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Australia’s House of Horrors

In the evil annals of serial murder, by world averages only 5 per cent of the offenders are women. Yet of the 33 cases of serial murder in Australia since 1822, Australia has had 10 female serial killers; roughly a 30 per cent average. There is no logical explanation why.

And throughout the world, the rarest of all of the serial killers are the husband and wife killing team. Of the three cases on public record, two are from England and are deep-etched into our vernacular. The other is from Australia.

In northern England in 1965 Ian Brady and his common-law wife, Myra Hindley, were convicted of the murders of five children whose bodies they buried on the bleak Saddleworth Moors. Before they died the children were subjected to torture that beggared belief. The children’s pleas for mercy were recorded by Brady and Hindley and played a major part in their undoing.

Between 1967 and 1992, England’s Fred and Rosemary West tortured, raped and murdered 12 victims, including two of Fred’s young daughters. They buried their victims in the soggy ground at England’s most infamous death house at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester – a place the media dubbed the ‘House of Horrors’.

Australia has it’s own House of Horrors.

These days the house at number 3 Moorhouse Street, Willagee, on the outskirts of Perth, Western Australia, is neat and tidy and just like any other tenanted Housing Commission house in the street.

But in 1987, this white brick, two bedroom bungalow, which was desperately in need of a coat of paint and with its garden overrun with weeds and dead flowers, became the most notorious house in Australia. Rubber-neckers slowed down and pointed and whispered as they drove past.

The house in Moorhouse Street was the love nest, torture chamber and killing field of Catherine and David Birnie, husband and wife serial killers.

In the spring of 1986, four women disappeared from Perth over a 27-day period. Their bodies were later found in shallow graves. Catherine and David Birnie had tortured and murdered them.

Born the eldest of six children in 1950, David Birnie had an insatiable sexual appetite and a taste for bondage and sodomy. His family was poor, and spent what little money they had on alcohol. Not long after his 12th birthday, he was placed in a foster home. David had already come to the attention of police and the courts, mainly for stealing offences. Catherine Birnie was born on 31 May 1951. The two became lovers when Catherine was 14. This was the beginning of her obsessive dependency on David Birnie. On 11 July 1969 the pair pleaded guilty to 11 charges of breaking, entering and stealing. David was sent to prison for nine months. Catherine was pregnant, and was placed on probation.

On 21 June 1970 David escaped. He called on Catherine, who joined him on the run. Police caught them three weeks later and charged them with 53 counts of stealing, breaking and entering, receiving, unlawfully driving motor vehicles and being unlawfully on premises. David was sentenced to a further 30 months in prison. Catherine received six months. Her child, who was less than three months old, was placed in care.

When she got out, Catherine took her child and went to work as a maid for a family in Fremantle. The family’s son fell in love with her, and they married on Catherine’s 21st birthday. She remained with him for 12 years, and had six children with him, but she could not cope with the constant demands of the large infant family.

In 1985, Catherine deserted her children, leaving them with relatives, and returned to David Birnie, whom she had been seeing secretly for two years. Later that year she changed her name to Birnie by deed poll. Although they never married, Catherine became David’s common-law wife.

David Birnie enjoyed kinky sex and routinely used Catherine as his plaything. He had a large pornographic video collection, many involving bondage and torture. He injected cocaine into his penis and extended his periods of sexual activity for days.

Catherine wasn’t enough for David. He spoke about abducting and raping young females. He told Catherine that he regularly thought about having sex with bound and gagged women while she watched. Eager to please, she entertained the fantasies by allowing him to tie her up and have sex with her.

Mary Frances Neilson, 22, became the couple’s first victim. On 6 October 1986 Mary called in to the automotive spare parts shop where Birnie worked to ask about purchasing some new tyres. He offered her a bargain, but said he would only sell them to her from his home.

When she arrived, she was seized at knife-point, gagged and tied to a bed. David repeatedly raped her while Catherine watched. The couple then drove her to bushland on Perth’s southern fringes. Birnie raped Mary again, then strangled her. She died slowly, in front of Birnie. After she died, he stabbed her in the chest once. Then David and Catherine dug a shallow grave and placed Mary in it.

Two weeks later the Birnies picked up 15-year-old hitchhiker Susannah Candy. Inside the car, Birnie held a knife to her throat. They drove back to their house, where Susannah was gagged and chained to a bed. Birnie raped her. Afterwards, Catherine got into the bed with them and continued the torment. Birnie tried to strangle the girl, but she struggled. He forced tranquillisers into her mouth. After the pills took effect, he put a nylon cord around her neck and implored Catherine to commit murder. She strangled the girl as he watched. ‘I didn’t feel a thing,’ she later remarked. Susannah Candy was buried near the grave of Mary Neilson.

On 1 November 1986, Noelene Patterson ran out of petrol. The attractive 31-year-old looked expectantly at motorists as they drove by. When the Birnies pulled up, Noelene accepted their offer of a lift. Once inside the vehicle, she had a knife thrust against her and her hands and legs tied. She was driven to their home, where David gagged and secured her to a bed with chains and ropes.

