The most horrifying case in Australian history. Here's how he escaped justice for 30 years.

[00:00:00]Three young women vanished from the same wealthy suburb in Perth. One called a taxi and disappeared before it arrived.

[00:00:08]Another vanished outside a crowded nightclub. The third was seen getting into a car and was never seen alive again.

[00:00:17]For more than 20 years, police searched for a killer hiding in plain sight. When DNA finally revealed his identity, investigators uncovered something deeply unsettling. The man responsible had already shown exactly what he was capable of years earlier.

[00:00:35]And nearly 30 years later, one family is still waiting for the answer only he can provide. This is the story of the Claremont killer.

[00:00:53]There's a particular kind of safety that comes with familiarity. The street you've walked a hundred times, the cafe where the staff know your order, the route home you've taken so often you barely think about it anymore.

[00:01:07]Most of the time that feeling of safety is earned. Most of the time, nothing happens. But sometimes, danger understands something most people don't.

[00:01:17]It understands that the safest places often make the best hunting grounds. Not because they're dangerous, because nobody expects them to be.

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[00:01:35]In the mid-1990s, Claremont was one of Perth's most desirable suburbs. Affluent, well-connected, full of life. Its tree-lined streets and historic buildings gave it a reputation for comfort and stability. Families wanted to live there. Young professionals wanted to spend their weekends there.

[00:01:56]And after dark, Claremont transformed.

[00:01:59]The suburb's nightlife district drew people from across Perth. The Continental Hotel, Club Bayview, the Claremont Hotel.

[00:02:08]They weren't hidden away on the edge of town. They sat in the heart of a busy, well-lit entertainment strip.

[00:02:15]On weekends, the area was packed. Music spilled onto the streets. Taxi ranks filled with people waiting for rides home. Groups moved from venue to venue.

[00:02:26]Laughter echoed through the night. It felt safe.

[00:02:30]That detail matters because when people hear stories like this, there's often an instinct to look for warning signs. A dark alley, an isolated road, a dangerous neighborhood. But that isn't what happened here. The women at the center of this story disappeared from one of the safest places in Perth, and that's what made it so terrifying.

[00:02:53]Before the city knew there was a killer, before the headlines, before the fear, there was Sarah Spears.

[00:03:00]Sarah was 18 years old. She was standing at the beginning of adulthood, the age where life feels wide open, the age where plans still outnumber responsibilities.

[00:03:11]Friends described her as sociable and energetic. She had recently started working as a receptionist and was beginning to build her own life.

[00:03:20]There was nothing unusual about the night of January 27th, 1996.

[00:03:26]It was a Saturday. The weather was warm.

[00:03:28]Claremont was busy. Sarah was out with friends doing exactly what thousands of other young Australians were doing that weekend, having fun, making memories, living her life.

[00:03:40]As the night stretched into the early hours of January 28th, Sarah became separated from her friends. At some point, she made a decision that seemed completely ordinary. She picked up a public phone and called for a taxi. The call was recorded. Investigators would later listen to it countless times, not because it contained a clue, but because it contained Sarah's voice. The voice of a young woman who expected to be home soon. The voice of someone who had no reason to believe she was in danger.

[00:04:12]The taxi never became part of the story.

[00:04:15]Whether Sarah entered a vehicle before it arrived, whether someone approached her while she waited, whether she willingly accepted a lift, nobody knows.

[00:04:25]What investigators do know is this, that phone call is the last confirmed trace of Sarah Spears. After that, she vanished. Not gradually, not ambiguously, completely.

[00:04:38]At first, police approached the case the way they approach many missing person investigations. An 18-year-old had disappeared after a night out. There were possibilities. Perhaps she was staying with friends. Perhaps she needed time away. Perhaps there was an explanation that simply hadn't been uncovered yet. But as hours became days, and days became weeks, those possibilities began to fade. Sarah didn't call home. She didn't contact friends. She didn't access her bank accounts. She didn't leave a trail.

[00:05:11]It was as though she had simply stepped out of existence. Her family knew something was wrong. The kind of wrong that doesn't disappear with time.

[00:05:21]Police searched, appeals were made, information was gathered, but there was nothing solid to pursue. No witnesses who had seen what happened. No clear suspect. No explanation. Just absence.

