Early clues missed
Bret Christian
Post
December 31, 2016
Quote :
"Her attacker had handled her drivers licence. A young girl who lived locally found it discarded in the park soon after the attack.
Some detectives investigating the Claremont murders believe the licence would have yielded the fingerprints and DNA of the attacker had they been able to preserve it early.
The girl who found the licence told her older sister but police were not informed at the time.
That abduction and sexual assault were investigated by the Claremont Criminal Investigation Branch and the Sex Assault Squad.
It was written off as unsolved after six weeks.
It was not until more than a year later that the Rowe Park incident was re-investigated, this time by the Macro Task force set up to investigate the disappearance of Sarah Spiers in January 1996 and Jane Rimmer in July the same year.
The Macro detectives did something that the Claremont CIB did not.
They door-knocked the houses surrounding Rowe Park and the victims drivers licence was handed to them.
In the meantime, friends of the victim said she was distressed because she worried that her attacker may have kept her licence which contained her name and address.
But while some Macro officers thought there was an obvious link between the Rowe Park crime and the later abductions, senior Macro officers discounted any link.
They said repeatedly that it was a different MO [modus operandi]."
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"A second opportunity was missed when car upholstery samples recovered with adhesive tape from the body of Jane Rimmer were sent to the wrong department of the Chemistry Centre in 1996.
Macro assumed that the samples had been lost, although the Schramm external review said that the fibres were likely to (sic) vital clues if tested (POST December 11, 2004).
The samples were not found until the Chem Centre moved to Bentley in 2011. Tests then revealed breakthrough clues about a motor vehicle.
Another blunder concerned forensic examination of the body of Ciara Glennon, found at Eglinton north of Perth two weeks after she disappeared from Claremont in March of 1997.
A critical item from her body was overlooked at the time and not tested until years after the Schramm review in 2004, an international and interstate external review forced on local police after the broadcast of He Who Waits, an episode of the ABCs Australian Story.
The item from Ciara Glennon was then taken to the United Kingdom for testing, these tests revealing the breakthrough clue.
Despite the Schramm review identifying numerous promising forensic opportunities, some reluctant senior police kept insisting that the Claremont murders were the work of the man they referred to as LKWLance Kenneth Williams." The Post news-story.
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WA today news-story.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/c...vestigate-1995-rape-lead-20151016-gkaq8i.html
Quoted :
"The Post*has reported police have forensic evidence*linking*Ciara Glennon's killer with *advertiser censored*rapist who*abducted a 17-year-old*woman from a Claremont street*then raped her in Karrakatta Cemetery in 1995.
The young woman had left Club Bay View shortly after midnight and was*walking to a friend's house when she was abducted, taken to the cemetery, raped and released,*The Post*reported.*
Sarah Spiers disappeared the following year and her body was never found. Jane*Rimmer*then Ms*Glennon disappeared in turn and their bodies were later found in Perth.
The Post*reported that police, who said at the time the Karrakatta attack was not linked, had now changed their view after finding a forensic link in 2009 and a 12-member squad was working on the case.
There was a "definite forensic link" found*between the rape*and the murder*of Ms*Glennon, editor*Bret*Christian told Radio 6PR on Friday.
"The young woman, the 17-year-old, she was walking to a friend's*place in*Gugeri*Street near the Claremont Showgrounds and she never made it," he said.*
"She made it as far as the Showgrounds subway and a man grabbed her, put something over her head,*tied her, up -*she said with telephone cable - and bundled her into the back of what she said was a commercial vehicle,*and drove*her deep into the cemetery, where she was sexually assaulted.
"She told police she didn't see the man, didn't have a description of him and was let go, with no clothes, and ran to Hollywood Hospital, which was on the other side of the cemetery.
"They now know that the person who committed that sexual assault is the Claremont serial killer and if they solve that earlier crime, they will have solved the other three."
"I understand they don't know [who it is yet] but they've looked damn hard and long and they've re-tested, re-interviewed literally thousands of people since they made that link and of course gone into databases and turned over every rock they can think of.
"When they began this cold case review in 2004 they announced they would be examining 16 disappearances of women so who knows how active and for how long this guy has been before this, or [how he]*escalated behaviour afterwards. And of course if they'd caught him at the time of the first sexual assault the rest would never have happened.
"I think they really thoroughly investigated it, but maybe with what is known today, or maybe if they'd thrown the resources into that that they'd thrown into the other three disappearances they may have come up with a different result at the time before everything went cold.
"When the Claremont series began we went to an FBI profiler in the states and put the four crimes to him and he said 'I would be looking thoroughly at that first sexual assault, because I think that's your bloke.'
"And we got criticised roundly and publicly for publishing this opinion which turns out to be right."
Perth lawyer Terry Dobson, once a detective who had worked on the Claremont cases, told Radio 6PR the revelation was not a surprise.
He said the Karrakatta matter was looked at "very early on" when a local Claremont detective, an experienced officer, had called in and nominated that crime as being worthy of following up. "A number of officers" had shared his opinion that Karrakatta was "the start of it".
"That wasn't unusual," he said.
"It was happening a lot, experienced detectives and officers nominating similar crimes and suspects."
In fairness, he said, investigative techniques were now different and police had much better technology and scientific knowledge to work with and it was just as well because this lead could be "incredibly important".
"I would be surprised if they weren't throwing the kitchen sink at this," he said.
"There are brand new investigators in ... [and] they won't rest until they solve this, or they certainly won't stop trying. They will never stop trying to solve this one."
On the relative lack of forensic evidence, he said it could be the case that the killer had gone beyond the stage of leaving evidence behind before his crimes escalated to murder.
"Often serial killers will start off with an interest in hurting animals, they like to light fires, they like to watch fires," he said.
"Usually there is some sort of deviant behaviour leading up to it before they get the attention of the police. It may be that whatever he did the relevant samples weren't taken prior to this. It could be that he's just left stuff at a crime scene as opposed to having it taken from him by investigators or in the alternative, he's from another jurisdiction in Australia," UnQuote.
Does any one know about the story of Sarah Spiers license being found , hidden in a car ?
Was claimed in a forum years ago
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