The Devil's Garden (35 page)

Norma Williams is as bewildered today as she ever was over the police surveillance of her son. She doesn't know what is going on now, what police are doing or planning. 'They still could be around the place somewhere, you just don't know,' she sighs. 'Skulking about, kind of sneaky, you know. People say to me, why don't we sue for harassment, for having our lives turned upside down like this? But the police say they can do anything they like. Anything at all. It's all part of their operational techniques. They are tin gods, with no accountability.' She shakes her head, bemused. 'We've got to try and sort of, you know, get on with our lives, try to get over it. But that's hard to do.'

Lance has hardly left the house since his surveillance was made public, instead staying in his room reading
Reader's Digest
magazines or watching the occasional movie on TV. He has no ambition to go out, Norma says. Why would he, when he was constantly followed everywhere he went? She can't understand why, if they haven't got enough evidence to charge Lance, they don't put him in the clear? 'As far as I know he has never been to where Jane or Ciara's bodies were found. He told me he hasn't been there. It's possible, I suppose, that he could have got out the night Sarah disappeared, but why didn't we hear him? And why didn't the police go public about the other suspects? Who are these people? We never hear anything of them. Never. They're like invisible ghosts.' The Williams family heard nothing of the review team's findings, either. 'They didn't come near us. They just flitted in and out of the place and that was that.'

Does she ever have doubts about her son's guilt, I ask her? Ever wonder if she is blinded by a mother's instinct to protect her own at all costs? That maybe, after all, the criticism that police have worn from the media about the covert and overt surveillance that he is, after all, the Claremont serial killer? Her eyes flicker past me for the briefest moment before they return my gaze. 'Do I ever have any doubt?' she repeats, softly. There is something of a wistful look in her eyes, something hard to define. As though she is in a fugue state, a world of her own. 'Do I have doubts?' she repeats. 'No. No. Not really. Not really.' She bids me goodbye with a wan, faint smile and closes the door.

They still party at Claremont's Club Bayview and Red Rock Hotel, young revellers spilling out into the balmy nights, waiting to get a taxi home. They walk down the street where Sarah Spiers was last seen, high on their youth, giggling from too much alcohol. Sarah's name is only vaguely familiar to them now, just a distant memory of the young, pretty girl whose disappearance changed the axis of their city; just a distant memory of that young, pretty girl who never came home.

Only the occasional car headlight pierces the night's darkness at Pipidinny Road; only nocturnal animals foraging for food breaks the eerie silence. No stars wink in this winter night's sky; there is nothing here to illuminate the blackness. Ciara Glennon's spirit hovers in the chilly air, an unseen presence.
Speak gently, she can hear the daisies grow
.

The lilies still grow at Wellard, peeking shyly from the cool earth in winter, full-blown by spring. Raindrops like tears skate on their green foliage and nestle in the base of their lemon tongues. Like tears, they weep over Jane Rimmer's disposal site, falling bleakly on the sodden ground. Pools of tears in which the death lilies grow.

Kerryn Tate, 22, body burnt on tree stump, December 1979.
Murdered
.

Lisa Mott, 12, last seen in Collie, October 1980.
Missing.

Sharon Fulton, East Perth railway station, 1986.
Missing.

Cheryl Renwick, 33, disappeared from South Perth unit, 26 May 1986.
Missing.

Sally Greenham, 20, August 1987, Adelaide Terrace, Perth.
Missing.

Julie Cutler, 22, last seen at Parmelia Hilton Hotel, 20 June 1988. Car found in surf.
Missing.

Barbara Western, found in bushland north-east of Canning Dam, Perth.
Murdered.

Kerry Turner, 18, body found near Canning Dam, July 1991.
Murdered.

Radina Djukich, 14, last seen at her North Beach unit, 16 May 1992.
Missing.

Cariad Anderson-Slater, 41, last seen at dawn exiting a taxi, Perth, 13 July 1992.
Missing.

Petronella Albert, 21, Broome area
,
April 1999.
Missing
.

Hayley Dodd, Badgingarra, 17, July 1999.
Missing.