He raped her repeatedly throughout the night. Catherine was mad with jealousy. She feared David was falling for his latest victim. She implored him to kill the woman. He refused. He kept her tied to the bed for three days, raping her at will. Finally, Catherine held a knife to her own heart, threatening to commit suicide.

Birnie forced sleeping pills into Noelene’s mouth. He strangled her while Catherine watched. Later that evening, they buried Noelene with the others.

Four days later, the Birnies abducted 21-year-old Denise Brown. She too was taken to their house at knife-point. Once inside, she was chained to a bed and raped. The next day the Birnies drove her to the Gnangara Pine Plantation. They dragged Denise from the car. David plunged a knife into her neck while he raped her once more. Catherine urged him to stab Denise again, and produced a bigger knife. He stabbed the woman repeatedly in the neck and chest.

Five days later, the Birnies abducted a 16-year-old girl. Yet again, the girl was held at knife-point, driven to their house and chained to a bed. David raped her repeatedly. The following day he went out, leaving her with Catherine. She unchained the girl and insisted the girl phone her parents to tell them she was all right. While doing so, the girl made a mental note of the Birnies’ phone number. Later that day she escaped through the bedroom window. She provided police with a full description of her assailants, along with their address and phone number.

Authorities swooped. They arrested Catherine. David Birnie was taken at work later that day. Believing them to be involved in the recent disappearances, police interrogated the couple. The Birnies said the girl had gone to their home willingly. David acknowledged that he had had sex with her, but said she had consented. After several hours, an officer tried to bluff him, saying, ‘It’s getting dark. Let’s go and dig them up.’ David rose to the bait. ‘Okay,’ he replied. ‘There’s four of them.’

A convoy of forensic vans and police cars travelled north to the Gnangara Pine Plantation, where the body of Denise Brown was buried. David identified the rough track to the spot where he had raped and murdered her. Neither he nor Catherine showed remorse. ‘Dig there,’ he told police. Within minutes they discovered Denise’s body.

The Birnies then directed police south to the Gleneagles National Park. Some metres from a walking trail, David pointed to loose earth: police found the body of Mary Neilson there. About 10 minutes’ walk down the track David pointed out the grave of Susannah Candy. Catherine identified the burial site of Noelene Patterson. She spat on Noelene’s grave, remembering her husband’s attraction to the woman.

On 12 November 1986, Catherine and David Birnie were charged with four counts of wilful murder. Bail was refused and both were remanded in custody.

David’s trial commenced on 10 February 1987. He pleaded guilty to four counts of murder and one count each of abduction and rape. Catherine was not required to enter a plea as she was awaiting a psychiatric report to determine her fitness to stand trial. During the proceedings she regularly stroked her husband’s hand. After he was sentenced, she was led from the court, kicking and screaming.

Mr Justice Wallace sentenced David Birnie to life imprisonment.

 

Justice Wallace: 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.

 

Catherine was found to be fit to stand trial, and faced court on 3 March 1987. The psychiatric report said that she was unable to resist involving herself in the crimes. Her love for David was such that she would do anything for him. As she told police after her arrest: ‘I was prepared to follow him to the end of the earth and do anything to see that his desires were satisfied.’

The psychiatrist’s report stated this was ‘the worst case of personality dependence I have seen in my career’. Catherine offered no defence for her role in the abduction and murder of the four women. Mr Justice Wallace sentenced Catherine to life imprisonment. ‘In my opinion,’ he told her, ‘You should never be released to be with David Birnie.’

In Casuarina maximum security prison David Birnie was bashed so many times that he was eventually moved to the solitary confinement of Fremantle Prison’s old death cells for his own protection. From 1987 on, after he made what would be the first of his many suicide attempts, he has been under constant surveillance.

In their first four years apart the Birnies exchanged 2600 letters but were denied their many requests to marry, make personal phone calls to each other or have contact visits.

In 1992 David Birnie accompanied major crime detectives on a five-hour drive around Perth in the hope that he may confess to a number of unsolved murders. He didn’t. Back in Casuarina, in 1993 his personal computer was confiscated when it was found to contain pornographic material.

Catherine Birnie is alleged to have a strong lesbian presence in Perth’s Bandyup maximum security prison for women. She was in the headlines again in January 2000 when she requested to be allowed out to attend the funeral of her first husband and father of her six children. In denying the request, the Western Australia premier, Mr Richard Court, said: ‘As far as I am concerned, the Birnies have forfeited any rights for those type of privileges.’

Under Western Australian law, Catherine and David Birnie will be eligible for parole in 2007, after having served 20 years of their sentences. It is extremely unlikely that parole will ever be granted. In January 2000, the acting West Australian attorney-general, Mr Kevin Prince, said that when the Birnies are due to be considered for parole, they would never be released unless they became too frail or senile.

At last notice the house at number 3 Moorhouse Street, Willagee, was still standing and occupied by a Housing Commission tenant. The local scuttlebutt says that the most recent tenants didn’t find out the house’s history until after they had moved in. Apparently they weren’t impressed.