[00:05:35]And absence is a difficult thing to investigate.

[00:05:39]For months, Sarah's disappearance remained exactly what it appeared to be.

[00:05:44]A mystery. Painful, unexplained, but isolated. At least that's what people thought. Nobody knew they were looking at the first chapter of a much larger story.

[00:05:56]Five months later, another young woman would disappear from the exact same area. And when that happened, Perth would begin to realize something far more frightening than a missing person case might be unfolding.

[00:06:10]Someone was taking women from Claremont, and nobody knew who he was or how to stop him.

[00:06:17]Jane Rimmer was 23 years old. She worked in child care. Friends remembered her warmth, the kind of person who could make strangers feel comfortable within minutes of meeting them. The kind of person whose absence immediately changes a room. On June 9th, 1996, Jane spent the evening with friends in Claremont. It was another ordinary night, another crowded weekend, another busy nightlife district filled with people.

[00:06:46]At some point during the evening, Jane became separated from her group.

[00:06:50]Witnesses later reported seeing her standing outside Club Bayview, alone, waiting.

[00:06:57]It is one of the most haunting images in the entire case because in hindsight, everyone knows what comes next. Jane didn't. She was standing in a busy entertainment district surrounded by people. There was no obvious threat, no visible danger, no reason to believe she wouldn't be home soon. That sighting would become the last confirmed time anyone saw her alive.

[00:07:23]Two young women had now disappeared from the same nightlife precinct within 5 months. Detectives could no longer dismiss the similarities, but they still didn't have answers. They didn't have a suspect. They didn't have a witness.

[00:07:37]They didn't even know whether the same person was responsible.

[00:07:41]What they did know was this, somewhere in Perth, one person already knew exactly what happened to both women and he was still walking free.

[00:07:52]The investigation was about to enter a far darker chapter because unlike Sarah Spears, Jane Rimmer would eventually be found and what investigators discovered would change the city forever.

[00:08:05]When Jane Rimmer disappeared, Perth was concerned. When her body was found, Perth became afraid.

[00:08:13]On August 3rd, 1996, nearly 2 months after Jane vanished, a discovery was made in bushland near Wellard, approximately 40 km south of Claremont.

[00:08:25]Human remains had been located.

[00:08:28]The body was identified as Jane Rimmer.

[00:08:31]The hopes that had sustained her family for weeks vanished in an instant.

[00:08:36]For investigators, the discovery answered one question, Jane had not run away. She had not started a new life.

[00:08:45]She had been murdered.

[00:08:47]But while the discovery provided certainty, it created a much larger problem.

[00:08:52]Because if Jane had been murdered, what did that mean for Sarah Spears?

[00:08:57]Sarah had now been missing for more than 6 months.

[00:09:01]No trace of her had ever been found. No confirmed sightings. No meaningful leads. And now detectives were forced to confront a possibility they had desperately hoped to avoid, that Sarah had suffered the same fate.

[00:09:17]For the first time, the investigation began shifting away from the possibility of isolated disappearances. A pattern was emerging and patterns can be terrifying, especially when they suggest someone is hunting.

[00:09:32]Perth began to change. People who had spent years moving through the city without concern started thinking differently. Women arranged lifts before leaving home. Friends stopped allowing each other to walk alone. Parents worried when daughters stayed out late.

[00:09:50]People began checking in when they arrived home. Small habits changed.

[00:09:55]Small freedoms disappeared. And beneath it all sat a question nobody could answer. Who was doing this?

[00:10:03]The fear wasn't abstract. That was what made it so powerful. This wasn't a threat somewhere else. It wasn't happening in another city. It wasn't happening to strangers on the evening news. It was happening here in Claremont, a place people knew, a place people trusted, a place that was supposed to be safe.

[00:10:25]Police responded with warnings. Travel in groups. Arrange transportation in advance. Don't stand alone outside venues.

[00:10:35]The advice was practical, reasonable, and understandable. But advice can only go so far when nobody knows who they're trying to avoid. Because somewhere in Perth, the person responsible was still living an ordinary life. He went to work. He interacted with colleagues. He drove through the city. He blended into the background. Nobody looked at him twice.

