Case 307: The Night Caller (Part 1)

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Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel it anyway, Thank you.
The capital of the state of Western Australia, Perth, has long been referred to as the most isolated city in the world.

While there is some debate as to whether this title is accurate, the fact remains that Perth

is the only large city in a circuit of more than 2,000 kilometres. It sits on the other side of the country to the more heavily populated eastern states, home to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and the next nearest capital city is South Australia's Adelaide, a 28-hour drive away.
Perth is located in the lower western corner of the state and is adjacent to the Indian Ocean. Another body of water, the Swan River, cuts through the middle of Perth, dividing the city in two with much of the central business district built up along its banks.
East of the city is home to sprawling hills and parklands filled with the native flora and iconic Australian bush. Winters in Perth are mild, reaching a top temperature of 19 degrees Celsius on average, while the summers are renowned for their dry heat.
In the warmer months, swimmers and surfers flock to Perth's coastline to enjoy popular beaches such as Cottesloe and Scarborough. During the late 1950s, the city was home to about 388,000 people, but was rapidly growing due to a baby boom and post-World War II migration.
Even as the city expanded and swelled, a sense of innocence remained.

Nights were quieter. Strict licensing laws meant that pubs closed by 9pm.
Dance halls and concerts were a favourite weekend pastime for the city's youth, but they too were governed by restrictions that typically saw the entertainment wind down before before midnight. Homes were kept unlocked with windows open even at night, drivers parked their cars with the keys in the ignition, and residents were never more than a couple of degrees of separation from one another.
However, this sense of security and safety that residents took for granted would be shaken and then irrevocably

damaged as the city entered the 1960s. Under the cover of darkness, Perth was terrorised

by an elusive figure, someone who would eventually be dubbed the Nightcaller. The End Thank you.
Towards the end of the 1950s, households throughout Perth experienced an uptick in burglaries. Residents would return home from being away or wake in the morning to find that someone had been in their house overnight.
Cash that had been left lying around or stashed inside wallets and purses was missing It could range from a few shillings to pound notes, as Australia was using the pound currency at the time Sometimes money was even missing from hiding places such as drawers or inside an ornamental vase Small objects of varying value were also pocketed. Watches, pens, jewellery and even a torch were taken.
More disturbingly, women had their underwear stolen. Police reports were typically filed when the crimes were discovered, but officers were left stumped by the lack of fingerprints at any of the crime scenes.
Other times, residents were entirely unaware that they'd had an intruder at all. Sometimes, so little of importance was taken that it was never missed or was assumed to have been misplaced.
These seemed like the crimes of an opportunistic offender seeking financial gain, taking advantage of the lax security measures in place.

During this time, there were also sightings and reports of a prowler in central and southern Perth.

A man was spotted lurking in the bushes, peeping in windows and loitering outside of apartment blocks.

Sometimes his footprints were discovered in garden beds the following morning. Occasionally, women's nightgowns and underwear left hanging on washing lines were found cut and slashed.
No one could know that a single person was behind all of these crimes, which were typically written off as minor offences. There was seemingly nothing violent about them, but that would soon change.
The McLeod family lived in the riverside suburb of Applecross, close to Perth's CBD and just across the Swan River. In the early hours of Wednesday, November 26, 1958, Lucy and Ern MacLeod were woken by a strange commotion in their bedroom.
Their daughter, 15-year-old Molly, was wandering around the room, tripping over her own feet and retching as though she was going to vomit.

Molly rambled incoherently, clearly trying to tell her parents something,

but she couldn't form the words to speak. Terrified, Lucy rushed to her child,

who had been fine when she'd gone to bed the previous evening.

Lucy and Ern repeatedly asked Molly what had happened, begging her to explain what was wrong. Molly was unable to answer and soon lost consciousness.
Her father carried her back to her room, which was a sleepout that adjoined the family's kitchen, and gently laid her in bed. Lucy kneeled beside Molly and held a set of rosary beads in

her hand, praying repeatedly for her daughter's health. To her parents' relief, Molly regained

consciousness, though she continued to moan and mumble without making any sense. By morning,

Molly was able to string a few words together, enough to tell her parents

that her head hurt. One of her eyes had turned black, suggesting she'd somehow received a knock

to the head. Lucy McLeod took Molly to the family doctor, who was unable to ascertain the cause of

Molly's injury but diagnosed her as having a concussion and a hairline skull fracture. It took Molly more than a month to recover.
A staff student, she had been due to finish high school but was unable to attend her leaving exams. Meanwhile, her family was puzzled over the mystery behind what caused her severe head injury.
They eventually concluded that Molly must have received the knock after an awful nightmare caused her to fall out of bed. Molly and her family had no idea that she had actually crossed paths with the night caller.
He had slipped into the McLeod's Applecross home as its residents slept. He prowled about looking for cash he could steal and helped himself to some money he found in the kitchen.
As he was opening the back door to escape, his grip on the handle slipped and the noise woke Molly, whose bed was right next door. Seeing the girl stir, the night caller grabbed a nearby object and hit her over the head with it before fleeing.
Throughout December 1958 and into the new year, the night caller continued to stalk the streets of Perth. Weekends seemed to be when he was most active, though he also ventured out on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
His crimes were growing ever more brazen. At 3am one night, a 21-year-old schoolteacher who lived in Millpoint Road, South Perth, was woken by a strange man grabbing her

by the neck and scratching her face. She screamed and the intruder jumped out of her bedroom window.

Six weeks after this attack, on Wednesday January 28, Perth reached its warmest day of the year

when the temperature reached 43 degrees Celsius or 109 degrees Fahrenheit.

That night, a man who lived one street over from where the teacher had been attacked heard a noise outside at 1.50am and went to investigate. His sudden appearance disturbed a man trying to break in via the back door.
The prowler fled on foot. A neighbour who had also spotted him watching a block of flats from a nearby phone booth described him as being between 5 foot 8 and 5 foot 10 with thick dark hair.
The following day of Thursday January 29, 33-year-old Penina Berkman worked a shift at the perfume counter of the David Jones department store in Perth CBD. Penina had relocated to Perth from Melbourne four years earlier, after she and her husband divorced.
Penina had settled into a ground-floor apartment on Millpoint Road in South Perth and was happy there. Even though her flat had been broken into about six months earlier and 35 shillings were stolen, Penina was comfortable in her new city.
She was a glamorous woman who had caught the eye of a local radio DJ named Fotis Huntis. The pair became a couple.
They planned to meet up after Penina finished her shift that day. Fotis picked Penina up from David Jones and drove her back to her apartment where they ate dinner together.
Later on, they drank some beer then went to bed together. At midnight, Fotis got dressed and prepared to head home to sleep.
As he left, Penina said goodnight and that she would see him tomorrow. Neighbours overheard Fotis' footsteps as he departed the building and heard some other things in the hours that followed.

