When three young women were abducted from the seemingly safe Perth suburb of Claremont in the 1990s and murdered, it would change how an entire generation of Australian women felt about going out at night.
The murderer—known as the Claremont serial killer—wasn’t caught for another 25 years, leaving the victims’ family and friends without answers for almost three decades.
When Bradley Robert Edwards was caught in 2016, Western Australia breathed a sigh of relief at the state’s biggest unsolved murder case could finally be put to bed.
But for Edward’s victims and their families, the arrest came 25 years too late.
Who Were The Claremont Serial Killer’s Victims?
Edwards is convicted of murdering two women—Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon— and strongly believed to have murdered a third—Sarah Spiers.
The three women shared some remarkable similarities: they were all middle class, had full time jobs, and had never met Edwards before the nights they went missing
For the public, the women reminded them of their own friends, sisters and daughters.
Jane, Ciara and Sarah were all simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sarah Spiers
At just 18 years old, Sarah was the youngest of Edward’s three victims and the first to go missing.
Sarah was brought up in Darkan, a small town in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia and attended high school in Perth. After graduating from the prestigious Iona Presentation College in Mosman Park, Sarah went to secretarial school and got a job as a receptionist at an engineering consultancy in Subiaco.
At the time of her disappearance, Sarah was sharing an apartment in South Perth with her older sister Amanda.
On the evening of January 26 1996, Amanda picked up Sarah and some friends from the Ocean Beach Hotel in Cottesloe and dropped them at Club Bayview in Claremont just after midnight.
“She was happy, gave me a hug, kiss, ‘thanks for dropping me off’ … that’s the last time I saw her,” Amanda told reporters at the time.
Sarah later called a taxi from a public telephone booth but was not there when it arrived only minutes later.
The family still don’t know why Sarah left the nightclub alone after midnight.
“She wasn’t ignorant to the dangers of the city,” Sarah’s father Don Spiers told reporters.
“It was unusual for her not to be in company at that time because we stressed to them always to keep company, never to be alone, and that was probably the most unusual thing—that she did part company with her friends.”
Sarah’s body has never been found.
Jane Rimmer
Jane disappeared from the same area, just a few months after Sarah.
Jane had grown up in Shenton Park, attending Rosalie Primary School and Hollywood High School.
At the time of her murder, Jane was 23 years old and working at a childcare centre in Nedlands. Being very close with her family, it was completely out of character for her not be in contact.
Jane was last seen on security camera footage outside the Continental Hotel in Claremont, where she was enjoying a night out with friends.
The footage shows a dark-haired man—believed to be Edwards—moving towards her.
Jane’s body was found in bushland 40km south of Claremont, three weeks after her disappearance.
Ciara Glennon
Ciara was 27 years old when she disappeared from the Continental hotel in Claremont.
She was born in Zambia to Irish parents, who moved to Perth when Ciara was six years old. The family settled in the affluent riverside suburb of Mosman Park and Ciara studied law and Japanese at the nearby University of Western Australia.
Ciara had only just returned to Perth after a year of travelling when she disappeared.
The young lawyer had returned to be a bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding, and had already returned to work at her old job with Blake Dawson Waldron.
Ciara was last seen making her way home from the Continental Hotel in Claremont on March 14, 1997.
Her body was found 40km north of Claremont in bushland near Eglinton.
Edward’s Other Victims
Edwards was also found guilty of the abduction and repeated rape of a 17-year-old from Claremont, who he attacked in Karrakatta Cemetery, and the attack of an 18-year-old in Huntingdale, whose bedroom he broke into.
These women’s identities have not been disclosed.
In September 2020, Edwards was sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 40 years. He resides behind bars in Western Australia.
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