The Devil's Garden (4 page)

Police target rogue taxi drivers, getting them out of business and off the road. Cut-out stickers and two magnets slapped together on the roof with the 'taxi' sign could convert a vehicle into something that resembles a cab within 15 seconds. Demand for taxis from people spilling out of nightclubs in Claremont is always high, creating a perfect cash industry for people prepared to take the risk and pose as a reputable driver. With women making up more than 50 per cent of the user group, it could also prove a lucrative killing field. The order comes from both the taxi industry and the police: shut down every rogue driver, right now.

Don Spiers descends into a black hole of chronic depression, from which he has to fight and claw his way back, over and over again. He resorts to anti-depressants to reduce his stress, requiring 32 times more than the medication usually prescribed for a patient to feel normal. The crank calls are just as bad as clairvoyants. Anonymous people with malice in their voice call and accuse him of murdering his own daughter. Letters sent to the police from armchair detectives offer bizarre theories.

Life is a torment of unanswered questions and a bottom-less, aching emptiness but the family are also the recipients of random acts of kindness from strangers. Shortly after Sarah goes missing, a man knocks on their door and gives them his mobile phone. 'Take it,' he says. 'It will give you more mobility in your search.' The Spiers family tries to adjust, taking counselling, advice and help but nothing alleviates their pain. In an open, full-page letter in
The West Australian
two months after she disappears, headed 'Please, tell us where Sarah is', they open their hearts to the public.

It is eight weeks since Sarah went missing and our lives have been absolute hell ...Sarah was part of a close and loving family and showered us with her love. We miss her so much ...The lack of information is worse than the worst possible news...We don't know what to do other than to hope someone comes forward and is willing to say what happened to her. At least one person knows and I urge that person, if they have any feeling for the anxiety and suffering they have caused us and Sarah's friends, to please ease some of it...This is the worst feeling any parent could have – being absolutely helpless and not being able to do a single thing for our daughter.

The phone rings incessantly following publication of the open letter, but none of the calls take the family any closer to finding Sarah's whereabouts. Perth remembers Sarah, shock and sympathy spilling out in letters to the press and warnings to take special care. And the young people do. For a time.

Summer turns to autumn, leaves turn russet and gold and temperatures plummet as the hot, still nights become clear and chilly. But as autumn passes the baton to winter, memories fade.

And another girl goes missing.

The Rimmer family has lived in their modest, spotlessly clean home in leafy, politely affluent Shenton Park, ten minutes from Claremont, for 35 years. Jane, 23, was the youngest: her sister, Lee, is six years older; her brother, Adam, is three years her senior. Family pictures jostle for supremacy on the sideboard: the entire family at Adam's wedding; Jane as a young girl; Jane with her siblings. They are a close-knit family who always gathered at home every Sunday for an anticipated roast lunch or dinner. Protected and adored, Jane was a quiet girl, placid by nature who became a popular scallywag as she grew older. 'Janie', as they called her, finished her mandatory education at Hollywood High and never wavered in what she wanted to do. Her dream was to work with children, babies through to toddlers. And she fulfilled it. Bouts of depression dogged her in her early 20s, born of a lack of self-confidence, but by the time she disappears she is living independently in her first flat and driving her first car. She loves her car, with its natty sunroof.

Jane calls in to see her parents, Trevor and Jenny, every night after work. On the weekends her beloved West Coast Eagles play football; she barracks so hard her head often hits the overhead light. Generous spirited, she empathises with Sarah Spiers's disappearance, fretting about the young woman who simply vanished into the night. She worries so much for the girl who never came home that she pays her girlfriends' taxi fares instead of allowing them to risk getting into a car with a stranger. Jenny and Trevor also warn Jane to take care. They talk at length about Sarah Spiers, how they are grateful it is not their daughters who are missing. How shocking it must be for Sarah's family to endure this pain.

In between boyfriends, Jane rings her brother, Adam, on 9 June 1996 to ask if he would accompany her to the movies. They are extremely close; Jane lived with Adam and his wife for a short time after first leaving home, before she moved into her first flat. But Adam can't make it. It is a refusal that sets in place the first chain of events that will lead Jane – buoyant, fun-loving with a cheeky approach to life – to Claremont and for which Adam will never forgive himself. From this time on, he will live in the netherland of 'if only'. 'If only I had gone with her ...If only I had said yes.' He is constantly reassured it is not his fault, but guilt plagues him.

Jane phones another friend, who is also too busy to go to the movies. However, she hears that some girlfriends are heading into the Continental Hotel for a few drinks. The Conti: its architecturally designed bar shaped like an unburnt match, the decadent décor evocative of the Garden of Eden. It sits opposite the post office and across from the railway line; Club Bayview is nearby.
The
places to go in Claremont. The young people know the rules, plastered on the Bayview's front door. 'A neighbourhood cocktail bar for those who look over 25. If you're turned away, please do not be offended but rather fade away quietly only to return another night, dressed to kill and looking very, very mature.' Jane changes her mind about the movies. It's Saturday night after all. She'll head out to party instead.

