S2E64: The Sensitive Operation

On Day 64 of the Claremont Serial Killings trial, two forensic police officers detailed how they painstakingly sifted through Jane Rimmer’s hair mass 13 years after her post-mortem.

It was a sensitive operation for two reasons.

After being in frozen storage for more than a decade, Jane’s hair mass was extremely brittle, and still had icicles on it.

But these officers were very aware they were sifting through the hair of a murdered woman.

As forensic expert Brendan Chapman explains in this epsidode, while collecting and retaining a hair mass during a post-mortem is common, actually testing a hair mass isn’t - because mostly, it’s taken as a, what he called the “one per center” a “last resort” exhibit to examine.

Through his experience, cases tend to get solved before sifting through a hair mass is needed.

But this was a “one per center” case, and the prosecution would say that one per cent chance of testing paid off.

The prosecution say 22 fibres, 20 of which the prosecution say matched a white commodore station wagon Bradley Edwards had access to at the time, and 2 which they say match specially-made Telstra pants worn by the accused in the 90s were found in Jane Rimmer’s hair.

Join Natalie Bonjolo, Tim Clarke and forensic expert Brendan Chapman as they discuss day 64 of the Claremont Serial Killings trial. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.