In 1986, a couple prowled the suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, kidnapping, raping, and murdering five women over a five-week period. Their spree ended only when one of their victims escaped and led police directly to their door. Catherine Bernie, dubbed the “Puppeteer,” was the cunning figure who selected their prey. She and her de facto husband, David Bernie, played a sinister game while driving around, using coded phrases to signal a target.
When Catherine spotted a vulnerable woman, she would say, “I’ve got the munchies. ” If David approved of the choice, he would reply, “I’ve got the munchies too,” sealing the victim’s fate. Born Catherine Margaret Harrison on May 23, 1951, she lost her mother during childbirth when she was two. Her father, Harold, unable to raise her, sent her to live with her maternal grandparents.
After a custody battle, he regained sole custody when she was ten. Catherine met David Bernie when she was 12 and began dating him two years later. Her father begged her repeatedly to leave David, as their relationship had brought her trouble with local police, but his disapproval only strengthened their bond. A period in prison during her adolescence gave Catherine a chance to break away.
After encouragement from a parole officer, she began working as a housekeeper for the McLaughlin family and married Donald McLaughlin on her 21st birthday. The couple had seven children, though their firstborn son was killed by a car in infancy. After rekindling her relationship with David, Catherine left her husband and six children in 1985 to live with him. The couple never legally married, but she changed her surname to Bernie.
David Bernie grew up in Wattle Grove, a semi-rural suburb of Perth, as the oldest of five children. School friends and church acquaintances remembered the family as dysfunctional, with rumors of alcoholism, promiscuity, and neglect. His parents reportedly did not cook meals for their children, and the family rarely ate together. His family relocated to another Perth suburb in the early 1960s, where David met Catherine through mutual friends.
He dropped out of school at 15 to apprentice as a jockey at the nearby Ascot Racecourse, where he physically abused horses and developed an exhibitionism habit. During that time, he broke into the room of an elderly woman he was boarding with and attempted to rape her while wearing only a stocking over his head. David Bernie had been in and out of prison for various offenses by adolescence. As an adult, he developed addictions to sex and pornography and became a paraphiliac.
He married his first wife in his early 20s, and the couple had a daughter, Tanya. Tanya, who changed her surname after his capture, never married and had no children, saying, “I don’t want to spawn another David Bernie. ”
In late 1986, Bernie was working at a car wrecker shop in Willagee, a Perth suburb, at the time of the murders. Over a five-week period, the Bernies kidnapped five women aged 15 to 31.
All were raped and murdered except one who escaped the day after her kidnapping. Mary Nielsen, 22, was a psychology student at the University of Western Australia who worked part-time in a delicatessen. She met David Bernie at his spare parts yard, where he offered to sell her cheap car tires and gave her his phone number. She went to the Bernies’ house on October 6, 1986.
David chained her to the bed and raped her while Catherine watched. Mary was then taken to Gleneagle, near Albany Highway, where she was raped again and strangled with a nylon cord. Bernie then stabbed her, believing it would hasten her decomposition because he had read that somewhere. They buried her in a shallow grave.
One year after her murder, she would have received her psychology degree. Two weeks later, they kidnapped 16-year-old Susanna Candy as she hitchhiked along Stirling Highway in Claremont. An outstanding student at Hollywood Senior High School, she lived in Midland with her parents and siblings. Susanna was the daughter of Dr.
Douglas Candy, a well-known ophthalmic surgeon in Perth. He did not agree with her working part-time at a restaurant and usually met her afterward to accompany her home. On October 20, 1986, Susanna was walking home alone when an unassuming couple in their 30s offered her a ride. The presence of a woman in the car likely reassured the teenager.
The Bernies drove Susanna back to Morehouse Street, tied her to a bed, and David repeatedly raped her. She was held as the couple’s sex slave over several days and was forced to write letters to her parents claiming she was fine and just needed time away. When David finally tired of her, he produced a nylon rope and wrapped it around her neck, but the young girl became hysterical and fought him off. After forcing Susanna to take sleeping pills, David picked up the rope again and said to Catherine, “Prove you love me.
” Susanna was then strangled to death by Catherine Bernie. Three days later, on November 4, 21-year-old Denise Brown, a part-time computer operator and babysitter, was standing near Stirling Highway at a bus stop after leaving a tavern in the Fremantle suburb of Coogee. She accepted a ride from the two pleasant strangers, and shortly after getting in the car, a knife was thrust into her throat. Denise was taken back to Morehouse Street, chained to a bed, and raped repeatedly over two days.
Catherine then drove the victim to the Ngangarapang plantation, where David raped Denise again in daylight. When night fell, Catherine held a torch over Denise as David raped her again while cutting her neck. Denise lay still, not dead, but making gurgling sounds from her throat. Catherine retrieved a larger knife from the car, and David plunged it into her chest.
The couple dug a shallow grave and placed her in it, but as they tossed dirt over her, Denise sat up and gasped for breath. David struck her over the skull with his shovel, but she still tried to sit up. Finally, David bludgeoned her head with an ax. Kate Moir, 17, was kidnapped at knifepoint after accepting a ride from the Bernies.
When she asked if they planned to kill or rape her, she said they told her, “We’ll only rape you if you’re good. ”
She was forced to dance for them and slept handcuffed to David in the couple’s bed. Little did the Bernies know that Kate, their only surviving victim, would be their ultimate downfall. David forced her to call her mother while holding a knife to her throat.
Kate told her mother she had too much to drink and was staying at a friend’s house, hoping her mother would catch on and call a friend, knowing she was not a drinker. On November 10, 1986, Catherine went to the door after David left for work to carry out a drug deal, but she forgot to chain Kate to the bed. Kate escaped by breaking the lock on a closed window, though she hit her head on the concrete after climbing through. She jumped the gate and was attacked by David’s dog.
She knocked on several neighbors’ doors to no avail and finally ended up in a vacuum cleaner shop, describing herself as hysterical, barefoot, and wearing black leggings and a black singlet with no underwear. She told the shop owner she had been raped. When police arrived, she explained she had been kidnapped at knifepoint by a couple who had taken her to their house and raped her. Police were initially skeptical of her story, but Constable Laura Hancock believed her right away because of the amount of information she provided, including their address and phone number.
The Bernies had created aliases, but Kate had read David’s name on a medicine bottle. She also stated they had watched Rocky on VHS and that she had hidden a drawing in the house as proof. Police found her drawing in the house as well as the VHS copy of Rocky in the Bernies’ VCR. David and Catherine were arrested.
During interrogations, they provided contradictory information. Catherine denied ever meeting Kate Moir, while David claimed Kate had come to their house voluntarily for consensual sex. Detective Sergeant Vince Katic persuaded David to confess and reveal where the bodies had been buried so they could be dug up before dark, leading to the discovery of four graves. David Bernie pleaded guilty to four counts of murder and one count each of abduction and rape.
Asked why he pleaded guilty, he pointed to the families of the victims and said, “It’s the least I could do. ” He was sentenced to four life terms in prison. Catherine Bernie was sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment by the Supreme Court of Western Australia after being found sane enough to stand trial.
Under the law at the time, both were required to serve 20 years before being eligible for parole.