'Stuff 'em,' she responds. 'I won't shut up until they start to take me seriously. Writing me patronising letters won't work; I want to see something done about what I'm trying to tell them.' What she is trying to tell them, over and over again, is to look at a person she nominates as a suspect.
One letter, dated 10 June 2005 and signed by Detective-Superintendent Byleveld, addresses the issue of her concerns regarding Macro and the independent review team. 'I must advise that the independent review panel was unanimous in their praise for the professional and exceptional investigation undertaken by WAPOL...' it reads. 'If you are able to provide relevant information that may assist those investigations, please direct that information to this office so it may be assessed and the appropriate action taken. I reiterate that the information must be more than mere supposition before any investigation is warranted.'
Her response is predictable. 'As for saying they praise your efforts, I personally believe that youse deserve a KICK UP THE ARSE and a CLIP BEHIND THE EARS.' Bullard says she will never give up. 'Look, there are times when I fear for my own safety speaking out like this,' she admits. 'But this whole business is a debacle and someone has got to do something. I won't let it go.'
80
Now almost to deadline, in October 2006 I call GP Dr Andrew Dunn's practice to try to arrange an interview. I want to confirm the story told me by Neil Fearis about the patient who said Ciara Glennon was going to be offered up as a sacrifice; talk about his experience of being a witness in the controversial Christie case and to confirm other details regarding the McMahon family. But Dr Dunn won't take my call. The young receptionist who answers the phone tells me he knows what I want to talk to him about but, he has advised, 'It has nothing to do with him.' How does he know what I want to discuss, I ask her? I haven't told anyone. Three times she returns from putting me on hold while she checks again. 'No. Dr Dunn will not speak to you. This has nothing to do with him.'
Finally, the practice manager, Barbara, takes the call. 'What is this about?' she inquires in a professional tone.
'I'm writing a book,' I tell her, 'on the Claremont serial killings and would like to discuss some things with Dr Dunn.' There is a moment's pause.
'Hold the line, please.' Barbara comes back to me within a short time. 'I am sorry. Dr Dunn has advised this has nothing to do with him, and it is his right not to speak to you.' Quietly, she adds, 'I was married to a lawyer, and hope you don't mind me reminding you that it is prudent to be careful what you write about people. It is so easy to fall into the trap of defamation.' The message is transparent.
'I understand. Please tell Dr Dunn I was only attempting to check some facts. Thank you.' I hang up.
Detective-Inspector Geoff Ellis, head of Major Crime since October 2004, was present during the original discussions in February 2006 as to whether police should talk to me. It was Ellis's opinion that, from the investigative viewpoint, nothing could be gained from open discussions. He enjoys a reputation as a tough cop who is also somewhat of a 'charmer', skilled in the art of gently pushing even the most cynical toward the police viewpoint. But he doesn't dance around me with his opinions. With only the questions I have sent the Special Crime Squad to go on, he immediately accuses me of both bias and lack of balance. The problem, it quickly transpires, is my use of words and what he perceives as my lean toward Robin Napper's viewpoints. For the first few minutes, it feels like a verbal boxing match.
Ellis is concerned at my use of the term 'trophies' to describe missing clothing or jewellery and demands to know how I have come to that conclusion. As a member of the International Homicide Investigative Association, he says he knows a great deal about serial killers. And what he knows is that they don't always take trophies. It becomes an exercise in banter. 'How do you know they're not trophies?'
'How do you know they are?'
'What would police prefer they be called?'
'We hesitate to call them trophies because we can't be sure that they are. And we can't be sure because we haven't found them, or the killer.' It is a reasonable point.
'But still,' I say, 'they could well be trophies?'
'Yes, of course. They could be.'
