Has a serial killer blogged here?

Gary
Thank you for your help through this website. You may have noticed that my book on the Claremnt Serial Killings, called The Devil’s Garden has now been released in West Australia. Response from WA police was to call a press conference to attack my credibility as an author and journalist. I was accused of “cashing in” on one of West Austalia’s greatest tragedies. My response? That the tragedy is that this book needed to be written in the first place.
It is my fifth book with an international publishing comany, my third true-crime title. I stand by the book as the truth and would suggest that instead of using police resources to attack me, they could be putting them where they need to go - into finding who this serial killer is.
Someone knows something. Perhaps a wife protecting a husband, a mother a son, a neighbour too scared to speak out. Police have had carriage of this investigation for 11 years. I was researching and writing the book for one year. Let’s hope that the end result is that someone comes forward. I don’t hold my breath for this outcome, of course, but hope for it - for the sake of the dead girls, and for their grief-stricken families.

I am reading the book on the Claremont serial killings by Debi Marshall and I am wondering just how many times one individual’s name can crop up with regard to women who have vanished before his presence becomes profoundly suspicious? He first put himself in the picture by approaching the police and work colleague of Ciara Glennon with a bizarre story of witchcraft etc. he had supposedly heard from an un named person.

We have no real way of knowing at this stage.

He may just be a ‘loony’ who has read the newspaper.

My take on this is the WA police have stuffed up big time by focusing on Lance Williams, His own fault of course for indulging in bizarre behaviour after (and before?) the Claremont killings. Although the case was so shocking and fascinating I even visited Bay View Terrace when I was in the area to see where it all happened.
What has to be said is that some very strange things go on in the Perth hills around Mundaring, Parkerville, Mount Helena and so on.

How bizarre
Isn’t it interesting that he leaves his email account? It seems as if he wants someone to contact him.
Then he uses a completely different style of writing altogether in the next comment?
Has anyone tried the email account in the investigation? To see where it is being accessed?

Cathy -

Debi Marshall says in her book she is going to meet him which will be after the book has been published.  Maybe Debi could tell us as she is obviously online to this blog.

No way of knowing I guess.  He left a hotmail account but they are very difficult to trace from Australia as the subscriber details are retained with the ‘hotmail’ company in the USA. Even then, it would be most likely that the hotmail account was created in an internet cafe. Virtually impossible to know who created the hotmail account without witness ‘seeing fingers on keyboard’.

Although I did not participate in discussions with Dr Phibe, it is clear to see the macabre aspect of his posts, with the large benefit afforded in hindsight.

It goes to show that just because someone calls themselves Dr on a forum doesn’t mean much at all, and caution should be used at all times in online dealings. I note with a shudder that a woman posted her email in response to Dr Phibe.

Congratulations to Debi Marshall, of course the police would be critical of any book that records their mistakes. Attack is the best form of defence.

Re the Lance Williams stuffup I have to ask whether the police spoke to Lance Williams psychiatrist or doctor. He evidently had a history of psych problems and asked whether Willams could be the killer. If so I would like to know what the psych answer was ????? 
I think the same thing happened with Andrew Mallard and the psych gave the thumbs up to the police query.
I know of a case where a murder was nearly swept under the carpet because a womans psych told the querying police she was suicidal.  The matter was later resolved after the womans mother put the record straight and the killers were caught.

people should be careful in taking as gospel books being written about any murders, the first obligation of the author is to writea sellable book to make money, suppositions and theories abound and when it’s unsolved murders the sky’s the limit, unless you are part of the investigation team you cant say that any of the theories you throw up are fact.
both of the books written on the “family” murders were so far out on actual events and fact they were hilarious if they wer’nt so heartbreaking to the families involved, the books written after a conviction tend to be by far more accurate and reliable, the most factual book ive read was one written by Jeremy Pudney on the “bodies in the barrel murders”—jeremy at the time was the crime reporter for ch10 and he sat through all of the trial and researched the family and friends of the offenders relentlessly for facts, Jeremy spoke to me a few times about his intentions to keep the book utterly factual, i tried reading it through, but i was so sickened by what he had turned up about the offender’s backgrounds that i had to give up.
people’s reputations could be easily ruined by suppositions and while they cant sue because the suppositions are not presented as facts, unfortunately ordinary folks once they read something tend to take it as facts and all the disclaimers in the world won’t change their minds, youve all read the different books on jack the ripper and the abounding different theories—well thats all than anyone can do writing a book before a conviction-- guess and theorise.

