David & Catherine Birnie | Australia's most notorious serial killer couple

hello guys it's bella welcome back to my channel i hope you're all having a wonderful day today in today's video we're going to be covering another mystery monday case which i'm sure you gathered from the title of the video before we get into the case i just want to thank today's sponsor castify you guys know by now that i'm obsessed with case to fire but i recently got a new phone and so i had to get some new cases and i'm so excited to show you guys because they are all just i have been using this plain brown one non-stop lately because i'm obsessed with brown and this just goes with everything and it goes with all of my outfits and it looks so cute and you can also get this one in like a ton of different colors and you can also customize it but i have this thing where i just think my initials look weird so i never customize anything out of that one and this next one i cannot decide which one is my favorite because i love them both so much but i haven't used this one yet because i've 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i'm not sure yet let me know your thoughts let me know what you think would be easiest i do just want to give a quick warning before we get into the video that this case does deal with a lot of sexual assault so let's get into the case today we are going to be talking about the morehouse murders which took place in western australia they were carried out by the notorious serial killer couple david and catherine bernie david bernie was born on the 16th of february in 1951 he was the eldest of five children to john and margaret bernie in water grove in western australia which is about 13 kilometers from perth that's where i grew up by the way where was born i don't think i specified that very well he had a really dysfunctional childhood growing up there were a lot of rumors about the family about how they were dysfunctional promiscuous alcoholics and there were also a lot of rumors about incest within the family the house was apparently pretty nasty like dirty and apparently john and margaret would never cook for the children they never ate together as a family the kids just had to kind of eat what whatever they could find out of the fridge i can remember looking at this little martin thinking you will not have a chance there was a huge stigma that's the bernie's you know both parents um very dysfunctional the house was always filthy they didn't have regular meals the fridge door was always left over open so that the dogs and the children could just go and help themselves whenever they were hungry john was like this fellow man he had a defect in his spine which made him really arch and made him look really small and other than that there's not a lot known about him except that he didn't talk a lot or like to people outside of the family anyway and he was known to visit a local baptist church and that's really all i could find on him he stood out in a crowd he was a very small man he was humpbacked he couldn't speak he started so badly that you couldn't you would give up trying to talk to him which probably most people did david's mother margaret was just an absolute doll from what i read she was described as an unclean unkempt alcoholic she was a chain smoker which apparently reflected in her voice and she was also known to exchange sexual favors in return for taxi rides like instead of paying for her taxi rides there was one occasion where she was on a bus with one of her children and it was a baby it was screaming and she just like gave it to a stranger on the bus and then went to a completely different spot on the bus sat back smoked a cigarette read her book and then didn't even care about the crying baby or the person that she had given it to until it got to her start when she went and grabbed the baby back and got off at her stop she was also known to scream and yell at her kids a lot if they ever misbehaved she would hit them with a broom she expected the older children to look after the younger children and they were taken off her a lot like these children were in and out of foster care all throughout their childhoods obviously all of this had a pretty significant effect on david growing up as i'm sure you can imagine by the time he was eight he was committing crimes like petty theft and burglary when he attended sunday school at the local baptist church that his father frequented his teachers noticed that he was like really aggressive he would draw these like creepy drawings and it was just pretty obvious that from a young age he had some severe psychological issues when i was 16 and i became a sunday school teacher and my first class was class of little three-year-olds and one of the little three-year-olds in that class was david bernie and he had violently used the pencils or the crayons until they tore through the paper i remember thinking something's wrong here this child has a violence in him that the other children didn't have in the early 1960s when david was 12 his family moved to perth which is where he met a girl named catherine harrison who lived next door she was 12 years old as well and was born on the 23rd of may in 1951 when catherine was just two years old her mother doreen died while giving birth to her younger brother and then her younger brother also passed away just two days later catherine then moved to south africa with her father harold which did not go well he struggled to take care of catherine on his own and ended up just shipping her back off to perth to live with her maternal grandparents and growing up with her grandparents was really lonely they did not let any children inside the house not that any children were allowed to play with her anyway because all of the parents at her school did not want their kids hanging out with her they thought that she was just weird and just there was something off about her and this was only made worse by having such an on and off again relationship with her father when she was growing up like one minute he wanted her the next minute he didn't want her and then he wanted her again she was bounced around a few different times to different relatives so i can just imagine that her upbringing was extremely lonely and just she would have just been looking for some sort of approval or love because all of these people just kept palming her off to the next person when she was 10 years old her father harold decided he did want her back there was a custody dispute between him and her maternal grandparents and he ended up gaining full custody so when she was 12 and living in perth with her dad and she met david