by Ray Black
Catherine’s mother died when she was only twenty months old, so she never really knew true maternal affection. After her mother’s death, her father moved to South Africa, taking Catherine with him, but she was later shipped back to be brought up by her grandparents when news of her continued sexual and physical abuse by her father came to light. She was a lonely child, who rarely smiled and was not allowed to play with the other children in the neighbourhood. Catherine longed for love and affection and this craving haunted all her growing years. When David came into her life she found a kindred spirit, and someone with whom she could identify.
Catherine and David became close friends, and she vowed she would do anything for him, even commit crime. In 1966 when they were both fifteen, Catherine met up with David once again. David was wilder and he already had a considerable criminal record for robbery and assault. Catherine was just what he needed and he drew her into his world of crime as his accomplice. By 1969, the couple found themselves in front of the magistrate being charged with breaking and entering with intent to steal. Both pleaded guilty and David received a nine month prison sentence. Catherine, who was already pregnant with another man’s child, was placed on probation.
The couple hated being apart, and David broke out of jail on June 21, 1970, to be with his beloved Catherine. Together they committed another string of thefts and this added another two-and-a-half years to David’s sentence. This time Catherine was jailed for six months and her newborn baby was taken away from her and put into care.
When they were released from prison the couple went their separate ways for a while. David married, had a daughter, and tried to settle down to married live.
Catherine was released on the condition that she no longer associated with David Birnie and she was once again reunited with her child. She found work as a live-in nanny for the MacLaughlan family, but fell pregnant by her employers’ son, Donald. The couple were married on May 31, 1972, on Catherine’s twenty-first birthday. Catherine was happy at last she had found a real family, and this was enhanced by the birth of their son, Donny Jnr. However, Catherine’s new-found happiness was not to last for long as her son Donny was crushed by a friend’s car, and she witnessed the terrible accident. Luckily the couple survived the ordeal and went on to have six more children. Although they were never rich, Donald always provided enough money to support his family, that is until he injured his back and was no longer able to work. They were forced to live in an old, dilapidated house provided by the government and Catherine soon tired of the life of poverty.
Around this time David came back into her life. They began an affair that lasted for two years before she finally rang her husband and told him that she would not be returning. Donny was left in the shabby house with their six children, her father and her uncle.
THE DEPRAVITY STARTS
The couple were excited to be back together and they moved into a house in Willagee in Western Australia. Catherine changed her name by deed poll and became known as Birnie. They both had a very high sexual drive and would spend hours on end experimenting with new positions or even toys. However, with time, the couple became bored and they started talking about abducting women and raping them for sexual fulfilment. Catherine became excited at his talk and told him she would love to watch him do erotic things to a woman who was bound and gagged. David knew that with Catherine as his accomplice all this was possible and he decided to act.
The first victim was almost stumbled upon by accident. On October 6, 1986, a young twenty-two-year-old student named Mary Neilson called round at their house. David had spoken to Mary earlier in the day at the spare parts factory where he worked and he had told her to come round after work to buy some tyres for her car. As she entered the house she was grabbed by David who held a knife to her throat. She was dragged to the bed, chained up and gagged. Catherine watched in delight as David repeatedly raped the petrified young girl. When he was satisfied and the ordeal was over, the couple knew that they had to do something to stop Mary from talking – the girl had to die. Later that evening they drove Mary to Gleneagles National Park, where David raped her once more and then strangled her with a rope hung from a tree branch. He then stabbed her repeatedly and then the couple buried her body in a shallow grave.
The pleasure they had achieved from the death of Mary Neilson kept the couple happy for a couple of weeks, and then they were out on the hunt for their next victim. Susannah Candy was a fifteen-year-old-girl who was hitchhiking alone on the highway. When the Birnies stopped along Susannah and offered her a lift she felt safe because there was a woman in the car. Little did she know how wrong she was. As soon as she was in the car they bound and gagged her and took her back to their house. Just like Mary, Susannah was chained to the bed, raped and sodomized, while Catherine watched. Once David’s appetite was satiated he tried to strangle her with his hands, but she struggled so violently that they found it necessary to drug her with sleeping tablets. After she had fallen into a comatose sleep, David passed the rope to Catherine and told her to prove her love for him by killing the girl. Catherine quite willingly pulled the rope tight around the girl’s throat until she had stopped breathing. They took the body to Gleneagles Forest and buried her alongside their other victim, Mary Neilson.