[00:10:59]Years later, investigators would discover that warning signs had already existed. But at the time, those signs remained disconnected, invisible.

[00:11:09]And then, 9 months after Jane Rimmer disappeared, it happened again.

[00:11:15]March 15th, 1997.

[00:11:17]Another Saturday night. Another crowded Claremont weekend. Another young woman enjoying an evening with friends. Her name was Ciara Glennon.

[00:11:28]Ciara was 27 years old, a solicitor, intelligent, ambitious, the kind of person whose future seemed filled with possibilities.

[00:11:38]Friends described her as vibrant and outgoing. She had worked hard to build the life she wanted. Like Sarah and Jane before her, she had every reason to expect an ordinary night. She spent the evening in Claremont with friends. The nightlife strip was busy. People moved between venues. Cars lined nearby roads.

[00:12:01]Music filled the air. Nothing seemed unusual. Nothing seemed threatening.

[00:12:07]At some point during the night, Ciara became separated from her group. What happened next remains uncertain.

[00:12:15]One witness later reported seeing a woman matching Ciara's description near a light-colored vehicle on Stirling Highway. The woman appeared to be speaking with the driver. Moments later, the vehicle was gone.

[00:12:28]The sighting was never conclusively verified. The driver was never identified. But if the witness was correct, those few moments may have captured one of the most significant encounters in the entire investigation.

[00:12:43]Because after that, Ciara Glennon vanished.

[00:12:47]Three women, three disappearances, the same suburb, the same general circumstances within 14 months. The pattern was now impossible to ignore.

[00:12:59]Perth no longer suspected there might be a serial predator operating in Claremont. Perth knew it.

[00:13:06]The media began using a name that would become infamous across Australia, the Claremont killer.

[00:13:13]It was a label that carried fear, but it also reflected reality. Investigators were no longer dealing with coincidence.

[00:13:21]They were hunting someone who appeared capable of approaching women in public, gaining their trust and making them disappear without leaving witnesses behind. And despite growing fear, despite enormous public attention, despite one of the largest investigations in Western Australian history beginning to take shape, the killer remained invisible.

[00:13:45]Then came another devastating discovery.

[00:13:48]19 days after Sierra Glennon disappeared, searchers located her body in bushland near Eglinton, approximately 50 km north of Claremont. Like Jane Rimmer, she had been concealed. Like Jane Rimmer, she had been murdered. But this time, something was different.

[00:14:08]Something had been left behind.

[00:14:10]Something the killer either didn't notice or couldn't prevent. Forensic investigators recovered biological evidence, DNA.

[00:14:20]Today, that might not sound remarkable.

[00:14:22]DNA has become synonymous with criminal investigations, but in the 1990s, forensic technology was still evolving.

[00:14:31]The sample was processed. A profile was developed. Investigators finally possessed something tangible, something scientific, something that belonged to the killer. Just one problem. The profile matched nobody. Not a suspect, not a known offender, not even anyone in the available databases. It was as if the evidence was pointing towards a ghost.

[00:14:56]Yet detectives understood something important. The profile existed, and because it existed, there was always the possibility that one day it would lead somewhere. One day, science might catch up. One day, the killer might make a mistake. One day, a name could emerge.

[00:15:16]But that day wasn't coming anytime soon.

[00:15:19]Instead, the investigation was about to enter its most frustrating phase.

[00:15:25]Thousands of leads, thousands of interviews, thousands of possibilities, and somewhere among them, the man responsible continued living his life uninterrupted. The hunt for the Claremont killer had truly begun.

[00:15:41]>> By the spring of 1997, Perth had accepted a reality nobody wanted to believe. Three young women had disappeared from the same suburb. Two had been found murdered. The third had never been found at all.

[00:15:57]The city wanted answers. The families needed answers. And investigators were under enormous pressure to find the person responsible. What followed would become one of the largest and most expensive criminal investigations in Australian history.

[00:16:13]>> [snorts] >> It was known as Operation Macro. At its peak, hundreds of detectives, forensic specialists, analysts, and support staff would work on the case. The scale was staggering. Thousands of witness statements, thousands of persons of interest, thousands of DNA samples.

