The Birnies

The Breakthrough

On November 10, five days after the disappearance of Denise Brown, detective Ferguson and Detective Sergeant Vince Katich were following up leads on Denise's disappearance when they got the breakthrough they were so desperately waiting for. They were told on the two-way radio that a half-naked young woman had just staggered into a small Willagee shopping complex and had been taken to the Palmyra police station.

Thinking that the missing Denise Brown had turned up, Ferguson and Katich sped to the police station. Instead, it was a 16-year-old girl who told them the most amazing story. The terrified teenager said that she had been abducted at knifepoint the previous evening by a man and a woman who asked her directions as she walked along the street near her home in fashionable Nedlands.

She was taken to a house in Willagee where the couple ripped off all of her clothing before chaining her to a bed by her hands and feet. The girl said the man repeatedly raped her as the woman watched. The couple spoke of injecting cocaine into the head of the man's penis.

The following morning after the man had gone to work the woman unchained the girl and forced her to telephone her parents and tell them that she was staying with friends and that she was okay. While she was using the phone she was astute enough to note the number.

When the woman left the bedroom to answer the door, presumably to let in a cocaine dealer, the girl found an open window and escaped. She was able to give police a full description of her attackers, along with their telephone number and address.

When the girl had told detectives Ferguson and Katich of the phone call she was forced to make to her parents, they immediately became suspicious that the couple may be the kidnappers of the two young women who had disappeared and had rung their families under suspicious circumstances.

Also, there was little doubt in their minds that the fact that the girl was allowed to see the couple's faces and where they lived, could mean that she was marked for death once they had finished with her. If this were the case then it was highly likely that the couple had already killed, perhaps many times, and another death wouldn't matter.

Catherine Birnie

The girl led the team of armed detectives to the dishevelled white-brick house in Moorhouse Street. There was no-one at home. Two detectives hid in a panel van parked in the driveway and apprehended a very tense and nervous Catherine Margaret Birnie when she arrived home. She told them where to look for the man. Minutes later, other detectives picked up David John Birnie where he worked as a labourer in a spare parts car yard.

The Birnies vigorously denied the girl's allegations. Instead, they claimed that she had been a willing party and had gone with them to share a bong of marijuana. Birnie admitted to having sex with the girl but maintained that he had not raped her. A search of the house found the girl's bag and a packet of cigarettes that the girl had the common sense to conceal in the ceiling as proof positive that she had actually been there, but there was little else to prove the allegation of rape or connect the Birnies with any of the other missing women.

Knowing that they needed a confession to confirm their suspicions, Ferguson and Katich hoped that under intense questioning one of the Birnies would crack and at least admit to the rape of the young girl. It was her word against theirs. Ferguson and Katich grilled the Birnies separately. It was David Birnie who eventually cracked.

Just after 7 pm that evening, Detective Sergeant Katich said to David Birnie, half jokingly, in reference to the missing women: "It's getting dark. Best we take the shovel and dig them up."

To his astonishment, Birnie replied: "Okay. There's four of them." The detective couldn't believe his ears.