The Devil's Garden (29 page)

For a moment, Perth held its breath with the announcement that British man Paul Anthony Clare – resident in Perth in the early 1990s, convicted for a rape at Subiaco (near Claremont) and also a prime suspect in a series of notorious rapes in central Kings Park – had been charged over the chilling rape of a 16-year-old girl in England. While British detectives flew into Perth to talk to their Macro counterparts about their dealings with the 42-year-old sales manager's modus operandi over his alleged involvement in the Kings Park rapes in 1989 and 1990, Macro officers in turn gathered beneficial information. His modus operandi – offering to ensure the British girl's safety after she left a nightclub by walking with her and instead raping her behind football clubrooms in Essex – is hauntingly similar to the abductions of the Claremont victims.

Targeted by Macro officers in 1999 as a person of interest, the police were coy as to why Clare was in their sights. But Clare's background revealed an obsessive character who had lived in WA for a time in the early 1990s before returning to his native England, a loner who behaved in a bizarre manner after he separated from his wife and later, his girlfriends. Convicted of the break-in at the Subiaco home of his victim, in which he was armed with sex aids – lubricant, vibrator and condoms hidden in his socks – he became a red-hot suspect for the Kings Park rapes.

Sentenced for the British rape in mid-2005, WA Police told the media in early April 2006 that while Clare remained a suspect in the Kings Park rapes, he had been eliminated from the Claremont inquiry.

It is now almost a decade since the Claremont killings, and with a nose for a topical story, a producer from
60 Minutes
approaches Western Australia police to do a story on the anniversary. The program wouldn't be critical of the police operation, he said, unless it needed to be. But the investigators are in no mood to talk to the media. Frantically putting out fires on the Andrew Mallard front and preparing submissions for the cold-case review and CCC inquiries, their request is denied.

With the serial killings unsolved, satanic believers look to devil worship to explain the terrible murders and the disappearance of young people – especially young women – from Western Australia. How else, they ask, can one explain the crimes that are seemingly perfectly well planned and chilling in their execution?

Infamous satanic serial killer David Berkowitz – the so-called 'Son of Sam' who, in New York in 1976, claimed the lives of six people and injured many others – described the Satanists he was involved with. 'They are peculiar people, but they aren't ignorant peasants or semi-literate natives. Rather, their ranks are filled with doctors, lawyers, businessmen and basically highly responsible citizens. They are not a careless group, apt to make mistakes. But they are secretive and bonded together by a common need and desire to mete out havoc on society.' Berkowitz – nicknamed 'Berserkowitz' in prison – was caught in 1997 after police traced a parking ticket to him that was issued near the scene of the final murder. He had not acted alone, he said, suggesting cult involvement in the murders.

Western Australian Ellis Taylor, who has written numerous books about the occult and published articles on the internet about the Claremont case, warns that to understand these people it is important to listen to cult witnesses without prejudice. 'I have it on very good authority and from more than one source that the police have often been informed about satanic cults operating around Perth,' he told me. 'Yet they failed to give these people any credence. Perhaps it is time this attitude changed. Satanic cults and individuals are a reality. It doesn't matter whether you want to believe it or not. A retired homicide detective with a lifetime of experience assured me that when they came to an impasse they would look at anything and every-thing. I pray that this is the case with the Claremont case.

'Inevitably,' he continued, 'the Old Bill is provided with all sorts of strange leads by well-meaning people which turn out to be a waste of time. Surely though, the police role is not to prematurely judge the information but to check it out thoroughly, no matter what their personal opinion? It is probable that a group of people are committing these crimes and not impossible that they have links within the police force, government, media and clergy.'

Taylor sends me the transcript of an interview he con-ducted with a Western Australian woman some years ago. 'It's harrowing and hard to believe if you haven't heard about these things before,' he warned. That was an understatement. The stomach-churning material – pages and pages of it – is unrelentingly bleak, incredibly bizarre and, in parts, highly defamatory. But Taylor wanted me to see a particular section. 'The woman told me that one of the Claremont victims was brought to her home; it was Jane Rimmer, I think. She said she has attempted to tell the police her story but they hadn't believed her. She is definitely traumatised and there is, of course, the chance that she could be making it up, but I don't think so. She is articulate and intelligent.'