bernie like i said she was really lonely and just like desperate for some sort of human interaction or love and david showed interest in her and so they hit it off right away not long after this though david's parents ended up divorcing neither of them claimed him and he became a ward of the state and he and catherine lost contact when david was 15 years old he left school and went to become an apprentice jockey for eric parnham at ascot racecourse and what is a well-known first step for serial killers harming animals right well while he was working at the race course david physically harmed three horses and then there was this other incident with this seven-year-old woman and he broke into her apartment completely naked except for a stocking on his head and he attempted to sexually assault her but at some point he like freaked out and ran away before anything could happen but he was fired because of it dave bernie had no personality never smile yeah hard face hard you know dark eyes hard face arrogant you know always always yeah nasty nasty person he'd come riding past on his bike with a big black daffodil jacket on you know big long black jacket and just no not let go the handlebars and just having to jack it up and he would drive right along with no clothes on he said just big jacket on oh he's a freak that babe we always should say what's the matter with him you know the same year that that happened in 1966 david and catherine met and right away sparked up the old flame and they fell in love and by this point david had been convicted of a bunch of crimes he had been convicted of robbery thefts and assault he was also a sex and a porn addict and he was in and out of prison and he was excited to have a partner in crime they started off with smaller crimes they were first caught on the 11th of june in 1969 and charged with 11 counts of theft and breaking and entering and they both pled guilty david was sentenced to nine months in prison but katherine who was actually pregnant at the time with another man's child only received probation then the next month they appeared before the supreme court and were then charged with another eight counts of theft which added three years to david's sentence and like four years to catherine's probation on the 21st of june my birthday in 1970 um david actually escaped from prison and he went and met up with catherine again and they went on like a cute little couple's crime spree together couple goals am i right they committed a string of thefts and break-ins but they were caught on the 10th of july 1970 and they were charged with 53 counts of trespassing burglary and illegal operation of a motor vehicle and when they were arrested they were found with wigs radios and also dynamite and detonators so lucky like they didn't use them because things could have been a lot worse this time david was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and catherine was also sentenced to six months in prison which is where she had the baby and the baby was taken off her immediately when she had it in prison throughout their relationship catherine's father harold begged her on multiple occasions to leave david because they were getting into so much trouble together she was going down a really bad path committing all of these crimes and he was worried for her but this just made catherine want to be with david moore she was obsessed with him and she actually said she knew what she had done was wrong but that she would have done anything for david during her six months in prison she was not allowed any contact with david which just kind of gave her time to reflect on what she had done where her life was going with david and what she wanted her life to look like when she got out of prison she was granted custody back of her baby and a parole officer actually encouraged her to stay away from david and to go and get a job as a nanny and free mentor for the mclaughlin family which she did she ended up becoming involved with their youngest son donald mclaughlin and she fell pregnant with his baby they ended up getting married on her 21st birthday and in november she gave birth to their son donny jr just seven months later they had some friends over and they had donny jr crawling around on the driveway outside as their friend backed out they ran over and killed seven month old donny catherine and donald did support each other through this incident however and they went on to have six more children donald worked as a council employee and you know money was kind of tight but they always got through it they were relatively happy until donald got a back injury which prevented him from being able to work they had to move into council housing which was not great to say the least they were living in near poverty it was always unclean and unkempt and that children would just be running around all the time doing whatever it was just a miserable time meanwhile david after he finished his two and a half year prison sentence also settled down he married a woman named kerry and together they had a daughter named tanya in 1974 david bernie was introduced to kerry by his brother how quickly did things progress very very very quickly we went out the next night to the movies and he asked me to marry him that night and i said yes to me he was a very loving caring man and i've never been able to reconcile how the person i knew was the psychopath that he was there was the father i knew and there was the psychopath david bernie over the next six years they had a pretty pleasant normal life until david suffered a head injury and apparently he just like totally changed as a person his wife kerry said she instantly noticed the change he started treating her badly he started having like a bunch of affairs that kerry pretended she didn't know about as a father david bernie was attentive to his daughter but as a husband he was a slave to his cravings seeking sex outside marriage even as his wife later discovered advertising for it and then after 10 years of marriage david brought home his girlfriend who was 16 years old he moved his daughter tanya out of her room so that he and his 16 year old girlfriend could live in there so incredibly messed up it was the absolute last straw for kerry and she took tanya and she left david so at around the same time that kerry left david this was in 1984 and catherine was still living in near poverty in victoria park with donald it was four weeks after the birth of her youngest child she decided to go to the hospital and get a hysterectomy i guess david tracked her down although there was a lot of speculation that for the past two years they had been in