Don't Ever Call Me Helpless

by Ruth Wykes

  David Birnie pleaded guilty to four counts of murder, one count of abduction and one of rape. Through his lawyer he said he wanted to plead guilty to spare the families the long agony of a trial: 'It was the least I could do,' he later told a detective.

  Throughout the brief trial Catherine Birnie stood holding her partner's hand. She was not required to plead as her barrister was waiting on the results of a psychiatric report. Catherine Birnie was remanded to appear in court later that month.

  Catherine Birnie was found to be fit to plead and on 3 March 1987 she stood in the courtroom and confessed to her part in the murders.

  In his sentencing remarks Mr Justice Wallace said to David Birnie: 'Each of these horrible crimes were premeditated, planned and carried out cruelly and relentlessly over a comparatively short period. The law is not strong enough to express the community's horror at this sadistic killer who tortured, raped and murdered four women. In my opinion David John Birnie is such a danger to society that he should never be released from prison.'

  When he was sentencing Catherine Birney Justice Wallace said: 'In my opinion you should never be released to be with David Birnie. You should never be allowed to see him again.'

  Bill Power was a journalist for a Perth daily newspaper who covered the Birnie trials. His reporting and personal observations of the trial made for compelling reading. In Never To Be Released Paul B Kidd highlighted some of Power's more colourful, if somewhat prejudicial, observations. Bill recalled:

  There was nothing distinctive about David and Catherine Birnie when they first appeared in court to face multiple murder charges in the serial killings which brought to an end the mystery of young women going missing off Perth streets.

  They were a rather nondescript, ordinary-looking couple you might find running a petrol station in a country town. David was a weedy little man and Catherine his drab, slightly buxom wife with a very sour face. Both were accompanied by male police officers.

  David Birnie appeared first at the top of the stairs from the holding cell beneath the court and looked totally out of place in the majestic Perth Supreme Court. He was already in the dock glancing around at the massed police, court staff and huge media contingent as Catherine made her way up the stairs to the courtroom.

  The scrawny little serial killer was mesmerising enough but nothing could have prepared me for the moment that Catherine Birnie appeared at the top of the jarrah staircase leading up to the dock where the charges were to be read out to them.

  If you have ever witnessed a wild cat go off, then try and imagine that same hellcat in the confined spaces of a narrow staircase. Catherine Birnie fought against the guarding police officers and refused to allow any of them to touch her as she screamed and spat her words at them until she reached the dock and spotted her beloved David. Only then did she calm down.

  The unusualness of her appearance continued when David Birnie stood before the court to hear the murder charges read against him and Catherine Birnie was allowed to sit on a small wooden bench immediately behind him. As the judge levelled the horrible case against him, Birnie stood motionless with his hands clasped behind his back.

  'What I witnessed next I will take to the grave with me,' Bill Power said. 'As the heinous charges of abduction, rape, torture and murder were being read out against him, Catherine Birnie bent forward, stretched out her right hand and gently stroked the ball of David Birnie's thumb behind his back.'

  'There has probably never before been such a declaration of undying love in the Western Australian Supreme Court dock.'

  'It was all over within a few minutes,' recalled Bill Power. 'And the erstwhile angelic Catherine, who moments before had acted out such a show of dedication, was dragged kicking and screaming and spitting down the wooden staircase to a prison van waiting beside the court.

  'Perhaps she never wanted another man besides David to touch her.'

  When Catherine and David Birnie were captured and brought before the Supreme Court, citizens all over Perth were incandescent with rage. Crowds gathered outside the court and people were openly calling for the death penalty. Letters were fired off to the local newspapers, talkback radio was alight with people who had nowhere else to take their disbelief or anger. How could this happen in our safe little city?

  People were at a complete loss to comprehend. What kind of monsters could do this? Were the Birnies crazy? Evil? How could a woman do this? Perhaps in the torrent of emotions, the most difficult thing of all was to look at Catherine Birnie and to wonder what kind of monster she was.

  David Birnie was a lust killer, a psychopath who showed no regard for his victims. Catherine's involvement was explained away as her being personality dependent on her common-law husband. But that's an excuse, and a flimsy one.

  We think we can spot misfits in our society. Those people whose social skills are underdeveloped, or who are afflicted with a mental disorder that sees them struggle to fit in with 'the norm'. We also think we would be able to tell if someone were cruel, sadistic, criminal. Yet the most chilling fact about serial killers is that they are rational and calculating - and for most of the time they can participate in society without drawing attention to themselves. As the British serial killer Dennis Nilsen put it, 'A mind can be evil without being abnormal.'

  The FBI defines serial murder as the following:

  A minimum of three to four victims, with a 'cooling off' period in between.

  The killer is usually a stranger to the victim - the murders appear unconnected or random.

  The murders reflect a need to sadistically dominate the victim.

  The murder is rarely 'for profit'; the motive is psychological, not material.

  The victim may have 'symbolic' value for the killer; the method of killing may reveal this meaning.

  Killers often choose victims who are vulnerable (prostitutes, runaways etc).