In elaborate detail, Taylor outlined complex numerology and other psychic phenomena that he believes are connected with the killings, and sent some of his information to the police. Mindful that his ideas can be misconstrued as the imaginings of a wacky fantasist, he keeps his correspondence with me grounded in fact. 'I spoke at length by phone and in person to a very senior police officer at the time,' he says. 'There must have been something about my information that meant something or he wouldn't have bothered with me, would he? He was very concerned that we used a secure line. I have since been concerned at the shuffling and accusations emanating from WA police. My gut feeling has been that certain people may have got a little too close. Paul Ferguson actually allded to my accuracy on television once, after Ciara's body was found. Not long after this, he was suspended. I still think he would have solved it by now. There are a lot more victims than Macro is letting on.'

Is the woman to whom Ellis refers mentally unstable, or are her recollections real? I think of the warning he attached to the piece: 'Don't look too long into the pit, lest you become it.'

'This woman described in vivid and horrific detail their abuse at the hands of well-known business people and professionals in Perth,' he wrote. 'She named some of the perpetrators, the dates and the places and also describes how they were present as children at the ritual abuse and murder of others at various locations around the area.' She had come to him, he continued, because she believed that the same people who had ritually abused them were the perpetrators of the Claremont serial killings. He writes of secret societies, of the twilight, dangerous world they inhabit. 'It is all so hard to believe, and I don't want what I'm saying to be taken as the ravings of a conspiracy nut. But I am confident that the witness is telling the truth.'

Stories of satanic worship continue to unfold. A psychiatric patient in her mid-20s, in a secure ward for her own protection, told her psychologist she had lured Sarah Spiers to a car in which her boyfriend was waiting. Driving her outside the metro area, she said Sarah was bashed to death and left at the scene. The patient also claims she visualised where Jane Rimmer's body was found two weeks before the body was discovered. Her story becomes more bizarre. The offender, whom she names, is a police officer who works in conjunction with two other men. The officer took her to where Ciara Glennon's body was lying and warned her that if she didn't shut her mouth, she would be next. The abductions and murders, she claimed, are related to satanic worship activities dating back to an area past Margaret River 20 years ago. The psychologist, who taped a long video session with the patient, called in a colleague to assess the woman's claims. 'She is telling the truth,' he said. 'She is terrified and fears for her life.'

In January 2006 I make contact by telephone with the head of the Special Crime Squad, Anthony Lee. Put my request in writing, he advises.

Dear Mr Lee,

Following our recent phone conversation, please find a request to interview Macro officers for inclusion in the book I am writing for Random House Australia, regarding the so-called 'Claremont murders' . . . I would like to talk to as many officers as possible who have been, and still are, active on this investigation . . . I understand that as this is an ongoing investigation, many questions will not be answered. I will include them anyway, with the hope that the reason why they cannot be addressed is made clear so I can include in the book . . . The more police 'voice' in the story, the better the balance will be ...

I forward a list of questions.

Two weeks later I prepare to travel to Perth for my first research round, and speak to Robin Napper on the phone to line up an interview time with him. 'Good luck with the police,' he says. 'Listen for their defensive phrases. They will tell you that the review team praised them for having
world best practice.
Yet the crimes are still unsolved!'

Detective Senior-Sergeant Anthony Lee and Senior-Sergeant Ken Sanderson, a forensic specialist, meet me near where I am staying. Forty-year-old Lee, with rugby player shoulders, is imposingly tall and wears a slightly arrogant air. Sanderson – older, ginger-haired and with a gentler attitude – does not appear as hard-bitten. Forensic investigation is a less abrasive field than working the mean streets as a detective.

Sanderson swings the unmarked police car out of South Perth and heads toward the Kwinana Freeway. It will be a long day, starting with the disposal site of Jane Rimmer, moving to Claremont and on to where Ciara Glennon's body was found.

