On 4 November, they found their fourth victim. Again, as with the previous victim, they preyed on a lone female hitchhiker in the Perth area – Denise Brown, a 21-year-old computer operator. As before, they took their victim back to their home and for two days thereafter Denise Brown was repeatedly raped and sexually abused. Following this, they drove Brown to a pine plantation some 40 miles south of the city where she was again raped and then stabbed by David Birnie. Catherine watched and took photographs while this was happening. However, despite this savage attack on the victim she remained alive. Catherine then gave David a bigger knife, but despite inflicting more stab wounds on Brown she still remained alive. David Birnie then shattered her skull with an axe, which finally killed her. They buried the victim in another shallow grave.
The next intended victim would prove to be their downfall. On 9 November, they abducted a lone 16-year-old female hitchhiker named Kate Moir. As with the previous victims, she was taken to the Birnies’ home and again chained and subjected to sexual abuse. However, the Birnies’ luck was about to run out, as the following day the victim found herself unchained and apparently alone in the house. As a result, she managed to escape through a bedroom window. Badly bruised and half-naked, she staggered into a local shop and the police were called. She led them directly back to the Birnies’ address where they arrested Catherine Birnie and then went to David Birnie’s place of work to arrest him.
When questioned by police, the Birnies vigorously denied the girl’s allegations. Instead, they claimed that she had been a willing party and had gone with them to smoke marijuana. Birnie admitted to having sex with the girl but maintained that he had not raped her. A search of the house found the girl’s bag and a packet of cigarettes that she had had the common sense to conceal in the ceiling as proof positive that she had actually been there, but there was little else to prove the allegation of rape or to connect the Birnies with any of the other missing women.
Under more intense questioning, David Birnie finally confessed and calmly told the officer questioning him: ‘It’s getting dark. Best we take the shovel and dig them up. There are four of them.’ When told of David’s confession, Catherine Birnie finally confessed. They both agreed to take police to the bodies which were buried not far from the city.
On 3 March 1987, the Birnies appeared in court. They were both charged with four counts of murder and numerous connected offences. They pleaded guilty and were both sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 20 years before parole. In relation to David Birnie, the judge expressed a hope that he would never be released from prison. That, however, may now not be the case with new challenges to life sentences under the Human Rights Act 1998.
David Birnie committed suicide at on 7 October 2005. He was found hanged in his cell. He had been due to appear in court the following day, charged with the rape of a fellow inmate.
At the time of writing, Catherine Birnie remains imprisoned in Bandyup Women’s Prison. Her request to attend David’s funeral was denied. She applied in 2007 but this was rejected. The Attorney General of Western Australia at the time, Jim McGinty, was against her ever being released.
Her case was due for review in January 2010, but on 14 March 2009, Christian Porter, the new Western Australian Attorney-General, revoked her non-parole period. She became only the third Australian woman to have her papers marked ‘never to be released’. She appealed against this decision in 2010 but Porter rejected the appeal.
WILLIAM MACDONALD, AKA THE SYDNEY MUTILATOR
William MacDonald was born Allan Ginsberg, in Liverpool, England, in 1924. At the age of 19, he joined the army, where he was raped in an air-raid shelter by a corporal who threatened to kill him if he told anyone. When he was discharged from the army in 1947, psychiatrists diagnosed him as schizophrenic and his brother had him committed to a mental asylum in Scotland where he shared cells with raving lunatics and received shock treatment every day. After six months, his mother had him released and took him home. As he grew older, he became what was termed a ‘practising’ homosexual, openly soliciting men in public toilets and bars. He emigrated to Canada in 1949 and then to Australia in 1955, where he decided to start a new life, changing his name to William MacDonald.
