Urban Legends in The Northwest Territories Canada

Explore these mysterious sites and you’ll agree: It’s weird at the top of the world

You can’t make this stuff up. During winters that plunge to 60-below, and summers where a day lasts for months, the world gets downright bizarre. Frozen volcanoes bulge from the tundra, erupting in super-slow motion. Lakes vanish, draining through a hole in the permafrost. Underground fires spit sparks in the Arctic night. And rivers rage with waves so big they're a perpetual tsunami.

Up here, you’ll see things you could never imagine. Welcome to the land of mystery – the place that is stranger than fiction.

Bear Rock Sinkhole

Between the towns of Tulita and Norman Wells, in the great roadless core of the Northwest Territories, dozens of sinkholes pit the forest – odd, disfiguring pockmarks in the face of Mother Earth. The most famous is this one, northwest of Bear Rock, with plunging sides and deep aquamarine waters. Scientists say it was formed by the collapse of a vast subterranean cave.

Scimitar Canyon

Nahanni National Park Reserve is slashed by all sorts of gaping gorges, but the most dramatic is this dangerous, dark, sheer-sided, unexplored incision – legendary Scimitar Canyon. It’s 20 kilometers long, very narrow and mysteriously deep. It was formed eons ago when the Ram River slit open the Ram Plateau, carving the most fearsome chasm you’ll ever peer into.

The Smoking Hills

On the shores of Cape Bathurst in the Western Arctic, the bleak Smoking Hills have smoldered for centuries, sending sulphuric soot billowing over the Northwest Passage. A place of fire and brimstone, the area is underlain with oil shales that spontaneously ignite when exposed to air. Just to the east is the community of Paulatuk – the name of which means, appropriately, “place of coal.”

Lotus Flower Tower

Revered as "one of the most aesthetically beautiful rock faces in the world," Lotus Flower Tower is a sheer, breathtaking 2,200-foot cliff – one of the world's tallest, most severe walls of stone. The signature face in the Cirque of the Unclimables, this skyscraping escarpment attracts world-class alpinists. It's not for the faint of heart: It takes iron guts to keep your cool when there's a half-mile of thin air between you and terra firma.

The Bottomless Lake

Beneath Great Slave Lake’s whitecaps lies a deep secret – a mysterious, watery abyss unrivaled in North America. At a point not far offshore from the community of Łutselk’e, the lake-bottom falls away two-thirds of a kilometer – the deepest point in North America. It’s unclear how far down it goes. The official figure is 614 meters – 2,014 feet. But according to researchers who recently conducted bathymetric soundings, there are trenches that reach even farther down – by 30 meters, or maybe more. 

The Ice Roads

Each winter the length of the highway in the Northwest Territories doubles, as a network of ice roads are built atop frozen lakes, rivers and even the Arctic Ocean. Most of the routes are underlain by ice four feet thick – strong enough to hold up a jumbo jet. But every so often the highway gives way, threatening to send unlucky vehicles to their watery doom. 

Rabbitkettle Tufa Mound

Like a bizarre lunar stalagmite, the largest tufa mound in Canada rises near the shores of the Rabbitkettle River in Nahanni National Park. Thirty meters tall and 10,000 years old, the mound is formed by thermal springs that burble from the volcanic ground, leaching calcium carbonate that hardens into a crust of tufa. Take off your shoes and follow park officials on a barefoot hike to the delicate summit.

The Rapids of the Drowned

The name's no joke. Where the vast Slave River crashes into the Precambrian Shield just shy of Fort Smith, it explodes into a maelstrom of house-high waves, log-eating whirlpools, and galloping currents. The features have names that range from the sublime to the ridiculous – like Rollercoaster, Rockem Sockem, Land of A Thousand Holes, and the one pictured above, legendary Molly's Nipple.

The Bottom of Con Mine

Plunging 6,240 feet into the Earth's crust, the bottom of Yellowknife's defunct Con Mine is one of the deepest man-made points on Earth. Despite Arctic conditions up at the surface, miners at the base had to contend with sweltering heat. Indeed, at nearly two kilometers down, the mine is so warm that the city of Yellowknife has considered tapping its geothermal potential, pumping hot water from the depths to warm local buildings.