At around 3am, a couple in an apartment next to Penina's were woken by the sound of someone gasping, followed by a scream. A few minutes later, they heard a car door slam, then the car driving

away. Another resident also heard some screams and a car leaving at around the same time.
The next morning, Fotis drove by Panina's apartment on his way to an appointment and noticed that the door was ajar and her bedroom window was open, its curtains blowing in the breeze. Panina often slept with the window open during the hot summer nights but Fotis knew that she always made a point to close everything and lock up before heading to work.
She was supposed to have a shift that day so the apartment should have been secured. Fotis decided to investigate.
Inside, he found Penina on the lounge room floor by the sliding glass doors She was naked in a pool of blood She had been stabbed through the nose and in the heart with a knife It appeared Penina had crawled to the doors in an attempt to escape, but hadn't survived. Nothing was missing from the apartment except for Penina's purse.
The murder weapon wasn't recovered. The horrific murder sent shockwaves through Perth.
Crimes like this were a rarity in the quiet city. Fotis Huntus told police that when he left Penina's apartment she had been naked in bed It wasn't unusual for her to sleep naked in hot weather Fotis quickly found himself the case's prime suspect and the public agreed that he seemed suspicious When Fotis left Perth to return to his birth country of Greece, their suspicions were all but confirmed.
Penina's killer had gotten away. Even though Penina lived on the same street where a 21-year-old teacher had been attacked in her own home just six weeks

earlier, police didn't consider that her murder could be part of a larger picture.

They reassured worried Perth residents, stating,

The public have no need to be feared from the activities of the person who killed Penina

Berkman, and they can forget all about the existence of that person.

Residents of Perth's western suburbs felt somewhat detached from the murder of Penina Berkman

as she had been living in South Perth. Although that wasn't far in terms of distance,

it almost felt like another world due to the Swan River providing a geographical buffer. Moreover, the inner western suburbs were an affluent and insular pocket that felt particularly safe with a tight-knit community.
One of these wealthy suburbs was Netherlands, an attractive neighbourhood just 7km west of the CBD. Dotted with nice houses and lots of parks, Nedlands was also close to the University of Western Australia.
This made it a popular suburb for students who primarily lived in the area's apartment buildings. In August 1959, Alex Duncan was a first-year nursing student who was staying at her elder sister's flat in Nedlands.
Saturday August 8 was going to be a break from Alex's busy work and study schedule. Some friends from her hometown were visiting for the weekend, and Alex was looking forward to seeing them.

Alex and her friends spent the evening at a drive-in cinema, then headed back to Alex's flat to drink coffee and listen to records.

At 12.45am, Alex's guests left and she got ready for bed.

A security-conscious person, Alex made sure to lock the front door and close all the windows. The exception was one narrow window in the kitchen which led to an outdoor landing.
Because the window was so narrow, Alex felt comfortable leaving it slightly ajar while she slept. The following morning, Alex's friends from out of town headed over to her flat for a planned visit.
George and Headley were both farmers who lived in Western Australia's Wheatbelt about an hour and a half outside of Perth. The young men knocked on the door and were shocked when Alex opened it.
Her face and hair were soaked with blood due to a deep wound over her left eye. Still wearing her pyjamas, Alex was disoriented and clearly oblivious to the injury.
George and Headley searched the apartment. Alex's pillow was drenched with blood and her purse was missing.
She told George and Headley that there had been six pounds inside the purse, but she struggled to answer other questions. When asked about the previous night, Alex said she'd woken up at 3.30am then fallen back asleep.
She couldn't recall anything else. George and Hedley couldn't see any sign of forced entry, but it was clear their friend had been attacked and robbed.
They arranged to take Alex to the doctor. An examination revealed she also sustained a small fracture to the back of her skull That, plus the injury above her eye, indicated she'd been hit twice The attack left Alex with a severe epilepsy that she would need to treat with medication for the rest of her life She was unable to continue her studies or achieve her dream of becoming a nurse.

Alex's uncle was a special investigator in the police's criminal investigation branch and the attack against his niece was taken very seriously. Officers searched the apartment but found no fingerprints.
A poker was missing from the fireplace, which they speculated could have been used to inflict Alex's injuries. They took note that the kitchen window was the only point of entry for an intruder.
Yet, with no evidence leading to a specific person, there was little they could do. Four months later, residents of Perth were preparing for another sun-soaked summer.
One week before Christmas on Saturday December 19, 22-year-old Gillian Brewer invited her fiancé over to her home in Brookwood Flats, a two-storey red apartment complex in the beachside suburb of Cottesloe. Gillian was well known in Perth as a socialite and an heiress whose great-grandfather had founded the chocolate company McRobertson's Confectionery.
After growing up in Melbourne and beginning a career in interior design, Gillian had flown west to Perth at the age of 21. She was happy in her new city, settling into an apartment next door to her mother's and living with her small French poodle Dior for company.
Gillian would be getting married in two months' time to her 31-year-old fiancé Andrew, not his real name. Andrew and Gillian spent that Saturday together before returning to her apartment for the evening.
Gillian's flat was on the ground floor and at the back of the complex. Andrew went home at around midnight with the plan to play golf with Gillian the next day.
At 9am, Andrew went to pick Gillian up and found her front door locked. This was unusual as she mostly kept it open when she was up.
Andrew could see Gillian's poodle Dior jumping up and down frantically at the bedroom window. Andrew had a key to Jillian's apartment in his car, so he went back to get it and then let himself in.
The kitchen window was open and a breeze had blown some Christmas cards Jillian had out on display onto the floor. Unusually, the door to Jillian's bedroom was closed.
Andrew had never seen it shut before. He opened the door and saw Jillian lying in bed, a sheet pulled all the way up to her chin and a pillow lying on her chest.
Her face was covered in blood, as was the sheet and the wall behind her Andrew raced next door to Jillian's mother's apartment and called for a doctor Upon arriving at the scene, the doctor in turn phoned the police After removing the sheet, officers saw the extent of Jillian's injuries She was naked and had wounds all over her body that had been inflicted with a hatchet. Her breasts, head and genitals had all been struck.
Using the flat side of the hatchet, the killer had also hit Gillian's stomach, thighs, face and throat. This final blow had been hard enough to sever her windpipe.
Then the killer had used a pair of scissors that belonged to Gillian to stab her five times. An autopsy would later reveal that Gillian had likely remained alive for two to three hours after the attack, with the coroner stating it was the worst