He gives a protracted sigh before admitting that the subject of Robin Napper irks him. 'Mr Napper has never spoken to me with any issues regarding homicides, yet he criticises our techniques,' he says. 'He is not up-to-date with methodology and practice. He advises us to look at predatory behaviour, both historical and present, such as snowdropping and flashing, but we were doing that already. What we didn't have in the early days of Macro was a DNA database where we could match predatory behaviours. That was set up in November 2000 as a result of the Identifying Persons Act, which gave legislative ability to retain a suspect's DNA. Now those historical samples have been placed on a database. But we are legislatively bound to only use the DNA taken from the taxi drivers for the Macro investigation.'
'Have you met Mr Napper?' I ask.
He laughs, one that is laced with scorn. 'No, I haven't. Haven't wanted to and haven't needed to.'
It seems absurd. Napper, a former police officer and thorn in the side of WA Police, is only 10 minutes away from their headquarters.
'I know he pushed for a cold-case review and that the police opinion is that he should accept the umpire's verdict on that, accept that few criticisms were made,' I venture. 'But my understanding is that he is simply bewildered as to why WA Police refuse any offers of his help. He's not angry – just bewildered.'
As the conversation progresses Ellis proves himself to be just as others have described him: reasoned and intelligent. Gone are the aggressive overtones and vague threat implicit in his promise to 'read this story with interest'. He has a genuine concern that I show balance. 'Lance Williams became high profile because of his interest in participating with the media,' he says. 'He was the focus of the investigation and there is significant information to warrant that focus. From a moral standpoint, there are always going to be casualties in this sort of lengthy, tough investigation. I am sorry he feels maligned, but he is not the only focus in this case and to start – or win – any action against the police for harassment he would have to demonstrate malice and forethought. Evil mind, evil act.'
He proffers a grim laugh when I ask if he thinks Williams is guilty. 'Let's just say I wouldn't take bets,' he answers. He won't take bets either on whether the Claremont killer has claimed more than three victims. 'There certainly could be more. There certainly could.' How many more? He won't hazard a guess.
'That's frightening, isn't it,' I say. 'Incredibly frightening to think this person could still be lurking around somewhere but not knowing how many victims he has claimed.'
'It is,' Ellis concedes. 'I wish I felt confident saying some-thing different. But I don't.'
81
Tired of the media beating up the cops, Ellis discusses the 'groundbreaking techniques' shown in the Macro task-force. 'It was groundbreaking for the team to be isolated from other police officers. Confidentiality agreements are signed on every protracted homicide and I have yet to see any other force in Australia so advanced as we are in the West. We assign a team and forensic officer, analyst and data manager to cases. It works.' He concedes that the Andrew Mallard case was 'the pain WA Police needed to suffer in order to get better, a kicking well deserved', and that they are now able to identify a lot of deficiencies from within. 'We've now got a verification process where we bring in a senior officer to sit in on briefings. And we're developing a strategy to deal with Macro.'
Dave Caporn, Ellis says, is an outstanding officer who puts things in place and gets things done; a charismatic man who could charm the skin off a rice pudding. 'He's a hard man to work for and he expects high standards. That can come across as arrogance. But while he's demanding, he is not intolerant of someone who is not up to speed on an investigation. He just expects them to get up to speed, fast.'
Ellis points to brain fingerprinting as the way of the future. Bas
ed on cognitive recognition, it works by stirring recollections when photographs are seen or voices heard. 'If you're involved in a crime, it will show. And it works the other way as well. Overseas, one person has already been released from prison for a crime he didn't commit. But whoever is responsible for Claremont shouldn't think that because it's been more than a decade, we won't get him.'
He adds a postscript at the end of our conversation. He can see some value in approaching Napper for a chat, he says. It makes sense. He will approach him when he gets a chance.
Four hours later when I call Ellis again, he shares some news. 'I don't have to ring Napper now,' he says, his voice betraying more than a hint of mirth. 'He's leaving his job at the university, and that, apparently, is not of his own choice. But,' he quickly adds, 'WA Police had nothing to do with this.'
