This Australian-made production dramatised the events which led to the conviction of Bradley Edwards, known as the Claremont Killer. Told over two 90-minute episodes, the tragic disappearance in 1996 and 1997 of first one young girl and then soon afterwards the abduction, rape and murder of two other young women in the affluent Claremont area of Western Australia triggered a massive manhunt.
It seemed that the perpetrator waited until the small hours of the morning when the local clubs were emptying to pick up isolated females looking for a taxi home. Two detectives, a male and female partnership, pick up the case determined to solve it and soon arrive at a prime suspect who circumstances more than actual physical evidence put very much in the frame. This was in the early days of DNA and although some such evidence was found on the clothes and under the nails of one of the victims, there just wasn't enough concrete evidence to charge the suspect.
Time goes on, with years passing by, as we see the special unit initially set up to investigate the crimes wound down and eventually reach cold case status. However, advances in DNA and a deeper dig into the original evidence and other crimes in the area material at around the same time threw up a new suspect, Edwards. When he comes to trial, not by jury but by a presiding judge, it's up to the prosecution to build a sufficiently strong case to get the convictions they need after a twenty five year wait.
I found this to be a well-made if stylishly old-fashioned production sympathetically directed and well acted all the way down the cast. I was especially impressed by Aaron Glenane's playing of the sad-eyed, road-weary detective who's never quite givien up the ghost on the case who , his determination rekindled, joins the cold case team some 12 years after the first murder occurred.
Not being personally familiar with the case, I couldn't tell where the licence taken to fictionalise events which always happens in programmes like this begins. I suspect it may have been in needlessly introducing a hint of romance between the two detectives at one point and also in the prominent part given to them asxeell as to a persistent female reporter on the case. I did feel that the production could have been more critical of the initial police handling of the case which saw an innocent man for a time ceaselessly hounded by the police although he does at least get a personal apology when he's finally ruled out as a suspect
Nevertheless, this was a highly competent production which may just have been more easily digested if broken down into four shorter episodes but otherwise made for interesting and entertaining viewing.