Trevor picks her up from her flat and drops her at the Shenton Hotel for a drink with her mother before she heads into Claremont by taxi with her friends. She is in high spirits, looking forward to a night out. Trevor is proud of his daughter. Since she has moved out of home, he has got to know her again as a young woman, as opposed to his baby. 'See you tomorrow for lunch,' she says, as she gives him an airy kiss goodbye.

She doesn't turn up. Jenny is worried sick; it is so unlike Jane not to let them know she can't make it. She calls Jane's flat and when it rings out, she and Trevor take the spare key Jane has given them and go over. Her bed has not been slept in.

Jenny traces patterns on the table with her fingers as she discusses her daughter. There is a feeling in the room, like sombre background music, a feeling that pervades all. As though Jane's spirit hovers over us as we talk, gently whispering to us. There is an acute sense of something missing in this neat, suburban home; a void that no other person can fill. Jenny gives up the pretence at calm, covers her eyes with her hands. 'Sorry,' she stumbles. 'Sorry. I didn't mean to break down.' She inhales a shaky breath. 'We knew Sarah Spiers was missing and that she had last been seen in Claremont. I had a feeling of dread that something was wrong.' By 9 pm, they report Jane as a missing person. Basic details: age, description, clothes she was wearing. Jenny, sighing and restless through-out the long night, calls Jane's employer at the child care centre as soon as it opens to see if she has turned up. They draw another blank.

By morning, harried police are on their doorstep, trudging through the gate and walking up the few steps, a walk that will become all too familiar in the following months. Shifting from foot to foot and looking ill at ease, they take down further details. Sarah Spiers's disappearance, albeit treated as a missing persons case until then, had essentially been a local inquiry. But by lunchtime, because both girls have gone missing from the same area, police privately link the disappearance of Sarah and Jane to a serial predator. It is knowledge they do not share with the public. What they do declare publicly is the formation of a special taskforce: Taskforce Macro.

As the officer in charge of Major Crime, Paul Ferguson's face and personality are well known to the public. He will continue to front the press as head of Macro, a huge task given his other responsibilities. Dave Caporn will remain as case officer, driving the investigation. He allocates teams and people on the ground. It is frantic. In the early days, they juggle 140 people with all the other tasks that have to be dealt with on a daily basis.

There are not enough trained detectives to make up the teams Macro needs. With the intense pressure for a resolution to the case, they start internal training of uniform staff – used to responding to task questions and low-level crises – to teach them basic investigative skills. 'Prior to Macro,' Ferguson says, 'the force was divided into different squads, such as homicide, drug and vice. This was a whole new concept. It was a rocky road to change, because it was unfamiliar. We had to rape and pillage other districts to get what we needed. And we didn't have the luxury of time to do it.' The teams will be rotated into other areas within Macro every six months to keep them fresh. For the pressed officers, it is akin to Pharaoh's orders – to 'make as many bricks without straw as you've been making with straw'.

The secrecy rules are also set early. All officers sign confidentiality agreements and under no circumstances is any information to be released to the public. Officers are not to discuss the case, apart from with their Macro colleagues. Even if they leave the force, they are not to discuss the case. They are not to talk about it whenever an outsider is within earshot. Cause of death, weapon used, time or place of death, the condition in which the clothing was found: their mouths are zipped up tight as a body bag. Don't invite copycat killings by leaking any details. Shut up. It is the police version of the military saying, 'Loose lips sink ships.'

The enforced secrecy stuns officers working in other units – and other states. 'In all my years in the job – and I was there a long time – I had never heard of this before,' a former officer said. 'They actually "used" it to expel two detectives who got pissed and started talking about some facet of the investigation in a pub. They made the fatal mistake of talking within earshot of another copper, who reported them.' The secretive nature of the investigation is also not welcomed by all its officers. Grumbles are frequent: this particular job is hard enough, without the added stress of command heads who keep a stranglehold on information leaks and a tight control-ling hand over all aspects of the case.

The former hostage negotiator believes Caporn squandered precious opportunities to make the most out of bad situations with the team. 'It was a proud team, and people were happy to be on it,' he says. 'It was an important case and, on another level, it also offered opportunity for a truckload of overtime, which is always appreciated.'

Despite WA Police assurances that confidentiality agreements are the norm, outside the state police are also amazed at the agreement Macro officers had to sign. A retired Assistant-Commissioner from the eastern states expressed incredulity when he heard of it. 'I was in the job 40 years, in the Major Crime area,' he said, 'but that was never done. Never. It's unusual, to say the least.'