The Fairy Meadows

Described as a magical oasis in a cathedral of peaks, or as the eye of a mountainous hurricane, the legendary Fairy Meadow is the Shangri-La of Nahanni National Park Reserve. A plush pasture, luxuriant with delicate alpine wildflowers, it is ringed by the impossibly steep Cirque of the Unclimbables – an amphitheater of sheer peaks that beckon the best rock-climbers in the world.

The Lake That Fell Off a Cliff

Now you see it ... now you don't. A few years ago, residents of Fort McPherson were warned of the impending "catastrophic drainage" of this 1.5-hectare lake, about 20 kilometers west of the community. Soon after, in a massive, muddy, five-story-high waterfall, the lake all but emptied – the victim of thawing permafrost, which undermined its embankment. No one was injured in the resulting flash-flood, but 30,000 cubic meters of water engulfed the downstream drainage.

Ibyuk Pingo

The most popular attraction in Tuktoyaktuk is this great green mound, swelling high above the Arctic coast. As tall as a 15-story the building, it’s called Ibyuk Pingo – the most massive pingo in Canada. Engorged with ice, it is slowly expanding, like a Coke can bulging ominously in the freezer. Eventually, like that can, it will split its top and burst, then sag back into the tundra.

The Peak with No Name

Trivia question: What’s the name of the NWT’s tallest mountain? If you said “I don’t know,” then you’re correct. The territory’s highest peak – a 2,773-metre summit in the Ragged Range, just east of the Yukon border – doesn’t have a name. Informally, the icy rampart is sometimes called Mt. Nirvana, or Summit 2773, or Summit 9027 (its height in feet), or simply Unnamed Peak. Yet the Geographical Names Board of Canada doesn’t accept these names. The official name must come from the Nahanni Butte Dene Band, in whose traditional territory the peak lies. Thus far, the band has not supplied a name.

The Salt Plains

Just off Highway 5 near Fort Smith is the famous Salt Plains, where visitors can trek across a vast sparkling-white field, formed by saline water burbling from deep inside the Earth. The crystalline landscape supports unique species of salt-tolerant plants and attracts animals (wolves, bison, bears and more) that use the area as a salt-lick. People, too, have long gathered salt here – it was harvested commercially during the fur-trade days, and it's tempting to pinch a bit today.

The World’s Biggest Beaver Dam

Beavers are famously busy – but in Wood Buffalo National Park, they’ve been working overtime. In the remote corner of the vast park lies the planet’s biggest beaver dam – the work of generations of beavers that have been gnawing away at the forest since at least the 1970s. Nearly a kilometer long, it impounds a decent-sized swamp. The dam is so big that it can be seen from space – indeed, researchers discovered while poring over satellite data.

The Women of Juarez

The phenomenon of the female homicides in Ciudad Juárez, called in Spanish feminicidio ("feminicide") involves the violent deaths of hundreds of women and girls since 1993 in the northern Mexican region of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, a border city across the Rio Grande from the U.S. city of El Paso, Texas. As of February 27, 2005, the number of murdered women in Ciudad Juárez since 1993 is estimated to be more than 370.

After surveying 155 killings out of 340 documented between 1993 and 2003, a government committee found that roughly half were prompted by motives like robbery and gang wars, while a little more than a third involved sexual assault.

The murders of women and girls in Ciudad Juárez since 1993 have received international attention, primarily due to perceived government inaction in preventing violence against women and girls and bringing perpetrators to justice.

Nature of female homicides

Evidence suggests that a specific group of women and girls are being targeted in Ciudad Juárez.  The victims share common characteristics, and there are many similarities in the violent crimes committed against them.  Most of the victims are young women who come from impoverished backgrounds and work in maquiladoras, as factory workers, in other sectors of the informal economy or are students.  In addition, many victims share common physical attributes, including dark skin, slender physique, and dark, shoulder-length hair.  In terms of the crimes, similarities across cases include the rape, torture, and mutilation of the victims.

Homicide statistics

There are various media reports with different numbers ranging from hundreds to thousands of female homicides in the Ciudad Juárez region. For this reason, Amnesty International reports, "Inadequate official data on the crimes committed in Chihuahua, particularly accurate figures on the exact number of murders and abductions of girls and women, has led to disputes around the issues that obscure the quest for justice."