That Napper had, in his own words, been 'shafted' is old news to me. 'If he stays in Perth,' I remind Ellis, 'it's doubtful he will move far, workwise, from what he does now. So what will change? A meeting could still be prudent.'
He laughs again.
Armchair detectives are still riveted by the Claremont disappearance and murders, and many make spurious claims as to what they believe happened. In October 1980, 12-year-old schoolgirl Lisa Marie Mott was last seen in the south-west town of Collie, near Bunbury, speaking to a person in a yellow panel van after a basketball game around 8.30 pm. While CIB detective Reg Driffill, who headed the investigation into Lisa's disappearance, believed serial killer David Birnie should have been interviewed about the disappearance, both he and Catherine denied any knowledge of her abduction. A former military intelligence agent, on the 'Gotcha' website, made this claim in November 2006.
As far as I know, the police have NO DNA found on the bodies of the two victims so far found. They have stated that the bodies were in too advanced a state of decomposition to obtain any. But here is something I have suspected for a while. It is based on the fact that the police warrant stipulated that they were searching for human body tissue and flesh when they were searching Mr Weygers's properties. The police have stated that the killer washed his car on site after dumping the bodies. I suspect that the killer only washed the part of the car that may have blood-stains on it. The killer probably drives a utility or station wagon and would have used the tailgate to 'process' the body before dumping them. That is to say, the killer needed to remove body parts that may have got DNA on them during the course of the murder. Sally Anne Bowman, [the model murdered in Britain, allegedly by Mark Dixie] was found to have bite marks on her body. So it would seem for the murder victims here too. Maybe also the killer's DNA was under their fingernails. So these parts may have been missing from the bodies. They may even have been discarded close to the vehicle . . . I may have some data that ties the murders and disappearances together. Before you ask, no I am not the killer. I was a military intelligence analyst before I retired, so I like to keep my mind turning over by doing some armchair detective work. But I can show... that there is a direct link between these killings and the disappearance of Lisa Mott.
The killer washed his car on site? News to me. Removed body parts? Rubbish.
Bite marks on Jane and Ciara's bodies? How would he know? A direct link between these killings and Lisa Mott? The 'link' is so tenuous it is laughable. 'If you draw a line from Ciara to Jane and then continue it south it intersects the town of Collie (where Lisa disappeared), he wrote. 'The distance is exactly 200 kms...'
But if this blogger appears way off the mark, still I wonder: who is Dr Phibes?
82
WA Chief Justice Wayne Martin, speaking of the Walsham case, slammed what he called the 'new advocacy role' being adopted by certain sections of the media after high-profile trials. 'Tens of thousands of criminal cases had been dealt with by WA courts, so to take half a dozen cases over 45 years, condemn their findings and then declare they demonstrate a systematic failure of criminal justice in this state fails to put these cases in their proper perspective.'
John Button grimaces. 'It's easy to make these judgements when you've been sitting on the bench. Try making them when you've been sitting in prison for a crime you didn't commit. The whole system is rotten from the bottom up. We want to change it so our kids and grandkids have a decent, safe framework to guide them and work within. The people who have been wrongly convicted are experts in this field, but no one asks us for our opinion. Ever. How can anyone in this state be sure about any investigation – including Macro – when history shows us the mistakes that have been made?'
Former disgruntled police officers describe the tongue-in-cheek past state of affairs in the Western Australia police force as being 'noble-cause corruption'. 'This essentially means,' one says, 'that the police prosecution used to regard it as permissible for an officer to verbal, fit-up, brick-in, roast, pour a bucket of blood over, or otherwise manufacture evidence to suit the occasion. And this was considered all the more acceptable if the intended victim was a police officer, high-profile criminal or a public figure.' If the police culture is changing, he says it is not before time. 'The number plates on our cars call WA, a "State of Excitement". But a lot of us who have been through the system regard it another way – as the "State of Excrement".'