On November 1, thirty-one-year-old Noelene Patterson became the Birnie’s third victim. Noelene already knew David and Catherine, in fact they had helped her wallpaper a room in her house a few weeks earlier. Noelene had been having a particularly bad day and to make matters worse her car had just run out of petrol. She was relieved when she saw her friends draw up beside her and offer a lift. However, this relief soon turned to horror when David held a knife to her throat and told her that she was to become their sex slave. They chained her to the bed, gagged her and once again David repeatedly raped her. Catherine felt a little more concerned this time because Noelene was very beautiful and she was worried that David may actually take a fancy to her, particularly as he didn’t seem to keen on murdering her straight away. He kept putting off the evil deed and she was kept as a prisoner in their house for three days before Catherine forced David to give her some sleeping pills. Catherine was upset and held a knife to their victim’s throat, shouting at David that he had to choose between the two of them. David strangled Noelene much to Catherine’s delight, then the body was to the forest to join the others.
Just three days later, Denise Brown was picked up by the couple as she waited at a bus stop on the Stirling Highway. She was a happy girl, who was quite prepared to accept the lift rather than wait for the bus as originally planned. As she climbed into the car a knife was thrust at her throat and, like the others, she was taken back to the house to be used to fulfil their sexual pleasures. Catherine did not want to keep the woman in the house for too long and so they bundled her body into the boot of their car and drove to the Wanneroo Pine Plantation.
This was where the couple’s actions became even more depraved and David plunged a knife into Denise’s neck while he raped her once more. Denise did not die immediately and she just lay there making horrible gurgling noises. Catherine passed David an even bigger knife and this time he plunged it into the woman’s chest. She stopped moving and the couple hastily dug a shallow grave. However, just as they were covering the body with sand, Denise started to move again and tried to sit up in her newly-dug grave. David grabbed an axe and swung it at her head, but once again she attempted to sit up, refusing to die. This time he turned the axe around and drove it into the woman’s skull – this time she was dead.
Catherine was nauseated by what had happened and told David that she didn’t think she could go ahead with any further killings.
David did not allow Catherine any time to mull over what they had done and their final victim was abducted just three days later.
This time it was seventeen-year-old who was hitchhiking along Stirling Highway. She too was bound and gagged and taken back to their house. She was subjected to a day of sex and violence
, after which she was untied and left on her own for a short while. The girl used this opportunity to escape, and with a clear head left her bag and cigarettes under the bed to prove that she had been there. How this young girl managed to think so sensibly after the ordeal she had been through, is all the more credit to her. She ran from the house, covering her body with the little clothing she had left, and stumbled into the nearby Fremantle Shopping Centre. The police were called and she was taken back to the station for questioning. She told them all about the kidnapping, the rape and abuse and that she would be able to prove she was at the house because they would find her bag and cigarettes underneath the bed.
When the police arrived at the house no-one was in, so they lay in wait. Catherine was the first one to come home and David was later arrested at his place of work.
THE END
The couple were sat in separate interview rooms and said nothing. The police tried everything they could think of to make them talk, but nothing worked. The police knew they had to get their admission to the rape and abduction before they could charge them. They also knew that there were other victims, because David had bragged about it to the young woman.
Totally exhausted and in a last effort to get some response from David, the policeman said, ‘It’s getting dark, why don’t you show me where the bodies are, so that we can dig them up’. To his complete amazement, David responded, ‘Okay, there is four of them’.
Immediately they started to make some headway in their investigations. Once David had confessed it wasn’t long before Catherine broke her silence. The couple went with a cavalcade of police cars to the graves on Wanneroo Pine Plantation.
At first they had difficulty in locating the graves until David pointed out where Mary Nielson and Susannah Candy were buried. They then had to begin the arduous task of digging up the victims.
Catherine said that she wanted to point out the next one and indicated where Noelene Patterson lay. With complete contempt and lack of any remorse Catherine spat on the grave of Noelene. The fourth victim was unearthed at a nearby plantation and the couple were then taken back to the police headquarters.
They were held in cells until they were officially charged on November 12, on four counts of murder and one count of abduction and rape. No plea was entered.
At the hearing held on February 10, 1987 both Catherine and David pleaded guilty to all charges. The Birnies were each imprisoned to life imprisonment and this meant a minimum of twenty years before they would be eligible for parole. However, the trial judge stated that the crimes were premeditated, planned and carried out so cruelly and relentlessly over such a short period of time, it was his suggestion that this couple should never be released from prison.
DID THEY REGRET THEIR ACTIONS?
