Pod Insights Casefile True Crime Case 307: The Night Caller (Part 1/2) About this episode [Part 1 of 2]
*** Content Warning: Sexual assault, gun violence, child victims ***
The city of Perth in Western Australia is sometimes described as the most isolated city in the world. During the late 1950s, Perth’s idyllic beaches, laidback lifestyle and small town atmosphere made it feel like a safe, protected place to live. But that sense of safety would be abruptly shattered by a man who would come to be known as The Night Caller.
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Narration – Anonymous Host https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/
Research & writing – Erin Munro
Creative direction – Milly Raso
Production and music – Mike Migas http://mikemigas.com/
Music – Andrew D. B. Joslyn http://www.andrewjoslynmusic.com/
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Transcript 12,109 words · 5 speakers
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1:50 Speaker 00 Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website.
2:16 Speaker 00 The capital of the state of Western Australia, Perth, has long been referred to as the most isolated city in the world. While there is some debate as to whether this title is accurate, the fact remains that Perth is the only large city in a circuit of more than 2,000 kilometres. It sits on the other side of the country to the more heavily populated eastern states, home to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. And the next nearest capital city is South Australia's Adelaide, a 28-hour drive away.
2:50 Speaker 00 Perth is located in the lower western corner of the state and is adjacent to the Indian Ocean. Another body of water, the Swan River, cuts through the middle of Perth, dividing the city in two, with much of the central business district built up along its banks. East of the city is home to sprawling hills and parklands filled with the native flora and iconic Australian bush. Winters in Perth are mild, reaching a top temperature of 19 degrees Celsius on average, while the summers are renowned for their dry heat. In the warmer months, swimmers and surfers flock to Perth's coastline to enjoy popular beaches such as Cotterstow and Scarborough.
3:34 Speaker 00 During the late 1950s, the city was home to about 388,000 people, but was rapidly growing due to a baby boom and post-World War II migration. Even as the city expanded and swelled, a sense of innocence remained. Nights were quieter. Strict licensing laws meant that pubs closed by 9pm. Dance halls and concerts were a favourite weekend pastime for the city's youth, but they too were governed by restrictions that typically saw the entertainment wind down before midnight.
4:10 Speaker 00 Homes were kept unlocked with windows open even at night. Drivers parked their cars with the keys in the ignition, and residents were never more than a couple of degrees of separation from one another. However, this sense of security and safety that residents took for granted would be shaken and then irrevocably damaged as the city entered the 1960s. Under the cover of darkness, Perth was terrorised by an elusive figure, someone who would eventually be dubbed "The Night Caller".
5:11 Speaker 00 Towards the end of the 1950s, households throughout Perth experienced an uptick in burglaries. Residents would return home from being away or wake in the morning to find that someone had been in their house overnight. Cash that had been left lying around or stashed inside wallets and purses was missing. It could range from a few shillings to pound notes, as Australia was using the pound currency at the time. Sometimes money was even missing from hiding places such as drawers or inside an ornamental vase. Small objects of varying value were also pocketed.
5:52 Speaker 00 Watches, pens, jewellery, and even a torch were taken. More disturbingly, women had their underwear stolen. Police reports were typically filed when the crimes were discovered, but officers were left stumped by the lack of fingerprints at any of the crime scenes. Other times, residents were entirely unaware that they'd had an intruder at all. Sometimes, so little of importance was taken that it was never missed or was assumed to have been misplaced. These seemed like the crimes of an opportunistic offender seeking financial gain, taking advantage of the lax security measures in place.
6:36 Speaker 00 During this time, there were also sightings and reports of a prowler in central and southern Perth. A man was spotted lurking in the bushes, peeping in windows, and loitering outside of apartment blocks. Sometimes his footprints were discovered in garden beds the following morning. Occasionally, women's night gowns and underwear left hanging on washing lines were found cut and slashed.
7:04 Speaker 00 No one could know that a single person was behind all of these crimes, which were typically written off as minor offences. There was seemingly nothing violent about them, but that would soon change.
7:23 Speaker 00 The McLeod family lived in the riverside suburb of Applecross, close to Perth's CBD and just across the Swan River. In the early hours of Wednesday, November twenty-six, nineteen fifty-eight, Lucy and Ern McLeod were woken by a strange commotion in their bedroom. Their daughter, fifteen-year-old Molly, was wandering around the room, tripping over her own feet and ratcheting as though she was going to vomit. Molly rambled incoherently, clearly trying to tell her parents something, but she couldn't form the words to speak.
8:01 Speaker 00 Terrified, Lucy rushed to her child, who had been fine when she'd gone to bed the previous evening. Lucy and Ern repeatedly asked Molly what had happened, begging her to explain what was wrong. Molly was unable to answer and soon lost consciousness. Her father carried her back to her room, which was a sleep-out that adjoined the family's kitchen, and gently laid her in bed. Lucy kneeled beside Molly and held a set of rosary beads in her hand, praying repeatedly for her daughter's health. To her parents' relief, Molly regained consciousness, though she continued to moan and mumble without making any sense.
8:47 Speaker 00 By morning, Molly was able to string a few words together, enough to tell her parents that her head hurt. One of her eyes had turned black, suggesting she'd somehow received a knock to the head. Lucy McLeod took Molly to the family doctor, who was unable to ascertain the cause of Molly's injury, but diagnosed her as having a concussion and a hairline skull fracture.
9:15 Speaker 00 It took Molly more than a month to recover. A star student, she had been due to finish high school, but was unable to attend her leaving exams. Meanwhile, her family was puzzled over the mystery behind what caused her severe head injury.
9:33 Speaker 00 They eventually concluded that Molly must have received the knock after an awful nightmare caused her to fall out of bed.
9:42 Speaker 00 Molly and her family had no idea that she had actually crossed paths with the Night Caller. He had slipped into the McLeod's apple cross home as its residents slept. He prowled about, looking for cash he could steal, and helped himself to some money he found in the kitchen. As he was opening the back door to escape, his grip on the handle slipped, and the noise woke Molly, whose bed was right next door. Seeing the girl stir, the Night Caller grabbed a nearby object and hit her over the head with it, before fleeing.
10:21 Speaker 00 Throughout December 1958 and into the new year, the Night Caller continued to stalk the streets of Perth. Weekends seemed to be when he was most active, though he also ventured out on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
10:38 Speaker 00 His crimes were growing ever more brazen.
10:42 Speaker 00 At 3am one night, a 21-year-old schoolteacher who lived in Millpoint Road, South Perth, was woken by a strange man grabbing her by the neck and scratching her face. She screamed, and the intruder jumped out of her bedroom window.
11:00 Speaker 00 Six weeks after this attack, on Wednesday, January 28, Perth reached its warmest the day of the year when the temperature reached 43 degrees Celsius, or 109 degrees Fahrenheit. That night, a man who lived one street over from where the teacher had been attacked heard a noise outside at 1:50 a.m. and went to investigate. His sudden appearance disturbed a man trying to break in via the back door. The prowler fled on foot. A neighbour who had also spotted him watching a block of flats from a nearby phone booth described him as being between 5'8" and 5'10" with thick, dark hair.