According to Amnesty International, as of February 2005, more than 370 young women and girls had been murdered in the cities of Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua.  More recently, prosecutors from the state of Chihuahua reported that in 2010, 270 women were killed within the state, of these murders 247 occurred in Juárez.  In 2011, Chihuahua's Attorney General, Carlos Manuel Salas announced during a briefing in August 2011 that 222 women had been killed in Chihuahua since January of that year.  Of these 222 murders, 130 of them occurred in Ciudad Juárez.  In total, more than 300 women were murdered in the city in 2011.

A study was conducted in 2008 on the Feminicide Database 1993–2007 at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte which documented incidents of feminicide that occurred in Ciudad Juárez from 1993–2007. Of the various different kinds of murders that were analyzed, the study found two common patterns in the data which were classified as intimate feminicide and systemic sexual feminicide.  Intimate feminicide refers to women who were killed by men that were close to them.  According to the study, intimate feminicide accounted for 30.4% of the murders of women and girls in Juárez from 1993–2007. Systematic sexual feminicide refers to systematic patterns in the killing of women and children including kidnapping, sexual violence, torture, and body abandonment in areas such as desert areas, garbage dumps, and sewage ditches among others.  According to the study, systemic sexual feminicide accounted for 31.8% of the murders of women in Juárez from 1993–2007.

Total number of homicides in Juárez

According to Molly Molloy, a research librarian and professor at New Mexico State University (also founder and maintainer of "Frontera List", a long-running mailing list dedicated to information and discussion about issues in the U.S.-Mexico border), the situation in Juárez is one of "impunity regardless of gender".  She states that "female murder victims have never comprised more than 18 percent of the overall number of murder victims in Ciudad Juárez, and in the last two decades that figure averages at less than 10 percent. That’s less than in the United States, where about 20 to 25 percent of the people who are murdered in a given year are women".

Other scholars also state that femicide rates in Ciudad Juárez are lower than in American cities such as Houston and Ensenada, and as a share of overall homicide rates they are typically lower than in other cities.

Motives

The uncertainty about the characteristics of the perpetrators, their relationships to the victims, or their motives is primarily due to the dysfunction of the Mexican justice system as most cases have been inadequately investigated and documented.  While in many of the cases in Ciudad Juárez it has yet to be determined who exactly has committed the murders, much of the literature on this issue purports that patriarchal backlash against working women may be a potential motive for the killings.

It is believed that the femicide in Ciudad Juárez may be related to organized crime (like prostitution rings) given the presence of the powerful drug cartels in the region. Further, criminal gangs have become a permanent threat particularly to women on the border. Gang activity creates high risk for women especially due to very little institutional protection.

This patriarchal backlash may indeed be the result of lack of employment opportunities for men and more women entering the workforce which has altered traditional gender dynamics and created a situation of conflict between the sexes.  Other researchers attribute the murders to Mexico's structural crisis including increasing poverty, unemployment, the disintegration of the peasant economy, migration, and a dysfunctional justice system.  Overall, in considering the potential motives for gendered violence against women, academic Mercedes Olivera has argued that femicide is a mechanism of domination, control, oppression, and power over women.

Contributing factors

Organized crime and drug trafficking

In examining femicide in Ciudad Juárez, it is important to consider the impact of the drug trade. Juárez is the seat of the Mexican drug cartel which has resulted in high levels of violence that have been directed at the Mexican population.  It is believed that the femicide in Ciudad Juárez may be related to the powerful drug cartels along the border. Further, gangs have become a permanent threat particularly to women on the border. Gang activity creates high risk for women especially due to very little institutional protection.

Often, misogyny is a common trait of gang activity.  According to a study conducted in 2008 using the Feminicide Database 1993–2007 at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, which documented incidents of feminicide that occurred in Ciudad Juárez from 1993–2007, 9.1% of the murders of women were attributed to organized crime and drug trafficking activities.

From 2007-2010, the murder rate spiked by around 1000%, from around 1 reported murder per day, to around 10 murders per day on average. After the ATF gunwalking scandal where United States federal ATF agents were exposed for engaging in a scheme to "inadvertently" arm Mexican drug cartels with firearms in 2010, the rate has gradually declined from the previous status of the "murder capital of the world".

