1986 Moorhouse murders

David John Birnie (born 16 February 1951) and Catherine Margaret Birnie (née Harrison, born 23 May 1951) were a couple from Perth, Western Australia. Over five weeks in October and November 1986, they abducted five women and girls aged 15 to 31, raping and murdering four of them at their home at 3 Moorhouse Street in Willagee, a Perth suburb; the press called the crimes the Moorhouse murders. The fifth victim survived.

Their first victim, 22-year-old psychology student Mary Neilson, had met David at the car-wrecking yard where he worked. On 6 October 1986 she visited Moorhouse Street, where she was gagged, chained, and raped, then driven to bushland near Gleneagle, in Bedfordale, raped again, strangled with a cord, and stabbed, and buried in a shallow grave. About two weeks later, 15-year-old Susannah Candy was abducted while hitchhiking in Claremont, bound, and taken to Moorhouse Street, where she was subjected to a similar ordeal; after an unsuccessful attempt to strangle her, the Birnies drugged her with sleeping pills, and Catherine killed her with a cord while David watched. Candy was buried near Neilson's grave.

On 1 November 1986, 31-year-old bar manager Noelene Patterson was picked up by the Birnies after running out of fuel on Canning Highway. David raped her repeatedly over three days; after Catherine threatened suicide unless Patterson was killed, David forced an overdose on her and strangled her while she slept, and the couple buried her separately from the other victims. On 5 November 1986, 21-year-old Denise Brown was abducted from a bus stop and taken the next day to a Wanneroo pine plantation, where David raped and stabbed her; believing her dead, the couple buried her, but when Brown moved in the grave, David struck her twice with an axe before reburying her.

On 9 November 1986, 17-year-old Kate Moir was abducted at knifepoint and held at the Birnies' home. The following day, while David was at work and Catherine was distracted, Moir escaped through a window and reported the assault to police, providing the couple's address and phone number; Constable Laura Hancock believed her account from the outset. A drawing Moir had hidden in the house and a video cassette she described were later found there, corroborating her account, and the Birnies were arrested. David and Catherine initially gave conflicting statements, but Detective Sergeant Vince Katich obtained David's confession, and David then disclosed where the earlier victims had been buried.

David pleaded guilty to four counts of murder and one count each of abduction and rape and was sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment. Catherine was found sane to stand trial, convicted, and sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment by the Supreme Court of Western Australia; both were required to serve twenty years before becoming eligible for parole.

David was held largely in solitary confinement at Fremantle Prison until its 1991 closure, and the couple exchanged more than 2,600 letters while incarcerated. He was found dead in his cell at Casuarina Prison on 7 October 2005; an inquest found he had hanged himself, with contributing factors including a lapse in his antidepressant medication and the confiscation of his computer. Catherine, held at Bandyup Women's Prison, has worked as a prison librarian. Her parole applications were rejected in 2007 and 2016, and in March 2009 the state Attorney-General, acting on requests from victims' families, determined she would remain imprisoned for life; an appeal was turned down in March 2010. Kate Moir has since campaigned against automatic three-year parole reviews, and one of Catherine's sons has publicly supported that campaign.