contact they had been seeing each other while her life was going downhill she was living in near poverty her husband couldn't work david's life was going downhill since his head injury as well and so there was some speculation that they had been talking for two years prior to them actually meeting up again but basically donald goes to visit his wife after her hysterectomy and when he walks into the room david bernie is there holding her hand then when she was released from hospital she went to go and visit david and while she was there she called up donald she's like i'm leaving you and the kids see you later and catherine then moved in with david to three more house street in william and catherine changed her last name legally to bernie despite the fact that they never got married and they also got two dogs together and can i just say poor dogs that they don't get to choose their owners imagine just being a dog and the most infamous disgusting serial killers are the ones who bought you dogs are too pure for this world and we don't deserve them anyway after they got back together david was still in and out of prison and while he was in prison he actually reconnected with his youngest brother james because they were cellmates a lot of the bernie children like lost contact after their parents divorce and they became awards to the state and james was actually in prison for sexually assaulting his six-year-old niece who he claims led him on so great people the bernies in december of 1984 james ended up moving in with david and catherine at their morehouse street house and he later said in interviews that david had this massive porn collection that he was addicted to sex and he would need to have sex like five to six times a day apparently david would like inject this numbing agent into his doodle i don't want to get demonetized um so that he could last longer during sex without finishing james said that while he was staying there he was sleeping on their couch and that david had this little mattress that he had right beside the couch that he would bring girls to and have sex with them right next to his brother in december of 1984 david and catherine had like an off period and during that off period david actually forced his younger brother into having sex with him i read some reports that he was awake and david forced him into it and then i read other reports that james was actually asleep when david raped his brother and i believe over the next two years james and david also continued to have intercourse two years later in 1986 was james's 21st birthday and david's gift to him was that he could have sex with catherine and it was the first time that he'd ever had sex with a woman i think by that point he may have only had sex with david okay so that is a bit of background info on the bernies who they were the lead up to the horrible crimes that they committed and that's what we're going to be talking about now they're crimes that they were actually convicted of there is speculation that they've been involved in more crimes than just the ones that they were actually convicted of but we'll talk about them a little bit later on in the video in 1985 david began harassing this woman named audrey scofield and she was just a receptionist at this small local real estate agency for about a week he would just come to the real estate agency and just like stare at her i could see right out through the open doors into the mall where there's a bench that was just outside the door and this particular day i noticed a smallish man came and sat there who i know now was david bernie he wanted me to go out of that office on any pretext to get me out of that office to go with him for seven days day after day bernie returned and harassed audrey with the same lies trying to wear her down he would stand outside and wait until she was alone and then he would come in and he would like say all of this like weird stuff to her like i only like brunettes with brown eyes and then there was this one time he even tried to get her to leave with him and go back to her house and understandably she was totally creeped out by him and by what he was doing and she decided to get her husband to come in and he showed up as he did every day her husband came out and was like bug her off and then david never showed up again and this was the first sort of known confirmed step between the petty theft and burglaries and the murders and assaults it was on the 6th of october in 1986 that david and catherine made the jump from their petty crimes to murder and their first victim was mary nielsen she was a 22 year old psychology student at the university of western australia and she hoped to work as a counselor with the department of community welfare after she graduated she worked part-time at a local deli to get her through university and on the 6th of october her parents who were both tafe lecturers were over in the uk on a holiday she had some lectures on at university that night but during the day she had a free day so she decided to get some stuff done decided to go and get her tires changed she was a uni student her parents were away she wanted to save some money so she went to a local car wreckers which is where david bernie was working david was always very reliable he always turned up at work on time he never took sickies at one stage he was overpaid in his pay pack at one week and he actually was that honest to to give it back and i felt that comfortable that if he'd asked me to go around for a cup of coffee to catch up or a drink i would have been quite comfortable to do that he showed her a bunch of different tyres but he was like you know i've got some back of my house that are really good good quality and i can do them for cheaper if you want to come and meet me there later on it's only five minutes away and she was keen to save some money so she was like okay that sounds great and he gave her the address and was like come by at around 5 00 pm which is exactly what she did when she got to three more hour street she knocked on the door david answered grabbed her held her at knife point and dragged her into the bedroom where he gagged her and tied her to the bed mary was then repeatedly raped by david while catherine sat on the sidelines watching encouraging him taking notes and asking him questions about what he enjoyed about it what was turning him on doing research she was very much the mastermind behind the whole thing like for an entire year before they abducted mary she did research into how to murder someone how to get away with it where to park their car and when to park their car to make it look less suspicious she