Maquila industry

Maquiladoras are widely known for their cheap labor and their exploitative conditions, such as regularly violating basic human rights, which often target women.  Women and girls often migrate from villages or rural areas in other parts of Mexico in search of work in the maquilas.  According to Livingston, this migration of women created, "a new phenomenon of mobile, independent and vulnerable working women," in cities like Ciudad Juárez.  Women and girls are often funneled to work in areas that require lower education, and pay lower wages.

Maquiladoras construct their female workforce under the notion that female workers are temporary workers, therefore justifying lower wages and creating a high turnover rate of laborers.  According to Monarrez Fragoso, "the practices of the maquiladora industry towards the workers reveal a consume and dispose cycle."  This consume and dispose cycle represents how the maquila industry creates "disposable" women referencing the devaluation and expendable nature of their labor.

Many of the murder victims in Ciudad Juárez have been maquiladora employees.  Despite the expansion of the maquila industry, Juárez still remained a relatively poor and undeveloped city lacking infrastructure in some parts such as electricity and paved roads.  As a part of their daily commute, many women maquila workers walk through such areas to and from company buses creating vulnerability to be victimized.  In addition, the increased involvement of women in the labor force may also be a contributing factor to the victimization of women and girls because of the competition for economic resources in decades in which male unemployment has been high.

NAFTA

The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 resulted in the expansion of the maquiladora industry and created new opportunities for employment for women outside of the home and in the factories.  The availability of cheap labor made it attractive for business owners to open factories in Mexico, and the availability of cheap employment attracted many, especially women, to border towns such as Ciudad Juárez. Research has shown correlations between economic and political issues and violence against women along the border.

Academic Katherine Pantaleo has argued that, "NAFTA, as a capitalist approach, has directly created a devaluation of women and an increase in gendered violence."  Further, according to Wright, in the time period between the implementation of NAFTA in 1994 and 2001, "the homicide rate for men increased by 300 percent, while for women it increased by 600 percent."  Such studies indicate the importance of exploring the effects of NAFTA when considering the possible causes of the murder of women and girls in Ciudad Juárez.  Consequently, it has been suggested that amendments be made to NAFTA that include human rights provisions.

Machismo and Marianismo ideology

Sociocultural factors in relation to traditional gender roles have impacted violence against women in Mexico.[6] According to Pantaleo, "Under the view of patriarchy, two expressions are commonly used in Mexico to show the difference in status of males and females; these expressions are machismo and marianismo."  Machismo is characterized by male power and aggression; while marianismo is characterized by subordination and domestic gender roles.  As part of the marianismo ideology, women are expected to fulfill domestic roles as wives and mothers and to refrain from paid labor outside of the home.

Women who leave their homes to seek employment in the maquila industry directly challenge the marianismo ideal of womanhood.  Olivera suggests that this changed situation challenges hypermasculinity, in which aggressive aspects of male identity are exaggerated in order to preserve their identity.  According to Livingston, gender-directed violence in Ciudad Juárez may be a negative reaction as women "gain greater personal autonomy and independence while men lose ground."

Police and governmental response

The murder of women in Juárez has attracted global attention since 1993 given suspected police and government inaction to prevent the murders and bring perpetrators to justice.  There have been several international rulings against Mexico for its inadequate response to the increasing violence against women.  Police and government officials have been accused of responding with indifference to the crimes against women as well as exhibiting tolerance for such crimes, conducting inadequate and negligent investigations, ineffectively responding to the crimes, and failing to prevent and protect women from violence.

As a result of international attention, police and government officials have been politically pressured to respond to the murders.  Consequently, due to political pressure for justice, police have been accused of rushing to make arrests and solve cases while the crimes continue to occur.  Further, out of hundreds of cases, only three convictions have ever been made and there is much skepticism involving the integrity of the convictions.

The methodology and integrity of police investigations has been questioned due to allegations of torture and human rights violations of alleged suspects.  Amnesty International reports, "The government [has] failed to take effective measures to investigate and bring to justice those responsible for the abduction and killing of three women in Ciudad Juárez... or to combat the ongoing pattern of violence against women and discrimination in the city.