[00:16:33]Every possible lead was explored. Every possible theory was considered. For investigators, the challenge wasn't a lack of information. It was the opposite. There was too much information. Too many possibilities. Too many names. And hidden somewhere inside that mountain of data was a single person. The man responsible for everything.

[00:16:58]Detectives examined taxi drivers, night shift workers, security guards, delivery drivers, hospital employees, construction workers. Anyone who had a reason to be moving around Perth during the early hours of the morning.

[00:17:14]Geographic profilers studied maps, Behavioral analysts studied offender patterns. Forensic teams revisited evidence repeatedly. Every avenue seemed promising until it wasn't. One suspect would emerge, then be eliminated.

[00:17:31]Another theory would gain momentum, then collapse. A witness statement would appear significant, then lead nowhere.

[00:17:39]Months turned into years, and years turned into more years.

[00:17:44]The killer remained unidentified.

[00:17:47]For the families, the passing of time created a different kind of suffering.

[00:17:52]Most people experience grief as a process, a beginning, a middle, an end.

[00:17:58]Painful, but finite. The families connected to the Claremont murders didn't have that luxury.

[00:18:04]For Sarah Spears' parents, there was still no body, no grave, no place to visit, no final goodbye, only uncertainty.

[00:18:14]The kind of uncertainty that follows you through birthdays, Christmases, family gatherings. The kind that sits quietly in the corner of every important moment, waiting. For Jane Rimmer's family and Ciara Glennon's family, there was at least certainty about what had happened, but certainty didn't bring justice, not while the killer remained free, not while there was no arrest, not while the man responsible continued living somewhere beyond reach.

[00:18:45]As the years passed, public attention began to shift. New crimes emerged. New headlines appeared. The news cycle moved forward, but the Claremont case never truly disappeared. It lingered.

[00:18:59]Every anniversary brought renewed media coverage. Every investigative update generated hope, then disappointment, again and again.

[00:19:09]Some cases become cold because investigators stop looking. The Claremont case was different.

[00:19:16]Investigators never stopped. They simply ran out of places to look. The DNA profile recovered from Ciara Glennon's murder remained one of the most valuable pieces of evidence in the entire investigation, but it remained anonymous. The profile belonged to someone. The problem was finding out who.

[00:19:36]As forensic science evolved throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, detectives repeatedly revisited the evidence. Each advancement created new hope. Perhaps this would be the breakthrough. Perhaps this would finally provide a name. But every time the answer remained just out of reach. And while investigators searched, the person they were looking for continued building an ordinary life. He worked. He paid bills. He interacted with neighbors. He blended into society so effectively that nobody suspected him. The image many people carry of serial offenders is often misleading. They imagine monsters, obvious predators, individuals who stand apart from everyone else. Reality is frequently more unsettling because some offenders become successful precisely because they appear ordinary, because they understand how to disappear into everyday life.

[00:20:37]The Claremont killer seemed to understand that very well.

[00:20:41]Years after the murders, investigators would discover something deeply frustrating. The man responsible had never truly disappeared. He had been living in Perth the entire time, driving through the same streets, passing the same landmarks, existing within the same city that had spent decades searching for him. But during the late 1990s, nobody knew that. Instead, detectives continued pursuing an endless list of possibilities. Some suspects attracted enormous attention. One theory would dominate headlines for months, then another. Rumors circulated, speculation spread, names appeared in newspapers, names disappeared again. Nothing held, nothing lasted, nothing produced the one thing detectives needed, proof. Among all the frustration, one question became increasingly important. What kind of person could commit crimes like these?

[00:21:43]What kind of offender could approach women in public places without raising alarm? What kind of individual could maintain control long enough to abduct victims from crowded areas? Behavioral analysts began constructing profiles.

[00:21:59]The offender likely appeared normal, comfortable interacting with strangers, capable of gaining trust quickly, familiar with Perth, possibly someone whose work allowed movement throughout the city, possibly someone accustomed to driving at unusual hours of the morning.

