Today in court we found out a world-first fibre database was created specifically for the Claremont Serial Killings trial, which led to a ground breaking new way of investigating fibres now used as the standard method of fibre matching.

The scientists who were testing the fibres found in Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon’s hair saw that they looked similar to those found in cars.

So, they took off their lab coats and went out into the field, specifically wrecking yards, the police compound and tested cars - though trial and error.

After years of finding fibres, testing and ruling them out, they finally found their needle in a haystack - the fibres were strikingly similar to those found in a Holden Commodore Stationwagon VS 1 or 2.

The incredibly detailed work was done by scientists who had to cross reference more than 4000 fibres they found on the victims.

The scientists literally had to take each fibre one-by-one and look at them through a microscope to compare to the MACRO fibres - and they did it in the hopes of finding a match - they didn’t have anything to cross reference, until December 2016.

We previously heard scientists spend 11 days combing through Bradley Edwards’ former Telstra car, and even longer testing the fibres.

As we’ve heard before, 41 critical fibres were found in Ciara Glennon’s hair, and 22 were found in Jane Rimmer’s hair.

Once Bradley Edwards was arrested in 2016, detectives had the confirmation Telstra was involved - previously we’d heard WA police investigated Telstra in 1997 - and in 2018, they got hold of pants worn by Telstra workers in the mid-late 90s, and the same intricate, detailed tests were compared to the fibres found on Jane, Ciara and importantly the link to the living victim - the Karrakatta rape victim.

The West Australian has released a two-part video series, as Tim Clarke takes you through the areas which are key to the trial, from Claremont, where the women went missing, to Hollywood hospital and to the sites were Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon’s bodies were found.

To watch those videos, head to:

Part 1:

https://thewest.com.au/news/claremont-serial-killings/claremont-serial-killings-trial-tim-clarke-takes-you-on-a-visual-tour-of-claremont-ng-b881516606z

Part 2:

https://thewest.com.au/news/claremont-serial-killings/claremont-serial-killings-trial-tim-clarke-takes-you-to-wellard-and-eglington-ng-b881517153z

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