Decades after the Claremont serial killer struck, detectives finally linked Bradley Robert Edwards' fingerprints and DNA to the crimes, and a discarded Sprite bottle sealed the prosecution case, a Perth court has heard.
The 50-year-old former Telstra technician is fighting charges he murdered secretary Sarah Spiers, 18, childcare worker Jane Rimmer, 23, and lawyer Ciara Glennon, 27, after nights out in 1996 and 1997.
He is accused of either abducting or luring the women into his work vehicle when they were intoxicated, alone and vulnerable.
A court sketch of Bradley Robert Edwards at a final directions hearing ahead of his lengthy trial, 21 October, 2019. Source: AAP
But the investigation started to gain momentum in May 2013, when cold case detectives boxed a silk kimono dropped by a man who attacked a sleeping 18-year-old woman in her Huntingdale bedroom in February 1988.
The kimono was finally tested in November 2016 and semen stains allegedly matched swabs taken from a 17-year-old girl who was twice raped at Karrakatta cemetery in 1995, and DNA found under Ms Glennon's fingernails, which partly broke off as she fought her attacker.
Edwards confessed to the cemetery and Huntingdale attacks last month.
"There was a hit," Ms Barbagallo said.
"What offence did it (the kimono) relate to?"
Investigators believed the key to answering those questions was looking further into other offences committed in Huntingdale, where Edwards grew up.
A file image of The Claremont, formerly known as The Continental Hotel, in Perth. Source: AAP
The biggest breakthrough came on 16 December 16 in 2016 when fingerprints taken from an attempted break-in in the same suburb in 1988 matched Edwards, who was in the national database after a 1990 attack on a Hollywood Hospital social worker.
Detectives swooped four days later when he was at the movies with his stepdaughter.
He threw away a Sprite bottle, which they covertly picked up and had tested.
It was another match.
Police then arrested Edwards at his Kewdale home.
Detectives interviewed him for about six-and-a-half hours, during which he claimed he was only "a little bit" familiar with Claremont and had no association with the area so had no reason to go there.
Supplied still from security footage showing Jane Rimmer speaking to an unidentified man outside the Continental Hotel in Claremont on June 9, 1996. Source: Supplied
Bank records show that was a lie as he did not want to implicate himself, Ms Barabagallo said.
He also "feigned disbelief" his DNA was on the cemetery victim.
Ms Barbagallo said fibre evidence was also a critical part of the case, holding "a lot discriminating information" and providing another forensic link to Edwards.
After laying dormant on ice for 13 years, Ms Rimmer's hair was scrutinised and 22 grey, blue and blue/grey "fibres of interest" were recovered and stored for future reference.
Fibre strands were also extracted from Ms Glennon's hair and clothes, and the rape victim's clothes - and were all found to be "common".
The search for the source of the fibres took investigators to car wrecking yards and police holding yards, and one of two work vehicles used by Edwards was tracked down in Chidlow in 2016.
The state says the fibres largely came from seats or carpet inside that type of station wagon.
Justice Stephen Hall, who is presiding over the trial without a jury, asked Ms Barbagallo if she would argue the murders were sexually motivated, as she has submitted for the Huntingdale attack.
"We're not necessarily nailing our colours to the wall on that," the prosecutor replied.
"Certainly, Ms Rimmer was found naked."
The Claremont serial killings trial will hear from its first witnesses on Wednesday in the Western Australian Supreme Court.
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