The Devil's Garden (34 page)

Tired of the media beating up the cops, Ellis discusses the 'groundbreaking techniques' shown in the Macro task-force. 'It was groundbreaking for the team to be isolated from other police officers. Confidentiality agreements are signed on every protracted homicide and I have yet to see any other force in Australia so advanced as we are in the West. We assign a team and forensic officer, analyst and data manager to cases. It works.' He concedes that the Andrew Mallard case was 'the pain WA Police needed to suffer in order to get better, a kicking well deserved', and that they are now able to identify a lot of deficiencies from within. 'We've now got a verification process where we bring in a senior officer to sit in on briefings. And we're developing a strategy to deal with Macro.'

Dave Caporn, Ellis says, is an outstanding officer who puts things in place and gets things done; a charismatic man who could charm the skin off a rice pudding. 'He's a hard man to work for and he expects high standards. That can come across as arrogance. But while he's demanding, he is not intolerant of someone who is not up to speed on an investigation. He just expects them to get up to speed, fast.'

Ellis points to brain fingerprinting as the way of the future. Based on cognitive recognition, it works by stirring recollections when photographs are seen or voices heard. 'If you're involved in a crime, it will show. And it works the other way as well. Overseas, one person has already been released from prison for a crime he didn't commit. But whoever is responsible for Claremont shouldn't think that because it's been more than a decade, we won't get him.'

He adds a postscript at the end of our conversation. He can see some value in approaching Napper for a chat, he says. It makes sense. He will approach him when he gets a chance.

Four hours later when I call Ellis again, he shares some news. 'I don't have to ring Napper now,' he says, his voice betraying more than a hint of mirth. 'He's leaving his job at the university, and that, apparently, is not of his own choice. But,' he quickly adds, 'WA Police had nothing to do with this.'

That Napper had, in his own words, been 'shafted' is old news to me. 'If he stays in Perth,' I remind Ellis, 'it's doubtful he will move far, workwise, from what he does now. So what will change? A meeting could still be prudent.'

He laughs again.

Armchair detectives are still riveted by the Claremont disappearance and murders, and many make spurious claims as to what they believe happened. In October 1980, 12-year-old schoolgirl Lisa Marie Mott was last seen in the south-west town of Collie, near Bunbury, speaking to a person in a yellow panel van after a basketball game around 8.30 pm. While CIB detective Reg Driffill, who headed the investigation into Lisa's disappearance, believed serial killer David Birnie should have been interviewed about the disappearance, both he and Catherine denied any knowledge of her abduction. A former military intelligence agent, on the 'Gotcha' website, made this claim in November 2006.

As far as I know, the police have NO DNA found on the bodies of the two victims so far found. They have stated that the bodies were in too advanced a state of decomposition to obtain any. But here is something I have suspected for a while. It is based on the fact that the police warrant stipulated that they were searching for human body tissue and flesh when they were searching Mr Weygers's properties. The police have stated that the killer washed his car on site after dumping the bodies. I suspect that the killer only washed the part of the car that may have blood-stains on it. The killer probably drives a utility or station wagon and would have used the tailgate to 'process' the body before dumping them. That is to say, the killer needed to remove body parts that may have got DNA on them during the course of the murder. Sally Anne Bowman, [the model murdered in Britain, allegedly by Mark Dixie] was found to have bite marks on her body. So it would seem for the murder victims here too. Maybe also the killer's DNA was under their fingernails. So these parts may have been missing from the bodies. They may even have been discarded close to the vehicle . . . I may have some data that ties the murders and disappearances together. Before you ask, no I am not the killer. I was a military intelligence analyst before I retired, so I like to keep my mind turning over by doing some armchair detective work. But I can show... that there is a direct link between these killings and the disappearance of Lisa Mott.

The killer washed his car on site? News to me. Removed body parts? Rubbish.

Bite marks on Jane and Ciara's bodies? How would he know? A direct link between these killings and Lisa Mott? The 'link' is so tenuous it is laughable. 'If you draw a line from Ciara to Jane and then continue it south it intersects the town of Collie (where Lisa disappeared), he wrote. 'The distance is exactly 200 kms...'

But if this blogger appears way off the mark, still I wonder: who is Dr Phibes?

WA Chief Justice Wayne Martin, speaking of the Walsham case, slammed what he called the 'new advocacy role' being adopted by certain sections of the media after high-profile trials. 'Tens of thousands of criminal cases had been dealt with by WA courts, so to take half a dozen cases over 45 years, condemn their findings and then declare they demonstrate a systematic failure of criminal justice in this state fails to put these cases in their proper perspective.'