11:45 Speaker 00 The following day of Thursday, January 29, 33-year-old Panina Berkman worked a shift at the perfume counter of the David Jones department store in Perth CBD. Panina had relocated to Perth from Melbourne four years earlier after she and her husband divorced. Panina had settled into a ground-floor apartment on Millpoint Road in South Perth and was happy there.
12:13 Speaker 00 Even though her flat had been broken into about six months earlier and 35 shillings were stolen, Panina was comfortable in her new city. She was a glamorous woman who had caught the eye of a local radio DJ named Fotis Huntis. The pair became a couple. They planned to meet up after Panina finished her shift that day. Fotis picked Panina up from David Jones and drove her back to her apartment where they ate dinner together.
12:46 Speaker 00 Later on, they drank some beer, then went to bed together. At midnight, Fotis got dressed and prepared to head home to sleep.
12:57 Speaker 00 As he left, Panina said goodnight and that she would see him tomorrow.
13:03 Speaker 00 Neighbours overheard Fotis's footsteps as he departed the building, and heard some other things in the hours that followed.
13:12 Speaker 00 At around 3am, a couple in an apartment next to Panina's were woken by the sound of someone gasping, followed by a scream. A few minutes later, they heard a car door slam, then the car driving away.
13:28 Speaker 00 Another resident also heard some screams and a car leaving at around the same time.
13:36 Speaker 00 The next morning, Fotis drove by Panina's apartment on his way to an appointment, and noticed that the door was ajar and her bedroom window was open, its curtains blowing in the breeze. Panina often slept with the window open during the hot summer nights, but Fotis knew that she always made a point to close everything and lock up before heading to work. She was supposed to have a shift that day, so the apartment should have been secured. Fotis decided to investigate.
14:10 Speaker 00 Inside, he found Panina on the lounge room floor by the sliding glass doors. She was naked in a pool of blood. She had been stabbed through the nose and in the heart with a knife.
14:25 Speaker 00 It appeared Panina had crawled to the doors in an attempt to escape, but hadn't survived. Nothing was missing from the apartment, except for Panina's purse. The murder weapon wasn't recovered.
14:42 Speaker 00 The horrific murder sent shockwaves through Perth. Crimes like this were a rarity in the quiet city. Fotis Huntis told police that when he left Panina's apartment, she had been naked in bed. It wasn't unusual for her to sleep naked in hot weather. Fotis quickly found himself the case's prime suspect, and the public agreed that he seemed suspicious. When Fotis left Perth to return to his birth country of Greece, their suspicions were all but confirmed. Panina's killer had gotten away.
15:23 Speaker 00 Even though Penina lived on the same street where a 21-year-old teacher had been attacked in her own home just six weeks earlier, police didn't consider that her murder could be part of a larger picture. They reassured worried Perth residents, stating: “The public have no need to be feared from the activities of the person who killed Penina Berkman, and they can forget all about the existence of that person.” Residents of Perth’s western suburbs felt somewhat detached from the murder of Penina Berkman, as she had been living in South Perth.
16:06 Speaker 00 Although that wasn’t far in terms of distance, it almost felt like another world due to the Swan River providing a geographical buffer. Moreover, the inner western suburbs were an affluent and insular pocket that felt particularly safe with a tight-knit community. One of these wealthy suburbs was Netherlands, an attractive neighbourhood just seven kilometres west of the CBD. Dotted with nice houses and lots of parks, Netherlands was also close to the University of Western Australia. This made it a popular suburb for students, who primarily lived in the area’s apartment buildings.
16:50 Speaker 00 In August 1959, Alex Donkin was a first-year nursing student who was staying at her elder sister’s flat in Netherlands. Saturday, August 8, was going to be a break from Alex’s busy work and study schedule. Some friends from her hometown were visiting for the weekend, and Alex was looking forward to seeing them. Alex and her friends spent the evening at a drive-in cinema, then headed back to Alex’s flat to drink coffee and listen to records. At 12:45 AM, Alex’s guests left, and she got ready for bed. A security-conscious person, Alex made sure to lock the front door and close all the windows.
17:35 Speaker 00 The exception was one narrow window in the kitchen which led to an outdoor landing. Because the window was so narrow, Alex felt comfortable leaving it slightly ajar while she slept.
17:49 Speaker 00 The following morning, Alex's friends from out of town headed over to her flat for a planned visit. George and Headley were both farmers who lived in Western Australia's wheat belt about an hour and a half outside of Perth. The young man knocked on the door and was shocked when Alex opened it. Her face and hair were soaked with blood due to a deep wound over her left eye. Still wearing her pyjamas, Alex was disoriented and clearly oblivious to the injury. George and Headley searched the apartment. Alex's pillow was drenched with blood and her purse was missing.
18:33 Speaker 00 She told George and Headley that there had been six pounds inside the purse, but she struggled to answer other questions.
18:42 Speaker 00 When asked about the previous night, Alex said she'd woken up at 3:30 AM then fallen back asleep. She couldn't recall anything else. George and Headley couldn't see any sign of forced entry, but it was clear their friend had been attacked and robbed. They arranged to take Alex to the doctor. An examination revealed she also sustained a small fracture to the back of her skull. That, plus the injury above her eye, indicated she'd been hit twice. The attack left Alex with a severe epilepsy that she would need to treat with medication for the rest of her life.
19:25 Speaker 00 She was unable to continue her studies or achieve her dream of becoming a nurse.
19:33 Speaker 00 Alex's uncle was a special investigator in the police's criminal investigation branch, and the attack against his niece was taken very seriously. Officers searched the apartment but found no fingerprints. A poker was missing from the fireplace, which they speculated could have been used to inflict Alex's injuries. They took note that the kitchen window was the only point of entry for an intruder. Yet, with no evidence leading to a specific person, there was little they could do.
20:12 Speaker 00 Four months later, residents of Perth were preparing for another sun-soaked summer. One week before Christmas, on Saturday, December 19, 22-year-old Gillian Brewer invited her fiancee over to her home in Brookwood Flats, a two-storey red-brick apartment complex in the beachside suburb of Cotterslow. Gillian was well-known in Perth as a socialite and an heiress whose great-grandfather had founded the chocolate company McRobinson's Confectionery. After growing up in Melbourne and beginning a career in interior design, Gillian had flown west to Perth at the age of 21. She was happy in her new city,
20:56 Speaker 00 settling into an apartment next door to her mother's and living with her small French poodle, Dior, for company. Gillian would be getting married in two months' time to her 31-year-old fiancee, Andrew—not his real name. Andrew and Gillian spent that Saturday together before returning to her apartment for the evening. Gillian's flat was on the ground floor and at the back of the complex. Andrew went home at around midnight, with the plan to play golf with Gillian the next day. At 9:00 a.m., Andrew went to pick Gillian up and found her front door locked.