was the one who would give david the green light on what girls they could and couldn't abduct they would go out together and she'd be like okay you can get that one and they had a special phrase which was i've got the munchies she would say i've got the munchies if she saw a girl that she was okay with and if david liked her as well he would say i've got the munchies too and that's how they would choose who they would abduct she would take notes and photos as well while david was assaulting these women anyway later that night david and catherine put mary into their car and drove 54 kilometers away to gleneagles national park and when they got to the park david raped mary again he then grabbed a rope from the car and strangled her and then he dug a shallow grave and threw mary's body into the hole stabbed her in the chest to make sure she was dead and then buried her after this they drove mary's car and parked it like just outside a police station actually like i said in her research she googled where to leave a car how long until you should move a car that sort of thing and it took six days for the police to discover mary's car after the murder mary was reported as a missing person but nothing really came of it there was really no investigation nobody was looking at the bernies at all so after two weeks they felt like they'd gotten away with it and they were more confident to go into another attack so to find their next victim they started driving around they drove around the sterling highway around the canning highway they also put an ad in the paper which read like in capital letters urgent looking for lonely young person prefer female 18 to 24 share single bedroom flat it's unknown if anyone actually answered the ad in the paper i know i wouldn't because like how stupid a murderer is to think anyone would look at that and be like yeah we're looking for a lonely young person to move in with us this isn't a creepy ad at all anyway whether or not anybody responded they didn't get any victims that way instead on the 20th of october in 1986 two weeks after mary's murder they were driving around looking for the next victim as they had been for the whole two weeks and you know they would do their little code where catherine would say i've got the munchies and if david was interested he would say i've got the munchies too darling and they didn't really have like a specific type there was no specific age they went for no specific characteristics they went for it was just if they saw someone on the street that looked vulnerable a woman that was their only time it had to be a woman of course so on the night of the 20th they drove past susannah candy who was hitchhiking along the sterling highway in claremont and they both agreed that she would be their next victim and she was just 15 years old she was described as a young free-spirited girl she attended hollywood high school in shenton park in perth and was said to be a good student there she lived at home with her parents and three siblings two brothers and one sister her father was dr douglas candy and he was a very well-respected eye surgeon at saint john of god's hospital he was really protective of his daughters and even when susanna started working at a local restaurant and she had to finish late he would walk there meet her outside and then walk her home this particular night she was working but when she finished work her dad wasn't there to pick her up so she was walking home and she like you know was putting her thumb out trying to catch a ride and that is when david and catherine pulled up and offered her a ride they looked pretty harmless thanks to catherine you know it was a couple it wasn't just some creepy old man unfortunately they were not as harmless as they looked and as soon as susanna got in the car they tied her up and held a knife to her throat when they got back to the house just like with mary they brought her into the bedroom gagged her tied her the bed and david raped her repeatedly as catherine watched and took notes and photos david was disappointed with how quickly they murdered mary so he wanted to prolong it a bit so they got susanna to write letters to her friends and family letting them know that she was okay that she and some friends had gone to queensland she was having fun don't worry they also made her call her parents and read off a script that catherine had wrote kind of trying to throw off suspicion that anything was wrong which actually had the opposite effect for the next several days david raped her repeatedly while they held her captive and katherine actually also joined them on a few occasions this time eventually when they were done with her david attempted to strangle her but she gave them one hell of a fight he was unable to and so instead they forced sleeping pills down her throat then when she was unconscious david got the rope he handed it to catherine he said prove you love me and strangle her and no questions asked catherine did it she pulled the rope around susanna's neck and held tight until she wasn't breathing once again they put her body in their car and they drove her to glen eagles forest where they buried her body close to where mary's was buried now like i said the calls and letters just made her parents more suspicious like it had the complete opposite effect that the bernies had hoped for and as soon as they got the letters they went down to the police station they gave them to police and they were like look something's up she's 15. something's off here and the police were like hey you know you've got these notes it looks like she's just ran away sorry about it just 11 days after susanna's murder the bernie's found their next victim on the 1st of november in 1986 31 year old noline patterson was working as a bar manager at netherlands golf club in victon which is just less than 10 minutes from the bernie's home in william on her way home she ran out of fuel and she had to pull over which is when david and catherine pulled up alongside of her and offered to drive her to the nearest fuel station again they look totally harmless and normal it's like this middle-aged couple not some creepy man immediately nolene was like relieved because she was just broken down on the side of the road and she got in the car but as soon as she got in the car they held a knife to her throat and took her back to their house once they got there just with their other previous victims they chained her to the bed gagged her and david repeatedly raped her this attack was a little different though because noline was kind of playing along she was pretending she enjoyed it she was trying to get close to