Convictions

According to Pantaleo, "While around 400 girls and women have been abducted and murdered; few arrests and convictions have resulted."  For convictions that have been made, there is a great deal of controversy that surrounds them.  Police have been accused of conducting rushed investigations with questionable methodology and integrity.  Further, suspects that have been apprehended have claimed that they were tortured into confessing.  This has caused uncertainty of the legitimacy of both investigations and convictions.

In 1996, an Egyptian national, Omar Sharif Latif or Abdul Latif Sharif was convicted of 3 murders and sentenced to a 30-year prison term.  After his arrest in 1995, the murders continued and authorities claimed that Sharif directed members of the "Los Rebeldes" gang to continue the murders while he was incarcerated.  These members were indicted and convicted as a result of this connection.  The gang members accused of carrying out murders under Sharif's orders claimed they were tortured while in police custody.  According to Monarrez Fragoso, "In the year 2000, it was known that the body of Elizabeth Castro Garcia, whose murder was attributed to Omar Sharif Latif, does not belong to her."  His conviction is currently under appeal.

In 2001, Victor Garcia Uribe and Gustavo Gonzalez Meza were apprehended for eight murders.  Gustavo Gonzalez Mesa died suspiciously while in police custody.  In 2004, Victor Garcia Uribe, a bus driver, was convicted of eight murders that took place in 2001.  He confessed to these murders but claimed that he was tortured into confessing by police.

In 2008, 16-year-old Ruby Frayre Escobedo was murdered by Sergio Barraza Bocanegra who was acquitted at his first trial for lack of evidence. Following two years of activism, a retrial convicted Bocanegra who remained on the run. In 2010, Ruby's mother, Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, was assassinated by a shot to the head at point blank range while demonstrating for justice in front of the Governor's Palace in Chihuahua.

International justice

There have been several international rulings against Mexico for its inadequate response to the increasing violence against women.  According to Livingston, "In 1998 the National Commission for Human Rights issued a report charging gross irregularities and general negligence in state investigations, including the misidentification of corpses, failure to obtain expert tests on forensic evidence, failure to conduct autopsies or obtain semen analysis... failure to file written reports, [and] incompetence in keeping records of the rising tide of women murders."

In 2004, under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) conducted an inquiry into the allegations that hundreds of murders of women and girls had taken place in the area of Ciudad Juarez since 1993 at the urging of several NGOs.  In order for the inquiry to take place it was required that there was reliable evidence that showed that Mexico was in violation of rights established by CEDAW.  The Committee analyzed the gender-based crimes occurring in Ciudad Juárez and found the two common forms were murder and disappearances. The Committee also analyzed the response of the government and found that their initial response was indifference and that the government exhibited tolerance of these crimes for years.

Further, the Committee concluded that the measures undertaken by the Mexican State in response to gendered violence against women leading up to the time of their inquiry were, "few and ineffective at all levels of the State".  The Committee made several recommendations for Mexico to adhere to. Although these recommendations were not legally binding, they were influential in the public sphere.

According to Amnesty International, "In [2009], the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled on the “cotton field” (Campo Algodonero) case that Mexico was guilty of discrimination and of failing to protect three young women murdered in 2001 in Ciudad Juárez or to ensure an effective investigation into their abduction and murder."  The Court ordered Mexico to conduct a new investigation of the murders, create a national memorial for the victims, pay reparations to the families of the victims, and to improve measures which prevent and adequately investigate the murder of women and girls.

Local activism

According to Simmons, "The murders in Juárez would not have drawn such national and international attention if it were not for the heroic efforts of the victims' families and other women."  There have been numerous local and international organizations that have helped draw attention to the issue of the murder of women in Juárez which has helped to create pressure for the Mexican government to agree to further its efforts to respond to violence against women.  Further, the work of political leaders, activists, artists, academics, and journalists combined have also been instrumental in bringing international attention to the murder of women in Juárez and the issues that surround them.

In 1999, a group of feminist activists founded Casa Amiga, Juárez's first rape crisis and sexual assault center.  The center works to provide women in Juárez with a refuge against violence, therapy, legal counsel, and medical attention.  Casa Amiga also works to raise public awareness both locally and internationally regarding the exploitation and dehumanization of women in Juárez.