After his arrest David Birnie claimed to be sorry, saying that he deeply regretted the suffering he had caused. Whether this was a genuine emotion, or whether he was just trying to gain some leniency, is a matter of opinion. His crimes certainly shocked the whole of Australia, and even his fellow inmates were disgusted by his crimes. In prison he was repeatedly beaten up and even tried to take his own life in 1987. He was moved to Fremantle Prison’s old death cells for his own protection.
Catherine Birnie had signed a detailed statement admitting her direct involvement in all four of the murders. David said that his partner had only taken part because of her total and undying dedication for him, and to help him satisfy his desperate sexual desires. This is probably one of the worst cases of personality dependence that has ever come to light.
David and Catherine Birnie were certainly not insane and knew exactly what they were doing.
To this very day the couple still write love letters to each other constantly and both claim to still be very much in love. In fact in the first four years they were apart they exchanged a phenomenal 2,600 letters but they were denied the right to marry, have phone calls or indeed any contact visits. The authorities felt that David Birnie was such a bad influence on Catherine that the two should never be allowed to make contact as they felt he would further inflict his evil influence over his lover.
In 1990 David Birnie said that the denial of these rights was causing them both physical and mental torture. It went on to say that it would cause them to have a mental breakdown which would lead to inevitable suicide. In 1993 David Birnie had his personal computer confiscated when it was found to contain pornographic software.
Catherine’s first husband died on January 22, 2000, who was the father of her six children. He was only fifty-nine and his death was rather sudden. Catherine made an application to attend her former husband’s funeral but her request was denied.
Summing Up
The mind of the human being remains one of the last great enigmas of modern science. It is hard for the average person who aspires to such normal emotions as love, kindness, creativity, intelligence, wisdom, bravery, etc., to accept the depraved minds of others who love to harm, kill, torture or even mutilate a fellow human being. Throughout most of our case histories it becomes clear that most people that kill have several characteristics in common. Most of them appear to have had very difficult starts to their lives, or indeed been the victim themselves of unscrupulous adults. Events that have happened in their childhood seem to have an everlasting effect in the way they behave when they reach adulthood. It appears that two-thirds of all murderers who have been studied have been found to be suffering from either a mental illness, neurological damage or child abuse or indeed all three. It certainly seems true that abuse sets up an impulse towards violence that a normal, healthy brain can keep under control. However, if a brain that is already impaired by neurological damage or mental illness, then these violent impulses are not to easy to keep in check. The more we can learn about the brain and the way it functions the more successful we will be in truly rehabilitating offenders and preventing ‘at risk’ children from turning to lives of crime.
Copyright
© 2010 Omnipress Limited
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This 2010 edition published by Canary Press,
an imprint of Omnipress Limited, UK
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The views expressed in this book are those of the author but they are general views only, and readers are urged to consult a relevant and qualified specialist for individual advice in particular situations. Ray Black and Omnipress Limited hereby exclude all liability to the extent permitted by law for any errors or omissions in this book or for any loss, damage or expense (whether direct or indirect) suffered by the third party relying on any information contained in this book.
ISBN: 978-1-907795-36-7
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Anthony Prudente on behalf of Omnipress Limited
Table of Contents
Title Page
Contents
Introduction
PART ONE: Children Who Kill
What Makes Them Kill?
Mary and Norma Bell
The Boy Fiend
Jessica Holtmeyer
Hannah Ocuish
Jon Venables and Robert Thompson
Willie Bosket
Tony Craven
Cheryl Pierson and Sean Pica
The West Memphis Three
Cindy Collier & Shirley Wolf
The Murder of Shanda Sharer
Larry Swartz
PART TWO: Men Who Kill
Are These Men Monsters?
Ted Bundy
The Yorkshire Ripper
The Brides in the Bath
The Cannibal Killer
Vampire Killer of Sacramento
Andrei Chikatilo
Who Was ‘Jack the Ripper’?
The Boston Strangler
Martin Bryant
Peter Manuel
George Chapman
Graham Frederick Young
Thomas Wainewright
Where There’s a Will . . .
The Ultimate ‘Psycho’
The ‘Real’ Dracula
The Witch Doctor
PART THREE: Women Who Kill
Can Women be as Cold-Blooded as Men?
Susan Smith
Genene Anne Jones
Nurse Beverley Allitt
Kristen Gilbert
Marie Noe
Elizabeth Bathory
Lizzie Borden
Velma Barfield
Mary Ann Cotton
Florida’s ‘Black Widow’
PART FOUR: Couples Who Kill
Torturous Teams
The Lonely Heart Killers
Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate
Fred and Rosemary West
The Papin Sisters
David and Catherine Birnie
Summing Up
Copyright