21:38 Speaker 00 This was unusual, as she mostly kept it open when she was up. Andrew could see Gillian's poodle, Dior, jumping up and down frantically at the bedroom window. Andrew had a key to Gillian's apartment in his car, so he went back to get it and then let himself in. The kitchen window was open and a breeze had blown some Christmas cards Gillian had out on display onto the floor. Unusually, the door to Gillian's bedroom was closed. Andrew had never seen it shut before.
22:16 Speaker 00 He opened the door and saw Gillian lying in bed, her sheet pulled all the way up to her chin and a pillow lying on her chest. Her face was covered in blood, as was the sheet and the wall behind her. Andrew raced next door to Gillian's mother's apartment and called for a doctor. Upon arriving at the scene, the doctor in turn phoned the police.
22:45 Speaker 00 After removing the sheet, officers saw the extent of Gillian's injuries. She was naked and had wounds all over her body that had been inflicted with a hatchet. Her breasts, head and genitals had all been struck. Using the flat side of the hatchet, the killer had also hit Gillian's stomach, thighs, face and throat. This final blow had been hard enough to sever her windpipe. Then the killer had used a pair of scissors that belonged to Gillian to stab her five times. An autopsy would later reveal that Gillian had likely remained alive for two to three hours after the attack,
23:28 Speaker 00 with the coroner stating it was the worst murder he had ever seen. The killer covered her with the sheet and wiped the scissors clean before returning them to their usual spot. Blood was later found on the inner blades of the scissors, indicating they had been closed when the killer wiped them down.
23:50 Speaker 00 He had taken the hatchet with him and tossed it over the back fence. Police found it lying on the ground on the other side, still covered with Gillian's blood. The killer had been so forceful when using it that the wooden handle was split near the head. The hatchet was found to have been stolen from a home in the street behind Gillian's.
24:15 Speaker 00 There were no clues as to the killer's identity. He hadn't left any fingerprints and there was no sign of forced entry at Gillian's apartment. Both the front and back doors were locked. None of Gillian's neighbours had seen anything untoward, though a mother and daughter who lived nearby reported hearing Gillian's dog bark at around 1am.
24:40 Speaker 00 The barking abruptly stopped, as though someone had reprimanded the animal.
24:50 Speaker 00 In the days that followed, Gillian's murder dominated newspaper headlines. As well as the horror of the crime itself, there was the fact that police didn't have a suspect. No one in Gillian's life was thought to be responsible. Her purse was missing from the apartment, indicating her killer had stolen it.
25:13 Speaker 00 The pathologist who observed Gillian and Panina's bodies noted the similarities between their injuries. Both had been stabbed multiple times while asleep in bed. A journalist at the tabloid The Daily News also compared the crimes, pointing out the striking similarities between the women's living circumstances, their missing purses, and how their killers hadn't left a trace. But investigators firmly believed Panina had been killed by her boyfriend, and that Gillian was attacked by a stranger.
25:49 Speaker 00 Police looked into known sex offenders in the area, as the injuries to Gillian's breasts and groin appeared to indicate a sexual motivation.
25:59 Speaker 00 It would turn out that over the past 11 months, there had been eight reports of a prowler lurking around the Brookwood flat. Someone had broken into apartments there and taken money, alcohol, and keys. One time, a car was stolen.
26:17 Speaker 00 A number of these reports were made by Gillian's mother, Betty, who lived in the flat next door to her daughter. Her first report came just three weeks after Panina Berkman's murder in January at the start of the year.
26:33 Speaker 00 If the murder of Panina Berkman shocked Perth months earlier, this second slaying left it reeling. Not only was it another brutal killing in a city that saw few crimes of that nature, but Gillian Brewer's wealth and social status elevated the public's horror to new heights. Gillian had lived in Cotterslow, one of the affluent western suburbs that felt cushioned from Panina's murder. Residents who also lived in Perth's comfortable western enclave could relate to Gillian. "She was one of us," a community member later told filmmakers of the 2020 documentary series After the Night.
27:18 Speaker 00 As well as dominating the news cycle, Gillian's murder became the focus of many local conversations. The Brookwood flats where she'd lived and died were now a public spectacle, with parents driving their children past the building so they could stare at it through the car windows. Even through their fear and anxiety, most Perth residents felt assured that police would soon catch the person responsible. They trusted law enforcement to complete a thorough investigation and to keep the public safe. Despite their faith, weeks and then months passed with no arrest in the case.
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32:24 Speaker 00 1960 dawned, and Perth welcomed another new year. The city had continued to grow, both in size and population. Also on the increase was the number of break-ins and prowler encounters being reported to the police. Sometimes cars were stolen from driveways and garages. These were later found either abandoned somewhere else in the city or returned with a slightly emptier petrol tank. Neighborhoods all over Perth were being targeted, from south of the river suburbs like Como and South Perth, to those just north and west of the city.
33:07 Speaker 00 These crimes continued over the following years. Sometimes the same target was hit twice. In March 1961, a tin of silver coins was stolen from a residence in Swanbourne, close to Cotterslow Beach.
33:24 Speaker 00 Two weeks later, a 24-year-old woman inside the same home was attacked by an intruder after she heard him break in. As she tried to phone for help, the intruder grabbed her by the throat and wrestled her to the floor. She briefly lost consciousness, then came to and managed to kick the man in the groin.
33:46 Speaker 00 He fled out the back door, and the woman ran to the window to watch him go. Under the sharp glow of the streetlights, she saw that he was white, between five foot six and five foot eight, and well-built. His face was broad and clean-shaven, and he had dark, wavy hair. On another occasion in 1962, a woman was cleaning up after a party her teenage daughter had held at their Cotterslow home. As she did so, she noticed a man outside the house, watching her. He was lurking behind a bush, wearing a large, brimmed hat. The woman told her husband, who chased after the man, but lost him in the darkness.
34:36 Speaker 00 On Saturday, March 3, 1962, a 23-year-old named Anne Melvin was feeling nervous. She'd moved out of her childhood home just a few weeks earlier, and was now sharing a flat with her sister in the western suburb of Crawley. Anne's sister was out that night, and it would be the first time Anne had stayed in the flat alone. She made herself a snack and was having a coffee when she heard a noise on the porch outside. Anne paused and listened carefully. When she didn't hear anything else, she told herself it must have been a cat.
35:17 Speaker 00 Anne went to bed and slept peacefully for a little while, before she suddenly started having an awful nightmare. In the dream, she was suffocating. Anne forced herself awake, only to realise that she wasn't just dreaming. A piece of toweling was wrapped tightly around her neck. Her left arm had been tied to the bedhead with a stocking. And most terrifying of all, there was a man standing next to her bed, removing his belt.
35:49 Speaker 00 Anne sat up, torred desperately at the toweling at her neck, and began to scream.
