Current Claremont Murders Discussion & Edwards trial updates

[Crankitup]

No, I'm saying he would have spent $50 filling up his 70l tank once a week but possibly more often considering he probably covered quite a bit of territory in his vehicle. BTW the 60l tank of my Honda Accord costs $85 or so to fill from empty so your car must have a tiny tank. You driving a hybrid?

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But I suggest we drop this discussion and get back on the CSK track.

Fair enough.

BTW, I added another paragraph to my post #7,535 just seconds before your reply so you probably haven't seen it. In any case since in your latest post you've suggested we drop it whilst simultaneously asking me a question, I'm at a loss as to whether you want your question answered or if it was purely rhetorical. I'll give you a clue though. I don't fill up when I'm running on fumes. Can't live that dangerously. If you're always spending around $85 you must be running on an oily rag when you limp/roll in to the service station and then you must be always unlucky enough to choose a higher priced retailer. I check Fuelwatch a day or two before I think I'll need to fill up but I'm pretty lucky since two retailers very close to me always seem to be in the top 5 for best price for the northern suburbs.

 

[Feerits Elf]

OK.

I had thought they bought it in 1990 when interest rates were still at record levels (17%). Turns out when they bought it they were actually 14.5%, a 2.5% improvement on the record levels. Still high though. As to you saying the rate in Jan '96 was the lowest since 1980 that's not correct.

No, late 1993. Climbing up again by January 1996.

 

[Crankitup]

No, late 1993. Climbing up again by January 1996.

Yes that's better. The best since 1980 was in late '93 not January 1996. By the time Sarah Spiers went missing it was back up to 10.5%. So they bought when rates were at 14.5%, those rates slowly fell but were still 13% in Sept '91, down to 12% in Jan '92, had a period in 93/94 where they dipped below 10% but then went back over 10% and remained there until just before the house went on the market. So allied with the fact they paid more than 10% interest for the majority of the time they had the property, they also held it thoughout a time when the property market was flat.



Hence my original point. The first wife probably didn't expect much from the sale proceeds. Even if she didn't understand the property market she would have known what it sold for because I saw it mentioned she saw and signed the contract. Had she known he had whittled down a good chunk of any equity they had in a long series of ATM withdrawals (allegedly), she obviously wouldn't have been so flippant.

 

[BonzaRam]

What the money was spent on is anyones guess at the moment. Speculating on that at the moment is pointless and will serve only to cloud the known facts.

Why she feared for her life is much the same except we have info on what could cause someone to for fear their life in this situation. We know the 2ndwife was aware of his cross dressing habits etc, it is possible she was also aware of the videos he had and the stories that were written on his computer. Tell us ladies would you fear for your life if you found anything like that on your husbands computer? Especially seen as he had played down the assault charge by not mentioning the Sex Offenders Program... What kind of reaction would he have had if he discovered someone was snooping on his computer?

If it relates to what was on his computer etc then she would have been shut down on that topic because it was all deemed inadmissible...

 

[GreyCrow]

Got it

Petrol money

He had a fuel card but using that would leave an audit trail of when he was out in the work car, and where he was travelling to

So if out prowling he had to pay for fuel in cash

I don't mind this

Did I read he had an ABCO debt or AGC card debt?

The interest rate on those was horrendous

 

[kingswood71]

Which means the defence, prosecution and Judge knew what she was scared of, from her disclosures and statements, and that whatever that was, was not allowed to be revealed in court in this court case.
I am doubting that we will hear what this 2nd wife's fear was about, during this trial.

Not if it was in a seperate and suppressed document.
The WASC site is littered with them in the index of documents.

I have considered this and I think you are most likely correct.
It is interesting though that she was able to say "feared for my life" and "scared stiff-less" without any objection. This would imply that the reason she felt that way was suppressed, but how she felt wasnt...
Lets hypothesize for a sec: Say she had discovered videos and stories on his PC and this made her scared for her life. If that has been ruled inadmissable but is still in her statement (now suppressed), can the judge consider that, even though he has ruled it inadmissible??
If something has been suppressed and whatever it was made her feel that way, then its big!!

