Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

Claremont Serial Killings

The Claremont serial killings is the name given by the media to a case involving the disappearance of an Australian woman, aged 18, and the killings of two others, aged 23 and 27, in 1996-1997. After attending night spots in Claremont, a wealthy western suburb of Perth, Western Australia, all three women disappeared in similar circumstances leading police to suspect that an unidentified serial killer was the offender. The case, described as the state's biggest, longest-running, and most expensive investigation, remains unsolved. However, in 2016, a suspect, Bradley Robert Edwards, was arrested. His trial began in November 2019.

Background

The case began with the disappearance of Sarah Spiers (18) on 27 January 1996, after she left Club Bayview in the center of Claremont at around 2:00 am. At 2:06 am, Spiers called Swan Taxis from a public telephone booth. Although she was living in South Perth with her older sister at the time, she had requested to be taken to the nearby suburb of Mosman Park. She was then sighted waiting alone near the corner of Stirling Road and Stirling Highway by three eyewitnesses, who also mentioned seeing an unidentified car stopping where she was waiting. However, she was not at the site when the responding taxi arrived at 2:09 and, in the dark, could have been missed by the driver. Her disappearance soon attracted massive publicity and her fate remains unknown.

In the early hours of Sunday 9 June 1996, Jane Rimmer from Shenton Park also disappeared from the same part of Claremont. Similar to Spiers, she had been out socializing with friends the night before. Rimmer's friends explained how they had moved from the Ocean Beach Hotel to the Continental Hotel and then Club Bayview. Noting the long line at the club, her friends then caught a taxi home, but Rimmer opted to stay, and she was last seen on security footage waiting outside the Continental at 12:04 am. Fifty-five days later, on Saturday, 3 August 1996, her naked body was found 40 km south in bush-land near Woolcoot Road, Wellard by a family picking wildflowers.

Nine months later, in the early hours of Saturday 15 March 1997, Ciara Glennon, a 27-year-old lawyer from Mosman Park, also disappeared from the Claremont area. Like the others, she was with friends at the Continental and had decided to make her own way home. Three men at a bus stop saw Glennon walking south along Stirling Highway at approximately 12:30 am, and observed her interacting with an unidentified light-colored vehicle which had stopped by her. Nineteen days later, on 3 April, her semi-clothed body was found by a bushwalker, 40 km north, near a track in scrub off Pipidinny Road in Eglinton.

Investigation

Within 48 hours of the disappearance of Spiers, the case was taken over by the Major Crimes Squad. After the disappearance of Rimmer, the WA Police set up a special task-force called Macro to investigate the two similar cases. After the disappearance of Glennon, police confirmed that they were searching for a serial killer, and the WA government offered a $250,000 reward, the largest ever offered in the state at that time.

Initial suspicion centered on the unidentified vehicles seen at two of the locations, and on an unidentified man seen in the video footage. Suspicion then focused on Perth's taxi-drivers given that the women were last seen in circumstances where they may have used taxis. This included a taxi-driver who claimed to have transported Spiers the night before her disappearance. A massive fingerprint and DNA-testing exercise were then carried out on the thousands of taxi drivers licensed in Western Australia. Given the evidence of a number of unlicensed operators, examining standards for eligibility were raised, and 78 drivers with a significant criminal history were de-licensed. Stricter standards were also applied to verifying that decommissioned taxis were stripped of insignia and equipment. In December 2015, investigators finally revealed that fibers taken from Rimmer were identified as coming from a VS Series 1 Holden Commodore.