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Claremont podcast: Bradley Edwards will ‘never’ reveal where Sarah Spiers’ body is: criminologist

Kate RyanThe West Australian
Claremont serial killings trial podcast.
Camera IconClaremont serial killings trial podcast.

Bradley Edwards will never reveal the location of Sarah Spiers, according to leading forensic anthropologist and criminologist Dr Xanthe Mallett.

In this episode of Claremont in Conversation: The Verdict, we take you inside the mind of a killer.

Joined by forensic DNA expert Brendan Chapman, as well as forensic anthropologist and criminologist Dr Xanthe Mallett, our guests analyse how Bradley Robert Edwards fits the profile of a psychopath and what makes someone kill.

During his police interview, Bradley Edwards barely showed any emotion as he was told about the horrific final moments of Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon, but when he was asked about his family, he seemed animated.

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Dr Xanthe Mallett tells the podcast team psychopaths, a group in which she included Edwards, commonly displayed lack of emotion, but did when they were triggered. Usually the only people who see those triggers are their victims.

In the first few months of the trial, prosecution lawyers laid out their idea of what those triggers could have been.

They called them “emotional upsets”, highlighting a man they called the “third wheel”, who moved into the home Edwards shared with his first wife, his then-wife’s affair with that man, the pregnancy and the sale of their marital home.

But as Tim Clarke explained, the prosecution abandoned this theory towards the end of the trial.

He said he believed it wasn’t because they didn’t think it was accurate, rather, their DNA case was strong enough without it.

Before a body was even found and WA realised there was a killer roaming the streets of Claremont, police used the forensic process of victimology to make links between the disappearance of the Karrakatta rape victim, Ms Spiers and Ms Rimmer.

But even with a police investigation linking the disappearance of Ms Spiers to the murders of Ms Rimmer and Ms Glennon, without a body, Justice Hall didn’t find there was enough evidence to convict Edwards of her murder too.

Brendan Chapman explains why, even if “a miracle happened” and Ms Spiers’ remains were found, it would be extremely hard to find any evidence from it.

Join Natalie Bonjolo, Tim Clarke, Brendan Chapman and Xanthe Mallett as they try and delve inside the mind of a killer.

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