david as a way to stay alive and david was forming like an emotional attachment to her which made catherine like insanely jealous she really felt like noline was gonna come between them and at one point she like tried to bash noline but david held her back and didn't let her after three days of david continuously raping noleen and putting her murder off catherine came in with a knife to her throat and basically said either you kill her or i will kill myself like gave him a very hectic ultimatum so david forced a bunch of sleeping pills down her throat and strangled her again they put her body in their car drove her to glen eagle's forest and buried her kind of in the same area as the other girls but a little bit further away and apparently the whole time they were driving her there and taking her to the spot they were going to bury her and burying her catherine was cursing at her she was saying horrible things to her and when they were actually burying her she was like throwing the dirt in her face just three days after noleen's a murder so these attacks are just getting closer and closer together but on the 4th of november in 1986 the bernie's found their next victim which was 21 year old denise brown denise was described as a warm friendly and loving girl she lived in a share house with her boyfriend and then another couple in netherlands she worked part-time as a computer operator and loved a bit of a party she liked to go dancing and clubbing and that's exactly what she did on the night of the fourth after clubbing when she was ready to go home she went outside the club and she waited for a bus near sterling highway in fremantle which is about 30 minutes south of perth before a bus arrived though david and catherine bernie pulled up offered her a lift which she accepted when she got in there as with their previous victims they held a knife to her throat and drove her back to their house they then brought her to the bed gagged her chained her to the bed and david raped her repeatedly for the next two days they assaulted her and they forced her just like susannah to call her friends and family and let them know that she was okay but when denise's boyfriend and flatmate heard of the call they were suspicious if denise is going to be staying overnight or a little bit later with friends she usually rings up the flat when she was living it just wasn't her to not sort of bring me then on the 6th of november they forced her to swallow a bunch of sleeping pills when she fell asleep they put her in their car and this time they actually took her to a different location than there are other victims they took her 60 kilometers away to wanaroo pine plantation it was actually still light out when they got there so david raped her inside the car then when it got dark he raped her outside of the car and stabbed her in the neck they then dug a shallow grave put her body in the grave but as they started burying her she all of a sudden sat up and was struggling for air and david didn't know what to do he grabbed his shovel he hit her in the head but she was still alive but still struggling for air he then went to go and get an axe and hit her in the head three times with the axe until she was finally dead now by this point the matters were starting to get a little bit of media attention and the media was kind of talking about the possibilities of them being connected but it wasn't huge news or anything and the police and people who weren't in the media just kind of thought these girls had run away because of the letters and the phone calls and that sort of thing police were not having a bar of the possibility of them being connected then three days later on the 9th of november david and catherine burney found their next victim 17 year old kate moyer i was a high school truant and my parents basically said what's the point of being at school anymore i worked 60 hours a week to pay for my living expenses i worked full time at that time at cherryline which is a boutique she had been out clubbing with friends and she went to a pub in codelso then she went to the clermont hotel to see a band called lick the lizard she had a good night she was pretty drunk and around 10 30 p.m her friends in the band offered to drive her home she told them you know it's fine just drop me on the corner of the street and i'll walk the rest of the way you know she was pretty drunk she thought oh i'll just sober up on my walk home on her walk when she was alone on the sterling highway just three minutes from where susanna candy was abducted she saw a car approaching slowly enough for her to like put her hand out and try and get a ride david and catherine pulled up beside her they asked her where she lived if she needed a ride home and she accepted she got in the car and everything seemed fine at first they drove her to her house but when they got there and she tried to get out she noticed that there was no handles on the door and she was like hey there's no handle on my door and they were like okay try and use the window handle and she looked and there was no window handle and she was like okay like what's going on that's when david grabbed her pulled her head between the two front seats grabbed a butcher's knife from his ugg boot and held it to her neck they then drove her to a place 600 meters away called the lookout catherine gets out of the car and goes into the boot she grabs some table ties some zip ties and she grabs a blanket and she gets back into the passenger seat and she tells kate give me your hands kate puts her hands out and she puts the cable ties around her arms tells her to lie down in the back seat and throws the blanket over her they then drove her to their house on morehouse street and while they were on the drive there kate said from under the blanket are you going to rape or kill me and they responded and said we'll only rape you if you're a good girl once they got to the house they cut her cable ties off and told her to completely undress besides her underwear and her singlet and they then put her clothes jewelry all of her personal stuff into a little plastic bag with her name written on it or they wrote her name on it it wasn't like a pre-written bag and they knew they were gonna get her because all of that their attacks were like opportunistic attacks they didn't target specific people anyway they then made her go and take a shower while catherine watched and then they took her into the lounge room and they asked her like a bunch of questions they were asking her full name her full address if she was on the pill if she had a boyfriend what her birthday was and then when they stopped asking her