 

[Catcher In The Rye]

What the money was spent on is anyones guess at the moment. Speculating on that at the moment is pointless and will serve only to cloud the known facts.

If I had progressed from assaults to murder I would start squirrelling away cash to be ready for a quick getaway. If I was the wife of a person with a menacing demeaner and escalating odd behaviour I would have gone over the place with a fine tooth comb and be scared 'shiffless' while I did it.

 

[kingswood71]

I asked a while back if it was the actual notebook in court as the ex says she doesnt know what happened to it after 2014 when she left the house. Looking at the supplied pic, it looks like a photocopy.
It was mentioned "did not have an original copy of the notebook "since the arrest".
So for whatever reason, she not only copied the statements by hand, transaction by transaction, but she also may have felt it important enough that she then may have made a copy of it (???)

 

[poirot]

What the money was spent on is anyones guess at the moment. Speculating on that at the moment is pointless and will serve only to cloud the known facts.

Spot on. Hopefully further evidence will be lead from 2ndwife and/or other witnesses later in the trial which answer the number of interesting questions thrown up by the 'bank transactions' evidence but I wouldn't count on it.

A couple of observations on the copy of 2ndwife's notes said to record transactions from "statement 15": the 4 notations of what appear to be capital "L"s only appear after "Forest". Secondly, I think it unlikely that the "S" and "L" stand for "Loan" and "Savings" - the Court was told these transactions were all recorded by reference to a single statement "15" which would indicate it is one account eg, savings account; cheque account etc.

 

[BFew]

If it relates to what was on his computer etc then she would have been shut down on that topic because it was all deemed inadmissible...

Given that it has now been publicly revealed by Tim Clarke, the West Australian's Legal Affairs Editor that
2nd wife first met BRE when 2nd wife was working at a Computer Store on April Fools Day 1997, and BRE had gone to fix the phone lines there after a lightning bolt had hit the store, I'm liking the finding out about what's on his computer theory, even more.

omny.fm/shows/the-claremont-serial-killings/playlists/podcast/embed?style=cover
Day 4 West podcast is called "Ex wives and sex lives"
(4:00 mark of the podcast).

 

[BFew]

So for whatever reason, she not only copied the statements by hand, transaction by transaction

Are we sure she copied all the transactions ?

Or was it just the ATM cash withdrawal ones?

 

[poirot]

Are we sure she copied all the transactions ?

Or was it just the ATM cash withdrawal ones?

All of the transactions in the notes from statement "15" are ATM transactions, so I'd infer she only copied ATM transactions - it does depend on the account type but one would reasonably expect the statement would have contained a variety of other transactions (eftpos, direct debits, interest credits etc).

 

[BFew]

I'd infer she only copied ATM transactions

In which case, that infers that she was NOT looking for evidence of what he had been purchasing using a bank card, in the later years of her records when more things were available to buy online.

Which if so, rules out that she was casting a wide net looking at what he was up to, and narrows it down to more like her just looking at how much cash he was withdrawing and the location he was when he was withdrawing it.

If she was looking for where he was squirreling away their money, why go back to 1996 before she met him?

Possibly to see if his patterns of cash withdrawals soon after she met him, were the same as from before she met him.

For all we know, in the notes 2nd wife took of transactions in the years we have not seen any of the pages of, in the more recent years when online purchasing was more prevalent, she might have noted down purchases (as well as ATM withdrawals), where those purchases were not at/from places she would have expected of him. Or from businesses where it was unclear as to what they were, or that warranted further investigation and a record of.

 

[kingswood71]

Are we sure she copied all the transactions ?

Or was it just the ATM cash withdrawal ones?

Not sure we know for certain. If just ATM's, then she obviously had a reason why she wanted to copy them.
She did record the payment to the finance company so perhaps the un-released documents show more than just ATM's.
Cant know at this stage.
We do know that she alleges she was in fear for her life and felt it important at that stage of their marriage (14 odd years later) that she should make a copy of the statements. She then alleges she made a copy while feeling "scared".
Edit: Felt it important enough that she made copies of transactions from a time before she had even met him!

