THE judge-alone trial for the man accused of the Claremont serial killings will be heard by Justice Stephen Hall and could take up to eight months just to deal with the prosecution case.
Bradley Robert Edwards, 49, has pleaded not guilty to all charges including the murders of 23-year-old Jane Rimmer, 27-year-old Ciara Glennon and Sarah Spiers, 18, in 1996 and 1997.
Edwards faced the West Australian Supreme Court on Monday via video link from Hakea prison, where he has been since he was charged with the murders of Ms Glennon and Ms Rimmer in December 2016.
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READ NOWProsecutor Carmel Barbagallo said she anticipated the judge-alone trial could run as long as eight months, not including the defence case.
Defence counsel Paul Yovich said it would be impossible to start the trial on May 1, as previously flagged, and suggested August would be more feasible.
But Justice Hall said he would not push the start date back at this stage.
He also told the lawyers he wanted to hold monthly case management conferences to keep track of the progress of the case.
Edwards, who was a Little Athletics coach and reportedly an electrical engineer, is scheduled to face another case management conference on December 19.
The bodies of Ms Rimmer, a childcare worker, and Ms Glennon, a lawyer, were discovered in bushland weeks after they were killed, but the body of Ms Spiers, a secretary, has never been found.
All three women were last seen in the Claremont entertainment strip in Perth’s affluent western suburbs after a night out.
Edwards, who was charged with Ms Spiers’ murder in February, is also accused of attacking an 18-year-old woman in her Huntingdale home in 1988 and raping a 17-year-old girl in Karrakatta in 1995.