Paul Ferguson muses that it is vital not to stamp out the natural, inquisitive nature of police officers, vital that they are allowed to talk to each other, exchange information. 'It's that that keeps them on their toes, keeps them hungry. It's ludicrous to take that away.' The Macro team, he says, was so focused on their task, they could have sworn on
anything
– a dictionary or copy of the criminal code – and they would have stayed silent. They were hot-wired to do that.

The Rimmer family is appointed two liaison officers to answer any inquiry: Peter Norrish and John Leembruggen.

In June 1996 police circulate up to 100 copies of a questionnaire to select people that pointedly asks where they were when Sarah Spiers disappeared from outside the nightclub. The questionnaire is given to those people who have, in some way, attracted police interest. But there is a problem. The question 'Describe in detail what you did from midday Saturday, 26 January to midday Sunday, 27 January 1996' is incorrect. Sarah disappeared on the 27th. Embarrassed by the error, the police scrap the questions and start again. But it is the second part of the quiz and the questions 'Did you abduct or murder Sarah Spiers?' and 'Should we believe your answers to these questions?' that creates controversy and no little hilarity.

Paul Ferguson was quick to point out that the people who were asked to fill in the questionnaire were not suspects, but could have information that would help their inquiries. And individuals could refuse to fill in the quiz. Police would know if they did.

The questionnaire is based on the Scientific Content Analysis (SCAN) technique, which changes a verbal interview into a written form. This then is assessed by the interviewer, to ascertain whether a face-to-face meeting with the person is required. The writing of answers can be done in the interviewees' own time and place and saves unnecessary time in interviewing people who are clearly telling the truth. Supporters of the questionnaire claim success in solving numerous cases in Australia and overseas. Developed in 1984 for the army, it was first used to survey soldiers who had failed urine analysis tests for traces of drugs in their bodies. Requesting a lie-detector test to show there was some error in the test results, the soldiers were asked to also fill out the questionnaire. The results were forwarded to headquarters without the polygrapher knowing the questionnaire results. Twenty-eight per cent of the people who filled out the questionnaire showed incriminating responses.

But many in the legal profession regarded the questionnaire as a ludicrous waste of time. How likely was it that a guilty person would either fill it out or tell the truth? Lawyer Richard Bailey encapsulated the general feeling. 'You're hardly going to get somebody writing in and answering the question "Did you abduct or murder Sarah Spiers?" with a "Oh yes, I've done it" reply, then sign it "Merv" or whatever and send it back to police. The concept is absurd.'

Overt criticism of the questionnaire was met with serious admonishment. An academic at a Western Australian university whose work was funded by the police was warned that unless he stopped publicly criticising the form, his funding would be withdrawn. Unchastened, he chose another path. He left the state.

WA Council for Civil Liberties President Peter Weygers – a distinctive-looking man in his mid-60s, with a stocky build and standing 192 cm tall – was Claremont mayor between 1985 and 1997. A man of means with a substantial property portfolio, including a unit overlooking the street where Sarah Spiers was last seen, and a reputation as an eccentric, he was known as the 'Super-mayor'. Depicted in press cartoons wearing a red and blue suit, complete with cape and a huge S on the front, nothing in his career could compare with the publicity he received when he, too, was outed as a person of interest by the Macro taskforce. He was also the only individual publicly named in
The West Australian
newspaper as having received the questionnaire. His refusal to fill in the form was accompanied by a gruff admonishment that the whole tactic was 'ridiculous'. Weygers had warned Steven Ross not to insert his name into the investigation by telling police Spiers had been in his cab. Both would come to rue the day Ross ignored that advice.

Commissioner Bob Falconer, driven by media perceptions, keeps a hawk eye on the Macro taskforce. Any adverse media comments require an immediate explanation. The media, too, become an integral part of the 'think-tank' sessions. Police ask their advice on the best way to get the message out to the public. They need all the help they can get. And they need to manage the media, before the media start managing them.

The media are relentless, acting like starving hordes foraging for news scraps. Ferguson is cognisant of what police call the 'Three Cs' when dealing with the press. First, Cooperation, when there is enough in the news stories to ensure fresh headlines every day. Second, Competition, the cut-throat jungle journalists inhabit in the desperate rush for exclusive news angles. Third – and most dangerous – Controversy, when the pickings are lean and the media start feeding on each other and investigators, criticising management and pecking at the case like vultures.

In his easy way of dealing with the press, Ferguson earns their respect. 'They could have chopped me up,' he admits. 'There was so much going on, I didn't have time for the pompous tone some officers take, telling journalists that "this is an operational matter".' Instead, Ferguson chooses a more relaxed style. 'If a reporter came close to something that I couldn't release, I'd tell them, "I can't let that out of the bloody bag and you know I can't. I can confirm that it's correct but I'm asking you, please don't release this detail." ' Most didn't. 'Occasionally a reporter would overstep the mark,' he recalls. 'The suburban
Post
newspaper was one that sometimes ran with assumptions. My appeals to them not to do this were met with the response that they were journalists with an obligation to give their readers the truth. It wasn't always helpful.'