John Button grimaces. 'It's easy to make these judgements when you've been sitting on the bench. Try making them when you've been sitting in prison for a crime you didn't commit. The whole system is rotten from the bottom up. We want to change it so our kids and grandkids have a decent, safe framework to guide them and work within. The people who have been wrongly convicted are experts in this field, but no one asks us for our opinion. Ever. How can anyone in this state be sure about any investigation – including Macro – when history shows us the mistakes that have been made?'

Former disgruntled police officers describe the tongue-in-cheek past state of affairs in the Western Australia police force as being 'noble-cause corruption'. 'This essentially means,' one says, 'that the police prosecution used to regard it as permissible for an officer to verbal, fit-up, brick-in, roast, pour a bucket of blood over, or otherwise manufacture evidence to suit the occasion. And this was considered all the more acceptable if the intended victim was a police officer, high-profile criminal or a public figure.' If the police culture is changing, he says it is not before time. 'The number plates on our cars call WA, a "State of Excitement". But a lot of us who have been through the system regard it another way – as the "State of Excrement".'

Many doubt that, for all good intentions, the Claremont case can now ever be solved. There are, a former officer who was close to Macro says, just 'too many scratches on the paint-work. The environment in which the Macro officers worked was so controlled it was vacuum sealed. Everything had to be documented, and the entire investigation was steeped in incredible secrecy, rules and regulations. But this approach destroyed morale; officers just tuned out. And it didn't leave any room for police in other areas to add information that may have been beneficial. The consensus is that without a confession, solid forensic evidence that can be matched to a suspect or an eyewitness, police are seriously pushing it to get a result on this one.'

The Western Australia Police remain extremely defensive on the subject of why the case is still unsolved. 'Every state has unsolved crimes,' one officer points out. 'You only have to look at the Beaumont case, where the three children went missing in South Australia in 1966 to know that.' But that case was 40 years ago and science has made huge leaps forward since then. 'Every state has unsolved crimes,' he reiterates, 'and crimes that are unsolvable. The criticism stings. It impacts on the morale of the men, who left their families every day to try and solve a series of shocking murders and who constantly woke the next day to unflattering assessments of their work in the media. It doesn't help anyone.'

Dave Caporn predictably agreed. 'You think about the years that have been taken away from the girls and their families . . . I've had total support from the hierarchy and I defy you to go away and find an ongoing murder investigation anywhere in the world that is continually resourced on a dedicated day-to-day basis where detectives work on nothing else.' But never far from the upbeat tone is the warning Caporn issued in mid-2001. Given the right opportunity, he said, the Claremont killer will strike again. He also sounded a rare note of self-doubt. 'Am I worried that I'll stuff it up? Absolutely.'

Critics of the way the Claremont investigation has been handled scoff at what they perceive as its glaring mistakes and cite the proverb 'every cock will crow upon his own dunghill' regarding the self-congratulatory tone taken by some Macro officers. 'You don't go public and say there will be a break-through soon,' a former officer says. 'It's like a hostage situation, very tense. Deadlines are set and when police publicly miss those deadlines, it's worse than embarrassing. It's like announcing the second coming and nothing happens.' He describes the Claremont investigation as amounting to nothing more than 'a lot of crumbs held together by dough. There's an old police expression "Fucked and far from home",' he says. 'In this case, sad as it is, they're fucked and far from a result.'

Former Macro media officer Tony Potts describes Dave Caporn as a 'strategic warrior' – honest and straight down the line. 'He's objective, impartial, determined and able to see all sides of an operation. He's the best investigator I've ever come across.' But who is judging the judges?

'How can you say this,' I ask, 'when the crimes are still unsolved?'

He doesn't miss a beat. 'If an offender runs out with his hands in the air and confesses to police, does that mean it's a more successful operation than one that takes longer to solve? A measure of a successful investigation should be that all procedures have been followed and every avenue to identify the offender is eliminated. It is about thoroughness, not outcome.'

Thoroughness, not outcome.

John Quigley assesses this judgement. 'How interesting. It's a little like the surgeon who says that every one of his operations was technically brilliant, but that it was just a shame that on a mere technicality some patients died.'

Con Bayens doesn't know if the person whose name he gave Macro was ever investigated, but doubts that it was. 'They reckoned that they had their man!' he says. 'So why would they bother?'

Ten years after the first Claremont murder, Paul Ferguson articulates the pain the victims' families have endured. 'Make no mistake: this serial killer has changed the innocence of Perth. There is a monster out there who has worked up a system to kill vulnerable young women and escape detection. It doesn't get more frightening than this.'

Ferguson was, for the Spiers family, the face of the investigation and their great support. He still thinks about Sarah. 'As tragic as it is, two families have a place to go where they can pay their respects and talk to their daughters. But the Spiers family – the ones who kick-started this whole stinking thing off, the ones whose energies sparked the homicide squad to get going – they don't have that chance. This killer hasn't just robbed Sarah of life, he's taken the lives of her family as well. He has taken the lives of all their families. You only have to look at the enormous emotional and physical toll it has taken to know that.'