murder he had ever seen. The killer covered her with a sheet and wiped the scissors clean before returning them to their usual spot.
Blood was later found on the inner blades of the scissors, indicating they had been closed when the killer wiped them down. He had taken the hatchet with him and tossed it over the back fence.
Police found it lying on the ground on the other side, still covered with the Jillian's blood. The killer had been so forceful when using it that the wooden handle was split near the head.
The hatchet was found to have been stolen from a home in the street behind Jillian's. There were no clues as to the killer's identity.
He hadn't left any fingerprints and there was no sign of forced entry at Jillian's apartment. Both the front and back doors were locked.
None of Jillian's neighbours had seen anything untoward, though a mother and daughter who lived nearby reported hearing Jillian's dog bark at around 1am.

The barking abruptly stopped, as though someone had reprimanded the animal.

In the days that followed, Jillian's murder dominated newspaper headlines. As well as the horror of the crime itself, there was the fact that police didn't have a suspect.
No one in Jillian's life was thought to be responsible. Her purse was missing from the apartment, indicating her killer had stolen it.
The pathologist who observed Jillian and Penina's bodies noted the similarities between their injuries. Both had been stabbed multiple times while asleep in bed.
A journalist at the tabloid The Daily News also compared the crimes, pointing out the striking similarities between the women's living circumstances, their missing purses, and how their killers hadn't left a trace. But investigators firmly believed Panina had been killed by her boyfriend and that Jillian was attacked by a stranger.
Police looked into known sex offenders in the area as the injuries to Jillian's breasts and groin appeared to indicate a sexual motivation. It would turn out that over the past 11 months there had been eight reports of a prowler lurking around the Brookwood flat.
Someone had broken into apartments there and taken money, alcohol, and keys. One time a car was stolen.
A number of these reports were made by Jillian's mother, Betty, who lived in the flat next door to her daughter. Her first report came just three weeks after Penina Berkman's murder in January at the start of the year.
If the murder of Penina Berkman shocked Perth months earlier, this second slaying left it reeling. Not only was it another brutal killing in a city that saw few crimes of that nature, but Gillian Brewer's wealth and social status elevated the public's horror to new heights.
Gillian had lived in Cottesloe, one of the affluent western suburbs that felt cushioned from Penina's murder. Residents who also lived in Perth's comfortable western enclave could relate to Gillian.
She was one of us, a community member later told filmmakers of the 2020 documentary series After the Night. As well as dominating the news cycle, Gillian's murder became the focus of many local conversations.
The Brookwood Flats where she'd lived and died were now a public spectacle, with parents driving their children past the building so they could stare at it through the car windows. Even through their fear and anxiety, most Perth residents felt assured that police would soon catch the person responsible.
They trusted law enforcement to complete a thorough investigation and keep the public safe. Despite their faith, weeks and then months passed with no arrest in the case.
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By supporting our sponsors, you support Casefile to continue to deliver quality content. 1960 dawned and Perth welcomed another new year.
The city had continued to grow, both in size and population.

Also on the increase was the number of break-ins and prowler encounters being reported to the police.

Sometimes cars were stolen from driveways and garages.

These were later found either abandoned somewhere else in the city or returned with a slightly emptier petrol tank. Neighbourhoods all over Perth were being targeted, from south of the river suburbs like Como and South Perth to those just north and west of the city.
These crimes continued over the following years. Sometimes the same target was hit twice.
In March 1961, a tin of silver coins were stolen from a residence in Swambourne, close to Cotterslow Beach. Two weeks later, a 24-year-old woman inside the same home was attacked by an intruder after she heard him break in.
As she tried to phone for help, the intruder grabbed her by the throat and wrestled her to the floor. She briefly lost consciousness, then came to and managed to kick the man in the groin.
He fled out the back door and the woman ran to the window to watch him go. Under the sharp glow of the streetlights, she saw that he was white, between 5 foot 6 and 5 foot 8, and well built.

His face was broad and clean-shaven and he had dark, wavy hair.

On another occasion in 1962, a woman was cleaning up after a party her teenage daughter had held at their Cottesloe home.

As she did so, she noticed a man outside the house watching her.

He was lurking behind a bush wearing a large brimmed hat.

The woman told her husband who chased after the man but lost him in the darkness. On Saturday March 3, 1962, a 23-year-old named Anne Melvin was feeling nervous.
She'd moved out of her childhood home just a few weeks earlier and was now sharing a flat with her sister in the western suburb of Crawley. Anne's sister was out that night and it would be the first time Anne had stayed in the flat alone.
She made herself a snack and was having a coffee when she heard a noise on the porch outside. Anne paused and listened carefully.
When she didn't hear anything else, she told herself it must have been a cat. Anne went to bed and slept peacefully for a little while, before she suddenly started having an awful nightmare.
In the dream, she was suffocating. Anne forced herself awake only to realise that she wasn't just dreaming.