35:56 Speaker 00 At the sound of her yells, the man ran out of the room. Anne managed to free her arm and took off after him, screaming that she was going to kill him. In her terror and confusion, she had forgotten that her sister was away for the evening, and when Anne saw her empty bed, she believed the intruder must have kidnapped her. The man got away, but Anne's screams attracted the attention of some nearby neighbours, who found her on her balcony with blood dripping from her mouth. One of the neighbours comforted Anne, while the other called the police.
36:35 Speaker 00 A detective who soon arrived was shocked to see Anne's appearance. She looked as though she was almost dead, with bloodshot eyes and raw red markings on her neck and wrist. Anne moved back in with her parents after the attack, and would only leave the house to go to church. Terrified her attacker would track her down, she eventually left Australia altogether.
37:05 Speaker 00 A few days after the attack against Anne Melvin, the couple who had come to her rescue woke to find their car covered in pairs of women's underpants. They had been twisted around door handles, tucked under the windscreen wipers, and stuck into any available gaps.
37:24 Speaker 00 The couple notified the police, who attended the property and found footprints in the garden beds. Some of the plants were trampled. It appeared as though someone had been lurking in the area, looking through the windows.
37:41 Speaker 00 In the months that followed, there were more reports of a prowler around Perth. On one occasion, on Saturday, December 29, 1962, a woman in Cotterslow woke to find a man in her room. He’d wrapped a handkerchief around his face as a disguise and was shining a torch in her eyes. The man punched her face before fleeing.
38:06 Speaker 00 Later that same night, another young woman in Cotterslow was woken by the same prowler. In addition to the handkerchief, he wore a hat and had leather gloves on his hands, as well as what looked like a knuckle duster. He hit her over the head with the torch before punching above her eye. The woman screamed, which woke her parents as well as some neighbours. By the time her parents reached her bedroom, the attacker had fled. It would later turn out that he had stolen cash from the young woman’s purse.
38:45 Speaker 00 An internal police report on this latter attack noticed that over the past six months, there had been a pattern of break-and-enters at homes in the area.
38:55 Speaker 00 Whoever was behind the break-ins was entering via unlocked doors and open windows. The offender would steal cash and his crimes appeared to be escalating.
39:08 Speaker 00 Of late, these reports have become more frequent, and some concern is being felt for the safety of women who are being disturbed by the offender after he has entered the premises and stolen what money he can find.
39:24 Speaker 00 One witness who saw the offender fleeing described him as being aged between 30 and 40 with a tanned complexion. His height was short, at around 5’9”, and he had a thin-to-medium build.
39:39 Speaker 00 The offender wore a suit, as well as a black felt hat with a wide brim and close-fitting white gloves. Sometimes his face was masked. He never left fingerprints behind, and he never spoke.
39:55 Speaker 00 The report was distributed to police patrols, who were asked to be aware of the situation and told it was crucial that the offender be apprehended before his crimes escalated further. Perth's police had no idea just how far his crimes had already gone.
40:19 Speaker 00 In early 1963, Perth was experiencing another hot summer. On Friday, February 15, in the inner-city suburb of West Perth, two young women were busy polishing the floors of a flat they'd recently rented together. Twenty-four-year-old Constance Madril, who went by her middle name Lucy, was a government-employed social worker. Her housemate Jennifer Hurst worked as a schoolteacher.
40:49 Speaker 00 The two friends were happy with their new home, a two-bedroom flat inside a large house that had been converted into two apartments. Although the area had had issues with prowlers and break-ins, the property was situated on a busy road, which made them feel safe. Plus, a family of three rented the other flat, so there was always someone nearby.
41:14 Speaker 00 Lucy felt secure enough there that she kept the back door propped open at all times so that her Siamese cat could come and go.
41:24 Speaker 00 After the two women finished polishing the floors, they each retired to separate rooms to read for the rest of the night. Between 11:00 and 11:30 p.m., Lucy stopped by Jennifer's bedroom to say goodnight, now wearing a short blue nightie. She then headed to her own room at the other end of the flat, near the back door.
41:48 Speaker 00 At around 1:30 a.m., Jennifer got up to go to the toilet, which was at the rear of the property. On her way back to bed, she looked in on Lucy's room. Lucy was asleep on her bed, having pulled aside the top sheet and blanket due to the warm night.
42:08 Speaker 00 Jennifer returned to her room and wasn't disturbed for the rest of the night.
42:15 Speaker 00 Across a lane at the rear of Lucy and Jennifer's flat was a house with a large lawn out the back. At 6am the morning of Saturday, February 16, one of the house's residents got up with her young son and the two went to use the outhouse that sat at the back of the property. Their attention was drawn to a strange bundle that appeared to be lying on the ground near a Hills Hoist washing line. The woman walked closer and realised that she was looking at the naked body of a young woman.
42:51 Speaker 00 The body belonged to 24-year-old Lucy Madril. An empty whisky bottle was tucked into the crook of her right arm.
43:02 Speaker 00 Police found out that the couple who lived at the house had sat outside the previous night drinking the whisky together. When they retired to bed at around midnight, one of them had tossed the empty bottle onto the lawn. Lucy's killer had seemingly found it while dumping her body and he used it to penetrate her before posing it under her arm.
43:27 Speaker 00 Lucy's blue nightie lay alongside her. There was a blue bruise across her neck and she had been strangled with a ligature such as a cord. The killer had raped Lucy post-mortem. The killer had initially dragged Lucy from her home with her heels trailing along the ground, before reversing his approach and pulling her across the lawn by her legs. Lucy's bedroom hadn't been ransacked. Her clothes from the day before were lying on the floor near a wall, likely where she'd left them after undressing. Her sheet and blanket were turned back and a dressing gown lay across the foot of her bed.
44:13 Speaker 00 Detectives identified what had likely been the murder weapon. A piece of flax had been torn from a reading lamp in another room. One pound had been stolen from a purse.
44:29 Speaker 00 The murder of Lucy Madril called to mind the murders of Panina Berkman and Gillian Brewer several years earlier. Although those cases involved stabbing, not strangulation, there was a familiar element in that all involved a young woman brutalised in her own home and left in a state of undress.
44:51 Speaker 00 Lucy's case was almost more shocking due to the horrific way that her body had been violated, then posed out in the open.
45:00 Speaker 00 Over the past five years, the increase in break-ins and attacks against women at home had made Perth residents far more vigilant about locking doors than they ever had before. The murder of Lucy Madril amplified their wariness. Yet, reports continued to trickle through about night-time break-ins and prowling incidents across the city. In suburbs throughout the north, south and west of Perth, residents found they were missing cash. Typically, the burglaries weren't discovered until the thief was long gone, but sometimes he was caught in the act.
45:42 Speaker 00 On one occasion, a couple kissing goodnight in Como spotted a man hiding in the bushes watching them. Another time, at a house in Applecross, a little girl went into her kitchen and spotted the silhouette of a man. “Is that you daddy?”, she asked, as he darted out the back door. In one encounter, a man came across the prowler in his home. He begged the homeowner to let him go, claiming he was only there because he was unemployed and desperate to feed his children.