Lisa Govan, 28, last seen at 7.30 am, Kalgoorlie, 8 October 1999.
Missing.

Deborah Andserson, last seen 25 January 2000. Car found burning with body in front seat at Middle Swan Shopping Centre.
Murdered.

Sarah McMahon, 20, last seen in Claremont, November 8, 2000. Her car found unlocked in a hospital car park, November 20
. Missing.

Lisa Brown, 19, street prositute, last seen on a Perth street at 12.30 am, 10 November 1998.
Missing
.

Darylyn Ugle, 25, street prostitute. Body found at Mundaring Weir, April 2003.
Murdered
.

I would like to thank the following people for their enormous help with background research for this book. A special thank you to the heartbroken parents of both the murdered and missing girls who trusted me to tell their stories. To my journalist colleagues, for interviews and for use of the extensive work they have covered on the subject:
Post
newspaper editor and proprietor Bret Christian for your generosity with newspaper clippings and for sharing your overall knowledge of your home city;
The West Australian
's Luke Morfesse, who is a font of knowledge on the Claremont case and was incredibly helpful; Rex Haw at Channel 10 for trusting me with precious clippings amassed over a decade; and to Liam Bartlett, Colleen Egan and Wendy Page, producer of ABC's
Australian Story,
for general background material.

Thanks to Robin Napper, for all your help and passing on contacts and Thomas Lawson, for countless emails outlining Weygers's story. Thanks to WA Police for use of photo-graphs relating to this story and to those who so generously shared their knowledge in those rushed, last-minute inter-views: retired NSW officer Mike Hagan, Superintendent Paul Schramm, Inspector Paul Ferguson, Superintendent Stephen Brown and former Senior-Sergeant Tony Potts.

Thanks also to my 'man in the field', the former police officer who asked to remain anonymous; to the other former investigators who helped me fill the gaps in the puzzle; to Con Bayens, for your support and help; Mick Buckley for information and to Nic from the Australian Missing Person's website, for all your work.

To the lawyers: barrister and MP John Quigley, for your colourful insights; barrister Belinda Lonsdale for the Rory Christie transcripts; lawyer Neil Fearis for colouring-in the Glennon story; Tom Percy QC and barrister Jonathon Davies for background.

Thanks also to Lance Williams's mother, Norma, for your patience with my questions and John Button, for your wonderful help with this and other projects.

Thanks to Publisher Meredith Curnow at Random House for putting your faith in my writing, again, and courage in bringing this story to the page; Brandon VanOver for your wonderful encouragement and patience in reading and re-reading every line; Louise Sterling, for your fabulous edit and empathy with this tragic story; and lawyer Richard Potter, for your terrific legal advice.

To Michael and Maryanne Wright for the use of your fabulous riverside apartment in Perth; Jane Corten and Geoff Coventry for your company; and Lourette and Brian Neale for your wonderful generosity and for putting up with us.

To my family and friends, for cheering me through this harrowing story – thanks again, as always. To my BSE, William Neale: a rock-solid support through this project and during research trips interstate, who made sure I kept going when I wanted to give up. Thank you so much.

Finally, again, to the special women to whom this book is dedicated: my mother, Monica, a gorgeous friend and support; and my beautiful daughter, Louise, whose life and love I treasure even more after writing this book.

ABC:
Australian Story
, 'Murder He Wrote', 2002

ABC Radio National:
The Spirit of Things
, 'The Una Glennon Story', October 2001

ABC Radio National:
Background Briefing
, 'The Courage of our Convictions – The Claremont Serial Killer', June 2000

ABC: Stateline WA, April 2004

Colin & Seaman, Donald.
The Serial Killers
, Virgin Publishing, 1992

Eggar, Steven A.
The Killers Among Us
(Second Edition), Pearson Education LTD, 2002

Holmes,R.
Profiling Violent Crimes: An Investigative Tool
,Sage Publications, 1996

Napper, Robin. Criminal Case Reviews paper, March 2005. Re-printed (in part) with permission

Ryan, Peter. 'Ripe Justice',
Quadrant
, Vol. 4, No. 5, May 2005

Post Newspaper, Perth

The West Australian