A piece of toweling was wrapped tightly around her neck. Her left arm had been tied to the bedhead

with a stocking, and most terrifying of all, there was a man standing next to her bed removing his

belt. Anne sat up, tore desperately at the toweling at her neck, and began to scream.
At the sound of her yells, the man ran out of the room. Anne managed to free her arm and took off after him, screaming that she was going to kill him.
In her terror and confusion, she had forgotten that her sister was away for the evening and when Anne saw her empty bed, she believed the intruder must have kidnapped her. The man got away but Anne's screams attracted the attention of some nearby neighbours, who found her on her balcony with blood dribbling from her mouth.
One of the neighbours comforted Anne while the other called the police. A detective who soon arrived was shocked to see Anne's appearance.
She looked as though she was almost dead, with bloodshot eyes and raw red markings on her neck and wrist. Anne moved back in with her parents after the attack and would only leave the house to go to church.
Terrified her attacker would track her down, she eventually left Australia altogether. A few days after the attack against Anne Melvin, the couple who had come to her rescue woke to find their car covered in pairs of women's underpants.
They had been twisted around door handles, tucked under the windscreen wipers and stuck into any available gaps. The couple notified the police who attended the property and found footprints in the garden beds.
Some of the plants were trampled. It appeared as though someone had been lurking in the area, looking through the windows.
In the months that followed, there were more reports of a prowler around Perth. On one occasion on Saturday December 29, 1962, a woman in Cottesloe woke to find a man in her room.
He'd wrapped a handkerchief around his face as a disguise and was shining a torch in her eyes. The man punched her face before fleeing.
Later that same night, another young woman in Cottesloe was woken by the same prowler. In addition to the handkerchief, he wore a hat and had leather gloves on his hands, as well as what looked like a knuckle duster.
He hit her over the head with the torch before punching above her eye. The woman screamed, which woke her parents as well as some neighbours.
By the time her parents reached her bedroom, the attacker had fled. It would later turn out that he had stolen cash from the young woman's purse.
An internal police report on this latter attack noticed that over the past six months, had been a pattern of break-in denters at homes in the area.

Whoever was behind the break-ins was entering via unlocked doors and open windows. The offender would steal cash and his crimes appeared to be escalating.
Quote. Of late, these reports have become more frequent, some concern is being felt for the safety of women who are being disturbed by the offender after he has entered the premises and stolen

what money he can find. One witness who saw the offender fleeing described him as being aged

between 30 and 40 with a tan complexion. His height was short at around 5 foot 9 and he had a thin to medium build.
The offender wore a suit as well as a black felt hat with a wide brim and close-fitting white gloves. Sometimes his face was masked.
He never left fingerprints behind and he never spoke

The report was distributed to police patrols

who were asked to be aware of the situation

and told it was crucial that the offender be apprehended

before his crimes escalated further

Perth's police had no idea just how far his crimes had already gone

I'm not alone. further.
Perth's police had no idea just how far his crimes had already gone. In early 1963, Perth was experiencing another hot summer.
On Friday February 15 in the inner city suburb of West Perth, two young women were busy polishing the floors of a flat they'd recently rented together. 24-year-old Constance Madrill, who went by her middle name, Lucy, was a government-employed social worker.
Her housemate, Jennifer Hurse, worked as a schoolteacher. The two friends were happy with their new home,

a two-bedroom flat inside a large house that had been converted into two apartments. Although the area had had issues with prowlers and break-ins, the property was situated on a busy road which made them feel safe.
Plus, a family of three rented the other flat, so there was always someone nearby. Lucy felt secure enough there that she kept the back door propped open at all times so that her Siamese cat could come and go.
After the two women finished polishing the floors, they each retired to separate rooms to read for the rest of the night. Between 11 and 11.30pm, Lucy stopped by Jennifer's bedroom to say goodnight, now wearing a short blue nightie.
She then headed to her own room at the other end of the flat, near the back door. At around 1.30am, Jennifer got up to go to the toilet which was at the rear of the property.
On her way back to bed, she looked in on Lucy's room. Lucy was asleep on her bed,

having pulled aside the top sheet and blanket due to the warm night.

Jennifer returned to her room and wasn't disturbed for the rest of the night.

Across a lane at the rear of Lucy and Jennifer's flat was a house with a large lawn out the back.

At 6am the morning of Saturday February 16, one of the house's residents got up with her young son

and the two went to use the outhouse that sat at the back of the property. Their attention was drawn to a strange bundle that appeared to be lying on the ground near a Hillshoist washing line.
The woman walked closer and realised that she was looking at the naked body of a young woman. The body belonged to 24-year-old Lucy Medrill.
An empty whiskey bottle was tucked into the crook of her right arm. Police found out that the couple who lived at the house had sat outside the previous night drinking the whiskey together.
When they retired to bed at around midnight, one of them had tossed the empty bottle onto the lawn. Lucy's killer had seemingly found it while dumping her body and used it to penetrate her before posing it under her arm.
Lucy's blue nightie lay alongside her. There was a blue bruise across her neck and she had been strangled with a ligature such as a cord.
The killer had raped Lucy post-mortem. The killer had initially dragged Lucy from her home with her heels trailing along the ground before reversing his approach and pulling her across the lawn by her legs.
Lucy's bedroom hadn't been ransacked. Her clothes from the day before were lying on the floor near a wall, likely where she'd left them after undressing.
Her sheet and blanket were turned back and a dressing gown lay across the foot of her bed.

Detectives identified what had likely been the murder weapon.

A piece of flex had been torn from a reading lamp in another room.

One pound had been stolen from a purse.

The murder of Lucy Madrill called to mind the murders of Penina Berkman and Gillian Brewer several years earlier. Although those cases involved stabbing, not strangulation, there was a familiar element in that all involved a young woman brutalised in her own home and left in a state of undress.
dress. Lucy's case was almost more shocking due to the horrific way that her body had been violated than posed out in the open.
Over the past five years, the increase in break-ins and attacks against women at home had made Perth residents far more vigilant about locking doors than they ever had before. The murder of Lucy Medrill amplified their wariness.
Yet reports continued to trickle through about night-time break-ins and prowling incidents across the city. In suburbs throughout the north, south and west of Perth, residents found they were missing cash.
Typically, the burglaries weren't discovered until the thief was long gone, but sometimes he was caught in the act. On one occasion, a couple kissing goodnight in Como spotted a man hiding in the bushes watching them.
Another time, at a house in apple cross, a little girl went into her kitchen and spotted the silhouette of a man hiding in the bushes, watching them. Another time, at a house in Applecross,

a little girl went into her kitchen and spotted the silhouette of a man.

Is that you, Daddy? she asked as he darted out the back door.