There is a tacit camaraderie between Lee and Sanderson. That's not surprising: police work is tough, the
reason
why camaraderie is so entrenched in the force. They protect each other and protect themselves, as soldiers did in the trenches; part of their mateship ethos. Police work their way up through the ranks, coming into daily contact with the sordid side of life. But it's this that bedevils them most, the murder of innocents and the girls that never came home. Bodies thrown away like trash and the despair on their parents' faces when they knock on the door with the news.
I'm sorry to tell you, we believe we have found your daughter.
Lee is only too acutely aware of it all, and it is in talking about this that his sensitivities show. 'He uses a well-rehearsed line: For the sake of your soul, be careful what you see.' he says. 'Once you see, you cannot un-see'.

We cruise along the Kwinana Freeway toward Jane Rimmer's disposal site, an hour away. With Lee free to talk, it's a good time to start the taped interview. 'Why is this investigation so secretive?' I ask him.

He turns from the front seat. 'If we open up the case to journalists, how does that help the investigation? It doesn't. It just means the paper has got a good story. If they are critical of the police, we're not interested. That's not arrogance – it's just that we've consulted with all the people we should be consulting with.'

Journalists. They are a common theme in Lee's conversation, appearing as the great stitch un-pickers in a carefully woven police garment. 'They are not always fair,' he says, 'not always right'. It sounds like a siege mentality – us versus them.

'The fact is,' he continues, 'with unsolved cases, we're always going to reach a level of controversy. That's the nature of the beast.'

It seems a reasonable point. 'And you've reached it, have you?'

'We've well and truly reached it. We probably reached it after two years in the Claremont case. People are asking, are we competent? Are we good enough to do the job anyway? Are we big enough to handle this? And my answer is I'm confident that police have been innovative in their approach and looked at the case as broadly as we can. And the review came out and said the things we are doing are world best practice. Designed and innovated here in Western Australia.' There it is. He has said it.
World best practice.

'What sort of things?'

'I'll leave that for Dave Caporn to talk to you about.' Dave Caporn. As the face of the investigation during its most critical period, he is the one Macro officer I am most hoping to speak with.

'Macro has copped a lot of criticism, not least over the fact that these crimes are still unsolved. What is your reaction to that?'

'I think I've just given you an insight into that. The reviews weren't critical.' Those reviews. They rear their heads at every opportunity.

'But isn't that part of the criticism? That the police have been too insular, in waiting too long to look outside Western Australia? Isn't that intrinsic to the criticism?'

He leans around from the front seat of the car again. 'How long's too long?'

'Ten years, probably.'

'It hasn't been ten years!' It is February 2006. The first known disappearance was January 1996. The murders have been unsolved for ten years; the first complete and independent review in 2004 – eight years. He is splitting straws. I let it go.

'I would like to know what has been done, and by whom and when.'

Lee nods. 'It is the public's fundamental right to ask, are they getting the service they pay for from the state?'

'That's right.' I agree. 'Certainly the people I've spoken to in the short time I've been in Perth – general members of the public – say they feel discouraged, ripped off. The attitude is, "why don't the cops do something?" They seem to deeply resent the lack of transparency.'

Lee noticeably bristles. 'Why should we lay bare the facts if it's going to compromise the investigation? Why should we?'

'Because people are saying they feel they have a false sense of security, they are blindly walking around in the dark and that no one, least of all the police, knows who this serial killer is. They want the investigation back on track.'

'How do you know it's not on track already?' He has taken his sunglasses off and is in a half-turn, staring at me. 'How do you know it's not on track already?'

'But it isn't, is it.' It's a statement, not a question. 'You're asking about perceptions, and the answer is that this case is very, very cold. And people in Perth are very, very unhappy.' That is an understatement. The response from almost all victims' families – including those not directly or overtly linked to Claremont – was relief when I contacted them to seek interviews for this book. 'Thank God someone is doing something on this story,' one told me. 'The police would love it to go away, and we need to keep it in the public eye.'

We have passed some of Perth's major landmarks: Kings Park, the Old Swan Brewery and the University of Western Australia, and are now driving parallel along the wide expanse of the Swan River, where ferries lazily cross in the bright morning sunshine and pedestrians stroll along its foreshore. Now we are in the Claremont area, Western Australia's answer to Melbourne's Toorak, where the beautiful people play.

'Does the perception of the community outweigh the needs of the investigation?' Lee asks. He doesn't wait for my response. 'If we did release information, what purpose would it serve and will it help our case? The simple answer, I believe, is no.'