DNA Claremont killing accused found in fingernails of murdered lawyer Ciara Glennon, court told

Prosecutors have outlined their case against the man accused of the Claremont serial killings, telling a court of his “abnormal’’ sexual interests.

Ciara Eilish Glennon, who was last seen alive at the Continental Hotel, Claremont in 1997.

A Supreme Court judge has been told the accused Claremont serial killer had an “obsessive sexual interest in the abduction and rape of women” and that his DNA was found on murdered lawyer Ciara Glennon and in swabs taken from a 17-year-old girl who was raped.

Glennon’s elderly parents, Denis and Una, were among those who packed the public gallery in the court as prosecutors detailed — for the first time — murder and rape allegations against former Telstra technician Bradley Robert Edwards that date back to the late 1980s.

The case has transfixed Australia since three young women, including Glennon, vanished from the Claremont nightlife area in Perth’s ritzy western suburbs in the mid-1990s.

The parents of murdered 27-year-old lawyer Ciara Glennon leave the Supreme Court. Picture: Colin Murty

Mr Edwards was arrested in December 2016 after the nation’s longest-running and most ­expensive murder investigation.

It was revealed in court yesterday that Mr Edwards has an ­assault conviction over an ­attack on a woman at Perth’s Hollywood Hospital in 1990, six years before the first Claremont killing.

Judge Stephen Hall was also told of allegations that Mr ­Edwards used Telstra-issued motor vehicles to carry out the murders of Glennon, 27, Sarah Spiers, 18, and Jane Rimmer, 23, in 1996 and 1997.

The pre-trial hearing that began yesterday will determine the admissibility of certain evidence ahead of a nine-month trial that is due to start in July.

Mr Edwards has pleaded not guilty to murdering the three women. He has also pleaded not guilty to rape at Perth’s Karra­katta Cemetery in 1995 and a sexual assault on an 18-year-old woman in 1988.

Bradley Edwards.

Lead prosecutor Carmel Barbagallo SC told the court Mr Edwards had “extreme, abnormal and degraded” sexual interests.

She said the “socially awkward” man had a longstanding ­fetish for women’s underwear. His second wife had told police he would masturbate into sandwich bags while wearing stockings.

During a search at his home after his 2016 arrest, police found a box with women’s undergarments, girdles and petticoats with “holes cut out of them in locations where male genitals might be”.

A search of Mr Edwards’s home computer had uncovered stories written in the first person about the abduction and sexual assault of women, as well as ­extreme pornography.

Ms Barbagallo said Mr ­Edwards’s DNA was found under Glennon’s fingernails.

Fibres found in the hair of both Glennon and Rimmer matched those from a Telstra-issued ­Holden Commodore that Mr ­Edwards had access to at the time.

Ms Barbagallo also linked the disappearance of Spiers with another Telstra-issued car that Mr Edwards had access to.

A witness had seen a similar car in the Perth suburb of Mosman Park and heard a woman’s “blood-curdling screams” on the night Spiers disappeared.

The court was told Mr Edwards allegedly raped a 17-year-old woman at Karrakatta Cemetery after binding her hands with a cord and forcing a piece of cloth into her mouth. A security guard allegedly saw a white van with Telecom markings nearby.

Ms Barbagallo said swabs taken from the victim matched the DNA of Mr Edwards.

She said Mr Edwards had been unable to provide an explanation for why his DNA was found under ­Glennon’s fingernail and on the Karrakatta victim.

Justice Hall stressed the claims made about Mr Edwards were simply allegations at this point. The hearing continues.