In one encounter, a man came across the prowler in his home. He begged the homeowner to let him go,

claiming he was only there because he was unemployed and desperate to feed his children. Taking pity on who he thought was a desperate burglar, the man gave him some food and let him leave.
One afternoon at 5pm, a woman named Phyllis was in her South Perth kitchen preparing dinner when a strange man walked in. He had dark hair underneath his brimmed hat, was short, and carried a leather suitcase.
The man's most notable feature was his cleft lip and palate, a relatively common birth defect in which there is a split in an individual's upper lip. As the man calmly strolled in, he turned and looked blankly at one of Phyllis's sons who was playing nearby.
Then he put his bag down and started questioning Phyllis, first asking if her husband was home. Phyllis said yes, he was sitting in the lounge room.
The man asked how many children the couple had, how old they were, and which schools they attended. Phyllis was terrified, but something told her that the best way to handle the situation was by remaining calm and unfazed.
She politely answered his questions. When she finished, the man picked up his bag again, turned and walked out of the house.
Phyllis rushed to her husband to tell him what had happened and the couple ran to a window. The man was outside, casually walking down the street and disappearing around the corner like nothing unusual had happened.
Halfway through the year, on Saturday June 15, 1963, 20-year-old Carmel Reed was going to a party. Carmel did clerical and statistical work at the University of Western Australia and didn't have many late nights out.
But tonight was a special occasion. It was the 21st birthday of one of her closest friends.
Carmel had a fun night and was driven home at 2.20am by her friend's fiancee, who made sure she got into her home safely. Carmel had moved into her flat in Netherlands just one month earlier and was living there with two other young women.
One of them, who Carmel shared a room with, was staying with her boyfriend that night, while the other housemate was already fast asleep by the time Carmel got home. Carmel got ready for bed and checked all of the windows and doors were locked.
There was just one window she didn't check. It was a small ventilator window located about five feet up the lounge room wall.
As it only measured two feet by one and a half feet, Carmel figured it was safe to leave slightly open. She climbed into bed at 2.45.
Two hours later, she was abruptly awoken by a rustling sound coming from the dining room. Carmel's heart started to pound and she called out, Is anyone there? No reply came and the noise stopped.
Carmel sat up in bed, listening carefully. Then she saw the figure of a man appear in her doorway.
He shone a bright torch into her eyes, blinding her as he walked into the room. Carmel hid under her bedsheets and screamed.
In response, the man stabbed at her chest with a sharp object. Carmel's chest seared with pain and she rolled away to escape the barrage.
She realised she needed to try to escape. Carmel flung off her sheet and blanket, hoping to hit the man with them, then leapt out of bed and bolted for the door.
It was dark and she couldn't see anything. Suddenly she felt a sharp, stinging sensation in her face.
The man had hit her. Then he fled from the flat, dropping the object he'd stabbed Carmel with as he went.
It was an umbrella he'd found in her room and he'd used its still point to jab at her. Screaming, Carmel ran to her housemate's room and found her cowering in bed, having overheard the attack.
Neighbours who heard the commotion called the police. Officers quickly descended on the flat but recovered nothing belonging to the intruder, not even any fingerprints.
The only thing taken from the property was a purse that contained 15 shillings. It would turn out that one of the extra police cars patrolling the area due to the frequency of these attacks had passed by Carmel's apartment building just minutes before the assault.
The Prowler break-ins weren't the only reason for police issuing additional patrols throughout the relatively small city. There had been a number of other crimes that had warranted the extra manpower, but no one in law enforcement realised that they were actually all connected.
Almost five years earlier, on the night of Friday September 12, 1958, a woman named Nell Schneider had been riding her bike home in the southern suburb of Bentley, about eight kilometres from Perth's CBD. When she was just a few hundred metres from her home, a car suddenly sped up behind her and slammed into her bicycle.
The bike became stuck to the car's grill as Nell was thrown up in the air. She slammed down on the road headfirst.
As quickly as it had arrived, the car sped away, disappearing into the night. Nell was left lying on the bitumen, unconscious in a pool of blood.
She was found by a passing motorist about 45 minutes later and remained in a coma for two weeks. Although she eventually recovered, Nell was diagnosed with chronic post-traumatic temporal lobe epilepsy, which led to her experiencing blackouts and seizures on occasion.
The car used in the attack was identified as a Ford console which had been stolen that same night from a home in Victoria Park. It was found abandoned about half a mile from where Nell was struck.
No fingerprints were recovered from the vehicle. Police attributed the theft of the car to joyriders and concluded that they had most likely hit Nell by accident while speeding, then fled in panic.
The incident featured in some newspaper headlines and officers began an intensive search for the culprits. The investigations continued for some time, but with nothing more to go on, they made no progress.

What the police didn't know was that the man who would later be dubbed the Night Caller had abruptly started committing a new kind of attack. He'd been breaking into residences and prowling for years, but this was his first violent assault against a stranger.
Three and a half months later, on Saturday December 27, a woman named Kathy Bellis was walking home from a bus stop late at night after working a shift as a waitress. Kathy lived in Belmont, then a new suburb in the city's east.
There were no streetlights there in 1958, so Cathy pulled out a small torch she kept for occasions when she had to walk their suburb's unlit streets at night. Shining it in front of her, she began to make her way home.
It was only two blocks, but Cathy's surroundings were pitch black and very isolated.

The street she walked along had no houses, just paddocks and bushland flanking the bitumen road that had only been recently built. Suddenly, a car sped up behind Cathy, engine revving.
It veered straight towards her, striking Kathy hard and throwing her 60 feet across an intersection and into a neighbouring paddock. As Kathy lay in the soft ground of the paddock, she drifted in and out of consciousness.
Her pelvis and one of her legs seared with pain. Then she saw the face of a man looming above her.
Realising it was the car's driver, but unsure whether or not she was hallucinating, she begged, don't leave me or I'll die. The man laughed, then ran back to his car and sped away.
Kathy was discovered by a couple who'd heard her anguished cries and was rushed to the hospital. She had suffered a broken pelvis, two breaks in her leg, a shattered knee, a fracture to the base of her spine, and another fracture at the top of her skull.
Over the next year, Cathy had to undergo multiple surgeries and treatments. She would never be able to run again.
The car that had struck her turned out to be a ute that was stolen the previous night from the suburb of Como, 9km southwest of Belmont. It was subsequently dumped about 5 kilometres away from the crime scene.
More than a year went by with no more mysterious hit and runs, but plenty of other seemingly unrelated crimes were committed during that time, including the murders of Penina Berkman and Gillian Brewer.