46:17 Speaker 00 Taking pity on who he thought was a desperate burglar, the man gave him some food and let him leave.
46:26 Speaker 00 One afternoon at 5pm, a woman named Phyllis was in her South Perth kitchen preparing dinner when a strange man walked in. He had dark hair underneath his brimmed hat, was short, and carried a leather suitcase. The man's most notable feature was his cleft lip and palate, a relatively common birth defect in which there is a split in an individual's upper lip. As the man calmly strolled in, he turned and looked blankly at one of Phyllis's sons who was playing nearby.
47:03 Speaker 00 Then he put his bag down and started questioning Phyllis, first asking if her husband was home. Phyllis said yes, he was sitting in the lounge room. The man asked how many children the couple had, how old they were, and which schools they attended. Phyllis was terrified, but something told her that the best way to handle the situation was by remaining calm and unfazed. She politely answered his questions. When she finished, the man picked up his bag again, turned, and walked out of the house.
47:43 Speaker 00 Phyllis rushed to her husband to tell him what had happened, and the couple ran to a window. The man was outside, casually walking down the street and disappearing around the corner like nothing unusual had happened.
48:03 Speaker 00 Halfway through the year, on Saturday, June 15, 1963, 20-year-old Carmel Reed was going to a party. Carmel did clerical and statistical work at the University of Western Australia and didn't have many late nights out. But tonight was a special occasion. It was the 21st birthday of one of her closest friends. Carmel had a fun night and was driven home at 2:20am by her friend's fiance, who made sure she got into her home safely.
48:38 Speaker 00 Carmel had moved into her flat in Netherlands just one month earlier, and was living there with two other young women. One of them, who Carmel shared a room with, was staying with her boyfriend that night, while the other housemate was already fast asleep by the time Carmel got home.
48:57 Speaker 00 Carmel got ready for bed and checked all of the windows and doors were locked. There was just one window she didn't check. It was a small ventilator window located about five feet up the lounge room wall. As it only measured two feet by one and a half feet, Carmel figured it was safe to leave slightly open.
49:22 Speaker 00 She climbed into bed at 2:45. Two hours later, she was abruptly awoken by a rustling sound coming from the dining room. Carmel's heart started to pound, and she called out: "Is anyone there?" No reply came, and the noise stopped.
49:44 Speaker 00 Carmel sat up in bed, listening carefully.
49:49 Speaker 00 Then she saw the figure of a man appear in her doorway.
49:54 Speaker 00 He shone a bright torch into her eyes, blinding her as he walked into the room. Carmel hid under her bed sheets and screamed. In response, the man stabbed at her chest with a sharp object.
50:10 Speaker 00 Carmel's chest seared with pain, and she rolled away to escape the barrage. She realized she needed to try to escape.
50:21 Speaker 00 Carmel flung off her sheet and blanket, hoping to hit the man with them, then leapt out of bed and bolted for the door.
50:30 Speaker 00 It was dark, and she couldn't see anything. Suddenly, she felt a sharp, stinging sensation in her face. The man had hit her. Then he fled from the flat, dropping the object he'd stabbed Carmel with as he went. It was an umbrella he'd found in her room, and he'd used its still point to jab at her.
50:55 Speaker 00 Screaming, Carmel ran to her housemate's room and found her cowering in bed, having overheard the attack. Neighbours who heard the commotion called the police. Officers quickly descended on the flat, but recovered nothing belonging to the intruder, not even any fingerprints. The only thing taken from the property was a purse that contained fifteen shillings. It would turn out that one of the extra police cars patrolling the area due to the frequency of these attacks had passed by Carmel's apartment building just minutes before the assault.
51:35 Speaker 00 The prowler break-ins weren't the only reason for police issuing additional patrols throughout the relatively small city. There had been a number of other crimes that had warranted the extra manpower, but no one in law enforcement realised that they were actually all connected.
51:58 Speaker 00 Almost five years earlier, on the night of Friday, September 12, 1958, a woman named Nell Schneider had been riding her bike home in the southern suburb of Bentley, about eight kilometres from Perth CBD. When she was just a few hundred metres from her home, a car suddenly sped up behind her and slammed into her bicycle. The bike became stuck to the car's grille as Nell was thrown up in the air. She slammed down on the road headfirst. As quickly as it had arrived, the car sped away, disappearing into the night. Nell was left lying on the bitumen, unconscious in a pool of blood.
52:45 Speaker 00 She was found by a passing motorist about forty-five minutes later and remained in a coma for two weeks. Although she eventually recovered, Nell was diagnosed with chronic post-traumatic temporal lobe epilepsy, which led to her experiencing blackouts and seizures on occasion. The car used in the attack was identified as a Ford Consul, which had been stolen that same night from a home in Victoria Park. It was found abandoned about half a mile from where Nell was struck. No fingerprints were recovered from the vehicle.
53:24 Speaker 00 Police attributed the theft of the car to joyriders and concluded that they had most likely hit Noel by accident while speeding, then fled in panic. The incident featured in some newspaper headlines, and officers began an intensive search for the culprits. The investigations continued for some time, but with nothing more to go on, they made no progress. What the police didn't know was that the man who would later be dubbed "The Night Caller" had abruptly started committing a new kind of attack. He'd been breaking into residences and prowling for years, but this was his first violent assault against a stranger.
54:12 Speaker 00 Three and a half months later, on Saturday, December 27, a woman named Cathy Bellis was walking home from a bus stop late at night after working a shift as a waitress. Cathy lived in Belmont, then a new suburb in the city's east. There were no streetlights there in 1958, so Cathy pulled out a small torch she kept for occasions when she had to walk their suburb's unlit streets at night. Shining it in front of her, she began to make her way home. It was only two blocks, but Cathy's surroundings were pitch black and very isolated. The streets she walked along had no houses,
54:56 Speaker 00 just paddocks and bushland flanking the bitumen road that had only been recently built. Suddenly, a car sped up behind Cathy, engine revving. It veered straight towards her, striking Cathy hard and throwing her sixty feet across an intersection and into a neighboring paddock. As Cathy lay in the soft ground of the paddock, she drifted in and out of consciousness. Her pelvis and one of her legs seared with pain. Then she saw the face of a man looming above her. Realizing it was the car's driver, but unsure whether or not she was hallucinating, she begged:
55:41 Speaker 00 "Don't leave me, or I'll die."
55:45 Speaker 00 The man laughed, then ran back to his car and sped away.
55:53 Speaker 00 Cathy was discovered by a couple who'd heard her anguished cries and was rushed to the hospital. She had suffered a broken pelvis, two breaks in her leg, a shattered knee, a fracture to the base of her spine, and another fracture at the top of her skull. Over the next year Cathy had to undergo multiple surgeries and treatments. She would never be able to run again. The car that had struck her turned out to be a ute that was stolen the previous night from the suburb of Como, nine kilometres south-west of Belmont. It was subsequently dumped about five kilometres away from the crime scene.