[00:22:17]The profile was thoughtful, intelligent, reasonable, and in ways nobody yet understood, remarkably accurate. Because while investigators were building theoretical portraits of the offender, the real man was continuing his life uninterrupted. His name was Bradley Robert Edwards, and long before anyone connected him to the Claremont investigation, there had already been warning signs, serious warning signs, signs that suggested a pattern of escalating violence, signs that viewed years later would seem impossible to ignore. The question wasn't whether those warning signs existed. The question was why they never stopped him.

[00:23:02]To understand that, we need to go back nearly a decade before the murders. Back to a crime that should have changed everything, and a decision that many people would later question for the rest of their lives. Long before the name Bradley Robert Edwards became associated with the Claremont murders, he had already demonstrated a willingness to commit violent sexual crimes.

[00:23:27]The warning signs existed. The tragedy is that they didn't stop him.

[00:23:33]In 1988, Edwards was 19 years old. One night, he broke into a home in the Perth suburb of Huntingdale.

[00:23:42]Inside the house was an 18-year-old woman. She was asleep.

[00:23:47]Like many victims of violent crime, she had no reason to believe danger was approaching. Her home was supposed to be the safest place she knew. Instead, she woke to find a stranger inside.

[00:24:00]Edwards sexually assaulted her.

[00:24:03]Unlike many offenders who commit similar crimes, he didn't evade identification.

[00:24:09]He was caught, charged, and ultimately pleaded guilty.

[00:24:13]At that point, the criminal justice system faced a decision. How should someone be punished for committing a violent sexual assault inside a victim's home?

[00:24:24]The answer, many people would later argue, was nowhere near severe enough.

[00:24:30]Edwards received a suspended sentence.

[00:24:33]He served no prison time. He walked free.

[00:24:37]At the time, nobody could know what the future held. Nobody could know what crimes might follow.

[00:24:44]But years later, after the Claremont murders had been solved, that decision would be revisited repeatedly. Because it raises an impossible question.

[00:24:54]If Edwards had been imprisoned in 1988, would Sarah Spears still be alive? Would Jane Rimmer still be alive? Would Ciara Glennon still be alive? No one can answer that question, but its existence speaks for itself.

[00:25:11]The assault should have marked the beginning of serious scrutiny. Instead, life moved on. Edwards [snorts] continued building what appeared to be an ordinary future. He found employment, established relationships, became another face in a city full of people.

[00:25:29]To anyone looking from the outside, there was little to distinguish him from countless other residents of Perth. But beneath that appearance, something else was happening because sexual violence often follows patterns, and one of the most dangerous patterns is escalation.

[00:25:46]Offenders test boundaries. They gain confidence. They take greater risks.

[00:25:52]The next major warning sign emerged in 1995, 13 months before Sarah Spears disappeared.

[00:26:00]The location was Hollywood Hospital in Perth.

[00:26:04]An offender entered the hospital during the night. He moved through a place where vulnerable people expected care and safety. Eventually, he entered the room of a young female patient. She was 18 years old. Like the victim in 1988, like Sarah Spears would be the following year.

[00:26:23]The offender sexually assaulted her, then disappeared. This time, he wasn't identified. Police investigated.

[00:26:31]Evidence was collected, but the person responsible remained unknown.

[00:26:37]The attack became another unsolved crime, another file, another investigation, another victim left without answers.

[00:26:46]What nobody realized at the time was that the offender responsible for the Hollywood Hospital assault was Bradley Edwards. The connection would not be made for more than two decades, and when it finally was, the timeline became chilling.

[00:27:02]1988, home invasion and sexual assault. 1995, hospital assault. 1996, Sarah Spears disappears. 1996, Jane Rimmer disappears. 1997, Ciara Glennon disappears.

[00:27:22]Viewed in isolation, each event was alarming. Viewed together, they revealed something much darker, a progression, a pattern of increasingly serious violence, a predator becoming more confident, more capable, more dangerous.

[00:27:39]The attack at Hollywood Hospital should have been a warning light, a signal that escalation was occurring. Instead, it remained disconnected from everything that followed. And while investigators searched desperately for the Claremont killer, they were unknowingly searching around a man whose history already contained many of the answers they needed.

[00:28:00]By the late 1990s, Edwards was working as a telecommunications technician. His employer was Telstra.

[00:28:08]The job suited him in ways nobody appreciated at the time. It involved travel, movement, access to different parts of Perth.

