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AS she turned off her toilet bathe, Liz Kirkby stepped right into a scene straight out of a horror movie.
Standing earlier than her was a person wearing a nightie with underwear on his hear, who proceeded to throw the mum-of-three to the ground and brutally beat her.
It wasn’t till practically 30 years later that Liz would uncover her attacker was the serial killer and rapist Bradley Robert Edwards.
He was the warped monster behind the Claremont Murders, the longest and costliest homicide case in Western Australia’s historical past, which spanned throughout greater than 24 years.
Liz narrowly escaped Edwards when he broke into her home in Huntingdale, WA, however was nonetheless left with a fractured cranium, swollen face and two black eyes.
In Night time Stalker: Terror In A Small City, airing on Channel 5 tonight, she recollects how the terrifying assault got here eight years earlier than Edwards’ first homicide – however says she wasn’t taken severely by police as a result of being a single mum.


Prowler thriller
Within the late Nineteen Eighties, an astonishing 26 incidents had been reported to police about an individual dubbed the ‘Huntingdale Prowler’.
They concerned a person breaking into homes, stealing underwear and attacking girls – all with the same description to Liz’s attacker.
Within the documentary, Liz recollects: “I used to be 24, 25, and I used to be divorced with three kids, and being a single mom wasn’t that frequent in these days.
“I simply purchased a home in Huntingdale, of which I used to be actually proud.”
Within the days earlier than the assault, Liz had organized for a cellphone line to be put in in her home, however felt so uncomfortable with the engineer that she referred to as up her dad.
“I could not watch for him to go,” she says, earlier than including of her attacker: “That is why I made a decision to myself that it was in all probability him, that is how he discovered me.”
Recalling her assault, she goes on to clarify: “I simply received house from work within the night, I labored in a bottle store. I let the cat out, as a result of I had kittens, that is why the door was opened. That is how he received in.
“I used to be simply going out of the bathe and he was in my rest room. He had a lady’s nightie on and what I feel had been lingerie on his head.
“At first I assumed it was a joke, after I noticed him. I could not see his full face; I may see his eyes, they went darkish, clearly to match his soul.
“Then he pushed me towards the wall and I had a fractured cranium and I fell onto the ground and he was beating me.”
It was Liz’s kids – and her fears for them – that gave her the energy to flee from the attacker.
She continues: “Oddly I assumed he needed the youngsters, I did suppose he’d must kill me earlier than he may get to the kids.
“So that is what in all probability protected me, it was that maternal intuition, defending the kids.
“I kneed him within the groin and he received off and ran out the backdoor and it wasn’t till I noticed myself that I realised how dangerous it was.
“My face wasn’t recognisable as a result of it was so swollen. And the bruises and the 2 black eyes. He was very brutal, very sturdy.”
Regardless of this, she claims police by no means put sufficient effort into discovering the wrongdoer.
She says: “I feel if I lived someplace in a greater suburb, there maybe would have been extra sources put into searching for him.
“However actually being a Huntingdale single mum, I do not suppose there was an significance positioned upon it that there ought to have been.
“And the police did not inform me on the time that I used to be one among many.”
She provides: “I did not know that till lately.”
Homicide path
In January 1996, secretary Sarah Spiers, 17, went lacking after an evening out in Claremont, Perth.
5 months later, childcare employee Jane Rimmer, 23, disappeared from the identical space, and was later discovered useless.
Then, eight months later, solicitor Ciara Glennon, 27, was discovered useless – additionally across the similar busy space of Claremont.
Police looked for the wrongdoer of those three crimes for years, in the most costly and in depth case in Western Australia historical past.
Nevertheless it wasn’t till 2016, because of the progress in DNA evaluation, that they lastly arrested Edwards, and linked him to the Huntingdale Prowler too.
Nail clippings which had been collected from the physique of Ciara in 1997 had been put by means of testing once more within the 2010s, and matched the DNA linked to the Huntingdale Prowler.
In 2016, Edwards, now 54, was arrested for the murders of Sarah, Ciara and Jane.
He was residing along with his daughter, in her 20s, at a house in Kewdale and her screams of terror had been heard across the neighbourhood as he was shoved into the police automobile.
His second spouse had left him two years prior and he had been working as a senior electrical engineer for Telstra, and volunteering at athletics golf equipment.
Liz says: “Discovering out the person who had assaulted me was Bradley Edwards had a profound impact on me emotionally and psychologically.
“You undergo a number of issues. What in the event that they’d have caught him again then? However we’ll by no means know.
“I’ve considered it hundreds of instances. How can he go 30-odd years committing probably the most heinous crimes this nation has ever seen and by no means get caught?”
Justice finally
The primary of Edwards’ recognized assaults was all the way in which again in 1988, when he crept into the bed room of his 18-year-old neighbour.
Carrying a nightie, stockings and silk kimono – which he left behind – he climbed on prime of her as she slept, earlier than fleeing the scene.
This kimono grew to become central to the investigation into the Claremont Killings, because it was stored by police as proof and re-examined years later.
Within the 2010s, Edwards’ DNA was present in semen on the silk kimono, in addition to underneath murdered Ciara’s fingernails.
The DNA additionally linked him to a different incident the yr earlier than Sarah went lacking.
A 17-year-old woman had reported how she’d been kidnapped from the road and thrown into the again of a van.
With a hood pulled over her face and her neck tied, she was dragged to a cemetery and sexually assaulted.
In 2020, Edwards was topic to a trial that lasted six months, and solely had a choose with no jury.
He denied murdering the three girls, and by no means gave proof.
Justice Stephen Corridor ultimately discovered him responsible of murdering Ciara and Jane.
He mentioned there wasn’t sufficient DNA proof to search out him responsible of the homicide of Sarah, as a result of her physique by no means being discovered, however mentioned it was “doubtless” he did kill her too.
He sentenced him to no less than 40 years earlier than he has any likelihood of parole.
He referred to as Edwards a “harmful predator who sought out susceptible younger girls and attacked them on your personal gratification”.
Talking of Jane and Ciara, he added: “They had been each younger girls with household and pals who cherished them. They’d good jobs and plenty to dwell for.


“By your actions you not solely robbed them of their lives, however their hopes, their desires and the desires of others for them.”
Night time Stalker: Terror In A Small City, airs on Channel 5 tonight.
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