questions they put on the movie rambo while they listened to dire straits the three of them smoked cigarettes they smoked weed together and kate was like trying to get them super high david and catherine were talking about previous victims they were laughing about it and there was like actually this newspaper on the table with denise brown's photo on it and catherine looked at it and sort of started laughing and kate was like what's funny and katherine responded and she said you'd think a big girl like that could look after herself and immediately kate knew that she was one of their other victims and she was probably gonna die that night because it was just a photo of her face you couldn't tell from the photo if she was a big girl or not kate really felt as though she was going to die and she wanted to leave evidence around so that when the police finally caught these people that they would know that she was one of their victims so she left a lipstick under a bean bag um there was a time when david and catherine left the room for a second and there was a manhole in the roof and so she put a packet of cigarettes up there she also left her friend's driver's license there at around 12 30 am david took her to the bedroom and raped her while catherine took notes it was just disgusting they were disgusting rapes he made love to me i don't know if you can conceptualize that okay it wasn't violent it was it was kissing petting everything he made love to me after the attack they made her shower again while catherine watched and they then chained her to the bed they gave her a pen and paper to write goodbye notes to her friends and family at her request at one point david left the room and kate decided to scream you know she wanted to try everything and anything she could to get out of this situation hoping maybe the neighbors would hear and come over and help her david immediately ran into the room raped her again and then he cuffed himself to her or chained himself to her and tried to force her to eat sleeping pills but she didn't swallow them she waited until he went to sleep and she then spat them all out and then the next morning they forced her to call her parents to let them know that she was okay she'd just gotten too drunk and stayed with a friend david then ate breakfast like it was any normal day and went to work like he didn't have a woman being held captive at his house and as soon as he left kate was feeling a lot better and about her chances she felt like she had a 50 50 chance to either she was gonna be murdered or she was going to be able to escape because it was just her and catherine so she decided to try and befriend catherine she started listening to music with her the same dice straits album they listened to the night before and you know talking about it talking about the movie they'd watched together at one point they went out the back to have a smoke together and catherine actually unchained kate catherine had been selling weed as a bit of a side hustle and somebody came to the door i guess to buy some weight off her and she was like you know kate go to the bedroom so kate goes to the bedroom and she saw this as her opportunity she used a window climbed out through that window and just started running she was running through the street she knocked on four different doors and nobody let her in so she just had to run until she made it to a local shopping center went into the local local supermarket and was hysterical and the shopkeeper called the police police arrived shortly after and drove her to the station to get a statement and at first they didn't really take her seriously they thought that she was just some crazy lady and was making it all up they ended up bringing in 22 year old laura hancock i was told that it was a bizarre story and to stitch her up for a false report and i need to put that into perspective that wasn't suggesting manufacturing evidence it was a case of it doesn't appear to ring true so be looking at this from those with those lenses she had only just finished at the academy a couple months prior so she was really new um and she was the only one that believed kate she was super consistent with her story she retained a lot of information about the people that had abducted her despite the fact that they had actually used aliases they called themselves john and margaret around her but there was so much other detail that she took in while she was at the house and she knew where the house was what it looked like like she was so detailed can i just show you something this this is the statement that you took with kate have you seen it since then the chain links were each about one inch long and each chain was about one and a half meters but he secured me so that i was stretched out straight on the bed on my back each padlock and key were numbered so laura persisted to her superior she's like you have to believe this girl and you have to check out what she's saying there's no way she's lying she's so consistent and she has so much detail so that's when detectives paul ferguson and vince caddich went down to three more house street meanwhile when kate escaped catherine was freaking out she called david and david said to a co-worker like hey my dog's got out i've gotta go and he left and then he came back and when he came back like he was acting super normal like like everything was just okay so when detectives get to the house nobody's home they decide to sit out the front until somebody gets home and eventually catherine gets home they approach her she was really snappy with them and they then executed their search warrant of the house now as soon as they got in the house they knew something was wrong because the fireplace had recently been lit and it was november and perth like nobody in november and perth is using a fireplace for heat because it would be scorching hot so you know it was obvious that they had used it to like burn evidence or something like that and that was their first clue that like yeah this girl is not lying this is shady as heck when they looked around the house they found all of the evidence that kate had planted there the cigarettes the driver's license of her friend and the lipstick and then they also found like just a bunch of other stuff that corroborated her story because like i said she was really detailed like there was a pill bottle and she remembered the name on it the brand on it there was the movie she remembered the movie they were watching which was in like you know the big movie things it was rambo i don't even remember what they're called anymore but god i used to love going to blockbuster back in the day and getting