Wendy Davis, 72, can’t ever forget the terrifying day Bradley Robert Edwards – now known as the Claremont Killer – brutally attacked her more than 30 years ago.
Thankfully, Wendy managed to escape the clutches of the serial killer, now behind bars for rape and murder.
“I’m sure when Bradley Edwards attacked me, his aim was to rape, and perhaps kill me,” Wendy shudders.
The trauma she suffered at the hands of Edwards eventually caused her to quit her job and leave Perth for good. But astonishingly, within months of the attack, Edwards’s employer, Telecom, aware of his assault on Wendy, rewarded him with a promotion.
As we all learned during his criminal trial in 2020, Edwards would continue to viciously assault women for decades, eventually killing as well.
Wendy, who was 40 years old when Edwards attacked her, was convinced she was going to die at the hands of the strong young man trying to smother her with a cloth.
Back in 1990, the mother of three was a social worker, based at Perth’s Hollywood Repatriation Hospital. And Edwards was a technician in his early 20s, working for Telecom, now Telstra.
One afternoon, she was working at her desk when a dark-haired workman approached, asking to use the toilet nearby. She nodded, focused on writing a report.
Moments later, the man was behind her. Jerking her head back, he stuffed a cloth into her mouth and tried to drag her to the bathroom.
“I was petrified; sure there were chemicals in the cloth to make me unconscious, that he would kill me.”
Struggling and kicking, “I was fighting for my life as he tried to stuff the cloth further into my mouth.”
Her attacker finally lost his grip, and Wendy broke free and screamed for help.
Edwards visibly began to crumple, she recalls. “His eyes looked strange; like dark liquid, and he seemed to be crying as he mumbled he was sorry.”
A security guard held Edwards – who had cable ties on him – until police arrived. Officers asked Wendy, in shock and with a badly bruised neck, to make a statement, and her husband, Dave was called to come and collect her.
In ensuing weeks Wendy was devastated “nobody seemed to take me, or this attack, seriously. Police never phoned again for more information. Edwards was only charged with common assault and never went to jail. I felt very alone and un-supported.”
A Telecom representative later assured her Edwards was “a good person,” Wendy frowns. “He said ‘young Bradley’ had been having relationship problems, that this was a one-off incident. I was stunned Telecom, displaying little regard for my welfare, was all about promoting my attacker.”
Wendy remained so traumatised by the attack , she quit the job she loved, and her marriage later broke up. She eventually moved to Tasmania. “I lost my sense of trust in others,” she reflects.
She gradually moved on, marrying an old friend from university days, Tim, and the two enjoyed their new life together in Hobart. “But for decades I always felt a knot of anxiety, due to that attack.”
Edwards, meanwhile, was promoted within two years of attacking Wendy, and when in 1996 and 1997, three Perth women, Sarah Spiers, Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon were murdered, nobody suspected him.
Then, in December 2016, Wendy got a surprise phone call from a WA police officer.
“She said they’d arrested the man thought to be the Claremont serial killer; the same man who had attacked me in 1990!”
Edwards was charged with murdering the three young women, as new technology meant DNA found under Ciara’s fingernails matched his DNA.
“Prosecutors asked if I would face Edwards in court and outline what he’d done,” says Wendy.
“I agreed. But for months, I felt sick with nerves. I’d tried to put this attack out of my mind for decades, now I had to re-live it all.”
In December 2019, Wendy faced her attacker in WA’s Supreme Court. “I looked at the man who’d ruined so much of my life. He looked just the same, just a bit older,” she nods.
“And I saw the sad families of the young women he’d killed. I felt very nervous, but I told the court just what the accused had done to me.”
Despite her anxiety, Wendy felt relief at finally being heard after 29 years.
“Tragically, all too often female crime victims are ignored . If police and Telecom had only listened to me all those years ago, and looked into Edwards’s past more, and supported me, perhaps he wouldn’t have been able to go on and rape and kill.”
In 2020, Edwards was convicted of murdering Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon (there was insufficient evidence to convict him of murdering Sarah Spiers, whose body has not been found).
Wendy has now written a memoir, Don’t Make A Fuss, It’s Only The Claremont Serial Killer, (Fremantle Press) outlining her “harrowing” journey.
