The Evil Within - A Top Murder Squad Detective Reveals The Chilling True Stories of The World's Most Notorious Killers Read Free

bruised and half-naked, she staggered into a local shop and the police were called. She led them directly back to the Birnies’ address where they arrested Catherine Birnie and then went to David Birnie’s place of work to arrest him.
    When questioned by police, the Birnies vigorously denied the girl’s allegations. Instead, they claimed that she had been a willing party and had gone with them to smoke marijuana. Birnie admitted to having sex with the girl but maintained that he had not raped her. A search of the house found the girl’s bag and a packet of cigarettes that she had had the common sense to conceal in the ceiling as proof positive that she had actually been there, but there was little else to prove the allegation of rape or to connect the Birnies with any of the other missing women.
    Under more intense questioning, David Birnie finally confessed and calmly told the officer questioning him: ‘It’s getting dark. Best we take the shovel and dig them up. There are four of them.’ When told of David’s confession, Catherine Birnie finally confessed. They both agreed to take police to the bodies which were buried not far from the city.
    On 3 March 1987, the Birnies appeared in court. They were both charged with four counts of murder and numerousconnected offences. They pleaded guilty and were both sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 20 years before parole. In relation to David Birnie, the judge expressed a hope that he would never be released from prison. That, however, may now not be the case with new challenges to life sentences under the Human Rights Act 1998.
    David Birnie committed suicide at on 7 October 2005. He was found hanged in his cell. He had been due to appear in court the following day, charged with the rape of a fellow inmate.
    At the time of writing, Catherine Birnie remains imprisoned in Bandyup Women’s Prison. Her request to attend David’s funeral was denied. She applied in 2007 but this was rejected. The Attorney General of Western Australia at the time, Jim McGinty, was against her ever being released.
    Her case was due for review in January 2010, but on 14 March 2009, Christian Porter, the new Western Australian Attorney-General, revoked her non-parole period. She became only the third Australian woman to have her papers marked ‘never to be released’. She appealed against this decision in 2010 but Porter rejected the appeal.
WILLIAM MACDONALD, AKA THE SYDNEY MUTILATOR
    William MacDonald was born Allan Ginsberg, in Liverpool, England, in 1924. At the age of 19, he joined the army, where he was raped in an air-raid shelter by a corporal who threatened to kill him if he told anyone. When he was discharged from the army in 1947, psychiatrists diagnosed him as schizophrenic and his brother had him committed to a mental asylum in Scotland where he shared cells with raving lunatics and received shock treatment every day. After six months, his mother had him released and took him home. As he grew older, he became what was termed a ‘practising’ homosexual, openly soliciting men in public toilets and bars. He emigrated to Canada in 1949 and then to Australia in 1955, where he decided to start a new life, changing his name to William MacDonald.
    MacDonald’s career as a murderer began in Brisbane in 1960 when he befriended Amos Hurst, 55. They started drinking together and then went back to Hurst’s hotel room, where they sat on the bed and drank more beer. Hurst was almost unconscious when MacDonald strangled him. During the strangulation, blood spurted from his mouth all over MacDonald’s hands. MacDonald punched him in the face and Hurst fell to the floor dead. MacDonald then calmly undressed Hurst and put him into bed. He washed the blood from his hands and arms and left. In the cold light of the day, realising what he had done, MacDonald feared arrest. When no police called on him, he began to relax and his luck held. While scouring a local paper five days later, he