In 2002, a social justice movement named Ni Una Mas, which in Spanish means "not one more," was formed to raise international awareness to violence against women in Juárez.  The movement consists of a variety of domestic and international organizations and individual activists.  Ni Una Mas participants demand that the Mexican state implement strategies that prevent violence against women including murder and kidnappings and that the state conduct competent investigations on crimes already committed.

In addition to Casa Amiga and Ni Una Mas, family support groups such as Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa A.C., which in Spanish means "Our Daughters Back Home," have also formed in response to the violence against women in Juárez.  Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa A.C. has also worked to bring domestic and international media attention to the violence against women in Juárez.

In popular culture

In television

The American television series The Bridge (2013) used the disappearance of the girls of Juárez as part of the backdrop to a series of murders.

In film

The documentary Blood Rising (2013) directed by Mark McLoughlin, which examines the phenomenon of femicide in Juárez through the work of an artist, Brian Maguire.

The film Backyard: El Traspatio (2009), directed by Carlos Carrera, is based on these events.

The film Bordertown (2006), starring Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas, is based on these murders.

The film Señorita Extraviada/Missing Young Woman (2001) by Lourdes Portillo is a documentary following the femicides of Juárez.

The documentary film Equal Means Equal (2016) directed by Kamala Lopez features a segment on the women of Juárez.

The documentary film Bajo Juárez: La Ciudad Devorando a Sus Hijas (2006) directed by José Antonio Cordero and Alejandra Sánchez hints at the many layers of political collusion and indifference from local, state and federal authorities.

In music

Tori Amos wrote a song about these incidents titled "Juárez", for her album To Venus and Back (1999-2000), after reading about them.

At the Drive-In's song "Invalid Litter Dept." (2001) contains lyrics about the murders.

Los Tigres del Norte's song "Mujeres de Juárez" discusses the lack of government action in finding the perpetrators.

The Misfits wrote a song about Juárez titled "Where Do They Go?" from their 2011 album The Devil's Rain. In the lyrics, the incidents are referred to as femicides.

The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die's song "January 10th, 2014" is about the murders and the vigilante justice that took place in their aftermath.

Intocable's song Día 730 has an example that links it to one girl who was going to become famous, but instead became one of the victims for feminicide.

Sheer Mag's song "Can't Stop Fighting," from their third EP, references the phenomenon in its first lines.

In print

In Roberto Bolaño's novel, 2666 (2004), the murders serve as inspiration for a major section entitled "The Part about the Crimes", although the novel is actually set in "Santa Teresa", a fictionalized version of Ciudad Juárez.

Alicia Gaspar de Alba's mystery novel, Desert Blood (2005), addresses this topic.

"Each and Her" (2010) by Valerie Martinez is a book-length poem that addresses the murders in the context of politics, gender oppression, mythology, art, and more.

"If I Die In Juárez" (2008) by Stella Pope Duarte

 In Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues, female homicides in Juárez feature in the monologue "Memory of Her Face".

"Señorita X - Song for the Yellow-Robed Girl from Juárez" (2007) by Juan Felipe Herrera

"The Daughters of Juárez: A True Story of Serial Murder South of the Border" (2007) by Teresa Rodríguez

The Way She Spoke written by Isaac Gomez

Claremont Serial Killings

The Claremont serial killings is the name given by the media to a case involving the disappearance of an Australian woman, aged 18, and the killings of two others, aged 23 and 27, in 1996-1997. After attending night spots in Claremont, a wealthy western suburb of Perth, Western Australia, all three women disappeared in similar circumstances leading police to suspect that an unidentified serial killer was the offender. The case, described as the state's biggest, longest-running, and most expensive investigation, remains unsolved.  However, in 2016, a suspect, Bradley Robert Edwards, was arrested. His trial began in November 2019.