56:38 Speaker 00 More than a year went by with no more mysterious hidden runs, but plenty of other seemingly unrelated crimes were committed during that time, including the murders of Panina Berkman and Gillian Brewer. Then, almost four months after Gillian's murder, the hidden runs started again.
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1:00:10 Speaker 00 On Saturday, April 9, 1960, a twenty-year-old named Glennis Peak walked home from a night out at a dance. An almost-full moon illuminated the night sky as Glennis walked alone in the suburb of Bayswater, six kilometres north-east of Perth CBD. Glennis kept to the right side of the road so she would be facing any oncoming traffic. It was after midnight and the streets were quiet. This area of Perth was sparsely populated with few houses and residents.
1:00:47 Speaker 00 Shortly into her walk, the headlights of a car appeared behind her. As it passed, Glennis took note of the make: a Holden sedan with a short-looking man behind the wheel. The car kept driving and made a right turn further up the road, vanishing into the darkness. Glennis kept walking. When she reached the street the car had turned into, she noticed that the Holden was parked there with the driver still inside, facing her. Glennis was mildly puzzled by this.
1:01:25 Speaker 00 As it happened, she had to go down the same street as the car to get home, only she was headed in the opposite direction. Glennis turned left onto the side street. She was just one block from her home. She walked in the middle of the street in order to see better, as the moon was no longer providing enough light and the bitchman was riddled with potholes.
1:01:51 Speaker 00 All of a sudden, Glennis heard the roar of an engine as a car drove up behind her.
1:01:58 Speaker 00 It was the same Holden as before, and it had veered into the wrong side of the road in order to head straight towards her. Glenys tried to jump out of the way, but the car hit her left hip as the driver struck Glenys from an angle so as to avoid a nearby tree. She was tossed over the bonnet, cutting her face open on one of the windscreen wipers in the process. Glenys landed in some gravel and a broken glass by the side of the road. She lay there, shocked but conscious, as the car drove away. She knew the driver had run her down deliberately. Terrified he'd come back to finish the job,
1:02:41 Speaker 00 she scrambled to her feet and stumbled home.
1:02:46 Speaker 00 Glenys was rushed to hospital, where an assessment revealed that she hadn't broken any bones, but she had a number of wounds that required stitches. Police officers paid a visit to the scene of the hit-and-run. Although Glenys had said she'd left her handbag lying there, it was missing.
1:03:06 Speaker 00 About a hundred metres from there was a clearly abandoned car. It was a Holden sedan with the keys in the ignition. It had been stolen from the garage of a used-car salesman who'd taken the Holden home from the dealership for the weekend.
1:03:24 Speaker 00 The attacker's fingerprints were nowhere to be found.
1:03:32 Speaker 00 Just after 11pm on Friday, May 13, one month after Glenys Peak's hit-and-run, 18-year-old Jill Connell was walking home from a bus stop in Belmont when she was deliberately run down by a driver in a green Morris Minor sedan. After being thrown onto the bonnet, Jill fell to the ground, sobbing. Meanwhile, the Morris Minor had gotten stuck in some sand that bordered the road. The driver jumped out and ran away, laughing.
1:04:04 Speaker 00 It was an hour before Jill was found lying unconscious and bleeding behind the abandoned vehicle. She later underwent emergency surgery. The Green Morris miner had been reported stolen from a home in the South Perth suburb of Como two hours earlier. The prints of the car thief weren't found anywhere on or in the vehicle. Exactly one week after the attack on Jill Connell, an eighteen-year-old named Georgina Pittman spent a fun night out dancing. She caught the eleven thirty-five pm train home, where she struck up a conversation with sixteen-year-old Maureen Rogers and her twelve-year-old cousin Theresa Zagami,
1:04:49 Speaker 00 who had just attended a concert. It was raining heavily when they disembarked at Queen's Park Station in South Perth, and there were no taxis waiting at the cab rank outside. The only car in the vicinity was an expensive-looking new Chrysler Royal, which was white with a red stripe and had Victorian licence plates. A man sat behind the wheel, wearing a brimmed hat. The three girls decided to walk home. Maureen and Georgina huddled together under Maureen's umbrella, while Theresa walked slightly ahead under her own umbrella.
1:05:30 Speaker 00 They were making their way up at George Street, an isolated road bordered by large paddocks, a few houses, and a poultry farm. Suddenly, a car zoomed past them at high speed. "Gee, this guy's an idiot", Maureen said. It was the same Chrysler that had been parked at the train station. The driver then did a U-turn and sped back past the girls in the other direction, before pulling into a side street behind them.
1:06:02 Speaker 00 The three girls kept walking. It was quiet and dark as they reached an area of the road where there were no houses, only empty paddocks on either side. The still night air was abruptly broken by a roaring sound. Georgina turned around and saw headlights approaching.
1:06:24 Speaker 00 It was the Chrysler veering across the road towards them. Twelve-year-old Therese, who was walking right at the road's edge, also spun around. "Look out!" she cried, before jumping out of the car's path.
1:06:41 Speaker 00 It barely missed her, and Therese felt a gust of wind hit her as the vehicle passed. Then it struck Georgina and Maureen head-on.
1:06:53 Speaker 00 Georgina was thrown into the ditch that ran alongside the road. Maureen bore the brunt of the impact as the vehicle hit her left leg and broke both of its major bones. The force of the hit had also broken the car's radiator grill. Maureen was tossed onto the bonnet and stayed there, bleeding profusely as the driver continued to speed ahead. He made a sharp turn as they reached an intersection about one hundred metres up the road, and Maureen finally fell from the bonnet onto the ground.
1:07:31 Speaker 00 Georgina Pittman was in a daze down the road, looking for her shoes. She had no idea what had happened. She only knew that her feet were bare for some reason.
1:07:44 Speaker 00 Georgina didn't realise that her dress was also torn, and she'd sustained deep cuts to her head and back, which were now bleeding. "Mum, mum!" Georgina desperately called, as she walked in circles.
1:08:00 Speaker 00 Therese Zagami had escaped injury but was terrified that the driver would return. She began running towards home, which was up ahead in the direction they'd been walking. Therese stayed low and away from the road to hide from their attacker. As she reached the top of the hill, she came across her cousin Maureen, lying bleeding in the middle of the road.
1:08:27 Speaker 00 Therese ran over to her, asking: "Maureen, are you alright?"
1:08:33 Speaker 00 There was no answer.
1:08:36 Speaker 00 Realising her cousin must be dead, Therese's fear intensified and she kept running towards home, which was only about another hundred metres away. Therese's parents were out, but her aunt lived next door. Therese banged on her front door, screaming: "It was deliberate. It was deliberate."
1:09:01 Speaker 00 Just as Therese was raising the alarm, two patrol officers passing through the area stumbled across Maureen's body. She still had a pulse. They soon found Georgina as well.
1:09:15 Speaker 00 The girls were rushed to hospital. Maureen needed emergency surgery on her left leg. Her left cheekbone was also fractured, and she was entirely covered in bruises. Georgina had a concussion and several deep gashes that needed stitches. All three girls were left with severe mental and emotional trauma.
