THE alleged Claremont serial killer is due to face a shorter but still lengthy trial after pleading guilty to attacking a sleeping woman more than 30 years ago and twice raping a teenager seven years later.
However he denies he’s a murderer.
After almost three years in custody and twice pleading not guilty to all charges against him, Bradley Robert Edwards asked to be re-arraigned at a directions hearing in the Supreme Court of WA on Monday.
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READ NOWThe 50-year-old was barely audible when he changed his pleas for one count of breaking and entering dwelling with intent, two charges of deprivation of liberty and two counts of sexual penetration without consent.
The former Telstra worker now admits breaking into a Huntingdale home in 1988 and attacking a sleeping 18-year-old woman and abducting a 17-year-old girl in Claremont then raping her at Karrakatta Cemetery in 1995.
The sexual assaults, described in the indictment as “likely to seriously and substantially degrade and humiliate”, happened just under a year before the first murder victim Sarah Spiers disappeared.
The 18-year-old, Jane Rimmer, 23, and Ciara Glennon, 27, were all last seen on the affluent Perth suburb’s entertainment strip in 1996 and 1997.
Edwards’ surprise admissions mean his trial, previously scheduled to last nine months, is now expected to be at least three months shorter.
It has also been pushed back one week and will now begin on Monday November 25.
The court previously heard Edwards’ DNA was found on a silk kimono left behind after a struggle at the Huntingdale house, on the cemetery rape victim and under Ms Glennon’s fingernails.
CHARGES AGAINST BRADLEY ROBERT EDWARDS AND HIS PLEAS
* Count 1: Break and enter dwelling with intent – 15 February 1988, Huntingdale – (GUILTY) * Count 2: Deprivation of liberty – 15 February 1988, Huntingdale (GUILTY) * Count 3: Deprivation of liberty – 12 February 1995, Claremont (GUILTY) * Count 4: Aggravated sexual penetration without consent – 12 February 1995, Karrakatta (GUILTY) * Count 5: Aggravated sexual penetration without consent – 12 February 1995, Karrakatta (GUILTY) * Count 6: Wilful murder – 27 January 1996, Perth (NOT GUILTY) * Count 7: Wilful murder – 9 June 1996, Perth (NOT GUILTY) * Count 8: Wilful murder – 15 March 1997, Perth (NOT GUILTY).