a good movie the memories anyway she told them about the locks and the numbers on the locks like there were all these little details around the house that she had taken in and remembered because she was so smart i cannot like imagine thinking about all of this stuff like i it's hard to imagine how you would react in that sort of situation but i can't imagine that i would be like taking in all of these little details enough to remember them to corroborate my story and like planting little pieces of evidence it was just incredible of her and based on how strong her story was after corroborating all of this evidence they arrested catherine on the spot and then went and arrested david at work they kept them both separate at the station and interviewed them for hours and they both gave different stories like catherine was straight up saying i don't know who this girl is i've never heard of her never met her she's never been to the house whereas david was like she did come to the house to smoke some weed with us and then she had consensual sex with me eventually after hours and hours of interviewing david and catherine detective kadich said to david okay let's go grab some shovels dig up some shallow graves and get this over with like it was just like an off comment like you don't expect something like that to be that you know that gotcha moment but david responded and said okay there's four of them and then he started crying detectives asked for the names of the four victims and david told them each name and also agreed to take them to the sites where they had buried these four women and then once police went and told catherine about david's convention she started talking too so detectives drove david and catherine in separate cars first to the wanaroo pine plantation which is where david took them about 400 meters into the forest where they had buried denise brown they then drove them to gleneagles park and david took detectives down a narrow track in the forest and then about 40 meters from the track was where mary nielsen had been buried they followed the same track for another kilometer to where susan candy was born and then catherine was the one who wanted to show them where noline patterson was buried she was talking the whole way there about how much she hated noline and how she was glad she was dead and then when they got to the burial site she spat on her grave the bernies were charged with four counts of murder and appeared in court on the 12th of november in 1986. they had to be brought into court under cloaks because the crowds were pretty hectic they hated these people and they wanted them to hang understandably so the bernies were so smug too like they just didn't care david blew kisses at the angry mobs and catherine was like smirking it was disgusting truly disgusting again you'll see if you're bloody husband you're dead at the hearing neither david or catherine entered a plea and bail was refused their next hearing was on the 10th of february in 1987 which attracted an even larger angry mob at this hearing both david and catherine pled guilty to four counts of murder one count of abduction and one count of rape on the third of march in 1987 they were sentenced with four life sentences to be served concurrently so at the same time however it was marked on their file that they were never to be released david started his sentence at fremantle prison and then when they closed down in 1991 he was moved to cassarena prison and in prison he was beaten often by other inmates thankfully and he often had to be put in solitary confinement for his own safety because of it in prison david and catherine exchanged 2 600 letters and then in the early 90s david started trying to bargain with authorities to be able to see catherine in july of 1992 he actually said that he and catherine had committed other murders and that he wanted to see katherine he'd tell them the information if he could see catherine and that it was in the public's best interest for him to tell them so authorities approached catherine to negotiate and she didn't want to borrow it she had cut off all communication with david and just wasn't interested in seeing him at all didn't want phone calls didn't want letters she wanted nothing to do with him and then when authorities told david this he was like well there's nothing you can offer me then i'm not gonna tell you unless i get to see katherine they took him on like a five hour drive around perth anyway but he didn't give them any information despite catherine cutting off all communication with david he continued to write her letters despite the fact that she never replied he only stopped a few months before his death which was on the 7th of october and 2005 when he hung himself in his cell nobody claimed him after his death he was buried in a porpoise grave by the state government when he died he was actually under investigation for assaulting another inmate this inmate is referred to as peter and in 1999 when this inmate was 23 years old he claimed that david and another inmate named adrian barrett who was a convicted child sex offender had raped him in prison and he was actually awarded seventy thousand dollars in compensation for the assault catherine bernie is still in prison she's kept at vandy up woman's prison and was apparently attacked by other inmates when she was first brought in she spoke with david for about the first year of her incarceration and also tried to write to her children and one letter she wrote in 1987 let me read it to you she said by now you would have heard i've been charged with murder and other things please try to understand what i did was never meant to hurt anybody but what i did was because i love david love is a very powerful thing and i found out it can make you do things you wouldn't normally do it was because of my love for david that those things happen and went on happening be careful who you love and to what extent you love that person she also wrote that she would love david no matter what and told them please don't be ashamed of me because i already felt shame enough for all of us which like boo hoo i don't buy it she was the ringleader of the whole thing she was the one that chose the women that they assaulted she was the one that did a whole year's worth of research before they abducted mary nielsen like she admitted that she admitted that she did a year's worth of research so it's like if you're going to admit to that just own up to your actions anyway in the early 90s she cut all communication with david which is you know why david started bargaining with police like hey i'll tell you about some other murders we