There are lots of cases of people claiming to have committed crimes or hinting they know about them just for the attention they get. From memory, there’s even been people wrongly executed for confessing to crimes they haven’t done. It’s a psychiatric condition. This person is probably just some nutter nobody who wants to be noticed. If not, he’s going to have to come up with something better than vague references to deserted areas around Perth. Big deal!

As an armchair detective I have found from my research that terrible things are swept under the carpet all the time if the perps or their connections have anough influence.
An interesting case was the subject of the book the Needle in the Heart murder where a leading surgeon murdered his colleague, a brilliant surgeon, because the killer had the hots for his colleague’s lovely blonde wife.  There may also have been the usual professional jealousy involved.
To cut a long story short the connections pulled strings, the case was swept under the carpet and the original investigating police packed off to the back off beyond.
The killer married the object and his affections. His career was ruined of course and I think from memory the couple repaired to a country town.
Of course there were 6 or 7 innocent children involved from the various marriages. 
A really good read which I now regret loaning to someone as I haven’t got the book back.

Thank you Bill
It is always good to understand how that process works better.

Western Australia is notoriously corrupt with the police in the thick of it unfortunately.  Debi Marshall does mention the noble cause in her book where the police certain of a individuals guilt will “stitch” them up as happened with Andrew Mallard, the Micklebergs, John Button, Darryl Beamish. And one has to theorise that if someone of influence is being let off the hook a sucker has to be found to allay suspicion.
Please don’t get the idea I am anti police because I am not. They put their lives on the line everyday. However there is no doubt that in WA at least people are getting away with blue murder and some police are profoundly corrupt. The Petrelis matter being a case in point.

Quote three consecutive postings: “...Dr. Phibes of Middle Swan (09 October at 10:26 PM)

I believe Sarah Spiers is in water either in Ankatel (south)or north of Wanneroo.And Sarah Mc Mahon is near Mundaring Wier.Just a feeling i get.

author of sydney (10 October at 10:27 AM)

Hi Gary. I’m a true crime author now finishing a book on the Claremont serial killings for an Australian publishing company. I read this site with interest. If anyone has any stories to share re Claremont I’ll gladly take them. My deadline is three weeks.

I’m happy to pass on messages from Gotcha readers....Gary Hughes
Tue 10 Oct 06 (12:24pm)...”

Interesting to note that he(?) posted immediately after “author of sydney’’ ‘s comment - and thus supplied an email address for correspondence (highly unusual). Has “author” had any contact, then?

Cathy / Bill

Emails can be tracked back to computers, even gmail and hotmail via IP addresses. Yes, most free webmail vendors are US based, however as they all (not sure about Yahoo) operate regional offices in Australia they are compliant with Australia legal requests.

Everything a person does online is logged somewhere, usually connected to IP numbers. It takes a reasonable level of knowledge to run something truly anonymously, like to run something through a Tor network to begin to become anonymous.

Sure, the logs for a particular hotmail account may show a certain IP, or a range of certain IP addresses. If there are common ones that link back to a certain internet cafe, well, then start watching that cafe. Supoena the records about the access payments with the cafe owner. Or, to go to an even more extreme, odds on that the WA police have access to software solutions like EnCase version 4 for computer hard drive analysis.

As a case in point: this comment has probaby been effectively copied across 13+ hard drives. Doing a traceroute between this computer and The Australian’s servers seems to indicate 13 hops. Each change, data goes through a hard drive on either a computer, or a router switch. Some of that data only lasts for milliseconds before it is re-written, others can hold the data for years.