MacDonald’s career as a murderer began in Brisbane in 1960 when he befriended Amos Hurst, 55. They started drinking together and then went back to Hurst’s hotel room, where they sat on the bed and drank more beer. Hurst was almost unconscious when MacDonald strangled him. During the strangulation, blood spurted from his mouth all over MacDonald’s hands. MacDonald punched him in the face and Hurst fell to the floor dead. MacDonald then calmly undressed Hurst and put him into bed. He washed the blood from his hands and arms and left. In the cold light of the day, realising what he had done, MacDonald feared arrest. When no police called on him, he began to relax and his luck held. While scouring a local paper five days later, he saw Hurst’s name in the obituary column. It said he had died suddenly of a heart attack. What the papers didn’t say was that while Amos Hurst’s post mortem showed that he had died of a heart attack, it also revealed that the severe bruising on his neck suggested the possibility of death by strangulation; however, under the circumstances this could have been bruising from a fight or some other drunken misadventure. The case was closed.
MacDonald moved to Sydney in 1961 and continued to solicit men in toilets and bars. On 4 June 1961, McDonald met a homeless man, Albert Greenfield. They walked to a local swimming baths where they sat and talked. MacDonald’s urge to kill Alfred Greenfield had been growing, but he controlled his urge until Greenfield had drunk all his beer and fallen asleep on the grass. MacDonald removed a knife from its sheath as he knelt over the sleeping Greenfield. He brought it down swiftly and buried the blade deep in his victim’s neck. He then repeatedly stabbed Greenfield. The ferocity of the attack severed the arteries in Greenfield’s neck. Blood was everywhere, but MacDonald had come prepared. He had brought a light plastic raincoat in his bag and had put it on before he attacked the unsuspecting Greenfield. MacDonald removed Greenfield’s trousers and underpants, slicing the testicles and penis off at the scrotum with his knife. On leaving the scene, MacDonald stopped along the way and washed his hands and face under a tap. On the way home, he threw Greenfield’s genitals into the harbour.
On Saturday, 21 November 1961, MacDonald purchased a bigger knife with a 6in blade. The urge to kill had again manifested itself. That night, MacDonald saw Ernest William Cobbin, 41, staggering towards him under the influence of drink. On the pretext of giving him more drink, MacDonald lured Cobbin to a nearby park where they sat in the public toilets and drank beer. MacDonald openly put on a raincoat from his bag and then took out the knife and thrust it into Cobbin’s throat, severing his jugular vein. MacDonald inflicted several more cuts to the throat, which caused blood to spurt all over MacDonald’s arms, face and raincoat. Despite his severe injuries, Cobbin tried to defend himself, but McDonald continued with his frenzied attack. MacDonald pulled Cobbin’s trousers and underpants down, lifted his penis and testicles, sliced them off with his knife and put them in a plastic bag he had brought with him. When he had finished, he calmly took off his raincoat, wrapped his knife and the plastic bag in it, put them in his bag and walked out of the toilet, again stopping along the way to wash his hands under a tap.
On returning home, MacDonald washed the bloody contents of the plastic bag in warm water, put them in a clean plastic bag and took them to bed with him. The following day, he wrapped the plastic bag and its grisly contents, the knife and a brick in newspaper, tied them with string and threw them from the Sydney Harbour Bridge into the deepest part of the harbour. This time, there would be no evidence left lying around for the police to find.
On 31 March 1962, MacDonald claimed his fourth victim. That morning, he purchased another long-bladed sheath knife and packed it in his bag with his raincoat and a plastic bag. At 10pm, he came upon Frank McLean, who was very drunk and making his way along the road.
MacDonald suggested they went somewhere quiet for a drink. As they turned a corner MacDonald attacked McLean, stabbing him in the throat. McLean attempted to defend himself but MacDonald continued to stab him repeatedly in the face. McLean fell to the ground and MacDonald took advantage of the situation, jumping on him and continuing his frenzied attack with the knife. He stabbed McLean in the head, neck, throat, face and chest until he was dead. Saturated in Frank McLean’s blood, MacDonald dragged the body a few feet further into the lane, lowered his victim’s trousers and proceeded to cut off McLean’s genitals and put them in a plastic bag. On returning home, he washed the contents of the plastic bag in the sink and put them in a clean plastic bag. In the morning, he threw the incriminating evidence off Sydney Harbour Bridge. When he was found, Frank McLean was still alive. Unfortunately, he died a short time later from his wounds and without being able to give a description of his attacker to the police. By now, the investigating officers were of the belief that the murderer might be specifically targeting homosexuals.