[00:28:18]On any given day, he might be working in one suburb and then another. His presence on roads across the city was entirely normal. If someone saw him parked somewhere unusual, there was a simple explanation, he was working. If someone noticed him driving through unfamiliar neighborhoods, there was a simple explanation, he was working.

[00:28:39]The ordinary nature of his job provided something valuable, visibility without suspicion.

[00:28:46]Years later, investigators would come to understand how important that may have been.

[00:28:51]For years, the Claremont investigation seemed suspended in time. The victims' families waited. Detectives reviewed evidence. The public hoped for answers.

[00:29:03]And somewhere in Western Australia, the person responsible continued living his life.

[00:29:10]The DNA profile recovered from Ciara Glennon's murder remained one of the most important pieces of evidence in the entire case. It belonged to the killer.

[00:29:21]Detectives knew that. The problem was that they still didn't know who the killer was.

[00:29:27]Every database search failed. Every comparison came back empty. The DNA was real. The person behind it remained anonymous.

[00:29:38]Then, forensic science began to change.

[00:29:41]By the early 2000s and into the next decade, genetic technology had advanced dramatically. Investigators [snorts] could now do things that would have been impossible when the murders occurred.

[00:29:54]One of those developments was familial DNA analysis. The concept is surprisingly simple.

[00:30:01]Even when investigators cannot identify the owner of a DNA sample, they may be able to identify a relative, a brother, a parent, a cousin, someone who shares enough genetic material to suggest a family connection.

[00:30:18]From there, investigators can begin building family trees, eliminating possibilities, following branches, working their way toward a suspect. It is meticulous work, slow work, but sometimes it succeeds where everything else fails.

[00:30:36]In the Claremont investigation, it succeeded. Years after the murders, investigators revisited the DNA evidence with fresh resources and modern technology. The results pointed them toward a family, and eventually toward a man who had never truly been considered a major suspect, Bradley Robert Edwards.

[00:30:59]For detectives, this was not the moment of certainty. It was the moment of possibility.

[00:31:05]Possibility still requires proof, and proof requires patience. Investigators could not simply make an arrest, not in a case this significant, not after 20 years, not without certainty.

[00:31:20]Instead, they began watching, quietly, carefully, methodically.

[00:31:26]Surveillance teams monitored Edwards, his movements, his routines, his habits.

[00:31:32]The investigation entered a new phase, one unlike anything the public knew was happening.

[00:31:39]For years, detectives had searched for the Claremont killer. Now, they were searching for confirmation. Confirmation that the man they were watching was the man they had been hunting all along.

[00:31:52]The operation unfolded in secret.

[00:31:55]Edwards continued living his life, going to work, running errands, interacting with the world around him, unaware that investigators were slowly closing in.

[00:32:07]Eventually, detectives obtained a DNA sample. Exactly how they acquired it has been reported in various ways over the years, but what matters is what happened next. The sample was tested, then compared against the DNA recovered from Kiera Glennon's murder.

[00:32:26]For investigators, it was the moment everything changed. The profiles matched. After 20 decades of uncertainty, the anonymous DNA profile finally had a name attached to it.

[00:32:40]Bradley Robert Edwards.

[00:32:43]For the first time in nearly 20 years, investigators believed they knew who the Claremont killer was.

[00:32:50]On December 22nd, 2016, detectives moved in. Bradley Robert Edwards was arrested. He was 47 years old. The news sent shockwaves through Western Australia.

[00:33:05]The arrest wasn't just significant because a suspect had been identified.

[00:33:09]It was significant because of how ordinary that suspect appeared. The Claremont killer wasn't a mysterious drifter. He wasn't someone living off the grid. He wasn't hiding in another state. He had spent years living in Perth, working, driving through the city, building a life, all while carrying secrets investigators had spent decades trying to uncover.

[00:33:36]For many people, the arrest felt surreal. The case had existed for so long that some had begun wondering whether it would ever be solved. Now, suddenly, there was a suspect, a face, a name.

[00:33:50]But an arrest is not a conviction, and one of the most important legal battles in Australian criminal history was still ahead.

[00:33:59]The trial began in 2020.

