For more than two decades, the Claremont serial killings cast a long, uneasy shadow over Perth.
It wasn't just the brutality of the crimes - it was the maddening silence that followed. Three young women vanished from one of the city's most affluent neighbourhoods. Two were found in bushland. One was never found at all.
For years, despite the largest and most expensive police investigation in Australian history, the killer remained unidentified.
And even when answers came, they brought with them a grim postscript: that justice had been delayed by years of misdirected suspicion, links to previous assaults overlooked, and opportunities lost.
The arrest and conviction of Bradley Robert Edwards, a former Telstra technician, brought long-awaited relief to a city that had feared the worst for years.
But the story of how he evaded capture for so long is just as important – and almost as disturbing – as the crimes he committed.
In the mid-1990s, fear seeped into the bones of a city that once considered itself safe. Between 1996 and 1997, three women – Sarah Spiers, 18, Jane Rimmer, 23, and Ciara Glennon, 27 – vanished after nights out in Claremont, in Perth's western suburbs.
I remember it vividly. As a young journalist living in Perth, I felt the tension settle over the city like a second skin. We were heartbroken. We were scared.
The arrest and conviction of Bradley Robert Edwards (pictured), a former Telstra technician, brought long-awaited relief to a city that had feared the worst for year
Those poor, beautiful young women. What happened to them could have happened to any of us.
So many Perth people had a connection to the murders; my friend's ex-boyfriend once dated one of the victims. And the father of my family friend had worked with a victim's father. She told of the unspeakable horror of the girl's parents when police broke the news that their beloved daughter's body had been discovered.
My friends and I had walked home from the Claremont pub (then called the Continental) more times than I can count. Sometimes we foolishly hitchhiked. We thought nothing of it. But never again.
Women stopped going out alone. The fact that all three women had told friends they were getting a taxi home became a key focus for police.
Taxis quickly became objects of suspicion. The phrase 'Don't catch a taxi' was whispered across Perth's social circles and splashed across headlines.
But, in hindsight, it was a distraction. The man resp...
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