Background

The case began with the disappearance of Sarah Spiers (18) on 27 January 1996, after she left Club Bayview in the center of Claremont at around 2:00 am.  At 2:06 am, Spiers called Swan Taxis from a public telephone booth.  Although she was living in South Perth with her older sister at the time, she had requested to be taken to the nearby suburb of Mosman Park.  She was then sighted waiting alone near the corner of Stirling Road and Stirling Highway by three eyewitnesses, who also mentioned seeing an unidentified car stopping where she was waiting.  However, she was not at the site when the responding taxi arrived at 2:09 and, in the dark, could have been missed by the driver. Her disappearance soon attracted massive publicity and her fate remains unknown.

In the early hours of Sunday 9 June 1996, Jane Rimmer from Shenton Park also disappeared from the same part of Claremont.  Similar to Spiers, she had been out socializing with friends the night before. Rimmer's friends explained how they had moved from the Ocean Beach Hotel to the Continental Hotel and then Club Bayview.  Noting the long line at the club, her friends then caught a taxi home, but Rimmer opted to stay, and she was last seen on security footage waiting outside the Continental at 12:04 am.  Fifty-five days later, on Saturday, 3 August 1996, her naked body was found 40 km south in bush-land near Woolcoot Road, Wellard by a family picking wildflowers.

Nine months later, in the early hours of Saturday 15 March 1997, Ciara Glennon, a 27-year-old lawyer from Mosman Park, also disappeared from the Claremont area.  Like the others, she was with friends at the Continental and had decided to make her own way home. Three men at a bus stop saw Glennon walking south along Stirling Highway at approximately 12:30 am and observed her interacting with an unidentified light a colored vehicle that had stopped by her.  Nineteen days later, on 3 April, her the semi-clothed body was found by a bushwalker, 40 km north, near a track in scrub off Pipidinny Road in Eglinton.

Investigation

Within 48 hours of the disappearance of Spiers, the case was taken over by the Major Crimes Squad.  After the disappearance of Rimmer, the WA Police set up a special task-force called Macro to investigate the two similar cases.  After the disappearance of Glennon, police confirmed that they were searching for a serial killer and the WA government offered a $250,000 reward, the largest ever offered in the state at that time.

Initial suspicion centered on the unidentified vehicles seen at two of the locations, and on an unidentified man seen in the video footage.  Suspicion then focused on Perth's taxi-drivers were given that the women were last seen in circumstances where they may have used taxis. This included a taxi-driver who claimed to have transported Spiers the night before her disappearance.  A massive fingerprint and DNA-testing exercise was then carried out on the thousands of taxi drivers licensed in Western Australia.   Given the evidence of a number of unlicensed operators, examining standards for eligibility were raised, and 78 drivers with a significant criminal history were de-licensed.  Stricter standards were also applied to verifying that decommissioned taxis were stripped of insignia and equipment.  In December 2015, investigators finally revealed that fibers taken from Rimmer were identified as coming from a VS Series 1 Holden Commodore.

Macro attracted both praise and criticism for their handling of the case.  At its peak, it had over 100 members across 10 teams. To avoid leaks, strict confidentiality protocols were implemented, and details of the nature of the deaths and injuries were suppressed.  One of the tactics used by Macro was the controversial distribution of questionnaires to 110 "persons of interest", including various confrontational inquiries such as "Are you the killer?"  Another was its reliance on international experts and the use of an imported lie detector machine.  Further, one of its officers accepted an offer by David Birnie to assist the investigation.  Criticism was also laid on its overly narrow focus on the initial prime suspect despite the lack of direct evidence (as occurred in the cases of Andrew Mallard and Lloyd Rayney).  Over its lifetime, Macro was subject to 11 police reviews, including one in August 2004 led by Paul Schramm, the officer who led the Snowtown investigation.  It was finally wound down in September 2005 and the investigation moved to the Special Crimes Squad.

Suspects

As with similar cases, experts suggested that the suspect was probably a single white male, aged 25–35, who had a residence in the area, who appeared trustworthy, was organized, social, and probably well educated.  Local sex workers were also questioned for signs of unusual behavior in clients.

In April 1998, a public servant from Cottesloe, Lance Williams (41), was identified by police as the prime suspect after his behavior attracted their attention (e.g. driving around after midnight and circling the Claremont area up to 30 times) during a decoy operation.  Subjected to a high level of surveillance and police pressure over several years, he continued to maintain his innocence. After interviewing him six times at length, police declared in late 2008 that he was "no longer a person of interest".  He died in 2018.