[00:34:02]By then, the Claremont case had become part of Western Australian history. An entire generation had grown up hearing about it. Some people following the proceedings not even been born when Sarah Spears disappeared.

[00:34:17]The prosecution presented a detailed case. DNA evidence played a central role. Investigators outlined connections between Edwards and the victims. They presented evidence relating to the earlier sexual assaults. They built a picture of a man whose violent behavior stretched back years before the murders.

[00:34:39]The defense challenged those conclusions. As happens in major criminal trials, every piece of evidence was scrutinized, every argument examined, every assumption tested. The proceedings lasted months. Families waited again, not for answers this time, for judgment. On September 24th, 2020, Justice Stephen Hall delivered his verdict. Bradley Robert Edwards was found guilty of murdering Jane Rimmer, guilty of murdering Ciara Glennon, guilty of the earlier sexual assaults.

[00:35:16]For the families, it was a moment decades in the making. Not celebration, not relief in the traditional sense, something more complicated. Validation, recognition, a formal acknowledgement of what had been taken from them.

[00:35:32]Years later, people would still discuss the significance of that day because for 20 years, the Claremont killer had existed as an unknown figure, a shadow, a question mark. Now, he had become something else, a convicted murderer, a man held legally responsible for two of the crimes that had haunted Western Australia for decades.

[00:35:57]In May 2021, Bradley Robert Edwards was sentenced to life imprisonment. The court imposed a minimum non-parole period of 30 years.

[00:36:08]For many observers, the sentence marked the end of the story. The killer had been identified, the trial was over, justice had been delivered. But for one family, the story remained unfinished because one victim was still missing and one question still had no answer.

[00:36:30]In many true crime stories, the arrest is where everything ends. The suspect is identified, the trial concludes, a sentence is handed down, questions are answered. The Claremont case is different because even after decades of investigation, even after one of Australia's most significant criminal trials, one question remains unanswered.

[00:36:53]What happened to Sarah Spears?

[00:36:57]Sarah was the first victim, the first young woman to disappear from Claremont, the first family forced into a nightmare that would stretch across decades. And unlike Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon, Sarah has never been found. No remains, no burial site, no final location, nothing.

[00:37:17]Nearly 30 years have passed since she stepped into the early morning darkness expecting a taxi ride home. Nearly 30 years since her family heard her voice.

[00:37:28]Nearly 30 years since that ordinary night became the dividing line between the life they knew and the life that followed.

[00:37:36]For many families affected by violent crime, recovery begins with certainty, not healing, not closure. Those words are often too simple for tragedies like these, but certainty, knowing where a loved one rests, being able to visit a grave, having a place where grief can exist. Sarah's family was denied even that. The absence that began in January of 1996 never truly ended. It simply changed shape. At birthdays, at holidays, at family gatherings, at every milestone Sarah should have experienced, the unanswered question remained. Where is she?

[00:38:17]Investigators believe Bradley Robert Edwards is responsible for Sarah's disappearance. The circumstances surrounding her case, the timing, the location, the broader pattern established by the murders of Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon, all point toward the same conclusion. But belief and proof are not always the same thing, and without Sarah's remains, some questions may never be answered completely.

[00:38:44]What makes that reality particularly painful is that there is one person who likely knows exactly what happened. One person who could provide a location. One person who could end decades of uncertainty. Bradley Robert Edwards. Yet throughout the investigation, the trial, and the years that followed, he has never publicly explained what happened to Sarah Spears. He has never revealed where she is. He has never provided the answer her family has waited decades to hear.

[00:39:16]That silence has become part of the story. Not because it creates mystery, but because it prolongs suffering.

[00:39:24]The Claremont killer case is often remembered as a story about a predator who hid in plain sight. In reality, it's a story about something else. It's a story about persistence, about families who refused to stop searching for answers, about investigators who refused to stop pursuing the truth, and about three women whose lives deserve to be remembered for far more than the crimes that ended them.

[00:39:50]Nearly 30 years later, one question remains unanswered. Where is Sarah Spears?

[00:39:57]Perhaps one day that answer will come.

[00:40:00]Perhaps it won't. But until it does, the story remains unfinished. And for one family, the waiting continues.

[00:40:09]Thank you for watching.