 

[geeeyejo]

I reckon she found the stories on the computer and started to put 2 and 2 together...in the court transcripts from March 2019, there was mention of the Chloe story being last accessed on the computer in August 2015...

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[Willow weeps]

For anyone thinking BRE is on illegal drugs, he would have been drug tested the day they arrested him. It's protocol to test for drugs & diseases like HepC, HIV & the rest when getting stripped down & put in prison clothes. They would have seen what kind of medications & drugs he had in his system from that testing done to every single person going into prison

 

[Perth gal]

I think this is spot on. I reckon it's be ruled inadmissable or suppressed. Crazy fascinating, but I suspect that may frustratingly be the last we hear of it.
I hope I'm wrong.

See I think this is highly relevant information. So confused that it wasn’t explored further.

 

[BFew]

I reckon she found the stories on the computer and started to put 2 and 2 together...in the court transcripts from March 2019, there was mention of the Chloe story being last accessed on the computer in August 2015...

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ecourts.justice.wa.gov.au

The State placed particular reliance on two items, the video with the title 'Forced Entry' and one of the stories referred to as 'the Chloe story'. There is no clear evidence as to when the video was downloaded or when the story was first created. It is not suggested that the video was created by the accused. It appears to be a commercially produced pornographic movie in which actors perform sex acts in scenes which depict the rape and torture of young women. It was apparently made in 2014, but there is no evidence as to when or how it became available or how widely it was available.

4. The only evidence of access to the Chloe story is on 29 August 2015

5. The deleted zip files containing each of the copies of the Chloe story also contain images, but none of those images fall into the BDSM or female degradation categories

So possibly he deleted the Chloe story after either he discovered that someone else had found out about the Chloe story,
or his 2nd wife confronted him about it in some way. Timing of the zip file deletions are roughly in the ballpark of the 2nd wife moving out.

With the "Forced Entry" video having only been "made" in 2014, that also times roughly with when it has been reported that 2nd wife's relationship with the accused was on the slide.

 

[BFew]

See I think this is highly relevant information. So confused that it wasn’t explored further.

The following court document explains why it and a range of other things was deemed inadmissible.
Note that there are other subsequent court documents that deal with inadmissibility of evidence in this case, with the case presented on admissibility by the Prosecution (State), the Defence, and the Judge (Justice Hall) discussion/rulings and reasons for his rulings.

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ecourts.justice.wa.gov.au

 

[Girlnextdoor]

Credit Cards and savings accounts have separate statements. How does the drawback facility work and did we have that availability then?
I've never used the drawback facility (DBF) but know it can be electronically transferred to another account. They also have a card for the DBF.

Girlnextdoor you're a legend for thinking about the DBF.

He's definately right about the fuel money - it's part of the scenario. He's a prowler.

Husband a mortgage broker for 15 years so no legend. Definitely had drawback funds in 1990s. You had to have been in advance with your payments, so maybe they'd worked hard to be ahead with payments and wife saw a loan statement by accident one year and thought that's not right. Part of the lies she couldn't take anymore?

 

[craigos]

She recalled a "fairly new vehicle" that was a "bluey-grey" colour sedan, a Commodore, that he drove one night he took her home in the northern suburbs.

Anyone know if Con Bayers is being called at all?

 

[craigos]

Also, not to be crass but the constant asking witnesses about the beard leads me to believe facial hair was found on the deceased, possibly in areas they swabbed, "intimate" areas.

 

[BonzaRam]

Also, not to be crass but the constant asking witnesses about the beard leads me to believe facial hair was found on the deceased, possibly in areas they swabbed, "intimate" areas.

Or it is simply because other witnesses reported the suspect having a beard. That would mean it shows a reason for different descriptions of the suspect.

 

[craigos]

Or it is simply because other witnesses reported the suspect having a beard. That would mean it shows a reason for different descriptions of the suspect.

Did anyone get close enough to give a decent physical description of someone suspicious at the time? I know there's plenty of accounts of cars but can't recall anyone giving a statement about a person.

 

[Chameleon75]

Did anyone get close enough to give a decent physical description of someone suspicious at the time? I know there's plenty of accounts of cars but can't recall anyone giving a statement about a person.

Telstra living witness project?