1:09:42 Speaker 00 At the scene of the crime, police recovered a small piece of the car's radiator grill that had been broken during the hit-and-run. The Chrysler itself was found just before seven the following morning of Saturday, May 21. It had been dumped near a railway line in the suburb of East Victoria Park, about five kilometres away. There was damage to the top and left side of the bonnet, and the broken radiator grill matched the piece found at the scene.
1:10:15 Speaker 00 The Chrysler had been stolen from a 60-year-old man who had driven from Melbourne to Perth to visit his adult son and his family. The family had discovered the theft the previous night and immediately reported it to the police.
1:10:31 Speaker 00 No fingerprints belonging to the thief were found on either the interior or exterior of the vehicle.
1:10:39 Speaker 00 Meanwhile, both the police and Perth's media were starting to notice the pattern of deliberate hit-and-runs over the past month and a half.
1:10:48 Speaker 00 A number of detectives and traffic police were assigned to the case, with a growing theory emerging that one man could be behind all of the crimes. Articles about the latest incident ran on the front page of the weekend papers, with one headline asking: "Is a hit-run maniac on the loose?"
1:11:10 Speaker 00 The story read in part: "Three girls were apparently deliberately run down by a powerful stolen car early today."
1:11:21 Speaker 00 This climaxed what may be a series of cold-blooded attempts to kill law-abiding pedestrians. Three times in the past six weeks, each time in the weekend, girls have been injured by a stolen hit-run car, later abandoned, in different suburbs.
1:11:40 Speaker 00 Detectives tracked down known car thieves and questioned them extensively. Due to the hit-and-runs always taking place on a Friday or Saturday night, special patrols were implemented on those days between 5pm and 1am. In a report about the case, one detective sergeant concluded that he was convinced that one perpetrator was responsible for all three of the attacks, while acknowledging that he had no evidence.
1:12:10 Speaker 00 Without fingerprints or anything else belonging to the perpetrator at any of the scenes, there was no way to prove their theory. No connection was made to the prowler breaking into homes across the city, even though he also stole cars, struck on weekend nights, targeted random victims, and never left a single fingerprint.
1:12:33 Speaker 00 The hit-and-run stopped after the attack against the Georgina Pittman, Maureen Rogers, and Therese Zagami. Months passed, then years. But the Night Caller never ceased his crimes, and in the beginning of 1963, he would launch another shocking attack using a new kind of stolen weapon.
1:13:00 Speaker 00 Australia Day is Australia's official national day, observed annually on January 26. There is some controversy around this date, as it was chosen to mark the landing of the first British colonists in 1788. In recent years, there has been much debate as to whether it should be changed. For many residents of Perth in 1963, Australia Day just signified another long weekend and a chance to enjoy the summer. The holiday fell on a Saturday that year, so Australians would have a three-day weekend with no work on Monday.
1:13:40 Speaker 00 Saturday, January 26, was a hot night, and Perth was abuzz, with many out drinking and celebrating. The Ocean Beach Hotel, a pub that sat across from the beach in North Cotterslow, was packed. Bartender Rowena Reeves worked at the hotel until closing, then went to a restaurant with three friends. Afterwards, at around 2:00 a.m., the group of four drove to a quiet spot overlooking the ocean to chat and have a few more drinks. However, an argument broke out between two members of the group, who were a couple. They soon left, leaving Rowena alone in the car with her friend, Nick August.
1:14:26 Speaker 00 Rowena sat in the car's backseat, drinking pink champagne, while Nick sat behind the wheel. As Rowena sipped her drink, she noticed a man standing less than eight metres away, staring at them. She pointed him out to Nick. Nick was married, and suspected the stranger had been sent by his wife to spy on him. Angered, Nick tossed an empty beer bottle at the man through the open window and yelled at him to piss off.
1:14:59 Speaker 00 As the bottle rolled down the street, Rowena saw the man lift up something. "Look out, he's got a gun", she cried, while pushing Nick's head down so it wouldn't be visible from outside.
1:15:14 Speaker 00 The man fired a rifle. Nick felt a sudden pain in his neck. "He's got me", he stated, before hurriedly starting the car's engine and speeding away. The man with the rifle fired once again at the retreating vehicle, but missed.
1:15:34 Speaker 00 In the backseat of the car, Rowena was bleeding badly. The bullet that had grazed Nick's neck had then struck her wrist, shattering it.
1:15:46 Speaker 00 Nick sped towards the nearest hospital, which was in the port city of Fremantle, about eight kilometres south. The pair were admitted for treatment, and at 3.30am, medical staff notified the police that they had two shooting victims who needed to be interviewed.
1:16:08 Speaker 00 It was almost half an hour later when the doorbell rang at a house on Louise Street in Netherlands, five and a half kilometres east of where Rowena Reeves and Nick August were attacked. The house was a single-storey brick residence, home to the Warmslay family.
1:16:27 Speaker 00 Daughter Sandra Wormsley was woken by the doorbell, which rang twice in quick succession. Sandra heard the familiar footsteps of her father, George Wormsley, walking towards the front door. As he opened the door, a loud gunshot rang out. "Dad!" Sandra screamed, jumping out of bed and running to the front door. She was joined by her mother. To their horror, George lay in the doorway, his hair soaked with blood and his eyes glazed. Clearly visible in his forehead was a bullet hole.
1:17:08 Speaker 00 There was no sign of the shooter. Sandra ran to the kitchen where the family's telephone was located and called the police and a nearby neighbour.
1:17:19 Speaker 00 Then she returned to her father's body and tried to comfort her devastated mother. The pair were in complete shock. It made no sense that their entire world could have been turned upside down in a split second. George was a loving, warm man. It made no sense that anyone would want to harm him.
1:17:45 Speaker 00 Fifteen minutes later, and just one block over, on Vincent Street, a young man named Scott McWilliam was woken from his sleep by the sound of shouting. Scott was staying at a boarding house that was home to a number of young people, and the yelling was coming from another resident, his landlady's niece, Pauline. She was saying that there was something wrong with John Sterkey, an eighteen-year-old boarder who was leaving Perth the following week to study veterinary medicine in Brisbane. Scott got up to see what was wrong. John had been sleeping outside on a single bed on the back veranda where the air was cooler at night.
1:18:30 Speaker 00 Flicking on the veranda's light switch, Scott saw there was an enormous pool of blood on the concrete flooring next to John's bed.
1:18:39 Speaker 00 John was in the bed, with blood soaked into the linen around his head. He was making a gurgling sound.
1:18:48 Speaker 00 Scott and another porter rushed forward to lift John's head up so he could breathe. There was a gunshot visible at the top of his forehead. Pauline phoned for an ambulance, then called the police. Officers told Pauline that everyone at the residence was to stay inside and keep low beneath the windows. There was somebody going around the neighbourhood, shooting people.
