What are the Claremont serial murders and who is Bradley Robert Edwards? Here’s what we know
For the last 20-years-the cold case of two young blonde women, thought to have been murdered while enjoying nights out has gone unsolved
THE Claremont killings are one of Australia’s longest running crime mysteries.
For the last 20-years-the cold case of two young blonde women, thought to have been murdered while enjoying nights out has gone unsolved.
Now for the first time in two decades there has now been a breakthrough and a man has been arrested in connection with the deaths.
But what are the Claremont serial killings, who were the victims and who has been charged with the murders? The Sun Online explains
Who were the Claremont victims?
Child care worker Jane Rimmer, 23, vanished from Claremont.
Her body was found in August 1996 in bushland in Wellard, about 40km from Perth.
CCTV footage later emerged, showing Ms Rimmer talking to a man in the street outside the Continental Hotel about midnight, and it became a crucial clue in the investigation.
The eerie footage shows her talking to a man briefly. The camera then pans away and when it comes back to her and the man, they’re gone.
That was likely the last time she was seen by anybody other than her killer.
On March 14, 1997, another victim, Ciara Glennon, a 27-year-old lawyer, disappeared after a night out.
Her body was found less than a month later, on a deserted track in Eglinton in Perth’s north.
That’s when police suspected the deaths could be linked and there may be a serial killer on the loose.
It is believed Ms Glennon had also been partying at The Continental pub, now known as the Claremont Hotel.
But now a man named Bradley Robert Edwards has been arrested by police and charged with the murders of Jane and Ciara.
A third woman named Sarah Spiers disappeared when she was just 18-years-old and her body has never been found.
Sarah’s disappearance has frequently been linked to the other two deaths but police have said investigations into her disappearance remain ongoing.
Who is Bradley Robert Edwards?
On 23 December 2016, police charged 48-year-old Bradley Robert Edwards with murder in the deaths of Jame and Ciara.
He was also charged with the sexual assault of two other young women and cops did not elaborate on what led them to Edwards.
Edwards is understood to work as an electrical engineer as well as volunteering for the Belmont Little Athletics club as a photographer and timekeeper.
He even won an award from Belmont council for community service in 2013.
Western Australia Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan told reporters in Perth: “There is still much work to be done, but this has already been the biggest and most complex investigation in Western Australia history.
“These crimes shocked the west Australian public.”
Edwards lives in the Perth suburb of Kewdale, about 12 miles east of Claremont.
Cops have accused him of abducting Rimmer, a 23-year-old childcare worker, on June 9, 1996, as she was on her way home from a night out with friends.
Police say Edwards abducted Glennon, a 27-year-old lawyer, on March 14, 1997, after she, too, had spent the evening out with her friends.
The investigation into the disappearance of Spiers, an 18-year-old secretary, is ongoing, O’Callaghan said.
Edwards was also charged with abducting a 17-year-old in 1995 as she walked through a Claremont park. The teen was forced into a vehicle and driven to a cemetery, where she was sexually assaulted, O’Callaghan said.
Edwards also faces an indecent assault charge after police say he broke into the bedroom of an 18-year-old woman while she slept and attacked her in 1988.
The accused appeared briefly in Perth Magistrates Court on Friday.
He did not enter a plea and will return to court in 2017.
How was it investigated?
The investigation saw the founding of a special task force by the Western Australia Police to investigate the deaths and several rewards were offered.
One move saw the DNA of over 2,000 taxi drivers tested in the Australian state but all came to no avail.
At one point detectives even recruited a twisted serial killer to help them solve the case.
Aussie cops sought the advice of David Birnie, a murder who thought he was capable of pulling off the perfect crime.
He and his partner Catherine used to lure young women to their home in Perth where he would then rape them while Catherine watched.
They would then take their bodies and dump them in shallow graves, in a case that became known as the Moorhouse murders.
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