking. She was trying to befriend Catherine enough that she would momentarily let her guard down around her. And somehow, it worked. Every time her eyes were away from her, she did take the opportunity to go on with her plan. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking. maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them.

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but you don't acknowledge that to yourself. You don't live it. So how did you make the odds better for yourself? I didn't make the odds better for myself. Instead, I just left evidence everywhere so that when I died, people would work out I was one of the missing girls. I hidabbed lipstick in the bandbag

and a packet of cigarettes threw her in the roof by standing on the back of the couch. So my parents would know I hadn't run away from home, but they were the culprits. Catherine forced Kate to call her parents and give them a fake story. In the same way she did with all her past victims, during this whole time,

Catherine didn't pick up on Kate's actions and eventually, circumstances even prompted her to lock Kate back into the bedroom without chaining her to the bed. I was very compliant, I was very nice. I managed to become friends with her enough. She told me to go to the room, shut up and not say a word, or she'd kill me. And this is where Kate's story loops back to her escape, how she forced the window lock and ran for her life from lawn to lawn until she finally found someone to call the police for her. Hancock was frustrated by her sergeant's initial reaction, but once the narrative became clear to Ferguson and Cassidy, they cross-referenced Kate's experience with the other victims.

At that point, we realized everything she said, we were satisfied that everything she said was absolutely accurate, convinced it just wasn't a made-up story. Immediately, Cassidy rallied up with Hancock and left the station followed by a fleet of officers. He took Kate with him and kept questioning her in the car. I asked her the obvious question, would you identify the house?

And she said, oh, I think so, yeah, not that far from here. She was in the back seat, so we drove the past. And she looked at the house and she ducked down and burst into tears. Once at the scene, Catherine had seemingly vacated the house. So the three officers split up and started knocking on doors, looking for a witness. Ferguson was able to locate Sandy Holloway, the Bernie's neighbor from across the street. The young girl broke out of this window here in the front and ran down practically. do believe with sort of nothing on, ran right down and up the laneway.

That was sufficient information to get a warrant to go and search the place. Without further notice, the Palmira police smashed down the door of the house and started searching. Everything Kate had laid out was found. The lipstick under the beanbag, the pack of cigarettes in the attic, and the rocky cassette tape still in the VCR. She said that she was given a sleeping pill, which she spat out. That pill was an actual fact found on the floor in the bedroom. She said that she had been chained up and locks had been used and there was numbers on the locks. We found some chains and some locks with numbers on them.

As the police were investigating, Catherine Bernie returned to the scene with bags of cleaning supplies in her hands. Once she noticed the officers, she started to run, prompting them into pursuit. Quickly enough, they grabbed her and brought her back to the house. She wasn't surprised to see us. She was quite aggressive and she was told her we were making inquiries in relation to a young man. lady who had been reported to us that she had been abducted and held captive in her house. She denied any knowledge of it. She told us that she lived at that address with a male person by the name David Bernie. David Bernie worked at a wreck of shard and a couple of people were then

sent out to speak with him and bring him back to the office. Now in custody, the couple was separated. David was sent to Perth with Ferguson and Vince, while Catherine stayed with Cassidy and Hancock and Palmira. As Ferguson interviewed David, he knew. noticed how weak and feeble he behaved, something Superintendent Vince Kadditch was quick to latch onto. And he looked at me and then he looked up at Vince and he said, can I speak to Kathy? When he said that, I thought that, you know, gee, he's right on the edge. He wanted confirmation from her to be able to go further. Vince, who was standing behind me, looked down at David and said, come on, David, go on, how many is there? And he looked at Vince and he said, there's four.

And he named the four girls. Mary Nielsen. Sue Candy. Dolly. Patterson, Denise Brown. Back in Palmyra, Cassidy was facing a literal wall. Catherine knew her rights and refused to speak a word without the presence of her attorney. But this only lasted until his colleague informed her of the development made on David and Perth. In an attempt to clear her name and carry Davids through the mud, Catherine started speaking. And from that point on, it was just the damn broke.

She went right through the whole story. And just directing this to the bodies and as to who they were. But the detectives knew she was lying. Through Kate, they had the entirety of her crimes on file. They knew she was the one who chose the victims, the one ordering David around during the assaults, and that she took notes of her victim's reactions while her partner ripped them.

Make no bones about it. Kathy Bernie was the puppeteer. David Bernie was the puppet. Kathy Bernie orchestrated and controlled that situation. With their confessions in hand, the police now turned their eyes toward the first four victims. Guided by the couple, they headed to Glen Eagle, a small wooded area located between a truck stop and a family picnic spot.

We turned left where he told us to turn left and he said, right, stop there. There's a log over there behind that log is the body of Sue Candy. In the same area, David pointed the police to the bodies of Mary Nielsen and Denise Brown. When they asked about Nolan Patterson, Catherine intervened. Kathy was the first one to point to Nolan's grave, an actual fact. back when she walked up to the grave, she actually sped on the grave. The next month, both David and Catherine were sentenced to life without parole. But even after their incarceration, something wasn't quite right.

Ferguson and the Perth police reopened several of their cold cases in an attempt to compare the information they had with the now-established MO of the killers. I'm very firm on the belief that certainly David was involved in the death of several other young women. Kathy, I believe, has a knowledge of those deaths if she was not involved in it. Three cases in particular, one involving a girl as young as 12 years old, resurfaced as being probably committed by either David, Catherine, or both. I believe there was Cheryl Renwick, Barbara Weston, Lisa Mott. You know, the one that's called me always is the Lisa Mott one.

To me, that amount of circumstantial evidence is bothering. Bothers me. In 2003, half of the police chances to discover what happened to the three alleged victims disappeared with David Bernie. At 4 o'clock this morning, 54-year-old David Bernie was found dead in his specialist protective custody cell. In 2016, Catherine became West Australia's longest-serving female inmate after 30 years behind bars, and her fourth appeal for liberation was about to take place.

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Inspector Paul Ferguson doesn't have an opinion. It's up to the system to, uh, to deal with it the way it happens. Full figures of the man would be horrified if that woman was ever released back into the public. The law in Western Australia states that after 20 years in jail, any and all criminals get access to a chance at parole every three years. So, as a sole survivor, Kate had to testify against Catherine repeatedly. This forced exposure led Kate to relive her trauma publicly many times,

something she wouldn't wish for anybody, so she decided to take a stand against the system. She wrote Dead Girl Walking, an upcoming book retelling her experience, and became an advocate for victims of violent crimes. Through her tireless work, she successfully reformed Australia's parole system. In 2018, a bill was introduced by a member of parliament

who credited Kate for her work. This new law made it so criminals charged with three or more murders in one trial could be ineligible for parole. Kathy Bernie, you forfeard your right to walk out that door because those poor girls didn't deserve it, didn't deserve it. To this day, Ferguson and many others believe that, without Kate's quick thinking, bravery and resolve, the Bernies would have murdered many more in the weeks to come.

Katie Moyer saved unknown young lady's lives. In 2016, the seven news team reunited Kate and Hancock for the first time in 20 years. What is the bond that you have? I would think the bond is that we shared a pretty traumatic experience together and you become pretty close. But we got them. We did. Are you safe? Are you here today?

She still worries, you know that? I still do. Do you worry about her? Yes. To the now retired police officer, Kate's journey is a shining example of how one's fate shouldn't be defined by their past experiences and that through sheer determination, anyone can make the world a better place. It's been cathartic for me. I think good can come out of bed. And that's what this is about now.

What's the next thing you remember? Waking up in the hospital, with a detective asking me what I did. The voice you've just heard is Ashley Wallace.