Networked Knowledge - Terry Akritidis summary of Finding of Inquest

[This edited version of the report has been prepared by Dr Robert N Moles]

Debi Marshall homepage

See also
Go here: for lectures and articles on forensic issues
Bob Moles: A state of Injustice - book now online
Bob Moles: Losing Their Grip - The Case of Henry Keogh - book now online

On 4 June 2007 Gary Hughes of The Australian reported “Has a serial killer blogged here?”

He asked, has WA’s Claremont serial killer been contributing to this blog while police continue their unsuccessful hunt for him? According to a new book on the long-running saga by crime author Debi Marshall, it’s possible. She quotes Robin Napper, a lecturer at Perth’s Centre for Forensic Science and a former police detective, as describing the contributions to Gotcha from a mysterious figure using the name “Dr Phibes” as “seriously spooky”. “Whoever this blogger is, he has more than a passing interest in the subject and is teasing us with his knowledge of all three victims,” says Mr Napper.

Dr Phibes started contributing his detailed knowledge about the Claremont killings after we posted on the saga in October last year. In one comment he revealed how he had met one of the victims, Sarah McMahon, and claimed police had bugged his phone and flown a helicopter over his property with heat-seeking ground radar in the search for her body. Dr Phibes has continued contributing to the blog, along with others for the past eight months. His most recent comment was just 10 days ago.

Debi Marshall’s critical book, The Devil’s Garden, has been attacked by WA police for being factually incorrect, insensitive towards the families of victims and potentially harmful to their chances of solving the case. Marshall, has responded, claiming that she’s been balanced and dismissing as “nonsense” suggestions it could jeopardise the investigation. As she says in the book, the Macro taskforce set up to investigate the Claremont serial killings has been described as “a catalogue of disasters overlaid with compounded errors, dominated by while male culture and overseen by a ‘protected species’ – career police officers; a murky collision of lack of evidence and tunnel vision”.

The investigation has been subjected to seemingly endless internal and external reviews (in fact the number is 11, one for every year of the investigation) in a bid to both deflect critics and ensure no crucial clue has been overlooked. Marshall says in the book that it’s possible there are more victims of the Claremont killer yet to be linked to him, or that he could have moved away from Perth and found a new killing ground. In a comment to Gotcha, Marshall says of the criticism by WA police: “The tragedy is that this book needed to be written in the first place. I stand by the book as the truth and would suggest that instead of using police resources to attack me, they could be putting them where they need to go - into finding who this serial killer is. Someone knows something.

You can read Gotcha’s original posting on the case and Dr Phibes’ contributions here.

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