Then, almost four months after Gillian's murder, the hit and runs started again.

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On Saturday April 9 1960, a 20-year-old named Glennis Peake walked home from a night out at a dance. An almost full moon illuminated the night sky as Glennis walked

alone in the suburb of Bayswater, 6km northeast of Perth's CBD. Glennis kept to the right side

of the road so she would be facing any oncoming traffic. It was after midnight and the streets

were quiet. This area of Perth was sparsely populated with few houses and residents.

Shortly into her walk, the headlights of a car appeared behind her.

As it passed, Glennis took note of the make, a Holden sedan with a short-looking man behind the wheel.

The car kept her driving and made a right turn further

up the road, vanishing into the darkness. Glennis kept walking.
When she reached the street the car had turned into, she noticed that the Holden was parked there with the driver still inside, facing her. Glennis was mildly puzzled by this.
As it happened, she had to go down the same street as the car to get home, only she was headed in the opposite direction. Glenys turned left onto the side street.
She was just one block from her home. She walked in the middle of the street in order to see better as the moon was no longer providing enough light and the bitumen was riddled with potholes All of a sudden, Glennis heard the roar of an engine as a car drove up behind her It was the same Holden as before and it had veered into the wrong side of the road in order to head straight towards her.
Glennis tried to jump out of the way, but the car hit her left hip as the driver struck Glennis from an angle so as to avoid a nearby tree. She was tossed over the bonnet, cutting her face open on one of the windscreen wipers in the process.

Glennis landed in some gravel and a broken glass by the side of the road.

She lay there, shocked but conscious, as the car drove away.

She knew the driver had run her down deliberately.

Terrified he'd come back to finish the job, she scrambled to her feet and stumbled home.

Go to the scene of the hit and run. Although Glenys had said she'd left her handbag lying there, it was missing.
About a hundred metres from there was a clearly abandoned car. It was a Holden sedan with the keys in the ignition.
It had been stolen from the garage of a used car salesman who'd taken the Holden home from the dealership for the weekend. The attacker's fingerprints were nowhere to be found.
Just after 11pm on Friday May 13, one month after Glenys Peake's hit and run, 18-year-old Jewel Connell was walking home from a bus stop in Belmont when she was deliberately run down by a driver in a green Morris Minor sedan. After being thrown onto the bonnet, Jill fell to the ground, sobbing.
Meanwhile, the Morris Minor had gotten stuck in some sand that bordered the road. The driver jumped out and ran away, laughing.
It was an hour before Jill was found lying unconscious and bleeding behind the abandoned vehicle. She later underwent emergency surgery.
The Green Morris Minor had been reported stolen from a home in the South Perth suburb of Como two hours earlier.

The prints of the car thief weren't found anywhere on or in the vehicle. Exactly one week after the attack on Jewel Connell, an 18-year-old named Georgina Pittman spent a fun night out dancing.
She caught the 11.35pm train home where she struck up a conversation with 16-year-old Maureen Rogers and her 12-year-old cousin Therese Zagami, who had just attended a concert. It was raining heavily when they disembarked at Queen's Park Station in South Perth and there were no taxis waiting at the cab rank outside.
The only car in the vicinity was an expensive looking new Chrysler Royal which was white with a red stripe and had Victorian license plates. A man sat behind the wheel wearing a brimmed hat.
The three girls decided to walk home. Maureen and Georgina huddled together under Maureen's umbrella while Teresa walked slightly ahead under her own umbrella.
They were making their way up George Street, an isolated road bordered by large paddocks, a few houses and a poultry farm. Suddenly, a car zoomed past them at high speed.
Gee, this guy's an idiot, Maureen said. It was the same Chrysler that had been parked at the train station.
The driver then did a U-turn and sped back past the girls in the other direction before pulling into a side street behind them. The three girls kept walking.
It was quiet and dark as they reached an area of the road where there were no houses, only empty paddocks on either side. The still night air was abruptly broken by a roaring sound.
Georgina turned around and saw headlights approaching.

It was the Chrysler veering across the road towards them. Twelve-year-old Therese, who was walking right at the road's edge, also spun around.
Look out, she cried, before jumping out of the car's path. It barely missed her and Therese felt a gust of wind hit her as the vehicle passed.

Then it struck Georgina and Maureen head on.

Georgina was thrown into the ditch that ran alongside the road.

Maureen bore the brunt of the impact as the vehicle hit her left leg and broke both of its major bones. The force of the hit had also broken the car's radiator grille.
Maureen was tossed onto the bonnet and stayed there, bleeding profusely as the driver continued to speed ahead. He made a sharp turn as they reached an intersection about 100 metres up the road and Maureen finally fell from the bonnet onto the ground.
Georgina Pittman was in a daze down the road looking for her shoes. She had no idea what had happened.
She only knew that her feet were bare for some reason.

Georgina didn't realise that her dress was also torn and she'd sustained deep cuts to her head and back which were now bleeding. Mum, mum, Georgina desperately called as she walked in circles.

Therese Zagami had escaped injury but was terrified that the driver would return. She began running towards home, which was up ahead in the direction they'd been walking.
Therese stayed low and away from the road to hide from their attacker. As she reached the top of the hill, she came across her cousin Maureen, lying bleeding in the middle of the road.
Therese ran over to her, asking, Maureen, are you alright? There was no answer. Realising her cousin must be dead, Therese's fear intensified and she kept running towards home, which was only about another hundred metres away.
Therese's parents were out, but her aunt lived next door. Therese banged on her front door, screaming.
It was deliberate. It was deliberate.
it. Just as Therese was raising the alarm, two patrol officers passing through the area stumbled across Maureen's body.
She still had a pulse. They soon found Georgina as well.
The girls were rushed to hospital. Maureen needed emergency surgery on her left leg.
Her left cheekbone was also

fractured and she was entirely covered in bruises. Georgina had a concussion and several deep gashes that needed stitches.
All three girls were left with severe mental and emotional trauma. At the scene of the crime, police recovered a small piece of the car's radiator grill that had been broken during the hit and run.
The Chrysler itself was found just before 7 the following morning of Saturday May 21. It had been dumped near a railway line in the suburb of East Victoria Park, about 5km away.
There was damage to the top and left side of the bonnet, and the broken radiator grill matched the piece found at the scene. The Chrysler had been stolen from a 60-year-old man who had driven from Melbourne to Perth to visit his adult son and his family.
The family had discovered the theft the previous night and

immediately reported it to the police. No fingerprints belonging to the thief were

found on either the interior or exterior of the vehicle. Meanwhile, both the police and