In November 1962, MacDonald, using the name Allan Brennan, acquired a shop premises and for a time ran the small shop on his own. However, it wasn’t long before he killed again. One night, MacDonald went to a bar in search of a potential victim. Here, he met 42-year-old James Hackett, a petty thief and down-and-out. MacDonald took Hackett back to his shop and they continued drinking until Hackett passed out on the floor. MacDonald pulled out a long knife and went to stab Hackett in the throat with the knife but it went straight through Hackett’s neck. Hackett woke up and attempted to ward off further blows with his arms and hands. As he did this, MacDonald was cut with his own knife. This enraged MacDonald further and he unleashed a volley of blows with the knife, eventually killing Hackett with a wound to the heart. Bleeding profusely, MacDonald bandaged his hand and set about removing Hackett’s genitals, but the knife was now blunt and bent from the ferocity of the attack. Too exhausted to go and get another one, he sat covered from head to foot in Hackett’s blood, hacking away at Hackett’s scrotum with the blunt and bent blade. He stabbed the penis several times and made some cuts around the testicles before finally giving up and falling asleep where he sat.
The following morning, MacDonald found himself covered in dry, congealed blood. He was still lying next to his victim. MacDonald was concerned that blood had seeped through the floorboards and dripped down onto the counters of his shop below. He cleaned himself up and went to the hospital, where he had some stitches put in his hand. It took MacDonald the whole day to clean up. The huge pools of blood on the lino couldn’t be removed so he had to take all the flooring up, cutting it into smaller pieces and putting it in the dustbin. He also removed Hackett’s blood-soaked clothes, for some reason leaving only the socks. He managed finally to drag the body down as far as the foundations. There he left it, together with Hackett’s clothing. By now, he was starting to become agitated and panicky, realising the full horror of what he had done. He had only been able to remove some of the bloodstains and there was still blood all over the floorboards.
He decided to leave the city. He caught a train to Brisbane, where he took up lodgings in a boarding house. He changed his features by dyeing his greying hair black, growing a moustache and assuming the name of Allan MacDonald. Every day, he bought the Sydney newspapers expecting to read of the murder of Hackett and how police were looking for a man named Brennan in connection with the Mutilator Murders.
Shortly after he left, the police received a complaint of rancid odour emanating from the shop premises. Enquiries revealed that the owner had not been seen since 4 November. They entered the premises and found the naked and butchered Hackett concealed beneath the shop. At the time, the police believed that this victim was the new tenant, Brennan (MacDonald). The press reported that this victim was Allan Brennan (William MacDonald) and, on that basis, the police enquiry continued. However, that assumption later turned out to be false.
In April 1963, MacDonald returned to Sydney, a move that was to be his undoing. On 22 April 1963, a former co-worker of MacDonald spoke to him in the street. He told MacDonald about what the papers had reported and that he was supposed to have been murdered. The police were notified and a month later MacDonald was arrested while working under the name of David Allen. When interviewed, he confessed his identity and confessed to the murders, giving his motive as having being raped by homosexuals in his teenage years and having formed a hatred of them since then.
William MacDonald confessed to all the murders. He was charged with four counts of murder and he pleaded not guilty on the grounds of insanity. His trial, held in September 1963, was one of the most sensational the country had ever seen. When he gave evidence, the public hung onto every word of horror that he spoke. At one point, when he was describing how he cut off one of the victim’s testicles and penis, a woman juror fainted. The jury found him guilty of four counts of murder.