Thank you Scruffy
Would you please tell me what a TOR is?
Nice to see you back Aly

Anyone curious about the trackability of people on the web should check out http://www.opentracker.net/index.jsp

IMHO, The WA police can tell us their sob story of obstruction after they catch the killer. Eleven years is a long time for multiple slayings. People clearly know something, as no one on this planet lives in a vacuum. Seven degrees of separation between any two liveing people.

I support police, and police effort. I have no time for civil libertarians who do not consider the primacy of law and order. However, I cannot support such a whinge from police in regards to a book.

Dr Phibes is a horror movie character too…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abominable_Dr._Phibes

Anton Phibes, famous organist with doctorates in Music and Theology, was thought to have been killed in a car crash while rushing to the side of his ill wife. He was in fact horribly disfigured but survived only to discover his wife had died on the operating table. Phibes, convinced that his lovely wife was a victim of incapable doctors, spends the next several years planning his vendetta against those who operated on his wife.

Inspector Trout suspects Phibes, but finds little support from Scotland yard as Phibes is believed dead. Trout is also hindered by the incompetence of his police force. Eventually Dr. Versalius, head of the team of doctors that operated on Phibes’s wife, begins to believe inspector Trout is right and aids him in the hunt for Phibes.

Dr. Phibes kills seven doctors and the head nurse with the help of his silent assistant Vulnavia. He has reserved the worst punishment for Dr. Vesalius. He kidnaps the doctor’s son and places him on a table on which a container full of acid is waiting to disfigure the boy’s face. A small key implanted near the boy’s heart will free him. Versalius will need all his skill to operate and free his son. As Vesalius arrives, he learns he has only six minutes to operate on his son and to save him from the acid before he has a face like Phibes before him. The operation succeeds and the acid instead strikes Vulnavia.

Convinced he has accomplished his vendetta, Phibes retreats to a stone sarcophagus beside the embalmed corpse of his wife. As he drains out his own blood and replaces it with embalming fluid the coffin’s inlaid stone lid slides into place, concealing them both in darkness. Trout and the police arrive and discover that Phibes has mysteriously disappeared. Trout and Vesalius recall that the “final curse” was darkness, but they haven’t a clue what it means, except that perhaps they will encounter Phibes again.

Reading Debi Marshalls book it is interesting to note how cautious she is meeting people, prefering to meet individuals in the open and in full view of others.  Her fear is palpable and I myself found the book gave me a creepy feeling and not only that, I ended up with my mind in a whirl trying to sort out the strangeness of the story (stories).
One woman who came forward and met with Debi appeared to be terrified. Chain smoking aggitated and becoming more and more anxious and vitriolic as her story was being brushed aside. I think she should be encouraged to sort out her sheaf of papers and story calm down and if she can use a computer.  put it all in a lucid email to Debi Marshall.
There is no doubt meeting someone face to face it more difficult than sitting quietly in front of a computer and calmly getting on with it. Perhaps she has been threatened or even stalked, we should find out.
I wonder if this blog will hear from her. I hope so.
Is Dr Phibes giving us the run around as was the commentor who rattled on about green eyes blondes. If the killer (s) IS reading and commenting on this blog he/she/they are certainly going to be leading us up the garden path in my opinion. Dispersing tantalising snipits of codes and clues to titilate and keep our interest going and suss out if anyone is getting close to the truth.

Scruffy,

You are correct.  I did an investigation recently involving threatening emails using a hotmail address.  We managed to trace the IP address to an internet cafe, we viewed surveillance footage at the cafe between the relevant times but were unable to positively identify the responsible people due to the volume of people entering and exiting the cafe ( not too mention the grainy surveillance footage).

Perfect case scenario in WA would be for the IP address to link to a residential address but even then you still gotta prove ‘who had their paws on the keyboard’.

Cathy:

Tor networks - the website is http://tor.eff.org/
If you search google or the wikipaedia, there is more on it. Difficult to trace through.

Well it wasn’t me.

Debbie Marshal-were you at the Random House party at the MCA on Friday ?

Re Dr Phibes -
Did not Ciara Glennon work for the doctors defence team lawyers ?