  Statistically, the average serial killer is a white male from a lower-to-middle-class background, usually in his 20s or 30s. Many were physically or emotionally abused by parents. Some were adopted. As children, fledgling serial killers often set fires, torture animals and wet their beds (these red-flag behaviours are known as the 'triad' of symptoms). Brain injuries are common. Some are very intelligent and have shown great promise as successful professionals. They are also fascinated with the police and authority in general.

  These are, of course, generalisations formed in the United States after years of profiling convicted serial killers. In many respects David Birnie will fit into those statistical norms, but they don't explain Catherine's involvement. Or do they?

  Catherine Margaret Harrison was born on 21 May 1951. She was two years old when her mother Doreen died while giving birth to Catherine's younger brother. He died two days later. After the death of her mother and brother, Catherine went to South Africa with her father Harold, who found it too hard to raise his toddler daughter. He sent her back to Perth to live with her maternal grandparents.

  A year later she was sent to live with an aunt and uncle and appears to have spent time being shuffled between reluctant relatives. Hers was an unhappy and lonely childhood. Neighbours have remembered Catherine as a sad child, one who rarely smiled, and who had few friends. Her grandparents wouldn't have other children come to visit; some people who knew the family then claim that most parents wouldn't allow their children to associate with Catherine.

  When she was still a child Catherine watched her grandmother die from an epileptic seizure. Then at the age of ten she was the subject of yet another custody dispute that resulted in her father, Harold, being awarded sole custody.

  Two years later she met a boy, a new neighbour, who was two years older than her, but with whom she felt an immediate affinity. He too was from a disaffected, dysfunctional family; he was a teenage boy who was very angry at the world. Both of them were looking for something and recognised a little of themselves in each other, and it wasn't long before they had fallen in love. His name was David Birnie.
/>   David John Birnie was born on 16 February 1951 to John and Margaret Birnie and was the eldest of six children. They lived in the semirural area of Wattle Grove, 13 kilometres east of Perth. His father was physically disabled and both parents were alcoholics. Neighbours from the time heard rumours of promiscuity, alcoholism and incest. John and Margaret found it a struggle to raise the children due to their low income; at times the authorities would come and take the children away and place them in care. The family moved in the early 1960s and became neighbours of Catherine and her family. When John and Margaret divorced neither wanted custody of David and he became a ward of the state.

  David's was a dysfunctional childhood, and from a relatively young age he displayed signs of an unhealthy sexual appetite. At 15, David left school to become an apprentice jockey for Eric Parnham at a nearby Ascot racecourse. During his time there, some workmates claimed he often physically harmed the horses and developed the tendencies of an exhibitionist. One night, David broke into an elderly lady's house naked, with a stocking over his head, and committed his first rape.

  It isn't clear when David and Catherine embarked on their teenage life of petty crime, but they became well known to police. Even as juveniles they were more than willing to show that their regard for the law and respect for society were almost non-existent.

  On 11 June 1969 they were charged with 11 counts of theft and breaking and entering. David was sentenced to nine months in prison. Catherine was pregnant at the time and only received probation. The following month, the two appeared before the Supreme Court, charged with another eight counts of theft. Three more years of imprisonment were added on to David's sentence and Catherine received an additional four years of probation.

  In July 1970 David escaped from Karnet prison and reunited with Catherine again. It was not long before the two were once again in trouble with the law. They were arrested on 10 July 1970 and charged with 53 counts of theft, breaking and entering, trespassing and illegal operation of a motor vehicle. In their possession, police found wigs, radios, dynamite, detonators and fuses. Catherine admitted to knowing that her actions were wrong, but claimed that she loved David and would do absolutely anything for him. David was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison and Catherine was sentenced to six months of imprisonment. Her baby was taken by welfare services.

  Catherine's father Harold had been trying to keep her away from David before her imprisonment, but to no avail. While she was serving her time, a parole officer talked to her about how different and much better her life would be if she stayed away from David. The enforced separation from David seemed to have an effect on Catherine, and when she was released she found a job as a domestic servant for a family, the McLaughlins.

  She was drawn to their youngest son Donald, became romantically involved with him and married him on her 21st birthday. But tragedy never seemed too far away from Catherine McLaughlin, nee Harrison. Several months later she watched helpless with horror as their seven-month-old son, little Donny, was struck by a vehicle in the driveway of their home. The infant died from his injuries.

  Catherine and Donald McLaughlin had five more children and continued with their marriage for a number of years. Meanwhile, David Birnie had been released from prison. He met another woman and they had a baby daughter together.

  Did they stay in contact? Did the yearning to be together ever go away? Little is known about those intervening years when David and Catherine were living with their partners and raising children. Catherine and Donald were living in near poverty in Victoria Park, a suburb separated from Perth's CBD by the Swan River. Catherine's father and uncle were living in the house with the couple and five children.

  Four weeks after the birth of the youngest baby, Catherine went to hospital to have a hysterectomy. When Donald came to visit her, David Birnie was sitting in the visitors' chair holding Catherine's hand. According to some people she had been seeing David behind her husband's back for almost two years. Soon after leaving hospital she went to visit David one day, then phoned Donald and told him she wasn't coming back.