1:19:17 Speaker 00 Both George Wormsley and John Sterkey were rushed in separate ambulances to Royal Perth Hospital, arriving within five minutes of one another. John was pronounced dead three minutes after arrival. George Wormsley was given emergency surgery, but died about an hour and a half later.
1:19:40 Speaker 00 Police were still processing both crime scenes and had just been notified of the two deaths, when another call came in.
1:19:52 Speaker 00 Len Barth wasn't initially worried when his friend Brian Weir didn't show up for a scheduled surf rescue boat training session on Sunday morning. Twenty-nine-year-old Brian, whose day job was as an accountant, was often late. But after waiting around for more than two hours, Len decided to go check on Brian. He drove the short distance from the Swanborn Netherlands Surf Life Saving Club to Brian's home. Brian lived in a first-floor apartment in a block of four on Broome Street, Cotterslow.
1:20:29 Speaker 00 When Len arrived, he saw that the door that led from Brian's bedroom to the apartment's balcony was open. Len clambered up to the balcony and walked in.
1:20:41 Speaker 00 Brian was still in bed, but the scene was all wrong. His head was hanging over one side and there was blood everywhere. Brian felt stiff and his complexion was grey, but Len could still hear him faintly breathing.
1:20:59 Speaker 00 Len was horrified. It looked as though Brian had been in a violent fight. Len raced back to the Surf Life Saving Club and told his teammates what he'd found. One of them had heard news reports about the overnight shootings in nearby Netherlands, and they all raced back to Brian's flat together. When they looked more closely at their friend, they saw that the top-left side of his head was completely gone.
1:21:30 Speaker 00 Brian was rushed to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery. A bullet was found lodged in the left temporal lobe of Brian's brain, with fragments scattered throughout. Surgeons had to remove these foreign objects, as well as splintered pieces of bone and much of Brian's damaged brain matter. Brian survived the surgery, but remained in a coma. He stayed in his coma for six months, with police constantly keeping guard.
1:22:04 Speaker 00 When Brian eventually regained consciousness, he was unable to speak, walk, or move his arms. His right side was entirely paralyzed. He had lost sight in one eye and hearing in one ear. The severe brain damage also caused him to have epileptic fits. Despite being just 29 years old, Brian had to be moved into an aged care nursing home due to requiring round-the-clock care. On December 19, 1965, almost three years after the attack, Brian Weir died as a result of his injuries.
1:22:48 Speaker 00 The Australia Day attacks dominated newspaper headlines in the immediate aftermath of the shootings. Articles provided a timeline of the attacks, which was pieced together by the police. Rowena Reeves and Nick August had been the shooter's first victims. Both had survived after sustaining injuries from the same bullet. Police had found a spent casing at the scene of the crime. The shooter had then walked around the corner and stopped outside Brian Weir's home. He'd climbed up the first-floor balcony, where Brian had left the door open.
1:23:28 Speaker 00 Brian had dragged his bed right up to the door, sleeping with his head towards the balcony to take advantage of the sea breeze on the hot night. The shooter had shot Brian once in the head, then left the flat and headed five kilometres east to Netherlands. Once in Netherlands, the shooter walked around the back of the boarding house where John Sterkey was sleeping on the rear veranda, and shot him once in the head. The shooter then walked one street over, ejecting another spent shell casing as he did so, and rang the doorbell of the Wormsley residence. George Wormsley was his last victim.
1:24:10 Speaker 00 It didn't appear that any of the victims were connected, or had been specifically targeted. No fingerprints had been recovered from any of the crime scenes, nor did police find the murder weapon. All of the shell casings recovered had come from the same 22-gauge firearm, which was a Lithgo single-shot rifle. There were 75,000 such rifles registered in the state of Western Australia. Police began following up on each one in search of the murder weapon, and even extended their search to the eastern states of Australia.
1:24:49 Speaker 00 They test-fired a total of 60,000 rifles, but none were a match. There appeared to be a time lapse between the attacks in Cotterstow and those in Netherlands, prompting detectives to wonder if the shooter had used a bike to cycle from the first location to the second. However, some witnesses had reported seeing a light-coloured Holden sedan driving in Cotterstow around the time of the first attacks. What made the sedan suspicious was the fact that its headlights weren't on, even though it was the middle of the night. Witnesses in Netherlands had reported seeing a similar car parked near the crime scenes there.
1:25:33 Speaker 00 Perth had experienced some ripples of concern in the years immediately preceding the random shootings in late January 1963. The pattern of hit-and-runs and the reports of a prowler entering and robbing homes before attacking female residents had both caused a stir. But the Australia Day shootings sent the city into a full-blown panic. Overnight, people completely changed their habits and behaviours in response to the senseless attacks. They locked their doors and made sure to close their windows at night despite the sweltering summer heat. Gun purchases skyrocketed.
1:26:17 Speaker 00 People slept with weapons by their bed where they could reach them at a moment's notice. Others made do with what they could find, including knives, cricket bats, and even cans of fly spray they could aim directly at an assailant's eyes. Animal shelters suddenly faced a huge demand for guard dogs, with pounds across Perth selling out of dogs. Outhouses were common at the time, but more people started installing toilets inside of their houses so they wouldn't have to go outside at all after dark.
1:26:52 Speaker 00 Children were no longer allowed to sleep on back verandas to stay cool on hot nights as they'd done in the past.
1:27:01 Speaker 00 Strange theories about the shootings emerged. Some people falsely confessed to the crimes. Others pointed out that the attacks had taken place during a full moon. In his memoir, The Sharknet, author Robert Drew wrote about how the shootings changed Perth in an instant.
1:27:23 Speaker 00 “The murders immediately changed the spirit of the place. They chilled the warm shadows of the peppermint and box trees and flowering gums lining the streets. The slightly crumbly lines of the brick and limestone houses, the cosy-looking fake Tudor apartment blocks and shop fronts, had a sharper, harsher edge. Their facades looked stony and closed. People's eyes flicked away as they hurried indoors or into their cars.”
1:27:59 Speaker 00 Fewer residents went out after dark, creating an eerie atmosphere where the streets were especially quiet at night. Despite the reduced foot and vehicle traffic, the state government arranged to keep streetlights blazing all night long from Netherlands down to Fremantle in a direct response to the shootings. Police were under intense pressure to solve the case, working day and night to catch the person responsible. Calls flooded in from the public with tip-offs. Sometimes there were so many that they clogged up the switchboard. A special operational room was set up just to manage these calls.
1:28:43 Speaker 00 While detectives combed over every detail of the Australia Day shootings and break-ins, an additional forty patrol officers were out on the streets of Perth every night, watching the city from patrol cars, horseback, and on foot. Despite this, they failed to identify or apprehend a suspect. Nor were they able to prevent the prowler attacks, which continued in the wake of the Australia Day shootings, but were believed to be unrelated.
1:29:16 Speaker 00 Lucy Madril was murdered less than three weeks after the shootings. Carmel Reed was attacked four months later. It wasn't until August that there would finally be a significant development in the case.
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