23 Dec 2016

Australian man charged over historical serial killings

2:43 pm on 23 December 2016

Australian police investigating an historic serial killer case have charged a 48-year-old man with the murders of two women in Perth in the 1990s.

The deaths of three women - who disappeared from the upmarket Perth suburb of Claremont over 14 months between 1996 and 1997 - sparked Australia's longest-running and most expensive police investigation.

Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said a Kewdale man arrested yesterday morning had been charged with the abduction and murder of Jane Rimmer, 23, and Ciara Glannon, 27.

Ms Rimmer disappeared after a night out with friends in 1996. Her body was discovered in bushland Wellard on 3 August of that year.

Ms Glennon, 27 disappeared on 14 March, 1997, after she had also had a night out in Claremont. Her body was found in bushland in Eglington, north of Perth.

The man has also been charged in relation to attacks on other women, including two counts of deprivation of liberty, two counts of aggravated sexual penetration without consent, one count of breaking and entering and one count of indecent assault.

The commissioner said police would allege he abducted a 17-year-old girl as she walked through a park in 1995 and took her to a nearby cemetery where he sexually assaulted her.

He is also alleged to have entered the bedroom of an 18-year-old girl in 1998, and attacked her while she slept. He fled after she struggled.

Perth teenager Sarah Spiers, who disappeared after leaving Club Bay View in Claremont on January 27, 1996, remains missing. Her body has never been found.

- ABC