Here's a few things I wanted to mention that I've been ruminating on since I started reading this thread again.
One is related to your post above, BillyWhizz. I spent a month or so (from memory) dealing with Macro back then, including phone calls, informal chats on my front veranda with detectives, interviews at the main station in town across from the museum, a polygraph test with an antagonistic American expert AND giving my DNA via an oral swab. Not once did they ever ask me to view any CCTV footage from any of those nights and they wouldn't tell me if I was definitely on any of the cctv footage or which nights they believed I was in the area. I had assumed I'd been seen on cctv footage and identified by someone (how though?) Otherwise the sole reason I was interviewed by Macro was because a malicious ex gave my details to crimestoppers. That means my backyard was searched without my consent, my place of work visited by homicide detectives and my DNA saved in a lab somewhere as a POI in a serial murder investigation all on information provided by a time-waster with a grudge because a relationship turned nasty. I wonder how much police time was wasted by looking into people who were completely unrelated to the case and how this affected the investigation overall. Macro's tunnel vision regarding LW seems like an excruciating waste of time and money looking back on it.
For example during the 1990s and early 2000's, at various times during those 10 -14 years I...
* Attended UWA and knew the campus like the back of my hand and was often there very late at night
*Took martial arts classes at the scout hall behind the yacht club just down from Matilda Bay on Australia II Drive
*Checked out UWA judo club a couple of times
*Took boxing lessons at Claremont PCYC
*Tried to pick up girls at bars and nightclubs in Claremont, Northbridge, Subiaco etc
*Worked at MLC in Claremont. That's a private girl's school for those not from Perth: Methodist Ladies College
*Spent time in Claremont late at night walking to and from Fresh Provisions (or whatever it was called back then) and Hungry Jacks
*Changed my appearance. Wore long hair then shaved it off for a crew cut, grew a full beard then shaved it off etc..
*Chatted up random drunk girls at the UWA tav
*Read criminology, psychology, and serial killer investigation books from the UWA Reid library
*lived alone
*Went to the OBH
*Watched *advertiser censored*
*Threatened an intruder with a crowbar after I woke up and found him in my lounge room (Royal Show attracts them every year)
*Lived in Nedlands and Claremont
*Walked through Karrakatta cemetery at midnight (and later) to get home via Loch St Station
*Was involved in at least one unstable relationship
*Had short term relationships
*Was questioned by police for being out and about at 3am walking
*Worked as a security guard and had access to secure areas at night, had the opportunity to buy a cattle-prod style stun gun from a colleague who knew a taxi driver who was selling them and wore a uniform that I observed people (especially women) to recognise as a symbol of authority. In that job, I walked young female staff to their cars late at night, I knew their addresses and phone numbers, their relationship status, if they lived alone or with someone else, if they had a dog, if they lived in a house or apartment, where they went on weekends, where they parked etc. I completed training in self-defence/restraint techniques with handcuffs and baton as part of that job. I was shown how and then assisted in breaking into people's cars when they had locked their keys inside, I had to restrain people once or twice to help break up arguments, got angry once or twice and shouted at trouble makers, pushed one or two to the ground during scuffles etc
*Had girlfriends as far away as Forrestfield, kalamunda and Lesmurdie, Warnboro, Safety Bay, and spent time at their houses
I could go on and on. But the point is if someone suspected me of having committed a sexual assault or violent crime, they might use any number of the above as examples to prove that I am definitely a good suspect and probably guilty (has a history of violence, lives alone, a pattern of unstable relationships, martial arts background, access to dangerous and illegal weapons, knows the area, is an avid viewer of *advertiser censored*, inconsistent employment history, a loner, previous involvement with police, has a history of approaching attractive young girls late at night, shifty behaviour, knowledge of police procedures, forensics etc, travels across a broad geographical area etc) I'm even thinking twice about MYSELF just reading back through the list!
People can turn anything into anything if they have the motivation to do so. I'm not saying LW and SR or TT, Morey etc are all misunderstood upstanding citizens, more that there must have been MANY innocent blokes who were put through the wringer because their past was interpreted as a shady and an ex or someone with an axe to grind dropped them in it to create mischief. That's my thoughts for the day anyway lol.
It was an old claremont house with a bore water well and a huge backyard but not the lush pool and landscaped garden style you're probably thinking..it was rows of veggies along lines and poles in the ground, a lot of soil and a lemon tree. There was a wood pile covered with tarp, bags of blood and bone and compost and crap everywhere, an old hand wound washing line in the middle of the yard. The fishing gear, old bikes, tools etc were my pop's and it had about 40 years worth of dust and 70s tuppaware accumulated inside. I lived there for about 3-4 years from memory rent free even after I'd found a job because they wouldn't sell it or rent it while my nan was alive. Once She passed on I moved out and we rented it to UWA students for a couple years then eventually sold it. I can see how you wondered how a 20 year old on the dole could live in a big claremont house but it wasn't like a fancy Jutland Parade Dalkeith house.
