THE man accused of the Claremont serial killings has formally pleaded not guilty to all charges he faces at an arraignment at the Supreme Court of WA this morning.
Bradley Robert Edwards appeared in court today wearing glasses and prison greens.
His next court appearance will be on November 1, when an application from prosecutors to have a judge-alone trial will be heard.
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READ NOWBack in July he indicated a not guilty plea would be entered in Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court to all charges against him, including the murders of 23-year-old Jane Rimmer, 27-year-old Ciara Glennon and Sarah Spiers, 18, in 1996 and 1997.
All three woman were last seen in the Claremont entertainment strip in Perth’s affluent western suburbs after a night out.
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.
Edwards, 49, 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.
Edwards has been at Hakea Prison since he was charged with two of the murders in December 2016.
At his first Supreme Court appearance earlier this month via video link from prison, prosecutors applied for a trial before a judge sitting without a jury.
That was expected considering the huge amount of media coverage about the case over the past 22 years.
It will take up to two months to hear pre-trial applications.
Trial dates, starting May 1, have been set aside.
The case, dubbed Operation Macro, has gripped WA for decades and is believed to be Australia’s longest-running and most expensive police investigation.