Perth's media were starting to notice the pattern of deliberate hit and runs over the past month

Thank you. of the vehicle.
Meanwhile, both the police and Perth's media were starting to notice the pattern of deliberate hit and runs over the past month and a half. A number of detectives and traffic police were assigned to the case, with a growing theory emerging that one man could be behind all of the crimes.
Articles about the latest incident ran on the front page of the weekend papers, with one headline asking, Is a hit-run maniac on the loose? The story read in part, quote, Three girls were apparently deliberately run down by a powerful stolen car early today. This climaxed what may be a series of cold-blooded attempts to kill or name pedestrians.
Three times in the past six weeks, each time in the weekend, girls have been injured by a stolen hit-run car, later abandoned, in different suburbs. Detectives tracked down known car thieves and questioned them extensively.
Due to the hit and runs always taking place on a Friday or Saturday night, special patrols were implemented on those days between 5pm and 1am. In a report about the case, one detective sergeant concluded that he was convinced that one perpetrator was responsible for all three of the attacks, while acknowledging that he had no evidence.
Without fingerprints or anything else belonging to the perpetrator at any of the scenes, there was no way to prove their theory. No connection was made to the prowler breaking into homes across the city, even though he also stole cars, struck on weekend nights, targeted random victims, and never left a single fingerprint.
The hit and run stopped after the attack against Georgina Pittman, Maureen Rogers, and Therese Zagami. Months passed, then years.
But the night caller never ceased his crimes and in the beginning of 1963, he would launch another shocking attack using a new kind of stolen weapon. Australia Day is Australia's official National day, observed annually on January 26.
There is some controversy around this date as it was chosen to mark the landing of the first British colonists in 1788. In recent years, there has been much debate as to whether it should be changed.

For many residents of Perth in 1963, Australia Day just signified another long weekend and a chance to enjoy the summer. The holiday fell on a Saturday that year, so Australians would have a three-day weekend with no work on Monday.
Saturday January 26 was a hot night and Perth was abuzz, with many out drinking and celebrating. The Ocean Beach Hotel, a pub that sat across from the beach in North Cottesloe, was packed.
Bartender Rowena Reeves worked at the hotel until closing, then went to a restaurant with three friends.

Afterwards, at around 2am, the group of four drove to a quiet spot overlooking the ocean to chat and have a few more drinks.

However, an argument broke out between two members of the group, who were a couple.

They soon left, leaving Rowena alone in the car with her friend, Nick August.

Reckon's death was a who were a couple. They soon left, leaving Rowena alone in the car with her friend, Nick August.
Rowena sat in the car's back seat drinking pink champagne while Nick sat behind the wheel. As Rowena sipped her drink, she noticed a man standing less than eight metres away, staring at them.
She pointed him out to Nick.

Nick was married and suspected the stranger had been sent by his wife to spy on him.

Angered, Nick tossed an empty beer bottle at the man through the open window and yelled at him to

piss off. As the bottle rolled down the street, Rowena saw the man lift up something.

Look at him to piss off. As the bottle rolled down the street, Rowena saw the man lift up something.
Look out, he's got a gun, she cried, while pushing Nick's head down so it wouldn't be visible from outside. The man fired a rifle.
Nick felt a sudden pain in his neck. He's got me, he stated stated before hurriedly starting the car's engine and speeding away The man with the rifle fired once again at the retreating vehicle but missed In the back seat of the car, Rowena was bleeding badly The bullet that had grazed Nick's neck had then struck her wrist, shattering it.
Nick sped towards the nearest hospital, which was in the port city of Fremantle, about 8km south.

The pair were admitted for treatment and at 3.30am medical staff notified the police

that they had two shooting victims who needed to be interviewed.

It was almost half an hour later when the doorbell rang at a house on Louise Street in Netherlands,

five and a half kilometres east of where Rowena Reeves and Nick August were attacked.

The house was a single-storey brick

residence home to the Wormsley family. Daughter Sandra Wormsley was woken by the doorbell,

which rang twice in quick succession. Sandra heard the familiar footsteps of her father,

George Wormsley, walking towards the front door. As he opened the door, a loud

gunshot rang out. Dad, Sandra screamed, jumping out of bed and running to the front door.

She was joined by her mother. To their horror, George lay in the doorway,

his hair soaked with blood and his eyes glazed. Clearly visible in his forehead was a bullet hole.
There was no sign of the shooter. Sandra ran to the kitchen where the family's telephone was located and called the police and a nearby neighbour.
Then she returned to her father's body and tried to comfort her devastated mother. The pair were in complete shock.
It made no sense that their entire world could have been turned upside down in a split second. George was a loving, warm man.
It made no sense that anyone would want to harm him. Fifteen minutes later, and just one block over on Vincent Street, a young man named Scott McWilliam was woken from his sleep by the sound of shouting.
Scott was staying at a boarding house that was home to a number of young people, the yelling was coming from another resident, his landlady's niece, Pauline. She was saying that there was something wrong with John Sturkey, an 18-year-old boarder who was leaving Perth the following week to study veterinary medicine in Brisbane.
Scott got up to see what was wrong. John had been sleeping outside on a single bed on the back veranda where the air was cooler at night.
Flicking on the veranda's light switch, Scott saw there was an enormous pool of blood on the concrete flooring next to John's bed. John was in the bed, with blood soaked into the linen around his head.
He was making a gurgling sound. Scott and another boarder rushed forward to lift John's head up so he could breathe.
There was a gunshot visible at the top of his forehead. Pauline phoned for an ambulance, then called the police.
Officers told Pauline that everyone at the residence was to stay inside and keep low beneath the windows. There was somebody going around the neighbourhood shooting people.
Both George Wormsley and John Sturkey were rushed in separate ambulances to Royal Perth Hospital, arriving within five minutes of one another.

