Sarah Spiers vanished 30 years ago. On the anniversary of her disappearance, WA police vow to never give up
After a long evening of Australia Day celebrations, a young woman walked to a phone booth in Claremont in the early morning hours.
Thirty years later, the only evidence that he was there was a recording of a scratchy phone call to Swan Taxis.
“I’m at the phone booth,” he told the operator.
“On Stirling Street – on the corner of Stirling Street and the Stirling Highway, about halfway up, up.”
“What about his name?” the operator asked.
“Towers.”
On January 27, 1997, Sarah Spiers was just 18 when she was separated from her friends at Club Bayview in the affluent suburb of Claremont.
At 2:06 a.m. he called Swan Taxis on the motorway. He was gone three minutes later and his body was never found.
On the 30th anniversary of her disappearance on Tuesday, a WA Police spokesman said the case was far from over.
“The investigation into the disappearance of Sarah Spiers remains an open investigation being conducted by WA Police’s Unknown Incident Investigation Unit,” they said.
“WA Police Force will never give up and investigators are determined to find answers for Sarah’s loved ones.
“Not knowing what happened to a loved one is confronting and challenging for their family and friends.”
Bradley Robert Edwards was charged with Spiers’ murder in 2016, 20 years after she was the first of three young women to be abducted from the streets of Claremont by a suspected serial killer.
Edwards was also accused of murdering Jane Rimmer, 23, and Ciara Glennon, 27, who disappeared within 14 months of Spiers’ disappearance.
Both Rimmer and Glennons were found guilty of their murders after evidence from their graves in bushland was linked to the abductions through DNA and clothing fibers from a Telstra uniform.
But Spiers’ body was never located and Edwards was only found by Judge Stephen Hall to be “probably responsible” for Spiers’ disappearance. He was found not guilty of murder at the trial.
Edwards has not confessed to any of the murders, but police officers linked to the investigation say information revealed at the WA Supreme Court hearing in 2019 could eventually jog someone’s memory.
Spiers graduated from Iona Presentation College in 1994, where he was a boarder. Originally from the town of Darkan in the South West, she was the daughter of sheep shearer Don Spiers and his wife Carol.
She lived in South Perth with her older sister Amanda and worked at BSD Consultants in Subiaco. She was described as cheerful, thoughtful, responsible and knew how to make everyone feel good.
On Australia Day 1996, Spiers and her friends had a picnic in Kings Park and then met up with her friends and older sister Amanda at the Ocean Beach Hotel in Claremont.
Amanda took her sister and her friends to Club Bayview at midnight, and as they were leaving, Sarah walked up to Amanda’s driver’s window, gave her a one-armed hug, gave her a kiss, and said goodbye.
That was the last time he saw his little sister.
Spiers’ friends recall that they stayed at the club for more than an hour, when Spiers approached them on the dance floor and said he was taking a taxi home.
While one of his friends asked him to wait so they could get in the car together, Spiers said it would be okay and left anyway.
He went out wearing a light-colored T-shirt, knee-length beige shorts, beige suede shoes with silver buckles and a flower pattern on the front, a black denim jacket, a men’s watch and gold hoop earrings.
The last known sighting of Spiers was by three men who were driving home.
“As they rounded the corner, he noticed a woman leaning against a barrier on the footpath, or half sitting, half standing,” the court heard.
“He looked like he was waiting for someone. He looked at them as they passed.”
The taxi driver who got the job of picking Spiers up and taking her to Mosman Park said the woman was gone when he arrived just three minutes after Spiers made his reservation.
There is no evidence of where Spiers went after he was last seen, but just an hour later neighbors at Sarah’s destination said they heard something disturbing.
It was a hot night and a neighbor said he left his window open.
“It was early in the morning, thinking it was around 3 a.m., he was either awake or woken up screaming,” Edwards’ murder trial was told.
“He thinks he heard three screams, which he describes as very high-pitched, desperate, blood-curdling, terrifying screams.”
Another neighbor said he heard the same thing and described the scream as “so sad.” Another said the scream pierced the quiet, serene night and was “terrifying”.
This was the last person heard of what was believed to be Spiers, and days later he was officially reported missing.
To talk Australian StoryDon Spiers explained what happened after his daughter disappeared.
“I was sitting in the front hall waiting for him to come in as if nothing had happened,” he said.
“But deep down I knew it was something more.
“When Sarah first disappeared, I cried myself to sleep for 12 months. I cried myself to sleep every night, and I’m not ashamed to say I cried.”
WA Police have offered a $1 million reward to anyone with information that helps solve the murder.
