‘Beast of Bondi’ rapist named

A serial rapist who stalked women in Sydney’s east has been identified 37 years after the first attack.

NSW Police have uncovered the identity of one of the state‘s worst serial rapists after nearly 40 years of investigations. Picture: Supplied

The “Beast from Bondi” – a serial rapist who stalked women in Sydney’s eastern suburbs – has been identified as grandfather Keith Simms, potentially solving one of the state’s most chilling cold cases 37 years after the first attack.

Using state-of-the-art DNA methods from a dozen crime scenes, NSW Police believe Simms – a 66-year-old La Perouse man is believed to have raped or assaulted as up to 31 women between 1985 and 2001 – was the assailant.

Police said a secretive methodology they chose not to disclose due to concerns it could imperil future investigations proved “beyond doubt” Simms’ DNA was connected to 12 crime scenes.

Simms, wearing a balaclava and brandishing a knife, is ­alleged to have grabbed women aged between 13 and 55 while they were exercising in public places or sleeping in their homes before sexually assaulting them.

But in a frustrating development for police and his victims, Simms died in February before he could be spoken to by detectives from the Sex Crimes Squad Strike Force Doreen.

It was reported that Simms’ relatives were oblivious to his crimes, instead describing him as a loving husband and father.

“His family had no idea and really were beyond shocked when we had to tell them,” ­Detective Acting Inspector Shelley Johns said. “There are so many questions that are unanswered. And a lot of them have come from the victims ­themselves.”

In addition to “The Bondi Beast”, throughout his reign of sexual violence, Simms was dubbed “The Centennial Park Rapist” and “The Tracksuit ­Rapist”.

The first breakthrough in the case occurred in 2005, with ­detectives uncovering a DNA link between five assaults that happened around 2000.

The trail then went cold again for 11 years, until a police DNA database search discovered a familial match to the samples provided by victims, allowing police to ­accelerate their investigation.

Detectives from State Crime Command analysed 12 semen samples obtained from victims, drawing up a “family tree” of 324 males, before using their age and known location at the time of the attacks to reduce the list down to 120.

“And not one person really stands out more than another at this stage, they were all equal in their ability to be the contributor to the DNA,” Acting Inspector Johns told The Daily Telegraph.

“So then we have to chase down all those leads and rabbit holes. We would go in one ­direction, dead end, go in that ­direction, another dead end, but despite this, you are eliminating someone else along the way each time.”

Police said of the 31 attacks, 12 had been connected by DNA, and the remaining 19 by the method. But detectives believe there may be more victims out there who decided not to come forward.