Many doubt that, for all good intentions, the Claremont case can now ever be solved. There are, a former officer who was close to Macro says, just 'too many scratches on the paint-work. The environment in which the Macro officers worked was so controlled it was vacuum sealed. Everything had to be documented, and the entire investigation was steeped in incredible secrecy, rules and regulations. But this approach destroyed morale; officers just tuned out. And it didn't leave any room for police in other areas to add information that may have been beneficial. The consensus is that without a confession, solid forensic evidence that can be matched to a suspect or an eyewitness, police are seriously pushing it to get a result on this one.'
The Western Australia Police remain extremely defensive on the subject of why the case is still unsolved. 'Every state has unsolved crimes,' one officer points out. 'You only have to look at the Beaumont case, where the three children went missing in South Australia in 1966 to know that.' But that case was 40 years ago and science has made huge leaps forward since then. 'Every state has unsolved crimes,' he reiterates, 'and crimes that are unsolvable. The criticism stings. It impacts on the morale of the men, who left their families every day to try and solve a series of shocking murders and who constantly woke the next day to unflattering assessments of their work in the media. It doesn't help anyone.'
Dave Caporn predictably agreed. 'You think about the years that have been taken away from the girls and their families . . . I've had total support from the hierarchy and I defy you to go away and find an ongoing murder investigation anywhere in the world that is continually resourced on a dedicated day-to-day basis where detectives work on nothing else.' But never far from the upbeat tone is the warning Caporn issued in mid-2001. Given the right opportunity, he said, the Claremont killer will strike again. He also sounded a rare note of self-doubt. 'Am I worried that I'll stuff it up? Absolutely.'
Critics of the way the Claremont investigation has been handled scoff at what they perceive as its glaring mistakes and cite the proverb 'every cock will crow upon his own dunghill' regarding the self-congratulatory tone taken by some Macro officers. 'You don't go public and say there will be a break-through soon,' a former officer says. 'It's like a hostage situation, very tense. Deadlines are set and when police publicly miss those deadlines, it's worse than embarrassing. It's like announcing the second coming and nothing happens.' He describes the Claremont investigation as amounting to nothing more than 'a lot of crumbs held together by dough. There's an old police expression "Fucked and far from home",' he says. 'In this case, sad as it is, they're fucked and far from a result.'
Former Macro media officer Tony Potts describes Dave Caporn as a 'strategic warrior' – honest and straight down the line. 'He's objective, impartial, determi
ned and able to see all sides of an operation. He's the best investigator I've ever come across.' But who is judging the judges?
'How can you say this,' I ask, 'when the crimes are still unsolved?'
He doesn't miss a beat. 'If an offender runs out with his hands in the air and confesses to police, does that mean it's a more successful operation than one that takes longer to solve? A measure of a successful investigation should be that all procedures have been followed and every avenue to identify the offender is eliminated. It is about thoroughness, not outcome.'
Thoroughness, not outcome.
John Quigley assesses this judgement. 'How interesting. It's a little like the surgeon who says that every one of his operations was technically brilliant, but that it was just a shame that on a mere technicality some patients died.'
Con Bayens doesn't know if the person whose name he gave Macro was ever investigated, but doubts that it was. 'They reckoned that they had their man!' he says. 'So why would they bother?'
Ten years after the first Claremont murder, Paul Ferguson articulates the pain the victims' families have endured. 'Make no mistake: this serial killer has changed the innocence of Perth. There is a monster out there who has worked up a system to kill vulnerable young women and escape detection. It doesn't get more frightening than this.'
Ferguson was, for the Spiers family, the face of the investigation and their great support. He still thinks about Sarah. 'As tragic as it is, two families have a place to go where they can pay their respects and talk to their daughters. But the Spiers family – the ones who kick-started this whole stinking thing off, the ones whose energies sparked the homicide squad to get going – they don't have that chance. This killer hasn't just robbed Sarah of life, he's taken the lives of her family as well. He has taken the lives of all their families. You only have to look at the enormous emotional and physical toll it has taken to know that.'
The Devil's Garden Page 31