Ferguson doesn't like to dwell on murder cases, on the sick psyche of the offenders who treat human lives with careless disdain. For this copper, who himself stared into the abyss during four years of enforced exile from policing, the job is not about politics; it's about the victims and their families. He recounts interviewing a killer many years ago who described in icy, graphic detail what he did to his petrified female victim. 'After he raped her, he asked her how she wanted to die and gave her the options. Stabbing or strangulation?' He pauses. 'Shocking, isn't it. Truly shocking. Partly in light of this, and since the Victims of Homicide was set up in the mid-80s, we know it is critical that families know the most intimate and gruesome details. We have told the parents of the Claremont girls everything we know, so that if it ever comes up at trial they won't be forced to confront it for the first time. But it is always distressing, always disgusting. No matter how much they are prepared, it is terribly painful.'

Ten years after the first Claremont murder, all the taskforce members can reel off the mission statement as if it was yesterday. Many describe the feeling of 'emptiness' that the case is still unsolved and others, despite counselling, have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder – flashbacks, nightmares – from seeing the girls' bodies, dealing with the families and the intricate details of the case. Tony Potts still maintains that, despite the identity and capture of the killer requiring continued perseverance, there is little doubt that the expertise, innovative approach and dedication of criminal investigators still working on the case will ensure these murders will be solved, one day. It is not an optimism that is widely shared.

At each Friday briefing, as a wind-down, the Macro team had 'fine sessions' where they threw two dollars into the social club account in payment for small errors made during the week. It was agreed from the outset that until the case was done and dusted, there will be no get-together of all the investigators, no back-slapping in the pub to keep up morale. Every year, the social club account relating to Macro grows bigger. Untouched.

Tired of the blood and gore, the murky world that police reporters necessarily inhabit,
The West Australian
's reporter, Luke Morfesse, now writes a daily column. A journalist since 1986, he cut his teeth on a murder story in 1987 on his first day as a police roundsman. Working
The West Australian
's Melbourne and Sydney bureaux in the early 1990s, he was the chief crime reporter in Perth, barring a short break, from 1994 until 2006. But his contacts, hard-won and hard-kept, still keep him informed of breaking crime stories. He reflects on the terrible waste of young lives in the Claremont case. 'Sarah was just a teenager, and she would have been no match for whoever did this. Regardless of whether she'd been drinking or not, she would have had little chance. Jane was great fun, loved life and like a lot of people who were out that night, she'd had a few drinks. So if someone had come along and offered her a lift, she would have struggled to put up a fight once in the car. Ciara was known to be very strong-minded, feisty, and she was determined to get home. If she had the opportunity to, she would have fought like a caged tiger.'

Ciara Glennon's memory lives on in the Memorial Law Scholarship in her name at the University of Western Australia, where she was a student. Established in 1998, the scholar-ship is awarded annually to a law student who demonstrates, amongst other criteria, a need for financial assistance to continue their studies, a caring commitment to others and an active interest in an area outside the practice of law. These criteria, Una Glennon said, capture as closely as possible the characteristics that epitomised the life of her late daughter. The family has also dedicated a shrine to Ciara in a chapel at Notre Dame University in Fremantle and holds a memorial Mass every year at Thomas More Chapel on the anniversary of her death.

Denis Glennon's faith in God is still strong, but his faith in the WA judicial system less so. He expressed concern that even if Ciara's killer was brought to trial, 'the system would fail the expectations of the average Western Australian'.

Like Jane Rimmer's disposal site, the cross that marks where Ciara lay has been repeatedly vandalised and destroyed by fire. It is now made of metal. Many people – friends and family – have made private pilgrimages to both Wellard and Eglinton, to pay respects to Jane and Ciara. In comparison, the Spiers family has no place to go to quietly reflect on Sarah's life. Suburbia has slowly crept into the Wellard area, huge machines clearing the scrub for development. Police ask the developers to keep a keen eye out for any sign of Sarah Spiers's body. The area is subject to feral cats, foxes, kangaroos and high water levels. Ten years after she disappeared, they know her body will be scattered skeletal remains at best. But her family is desperate to find her. So very desperate.

The victims' families can also take no heart from historical evidence from the USA, which points to the phenomenon of serial killing rising in that country. It is likely, analysts say, that Australia will follow suit.

A Macro source, who had offered me information to ensure I did not repeat inaccuracies, denied that Jane's – and probably Ciara's – throat had been slashed when I discussed this with him. 'It didn't happen,' he tells me emphatically. 'Someone has got it wrong.' But they haven't, and he knows it. Two other former Macro sources beyond Jane's family concede it is correct. Dave Barclay also concedes this is correct. The bid to keep secret the cause of death in the guise of checking inaccuracies does nothing but create confusion.