committed if you let me see her and when they asked why she cut all communication she said it was because he was weak and she was stronger than him and didn't need him anymore and then when authorities tried to ask her about the other matters that they had committed she just smacked catherine is now the head librarian of bandit prison and apparently she also enjoys being so infamous for her murders she's exchanged letters with other well-known serial killers like moira hindley and eileen wuornos before she died and when her husband donald died in 2000 she actually requested permission to go and see his funeral but she was denied catherine's son peter who she abandoned when he was just six years old has apparently been beaten just for being her son he said that he was emotionally destroyed knowing that his mother was a serial killer and wished that she had gotten the death sentence but the death sentence had been abolished like just a couple of years before they were convicted he said that when she dies he will party for an entire week and when he was asked if he had any words for his mother he said hurry up and die quickly the bernie's house on three more house shoot was vacant for 12 years ownership of the house has changed over 12 times since 1998 and it's recently been totally renovated and was last sold in june of 2020 for 425 000 i tell you what i would never buy it i would just feel so uncomfortable living in that house even if i demolished it i would still just feel uncomfortable living in a place where that happened so earlier i spoke about other potential victims of the bernie so i'm just going to go over them quickly there was three other publicly named potential victims of the bernies and the first one is a girl named lisa mott she was abducted from this tiny little town named collie which is somewhere i know very well my mum lived there for a time in her life when she was growing up i've been there a million times because it's where my death used to live and it really is just like this tiny little country town when it happened david was working about 20 to 30 minutes away in a place called bunbury which is another place that i know so well because i've been there a million times because it's where my grandparents used to live and you know it's just another like small kind of country town in western australia a couple of hours outside of perth so this one is super close to home unfortunately though it is still an unsolved case so lisa disappeared from collie on the 30th of october in 1980. this was six years before any of the confirmed cases of the bernie's took place she was last seen at 8 30 p.m on the main street of colley waiting to be picked up by a family friend to go to a basketball game and this is when she was seen getting into a yellow panel van as i mentioned david was working in bunbury about 20 to 30 minutes out of collie and he was working as a crane driver and he actually drove a similar colored panel lamp now obviously this is a few years before the official crimes took place and lisa is also quite a bit younger than any of the other victims he was married to kerry at the time and as we know that relationship ended because he brought a 16 year old girl that he said was his girlfriend home so obviously he doesn't discriminate when it comes to age because you know his youngest victim was 15 he had a girlfriend that was 16 and he tried to assault a 17 year old woman sexually his wife at the time kerry though did give him an alibi for this many years later and said that he was home working in the garage all day so he couldn't have done it the second victim that has been publicly named is a woman named cheryl renwick she was a 33 year old mother of two that went missing in may of 1986 just five months earlier than the bernie's first official victim and she had actually been dealing with a couple that had been stalking her and the female and the couple had come to their house a number of times and cheryl's daughters michelle and kylie both confirmed that this woman looked exactly like photos of catherine bernie the stalking was so bad that cheryl moved houses but this couple somehow found out where she had moved and they would call her like all the time at home and they called her all the way up until her disappearance in may when the detectives were gathering evidence against the bernies after all of their official crimes they found this like long-sleeve round neck t-shirt which michelle said was her mother's t-shirt she's sure of it because she used to borrow from her all of the time we found a top and it had a round neck long sleeve and it was my top and my mum used to borrow it and there was a car key with the same emblem as um mum's car which seems like a huge coincidence to me if the bernies didn't have anything to do with it cheryl's body has never been recovered unfortunately and there really isn't a lot of concrete evidence in the case her car was later located the airport which if you ask me sounds a little bit like how the bernie's dropped off mary nielsen's car near the police station especially because that was one of the specific things that katherine burning researched like where to leave cars how long it should be before a car is discovered that sort of thing there was no evidence found inside the car but the tyres were covered in sand and the places that the bernies went to bury their victims were known to have sand in the area unfortunately though like i said there's nothing concrete that links the bernies to her murder barbara weston was the final woman that was publicly named as a potential victim she was a 38 year old mother of two and she was last seen leaving a perth tavern on the 27th of june in 1986. her body was actually found sometime later and the killer had removed all of her jewelry and personal effects and buried it next to her body which you know is one of the bernie's mo's detective vince caddich actually took david to the place that barbara's body was found in their drive around perth but david didn't say anything so that is all of the information that i have on this case for you guys i would love to hear your thoughts in the comments down below what you think about potential victims if the burnings were involved if they weren't involved please feel free to leave any suggestions you have for future cases in the comments down below i hope you guys have a wonderful rest of your day and hopefully i will see you in my next video bye guys

Channel: Bella Fiori

Views: 2,343,693

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Id: TWArOP6_1Cg

Length: 56min 6sec (3366 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 17 2021