How did Bradley Robert Edwards get caught? Details explored ahead of The Claremont Murders mini-series

The Claremont Murders were a string of killings that baffled the residents of Perth, Australia, for more than two decades. They refer to the serial killing of two women, Jane Rimmer (23) and Ciara Glennon (27) in 1996 and 1997, respectively. Another girl, 18-year-old Sarah Spiers, was also missing around the same time, and her body has still not been found.

It was revealed only in 2016 that Bradley Robert Edwards, a seemingly normal family man from Perth, was the serial killer behind these murders back in the 1990s. The details of the murder are covered in a two-part miniseries titled The Claremont Murders. The official synopsis of the dramatized version of the events is:

"It centres on a police investigation of the disappearance of young women who disappeared from the streets of Claremont and the 25 year race to capture a killer."

This article explores how the murderer Bradley Robert Edwards was finally caught after staying under the radar for nearly two decades.

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Advanced DNA testing helped the police convict Bradley Robert Edwards in the Claremont Murders

A file picture of Bradley Robert Edwards (image via YouTube/ABC)

Bradley Robert Edwards was a resident of Huntingdale in Perth, Australia. He worked as a technician at Telstra for most of his life, was married twice, and even had a stepdaughter from his second marriage.

It was a shocking revelation when the regular volunteer at his daughter's Little Athletics Club turned out to be the man behind the infamous Claremont Murders. Edwards was arrested on December 22, 2016, after police linked his DNA found on the kimono of a woman he had attempted to assault back in 1995.

The DNA was taken from the sample from the kimono and matched with the DNA samples taken from under Ciara Glennon's fingernails. The authorities had to identify the true owner of the DNA once they discovered a connection between the two attacks.

The police had Edwards' fingerprints in the national database. It had been acquired from him following an assault on a worker at the Hollywood Hospital. They matched these prints to the prints acquired from an attempted break-in in 1988 when the investigators delved deeper into previous offenses in Huntingdale, where Edwards grew up.

They achieved this by testing a fingerprint removed from the Huntingdale property's doorknob in 1998. It turned out to be a match for Edwards, whose fingerprints were already on file following his 1990 attack on a hospital employee. After the police pursued Edwards, they found him with a bottle of Sprite he had dropped while out at the movies with his stepdaughter. The DNA was discovered to match the other samples when it was examined.

Bradley Robert Edwards is currently serving a lifetime in prison in a Western Australian jail. His sentence does not allow for parole for, at least, 40 years.

The Claremont Murders baffled police for over two decades because Edwards last murdered 27-year-old Ciara Glennon in 1997, and then disappeared. He abducted Glennon from Hotel Continental in Huntingdale before s*xually assaulting and murdering her.

He followed the same pattern when he had abducted 23-year-old Jane Rimmer from Club Bayview before r*ping and murdering her six months before murdering Glennon. He is also strongly suspected of murdering a third woman, 18-year-old Sarah Spiers from Club Bayview. However, he has not been acquitted of the murder since Sarah Spiers is still missing and her body has not been found.

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The miniseries The Claremont Murders accounts for the entire case leading up to Edwards' conviction in two episodes. The series premiered on Chanel 7 back in 2023 and is currently available for streaming on Acorn TV.