At a police union dinner in 2002, John Quigley was pushed around by police in the men's toilet and called a rat for breaking ranks. The incident followed a television interview where he openly questioned the police investigation into Pamela Lawrence's murder, stating it involved high-level police corruption by senior police. A life member of the police union, Quigley had attended 21 dinners and would continue to attend them. He got a touch-up, he says, but the reasons they did it are their problem, not his.

Quigley nominates the three 'P's that often bring down a copper: Property. Piss. Pussy. 'My first point of call is always cock-up, not conspiracy. The corporate line is, "we don't deny there will be isolated cases of police corruption," but I don't buy that. I usually find that a corrupt officer rarely acts by himself, that the only reason his corruption is able to flourish is because more than one person is involved or people turn a blind eye to it.' There's also a real problem now, he believes, in investigating Claremont. 'Not only do witness recollections become unreliable with the passage of time, but when an investigative team has raked over material ad infinitum, things tend to become confused. And that's not good for an end result.'

In early November 2006 police in Ipswich, England, raise concerns for the safety of 19-year-old missing prostitute Tania Nicol. Within a week, the story had made headlines around the world as a further four women fell victim to a serial killer. The savagery and speed of the murders gained the story grim comparisons with the Yorkshire Ripper and Jack the Ripper cases, and the press sensationally dubbed this killer the 'Suffolk Ripper'. By December, the bodies of all five women – Gemma Adams, 25; Anneli Alderton, 24; Paula Clennell, 24; and Annette Nicholls, 29 and Tania Nicol, whose disappear-ance first raised alarm – were found in different places in surrounding Suffolk County, around 110 kilometres north-east of London. At the height of the hysteria, 48-year-old forklift driver Steven Wright was arrested and charged with all five murders. Typically of serial killers, he had been living near the area where the girls worked the streets, targeting society's most vulnerable members: drug-addicted street workers in desperate need of fast cash. Advances in DNA and police technology had helped Suffolk police catch the killer, leading to a telling comment from Don Spiers. 'Western Australia Police didn't have this advantage when Sarah, Jane and Ciara went missing. These killers are nothing but predators, waiting for opportunity. When they are caught, we house them in prison at taxpayers' expense instead of getting rid of them. No one will have any argument from me in wanting to bring back the death penalty. Just get rid of these monsters.'

On 7 December 2006 Perth police announce to the media that Mark Dixie has been ruled out as a suspect in the Claremont murders. Their investigations, they reveal, have found it unlikely that Dixie was in Perth when Sarah Spiers disappeared from Claremont and have also found no evidence to link him to any crimes in Western Australia.

With Dixie now officially out of the frame they are, yet again, back to the drawing board.

Ten years on, police are still holding the DNA samples taken from the taxi drivers and the results of the forensic reviews are still not finalised. One of the major forensic issues identified as potentially problematic was the chain of evidence moving through different laboratories and the potential for contamination or loss. The police service is now looking at several options, among them an independent forensic institute which would centralise the work currently being done by Pathwest at the Health Department, the Chem Centre at the Department of Minerals and Energy and some police forensics.

On 10 January, 2007, Bradley Murdoch lost his appeal against his 28-year non-parole jail sentence for killing Peter Falconio and assaulting Joanne Lees. Media interest in his possible involvement in the Claremont killings quickly subsided.

Not everyone in Western Australia is convinced that the murders and disappearance are the work of the same person. Tom Percy QC is one. 'I've acted for a lot of criminals over the years and, to be frank, they're not that stupid. Claremont was crawling with security and we are led to believe that the same perpetrator hit the same street and the same pub on two occasions after Sarah Spiers. I'll believe it when someone confesses and the confession is proven.' Percy says he would be 'astounded' if the killer is Lance Williams. 'There's a culture of police and DPP in this state that categorically likes to win, a culture that goes back at least 50 years. I absolutely fear for anyone who is charged with the Claremont serial killings because the police will run with it with all the zeal of a fifth-century Crusader looking for the Holy Grail. They will be cheered on by the prosecutors and the risk is, that in all the hype that will be generated they could just overlook the fact that they may have charged the wrong man.' Percy compares the WA Police with those in the Canadian Rockies. 'In Canada, they "always get their man". In Western Australia they decide who they want and go after him.'

Percy holds little hope that the serial killings will be resolved. 'At the end of the day, when the mighty drum sounded, did Jack the Ripper stand up? No, he didn't. And there is as much chance now of the Claremont killer confessing as Jack the Ripper. If police can't reach a conclusion, they need at least to be able to say that they chased every rabbit down every hole. Have they done that? Given the resources at their fingertips, if they can't come up with a solid case that invites more than speculation, then there will never be a resolution.'