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'I told police about Sarah'
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He said he remembered picking her up in his taxi the night before she disappeared, on Australia Day, 1996. Steven Ross (43), of Irwin Road, Embleton, told the POST this week the police should be looking for a fellow passenger, a man who had shared the taxi with Ms Spiers. Mr Ross said the man did not appear to know her. Mr Ross said another woman, also a stranger, had "doubled up" in the cab that night. Mr Ross said he dropped the second woman in Dalkeith. He said that she had never come forward. He said that after dropping the woman, he had taken the man and Ms Spiers to the Windsor Hotel, in South Perth. The man had pushed Ms Spiers out of the cab then paid the fare. "I think he came back to Claremont the next night, found her and killed her," Mr Ross said. Ms Spiers, Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon all disappeared on nights out in Claremont in 1996 and 1997. The bodies of Ms Rimmer and Ms Glennon were found soon after their disappearances. Sarah Spiers has never been found. Mr Ross, who had been a taxi driver at the time of the disappearances and murders, lives on a property owned by former Claremont mayor, school psychologist and civil rights campaigner Peter Weygers. Mr Weygers was using Mr Ross's former taxi, a Ford station wagon, when the police arrived at the Embleton property on Wednesday morning. They impounded and sealed the station wagon and another vehicle, a tray-top truck. Mr Weygers said Mr Ross used the vehicles in his work as a courier. Mr Ross said that in 1996 he had made a statement to two Macro officers in the office of Claremont solicitor Grant Milner. Mr Milner confirmed this week that he had been present at the Mr Milner confirmed this week that he had been present at the interview. The Macro officers had been invited to hear Mr Ross's story. He said his recollection was that Mr Ross had been unsure about which night he had picked up Ms Spiers, and the police had not seemed very interested. Mr Milner said Mr Ross appeared to be an unsophisicated person, and sincere. He said he thought Mr Weygers had asked for the interview. Mr Milner said he had rung the police after their interview with Mr Ross to apologise for wasting their time. Police raided Mr Ross's home on Wednesday, armed with a search warrant that listed personal items belonging to the missing women. Mr Ross said he was not interested in talking to the police unless they released his taxi computer records for late January 1996. "I've got an alibi, but they won't give it to me," he said. "Without those records, I don't have an alibi for the time Sarah Spiers disappeared". "What if they accuse me of it? I know I was working that night., doing radio jobs. The computer records will prove it." He said he also wanted police to produce the young Dalkeith woman to corroborate his story. He said he had spoken to Sarah's father Don, many times of his suspicions about his male passenger. Mr Spiers had taken this information to police, he said. The car he was driving at the time Ciara Glennon was murdered is still available and registered as a taxi, he said. There are two dwellings on Mr Weygers' Embleton property. Mr Weygers said he had bought the house from Mr Ross after Mr Ross got into financial difficulties when he lost his taxi licence. Mr Weygers said that about four years ago he had put a transportable unit on the back of the block and allowed Mr Ross to live there. He had completely stripped, renovated and re-painted the front house, which was now rented to a 20-year-old university student. Police seized the student's car and computer, containing all his university work this week. They sprayed the house with luminol, a toxic chemical which is a presumptive test for blood residue, which is indicated if the luminol glows in the dark. Police scientists were at the house and the transportable most of the night. They probed the garden and searched both dwellings. Mr Ross said he had picked up Ms Spiers twice in the same night. The first trip had been from Wellington Street, Mosman Park, to Club Bay View, he said. He said the second had been from Claremont to South Perth. He said there had been a mix-up earlier in the night with a call from the same passenger. He said her name had come on his taxi computer screen and he asked if she was "Spier". He said she corrected him and said: "Spiers." He recalled that she had lived in Mill Point Road, South Perth. Mr Weygers told the POST this week he had been driving the ex-taxi station wagon on Wednesday because his own car had broken down. He said police had told him they were leaving no stone unturned because a review of the Claremont serial killings was due later this year. He said his student tenant had been traumatised by the police raid. He said the student had been required to stay inside the house and witness the police search and chemical testing. Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said the information the police were working on was new intelligence, but dismissed the notion that Macro was moving away from its previous focus on Lance Williams, of Cottesloe. He said: "I would describe it as an important development, but it is just a response to intelligence."
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