John was pronounced dead three minutes after arrival.

George Wormsley was given emergency surgery but died about an hour and a half later.

Police were still processing both crime scenes and had just been notified of the two deaths when another call came in. Len Bath wasn't initially worried when his friend Brian Weir didn't show up for a scheduled surf rescue boat training session on Sunday morning.
29-year-old Brian, whose day job was as an accountant, was often late. But after waiting around for more than two hours, Len decided to go check on Brian.
He drove the short distance from the Swambourn, Netherlands Surf Life Saving Club to Brian's home. Brian lived in a first floor apartment in a block of four on Broome Street, Cotterslow.
When Len arrived, he saw that the door that led from Brian's bedroom to the apartment's balcony was open. Len clambered up to the balcony and walked in.
Brian was still in bed, but the scene was all wrong. His head was hanging over one side and there was blood everywhere.
Brian felt stiff and his complexion was grey, but Len could still hear him faintly breathing. Len was horrified.
It looked as though Brian had been in a violent fight. Len raced back to the Surf Lifesaving Club and told his teammates what he'd found.
One of them had heard news reports about the overnight shootings in nearby Netherlands and they all raced back to Brian's flat together. When they looked more closely at their friend, they saw that the top left side of his head was completely gone.
Brian was rushed to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery. A bullet was found lodged in the left temporal lobe of Brian's brain, with fragments scattered throughout.
Surgeons had to remove these foreign objects, as well as splintered pieces of bone and much of Brian's damaged brain matter. Brian survived the surgery but remained in a coma.
He stayed in his coma for six months, with police constantly keeping guard. When Brian eventually regained consciousness, he was unable to speak, walk or move his arms.
His right side was entirely paralysed. He had lost sight in one eye and hearing in one ear.
The severe brain damage also caused him to have epileptic fits.

Despite being just 29 years old, Brian had to be moved into an aged care nursing home

due to requiring round-the-clock care. On December 19, 1965, almost three years after the attack,

Brian Weird died as a result of his injuries.

The Australia Day attacks dominated newspaper headlines in the immediate aftermath of the shootings. Articles provided a timeline of the attacks, which was pieced together by the police.

Rowena Reeves and Nick August had been the shooter's first victims. Both had survived after sustaining injuries from the same bullet.
Police had found a spent casing at the scene of the crime. The shooter had then walked around the corner and stopped outside Brian Weir's home.
He'd climbed up the first floor balcony where Brian had left the door open. Brian had dragged his bed right up to the door, sleeping with his head towards the balcony to take advantage of the sea breeze on the hot night.
The shooter had shot Brian once in the head, then left the flat and headed 5km east to Netherlands.

Once in Netherlands, the shooter walked around the back of the boarding house where John

Sturkey was sleeping on the rear veranda and shot him once in the head.

The shooter then walked one street over, ejecting another spent shell casing as he did so and rang the doorbell of the Wormsley residence. George Wormsley was his last victim.
It didn't appear that any of the victims were connected or had been specifically targeted. No fingerprints had been recovered from any of the crime scenes nor did police find the murder weapon.
All of the shell casings recovered had come from the same 22 gauge firearm which was a Lithgow single shot rifle. There were 75,000 such rifles registered in the state of Western Australia.
Police began following up on each one in search of the murder weapon and even extended their search to the eastern states of Australia. They test-fired a total of 60,000 rifles, but none were a match.
There appeared to be a time-lapse between the attacks in Cottesloe and those in Netherlands, prompting detectives to wonder if the shooter had used a bike to cycle from the first location to the second. However, some witnesses had reported seeing a light-coloured Holden sedan driving in Cottesloe around the time of the first attacks.
What made the sedan suspicious was the fact that its headlights weren't on, even though it was the middle of the night. Witnesses in Netherlands had reported seeing a similar car parked near the crime scenes there.
Perth had experienced some ripples of concern in the years immediately preceding the random shootings in late January 1963. The pattern of hit and runs and the reports of a prowler entering and robbing homes before attacking female residents had both caused a stir.
But the Australia Day shootings sent the city into a full-blown panic. Overnight, people completely changed their habits and behaviours in response to the senseless attacks.
They locked their doors and made sure to close their windows at night despite the sweltering summer heat. Gun purchases skyrocketed.
People slept with weapons by their bed where they could reach them at a moment's notice.

Others made do with what they could find, including knives, cricket bats, and even cans of fly spray they could aim directly at an assailant's eyes. Animal shelters suddenly faced a huge demand for guard dogs, with pounds across Perth selling out of dogs.
Outhouses were common at the time, but more people started installing toilets inside their houses so they wouldn't have to go outside at all after dark. Children were no longer allowed to sleep on back verandas to stay cool on hot nights as they'd done in the past.
Strange theories about the shootings emerged. Some people falsely confessed to the crimes.
Others pointed out that the attacks had taken place during a full moon. In his memoir, The Sharknet, author Robert Drew wrote about how the shootings changed Perth in an instant.
Quote, The murders immediately changed the spirit of the place. They chilled the warm shadows of the peppermint and box trees and flowering gums lining the streets.
The slightly crumbly lines of the brick and limestone houses, the cosy-looking Tudor apartment blocks and shop fronts had a sharper, harsher edge. Their facades looked stony and closed.
People's eyes flicked away as they hurried indoors or into their cars. Fewer residents went out after dark, creating an eerie atmosphere where the streets were especially quiet at night despite the reduced foot and vehicle traffic the state government arranged to keep street lights blazing all night long from nedlands down to freemantle in a direct response to the shootings police were under intense pressure to solve the case, working day and night to catch the person responsible.
Calls flooded in from the public with tip-offs. Sometimes there were so many that they clogged up the switchboard.
A special operational room was set up just to manage these calls While detectives combed over every detail of the Australia Day shootings and break-ins An additional 40 patrol officers were out on the streets of Perth every night Watching the city from patrol cars, horseback and on foot Despite this, they failed to identify or apprehend a suspect. Nor were they able to prevent the Prowler attacks, which continued in the wake of the Australia Day shootings, but were believed to be unrelated.
Lucy Madrill was murdered less than three weeks after the shootings. Carmel Reed was attacked four months later.

It wasn't until August that there would finally be a significant development in the case.

To be continued. Thank you.
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