Claremont accused intended to murder rape victim: prosecution

The accused Claremont serial killer would have almost certainly murdered a fourth victim, prosecutors say.

Accused Claremont killer Bradley Edwards.

The accused Claremont serial killer would have almost certainly murdered a fourth victim were it not for a security patrol that disturbed him during his rape of a 17-year-old girl, prosecutors say.

Carmel Barbagallo SC, who is leading the prosecution of 51-year-old former Telstra technician Bradley Robert Edwards, used her closing argument in the marathon murder trial to argue that Edwards was planning to kill the girl he abducted from Claremont and raped in the nearby Karrakatta Cemetery in 1995.

She said the fact Edwards removed a hood he had placed over the girl’s head after raping her, a move that meant she could have seen his face; the fact he had ejaculated during the rape, leaving behind DNA evidence; and the potential of any evidence from the rape victim to be linked to an earlier conviction of his attack on a woman at Hollywood Hospital pointed to him intending to murder the girl.

Ms Barbagallo said Edwards was likely disturbed during the ­attack by a security patrol, prompting him to temporarily leave the scene of the rape. Before leaving, he dumped the girl — who was pretending to be unconscious — in some bushes. “The ­accused did intend to kill (the girl) and he returned to the scene to do just that, only to find she had left,” Ms Barbagallo said.

On the eve of the trial, Edwards confessed to the abduction and rape, along with a sexually motivated attack on an 18-year-old woman in Huntingdale in 1988. He has pleaded not guilty to murdering Sarah Spiers, Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon in 1996 and 1997.

Edwards was also convicted in 1990 of an assault on a social worker while working at Hollywood Hospital near Claremont.

Those crimes, she said, showed the propensity of Edwards to commit sexually motivated “blitz attacks” on women using stealth and strength to subdue his victims.

Ms Barbagallo also used her closing submissions to argue that Glennon was subdued and hidden in the footwell of Edwards’s Telstra work vehicle on the night of her murder.

“Whilst we cannot and do not need to resolve precisely how that came about, it is reasonable to ­assume that the accused subdued and or restrained Ms Glennon in some way which resulted in her coming to be in the footwell of the cabin area to keep her concealed from view while he transported her from one location to ­another,” Ms Barbagallo said.

The scenarios were painted by Ms Barbagallo as she spent a second day picking apart the DNA contamination theories floated by Edwards’s defence team over the course of the trial.

Those theories were variously described by Ms Barba­gallo as “implausible”, “preposterous”, “far-fetched” and “absurd”, with the weight of evidence instead pointing to Edwards as the man responsible for the 25-year-old murder mystery.

The prosecution is making its closing arguments in the marathon case. Edwards’s lawyer, Paul Yovich SC, will make his closing submissions later in the week.

Edwards has pleaded not guilty to murdering Glennon, Jane Rimmer and Sarah Spiers between 1996 and 1997.

Ms Barbagallo spent Tuesday focusing on the integrity and ­significance of the dozens of tiny fibres found on the bodies of Glennon and Rimmer, which are an important part of the state’s case against Edwards.

The fibres have been matched to the Telstra-issued clothing and vehicle in the possession of Edwards at the time of the murders, as well as fibres found on the body of the Karrakatta rape victim.

“It’s very easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of the fibre evidence (and) lose sight of the bigger picture,” Ms Barbagallo said.

“That is one where three women, all victims of offences similar in time, place and circumstance, all had fibres from the same or similar source.”