Perth,
Western Australia
(Old Edition)
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Car clue to Claremont killer
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Ms Glennon (27) was seen interacting with an occupant of the car shortly before she disappeared from Stirling Highway around midnight on St Patrick's Day. Reliable witnesses saw this incident, but looked away before they saw what happened next. When they turned back, Ms Glennon and the car were gone. She had been drinking with work colleagues at the Continental Hotel, now the Claremont, in Bay View Terrace, and was seen walking along the Stirling Highway footpath towards her home in Mosman Park. Police did not release the description of the car at the time because although significant, it was not the only car in the vicinity. Had the public known of it, police feared it would become the only focus of public information. They learned their lesson from the disappearance of teenager Lisa Mott in Collie in 1980. After a yellow panel van featured in that release of witness information, all subsequent calls were narrowed only to yellow panel van sightings. The public disregarded anything else. But as with the release of controversial video footage, the police squad now working on the case believe the end of the road has been reached on this aspect of evidence, and that no such harm can now result from releasing a description of the car. Whoever was in the car has not come forward or been interviewed. The information the police have does not include the car's registration number. The car described by the witnesses stopped next to Ms Glennon as she approached Christ Church on the corner of the highway and Queenslea Drive. This is almost a block further south west than other sightings where she crossed the highway closer to Richards Electrical on the Bay View Terrace corner. A new team of police in charge of investigating the crime made the decision to partly lift the veil of secrecy that has surrounded the case for 12 years. As the POST reported in May, police have released three new pieces of information relating to the case to a pay TV documentary crew. The first is black and white security tape footage of Jane Rimmer interacting on the footpath outside the Continental the night she disappeared in 1996 with a man she appeared to recognise. Her body was found in bush 40km south of Perth two months later. Police have shown this footage to 700 people, but it has not been publicly broadcast before. "It's not a secret. The media know of its existence and publicised it back in the 90s," one officer said. "It was crappy footage in 1996 and it's not quite so crappy now. "The last time we tried to get it enhanced was at the University of WA in 2003. They couldn't help us." It was in the final stages of enhancement when the POST went to press. Police say that so far enhancement has improved the images, but it is still only four seconds of poor quality black and white footage, showing a man from behind. The third piece of information relates to the disappearance of Sarah Spiers (18), missing, presumed murdered. She was believed to have called a taxi from an intersection phone box diagonally opposite Christ Church around 2am after Australia Day 1996. Witnesses then saw a teenager, thought to be Sarah, crossing the road, and the lights of a car were seen to approach her from the direction of the Stirling Road subway, then stop. She was never seen again. The documentary will be broadcast twice next week, on Thursday and Friday nights. Police saw it as a new opportunity to call for information from the public, and to put the story in context. Short grabs on the evening news over many years were not enough to give the full picture, police believe. The Special Crime Squad was approached early this year by a company that produces true Australian crime documentaries for Foxtel and Channel 9. Police were shown other shows in the series the company had made. The producers undertook to present the full picture of the Claremont murders and to allow detectives to vet the show for accuracy of detail about events surrounding the crimes. Police asked for and were granted corrections when shown a rough cut of the show. The POST was informed three months ago that police intended to release the new information to local media before it was broadcast by Foxtel. In view of the controversy about the hotel security footage, no final decision has been made about when this will be done. The police plan has always been to release all new information at the same time, so that resources such as staffing telephone lines can be marshaled at the same time. It will be broadcast later on free to air TV, by Channel Nine. Police said a Mosman Park IT expert and "kerb crawler", interviewed by police after being seen talking to a girl walking on Stirling Highway, was not of great interest at this stage.
-For comment see story Has police secrecy wrecked a chance of a solution.
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