  She changed her surname to Birnie by deed poll, effectively closing the door on the most stable chapter in her life. And opening the door on a chapter that would send deep chills through an entire city.

  At the age of 21 James Birnie, David's younger brother, had to move out of home. His mother had taken a restraining order out against him, and he had just been released from prison, having served five months for indecently interfering with his six-year-old niece.

  James told a reporter: '[The six-year-old] led me on. You don't know what they can be like. When I left prison, I had nowhere to go. I couldn't go back to my mother's place because I had assaulted her and there was a restraining order out against me. I had a couple of fights with Mum and the police chased me off. Mum has alcohol problems. So David and Catherine let me move in. They weren't real happy about it and David kept saying that he was going to kill me, to keep me in line.'

  James added that David Birnie had few friends, was heavily into kinky sex and had a large pornographic video collection. 'He has to have sex four or five times a day,' James said. 'I saw him use a hypodermic of that stuff you have when they're going to put stitches in your leg. It makes you numb. He put the needle in his penis. Then he had sex. David has had many women. He always has someone.' James' 21st birthday present from David was being allowed to have sex with Catherine.

  David Birnie's apparent insatiable appetite for sex began when he was a teenager. It is likely, given that he committed rape at age 15, he was already developing a taste for control and violence. In retrospect, all the danger signs were there; this was a man who would go on to commit progressively worse crimes against women.

  Even in prison David tried to find ways to feed his sexual appetite. In June 1993 authorities discovered he had pornography on his personal computer in his special protection unit in Casuarina. The computer was confiscated. More than a decade later he was charged with sexual assault on a fellow inmate.

  Because both she and David Birnie pleaded guilty to the charges of abduction and murder there was only a very brief trial, and very little detail of their crimes went on the public record. The psychiatrist who gave evidence about Catherine's mental state and fitness to stand trial, told the Supreme Court that Catherine was totally dependent on Birnie and almost totally vulnerable to his evil influence. He said: 'It is the worst case of personality dependence I have seen in my career.'

  Was it really that easy to explain, or to dismiss? Catherine didn't sit by and watch her partner commit these crimes; she was an active participant in them. No matter how much a woman loves her partner, it is not normal to spend significant time planning heinous crimes against other women. Or to abduct strangers. Or to physically restrain them. Or to watch your partner forcefully violate them while you stand around with a camera in your hands. Or to jump into bed and continue the degrading, painful and disgraceful attacks. Or to murder them. Or bury them.

  Catherine was an active and involved participant in all the crimes committed by her and David Birnie. It is too simplistic to explain her involvement as merely being under the evil influence of David Birnie.

  When the police asked Catherine, after her arrest, why she had killed Susannah, she said: 'Because I wanted to see how strong I was within my inner self. I didn't feel a thing. It was like I expected. I was prepared to follow him to the end of the earth and do anything to see that his desires were satisfied. She was a female. Females hurt and destroy males.'

  The first part of her statement is probably true. The second part is Catherine being smart - telling the police and mental health experts what she thought they wanted to hear. Her explanation of motive, as told years later, is a little different: 'It's about power. You don't know what power is. Nobody knows what power is until you hold somebody's life in their hands, look into their eyes ... and take it all away from them.'

  Catherine is very aware that people ask 'why?' She claims that peop
le have spent a lot of time trying to understand her, to find a reason for what she did. 'I've filled out those forms - the profile ones. Even the FBI has tried to profile me ... and I told them exactly what they wanted to hear. You know - bad childhood, dead mother, stuff they were after.'

  Her eyes dance as she relates this; whether it's because she was 'important enough' for the FBI to want to know about her, or because she felt like a naughty child, it's difficult to know. Catherine has had a lifelong contempt for authority, and her way of dealing with it inside the walls of an institution is to manipulate it for her own amusement.

  Not long after she was put in prison, Catherine wrote a letter to one of her children. It is an interesting insight into the things that were occupying her thoughts in 1986. In part it reads:

  By now you would have heard that I have been charged with murder and other things. Please try to understand that what I did was never meant to hurt anybody but that what I did was because I love David. Love is a very powerful thing & I found out that it can make you do things that you wouldn't do normally. It was because of my love for David that those things happened & went on happening. Be very careful of who you love & to what extent you love that person. I shall never be released from prison because of what has been done. I know this. Even now I won't stop loving David & trying to help him. I am going to see if my lawyer will handle the both of us. I'll always love David no matter what comes out in the court case. He has said he loves one of the girls who was murdered & that he also loves me so I'm caught in a trap of loving a man blindly to all his faults. Please go on with your life and try to forget that I was ever your mother because I don't deserve to have children after what I've done to other people's children.

  I'll always love you and the other kids but I think it's better if you try to forget me as your mother. I've got to go now as there are more things to be finalized so if I am allowed to I'll write at a [sic] nother time. I do love you and my thoughts are with you always. Don't feel ashamed because I feel all the shame for both of us.