How the Claremont serial killer changed Perth

Bradley Robert Edwards, 48, has been charged with the 1996 and 1997 abduction and murders of Jane Rimmer, 23, and Ciara Glennon, 27. He has also been charged with the indecent assault of an 18-year-old woman in a Huntingdale home in 1988 and the rape of a 17-year-old girl in Claremont in 1995.

Another victim – the first to vanish from the well-heeled streets of Claremont – 18-year-old secretary Sarah Spiers disappeared at about 2am on January 27, 1996. She has never been found. Edwards has not been charged in relation to her suspected murder.

"The investigation into the disappearance and suspected murder of Sarah Spiers is ongoing as are inquiries into other matters," WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan told media after officers raided Edwards' Kewdale home just after dawn on Thursday. He was then taken into custody and questioned overnight.

The disappearance of the three women, and the discovery of two of their bodies in bushland on the outskirts of the city in the late 1990s, paralysed Perth with fear. A fear not felt since the 1960s when Eric Edgar Cooke, a serial killer nicknamed "The Night Caller", terrorised the city with random acts of brutal violence and became the reason residents of the then big country town began locking their doors.

Claremont, in Perth's leafy western suburbs, next door to Gina Rinehart, Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest and WA Premier Colin Barnett's palatial estates, was an entertainment and night life hot spot. Attracting young professionals and students almost every night of the week for a "Sunday Session" or late-night dance at Club Bayview. On a hot summer's night in January 1996, after one last dance on the bar's soggy carpet, Spiers hailed a cab outside and vanished.

Her disappearance gripped the sleepy city until June 9 when Rimmer, a childcare worker, was up the road having drinks with friends at the popular Continental Hotel. The group called it a night but she declined their offer to share a taxi home. That was the last time she was seen alive.

Panic set in and the Macro taskforce, which is now Australia's longest and most expensive murder investigation, was established.

By the time Rimmer's naked remains were found in Wellard, south of Perth, another young, blonde, attractive and smart woman was enjoying a night out at the Continental Hotel with friends on March 15, 1997.

Lawyer Ciara Glennon was last seen just after midnight on nearby Stirling Highway. Her body was found, reportedly fully clothed, a month later in shallow scrub in the northern suburbs.

"I think it's fair to say that we certainly have fears that there is a serial killer at loose in Perth," the then WA crime commander Bob Ibbotson told a press conference two days after Glennon was reported missing.

Soon after the then premier Richard Court's government announced a $250,000 reward for information to help catch the killer, the biggest bounty offered in WA history.

More CCTV cameras were installed up and down the suburb's main street – Bayview Terrace – and locals grew weary of heading out after dark and catching cabs. The Continental – the establishment at the centre of the two crimes – was later revamped to be called The Claremont Hotel. A hush fell over the city and the suburb, that was at the time the Double Bay of the west, lost its sparkle.

The cold case has had more than 10 independent reviews by criminal experts from around the country and around the world. For years there was one suspect – a public servant – who police monitored for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He was later told he was no longer a person of interest.

On Friday, after more than two decades of detective work and investigations, Edwards, a former president of a Little Athletics Club who is understood to be an electrical engineer, remained silent in court and was remanded in custody until his next appearance at Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court on January 11.