Opinion: Has the Claremont serial killer trail really gone cold?
January 19, 2015 10:05am
JOHN FLINTPerthNow
Sarah Spiers, Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon all disappeared in similar circumstances from Claremont.
HAS the trail really gone cold in Australia’s biggest crime investigation, the Claremont serial killings?
WA Police maintain the case is solvable despite the significant passage of time – 19 years since the first girl, Sarah Spiers, vanished – and the millions of man-hours invested by detectives here, by experts from overseas, and in many painstaking reviews.
The fact there is no indication of a coronial inquiry on the horizon suggests senior police don’t think they’ve hit a brick wall. As an outsider, it’s hard to gauge just how hot, cold or luke warm the trail has gone, because Operation Macro is itself a brick wall.
Media inquiries solicit the same response: “Claremont (Macro) is an ongoing investigation, hence inquiries will continue to be made. WA Police remain committed to resolving these and other significant offences.”
I am not complaining. The need to maintain operational security is paramount, though it does provide a convenient screen to all questions on the subject. I do like the idea of the perpetrator or perpetrators not knowing how close their hunters are behind them. It might be better for them to think, almost 20 years on, that they’re never going to be caught, when, in fact, the net is closing. Wishful thinking? I pray not.
Two weeks ago, shadow attorney general John Quigley suggested it was perhaps time to pass the files to the WA Coroner for an inquest. Although it’s not the purpose of an inquest to investigate and solve crimes, they’ve triggered major breakthroughs in the past, most notably in the Daniel Morcombe investigation.
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Mr Quigley said “time and time again in Australia, coronial inquests have shaken out new evidence”.
Unsurprisingly, Bruce Morcombe, Daniel’s father, is a strong advocate of inquests in such difficult cases.
WA Attorney General Michael Mischin this week responded: “The Commissioner of Police is best placed to comment on the advisability and utility of a coronial inquest – for example, whether it may impede or compromise police inquiries.”
At this stage, WA Police haven’t offered a view on whether an inquest would help or hinder.
But the feedback, at least from the Spiers family, was opposed to interfering with the work being done by the special crime squad at this time.
The families, who crave justice the most, receive updates from detectives on the direction and progress of the investigation. If they believe police are on the right path, who is anyone to disagree?
That isn’t to say that an inquest should be put off forever. No stone should be left unturned and no reputations or sensitivities are holier than solving these murders.
On the issue of sensitivities, the Taxi Industry Forum of WA reacted badly to our article two weeks ago about a suspicious taxi – with its headlights off – seen in the early hours of a morning, around the time Ciara Glennon vanished in 1997, very close to the isolated area where her body was found three weeks later.
The Taxi Industry Forum preciously complained that “many decent hardworking taxi drivers will find these new unsubstantiated revelations a further smirch on their characters and the noble service they provide the community”. It said many drivers were still hurting from being “unfairly targeted by police” at the beginning of Operation Macro.
Yet detectives uncovered many illegal taxi drivers in that period. The logical police scrutiny wasn’t a slur on all taxi drivers then, and ongoing inquiries certainly don’t reflect on those driving today.
The industry, like any employing thousands, has its rotten apples. Look no further than the cabbie convicted last year of sexually abusing five wheelchair-bound passengers.
In the Claremont cases, the reputations of police, taxi drivers, journalists or any individual, matter little next to the need to catch a serial killer.
john.flint@news.com.au
This is news to me. Do you have an article that backs this up? I vaguely recall he was ruled out because he was in jail or living somewhere else. If he was living in Claremont there would have been a lot more discussion around him. He wouldn't have got let into CBV.
Does anyone have any more info on what those witnesses can remember of the man in the White Station Wagon offering lifts? Assuming that it isn't the ex-police officer who came under the radar, and that it’s someone new/different who was offering these lifts.
Was this car a definite Telstra/Telecom vehicle? Or did it just look like one?
What hair colour and style did he have?
Did he say or do anything untoward?
Where the lifts a successful drop off? Or where they declinations?
Should there have been another Telstra worker frequenting these establishments, I think these points are important.
Then don't claim he lived in Claremont at the time. <modsnip>No i dont i was hoping someone could confirm this, i can find no mention of him having lived in WA,
In case anyone is wondering, the police officer that died in a traffic accident in Kalamunda was Stephen R KNIGHT (Son of copper Wayne KNIGHT) Died 1st June 1993 9am, hit by a car driven by a heroin addict travelling down Gooseberry Hill Rd. Mr Knight was using a hand held radar to check vehicle speeds, and was walking out into the middle of the road to stop the cars, the druggie ploughed straight into him then took off IIRC. I used to catch the bus to school 500 meters from where he was killed, I was there the day he died, caught the bus an hour before it happened. A friend of mines mother was a witness. I have to say, it was partially the cops fault, because I have another friend who nearly hit him on the exact day he died, remembers giving him a mouthful for jumping in front of him ... unless it was another cop they are talking about. Can't be this guy anyway, he definitely died in 1993, I can confirm.
Apart from being 'blond' , having 'bobbed hair' and claiming to be 'the son of a police officer' not much else..
That has nothing to do with a Holden Station Wagon. Camille MacLean was approached on St Quentins Ave by a man on foot the night before Ciara went missing.
Here is the link to the National Police Honour Roll:
http://www.npm.org.au/knight
You are right, could not possibly be him, as he was killed in 1993.
There are a number of other officers killed during and after 1998, but not in Kalamunda.
I've scrubbed the BigFooty forums GreenDevil, the only mention of a StationWagon is from that Post article that talks about how one of the bus stop witnesses was so good at distinguishing from Fords and Holdens.
I think it's quite possible there never was a Telecom Logo on the side of the vehicles that those witnesses saw.
The Karrakatta rape also quoted the light coloured panel van as being a "commercial vehicle" and she also mistook the clothes line for "electrical flex". Maybe there were other items in the back of this panel van that made her think it was some sort of telecommuncations or electricians van. She would have been in the back for a good 3 or 4 minutes. Enough to feel around or hear things rolling around in shelves etc.
The world is divided into haves and have nots.Where is your source
Just after the key period of the murders, the Police made a local appeal to women in the area who had been approached by males in vehicles within the Claremont area. A late model White Commodore Station Wagon was reported numerous times by different women. The descriptions of these vehicles varied, but were consistent with a Telecom/Telstra vehicle. At the time the organisation was making a transition between those two names. From what I understand, the Police never identified this male. They did however get another suspect from some other source, I assume an informant. This new suspect "Telecom man" happened to work for Telstra and drove their vehicles at the time. This must have consolidated their case against him warranting further investigations.
I believe that the person reported to be offering lifts in the Claremont area was not the "Telecom man" suspect that the Police had, rather an unknown person who the Police never identified.
<modsnip>
I believe this comment made by GreenDevil is crucial to identifying the person responsible for these crimes:
However they received reports that a woman was asked if they needed a lift by a person driving the same type of car that the company he worked for used. Macro know JM worked for that company during the key period of 1996-97. There was also reports from one of their projects that a male person driving the same type of company vehicle and offered someone a lift and made unwanted advances towards them etc.