It was reported that police also investigated whether Bradley Murdoch may have been involved,  although Murdoch was serving a custodial sentence from November 1995 until February 1997. In October 2006, it was also announced that Mark Dixie was a prime suspect in the killings and that Macro had requested DNA samples.  However, WA Police Deputy Commissioner Murray Lampard was later quoted as saying: "Dixie was closely investigated at the time and eventually ruled out as a suspect."

Trial

On 22 December 2016, Bradley Robert Edwards (48) was arrested at his Kewdale house in relation to the deaths of both Rimmer and Glennon.  According to ABC News, he is believed to have had no previous link to the case. The next day, Edwards was charged with both murders.  He has also been charged in relation to two other alleged attacks: a housebreak and enter and unlawful detention of an 18-year-old woman in Huntingdale on 15 February 1988, and the unlawful detention and two counts of aggravated sexual penetration without consent of a 17-year-old girl in Claremont on 12 February 1995,  On 22 February 2018, Edwards was also charged with the wilful murder of the third victim, Spiers.

In all, Edwards was charged with the following offenses:

·         Charged on 15 February 1988 at Huntingdale, broke and entered without consent at night into the dwelling house of xxxxxxxxxx , with the intent to commit an offense therein.

·         Charged on 15 February 1988 at Huntingdale, unlawfully detained xxxxxxxxxx. .

·         Charged on 12 February 1995 at Claremont, unlawfully detained xxxxxxxxxx. .

·         Charged on 12 February 1995 at Claremont, sexually penetrated one xxxxxxxxxx without her consent in circumstances of aggravation, namely by doing an act which substantially degraded and humiliated the victim.

·          Charged on 12 February 1995 at Claremont, sexually penetrated one xxxxxxxxxx without her consent in circumstances of aggravation, namely by doing an act which substantially degraded and humiliated the victim.

·         Charged that on 27 January 1996 murdered Sarah Spiers.

·         Charged that, between 9 June 1996 and 3 August 1996 at Wellard, willfully murdered Jane Louise Rimmer.

·         Also charged that between 15 March 1997 and 3 April 1997 at Eglinton, wilfully murdered Ciara Eilish Glennon.

On 22 October 2019, Edwards pleaded guilty to charges 1-5.

The trial began on 25 November and will resume on 6 January 2020.  One of the main pieces of evidence in the trial will be Telstra work vehicles. Edwards was working for the company as a technician at the time, and it will be claimed that he used company vehicles after hours to execute the crimes. This is corroborated by a witness who recalled seeing a Telstra van parked on multiple occasions at the Karrakatta Cemetery "for no apparent reason", both after that attack and before Spiers' disappearance.  According to the prosecutor, Carmel Barbagallo, the state intends to present this evidence as part of a case called "Telstra Living Witness project", where between 1995 and 1997 a man with a Telstra station wagon stopped to look at women and offer them rides.

During the Trial a witness Brandon Gray from the group of men dubbed "Burger Boys" identified a Series 1 VS Commodore as cruising past them shortly after Ciara Glennon walked past. The vehicle had distinctive tear-drop hubcaps which were present on some Series 1 VS commodores.

Possible related cases

It has been suggested by journalist Liam Bartlett that Spiers was not the first victim.  He wrote that police have told the father of a fourth missing woman, 22-year-old Julie Cutler, that his daughter was probably a victim of the Claremont killer. Cutler, a university student from Fremantle, vanished after leaving a staff function at the Parmelia Hilton Hotel in Perth at 9:00 pm on 20 June 1988.  Her car was found in the surf near the groyne at Cottesloe Beach two days later, and her fate remains unknown.

Other possible causes include that of Lisa Brown (19), a a prostitute who disappeared on 10 November 1998, and Sara McMahon (20), who disappeared on 8 November 2000.

Media

The End of Innocence, Estelle Blackburn, published in 2007

Australian Story, ABC, November 2007.

Hunt for a Killer: The Claremont Murders, Crime Investigation Australia, 2008.

The Claremont Serial Killer, Casefile True Crime Podcast, 20 August 2016.

Claremont Serial killings podcast, The West Australian, 2019.