There was one final twist to the tale. Despite MacDonald’s insanity plea, the jury found him to have been sane at the time of the murders. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but was later transferred to a home for the criminally insane. He spent the next 16 years in that institution. In 1980, he was deemed sane enough to be sent back to a mainstream prison, where he volunteered to be isolated from the other prisoners. He is Australia’s second-longest serving prisoner. In 2000, he declined a parole date hearing. He was quoted as saying, ‘I am institutionalised now and I have no desire to go and live outside, I would not last five minutes. I have everything I could want in here.’ He is, however, taken on the occasional day trip out.
IVAN MILAT, AKA THE BACKPACKER MURDERER
Between 1989 and 1992, on the Australian highway stretching from Sydney to Melbourne, seven hitchhikers mysteriously disappeared. Two were Australian teenagers and five were European tourists in their early twenties, of whom two were British. The latter two’s disappearances would lead to the discovery of Ivan Milat’s murderous activities and his subsequent apprehension.
On 19 September 1992, a walker in the Belanglo State Forest just outside Sydney came across the remains of a grave containing two bodies, which were later identified as two missing British women, Joanne Walters and Caroline Clarke. Both had been savagely stabbed and shot and had probably been tied up prior to their deaths.
In October 1993, two further bodies were discovered. These were the young Australian couple, James Gibson and Deborah Everist. They were found buried in undergrowth in a forested area. Both had been brutally murdered. Further searches in that location revealed the body of one of the missing German backpackers, Simone Schmidl. A further search in the same location revealed the bodies of two more missing European backpackers, 21-year-old Gabor Kurt Neugebauer and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Anja Susanne Habschied. Both had vanished two years previously. Police revealed that both victims had been killed by multiple stab wounds. Habschied had been decapitated and her head used for target practice with a rifle. At this location, the police found spent cartridge cases, which were later connected to a weapon that they found. The investigation team deduced that the killer, or killers, spent more time with each victim as the crimes progressed. This fact indicated that, apart from being cruel and sadistic, the perpetrators were also cool, calculating and confident individuals.
Around the time of the disappearances, a young British backpacker by the name of Paul Onions was involved in an encounter with a passing motorist who picked him up while he was hitchhiking north. Onions stated that he had been picked up by an Australian male, who introduced himself as Bill and then pulled a gun on him. However, Onions managed to escape from the car and flag down another motorist, telling that motorist of the incident. The young backpacker was taken to a local police station where he gave his account. However, due to the fact that he had been unable to obtain the registration number of the vehicle in question, the police filed the report and apparently took no further action as they were unable to trace the vehicle or the man in question.
Severa
l years later, still troubled by his experience and now aware of the bodies being found in the Australian outback, Onions called the Australian High Commission and was put in touch with the taskforce conducting the investigation in Australia. On 13 November 1993, he told the officer who answered the telephone the details of his attack in 1990 and was asked why he had not reported it then. When he replied that he had, he expected the officer to ask him where and when and the name of the officer he spoke to. Instead, he was thanked for the information and the call was terminated. When he didn’t hear any more, he assumed that his report was of no value and did his best to forget about it.
The official search of the forest was suspended on 17 November 1993. No more bodies or additional evidence had been found. During the course of the ongoing police investigation, the motorist who had taken Mr Onions to the police station had been seen and re-interviewed. A further witness had mentioned the name of Ivan Milat as being a possible suspect; he was known to have a mania for guns. The police decided to visit the work premises of Ivan Milat, whose brother Richard coincidentally worked with him. Timesheets were requested for both men for the dates and times of the murders. Richard was found to have been working on every occasion. However, his brother Ivan had been away from work around the dates of the disappearances of the victims.
From this point on, Ivan Milat (b. 1943) was looked on as a suspect but the police did not have any evidence. A criminal record check revealed that Milat had previous convictions – in 1971 he had picked up two girls hitchhiking from Liverpool to Melbourne and had allegedly raped one of them. Both girls testified that he was armed with a large knife and carried a length of rope. He was later acquitted when the prosecution case was dismissed as unproven. As a result, the police closely scrutinised Milat’s past history and his more recent lifestyle right through until 1994.
The Evil Within - A Top Murder Squad Detective Reveals The Chilling True Stories of The World's Most Notorious Killers Page 2
