Man accused of infamous Claremont serial killings ‘wore kimono during other sex assault’
The cause of death of one of the victims of the infamous Claremont serial killings has been revealed as her accused killer appeared in court.
The cause of death of one of the victims of the infamous Claremont serial killings has been revealed as her accused killer appeared in court.
It was also revealed the accused, Bradley Robert Edwards, 50, had a fetish for women’s clothing and was obsessed with rape and abduction, a court has heard.
More explosive allegations are expected to be heard as day two of Edwards’ three-day pre-trial directions hearing continues in the Supreme Court of Western Australian.
The hearing got under yesterday after a last-minute adjournment when he was hospitalised with self-inflicted stab wounds obtained in prison just hours before he was due to appear on Monday.
Edwards has pleaded not guilty to a range of charges, including the murders of Ciara Glennon, 27, Jane Rimmer, 23, and Sarah Spiers, 18, who were abducted from Claremont’s night-life strip in 1996 and 1997.
He is also accused of the sexual assaults of two teenage girls in 1988 and 1995.
State Prosecutor Carmen Barbagallo began proceedings by detailing the alleged attacks carried out by Edwards, which she dubbed the “Huntingdale prowler series”.
Ms Barbagallo told the court that the accused stole women’s underwear from clotheslines, including a silk kimono that he wore while sexually assaulting an 18-year-old girl in her home in 1988.
It is alleged Edwards, who was 19 at the time, straddled the teenager while trying to shove a piece of fabric into her mouth.
The kimono, which was left at the scene was tested for DNA in late 2016 and was allegedly a match for Edwards.
RELATED: Bradley Robert Edwards trial adjourned after he was stabbed in prison
In the second alleged attack in 1995, Ms Barbagallo told the court Edwards abducted a 17-year-old girl after a night out, grabbing her from behind and binding her hands with cable ties, before putting a hood over her head.
He allegedly took her to the nearby Karrakatta Cemetery and raped her.
And the court was told Edwards had pleaded guilty to a sexual assault that took place in 1990, in which he grabbed a 21-year-old social worker from behind at Hollywood Hospital and shoved a piece of material into her mouth.
She managed to break free and run for help. Edwards received two years’ probation for the attack.
Ms Barbagallo told the court that the three incidents demonstrated Mr Edwards had “clear sexual motives”.
“(He) had a tendency to prowl an area of familiarity in a distinct manner to create or seize opportunity,” she said.
“He was motivated by his fetish for women’s clothing and stealing women’s clothes off lines. He created an opportunity to feed his fetishes.”
Defence counsel Paul Yovich told the court the Huntingdale prowler incidents and evidence that has been dubbed “Telstra living witness”, regarding Mr Edwards allegedly driving around Claremont and Cottesloe offering women lifts, should be linked.
“They are very different ways in which these courses of conduct are gone about,” he said.
“Stealing women’s underwear in 1988 does not have any relevance to murdering women.”
Justice Stephen Hall also raised some concerns about the link between the Huntingdale prowler series and the Telstra living witness matter.
“One involved approaches to people’s houses at night, stealing items, going into a house on one occasion, attacking a sleeping victim,” he said.
“The Telstra living witness series involves a car, obviously, and approaching women on the street. What do you say about those differences?”
Ms Barbagallo said the difference was about time, place and circumstances.
“It’s what he’s doing,” she said. “So if you’re looking at the “where” you’ve got to look at the underlying conduct, what is it he is actually doing.
“If one looks at the where these offences are … the incidents are occurring in Huntingdale, they’re all occurring within one kilometre radius of his house.”
On the night Sarah Spiers disappeared in January 1996, witnesses heard “bloodcurdling screams” coming from Mosman Park, she said.
Earlier, Ms Spiers had called a taxi, but the driver drove past the Telstra bollard where she made the call because no-one was there.
Her body has never been found.
Ms Barbagallo also told the court witnesses heard “loud, high-pitched screams” near bushland in Wellard, south of Perth, on the night Jane Rimmer disappeared in June 1996.
Her body was found two months later in nearby bushland.
A knife with a Telstra logo on it was discovered in the area. Police allegedly found two similar knives at the accused’s home in December 2016.
Fibres were found in Ms Rimmer’s hair, which allegedly matched the car seats of a 1996 Holden Commodore that the accused had access to at the time, the court heard.
The prosecution alleged that in early 1997, Mr Edwards abducted Ciara Glennon from Claremont and murdered her, before dumping her body.
Ms Glennon’s body was found 18 days later in northern suburb of Eglinton.
A post-mortem of Ms Glennon’s body conducted revealed cause of death was consistent with a neck injury such as her neck been cut by the accused.
When Mr Edwards was arrested in 2016, police allegedly discovered “extreme pornography” at his Kewdale home. The court heard he had an obsessive interest in abduction and rape.
“Women’s garments were found with holes cut in them … homemade sex toys, hair ties and sandwich bags,” Ms Barbagallo said.
It was alleged that Mr Edwards used to masturbate into the sandwich bags.
Mr Edwards is due to face a judge-alone trial on July 22, which is expected to run for nine months.
