Claremont serial killings trial podcast: The Closing Statements - ‘The DNA Points to Him’

Without any distractions or delays, Day 87 of WA’s trial of the century began.

Bradley Edwards’ DNA was found with Ciara Glennon’s fingernail samples because she fought for her life, scratching or gouging at her attacker moments before her death.

That was according to the prosecution during closing statements.

The prosecution told the court Bradley Edwards’ DNA was preserved under Ciara Glennon’s fingernails, after she tried to fight off her attacker - shown through defensive wounds to her arms and broken fingernails - and that DNA survived for 19 days under her fingernails out in the elements in bushland off Pipdinny road in Eglington.

• How Claremont prosecution argued Edwards’ guilt
• Barbagallo meets match in quick-thinking judge
• Edwards’ DNA found on Ciara after ‘fight for life’

In what’s been described as a recap of ‘the greatest hits’ of the mammoth trial, the prosecution looked to counter every theory of contamination put forward by the defence.

The closing statements detailed how it would be virtually impossible for Bradley Edwards’ DNA could have been found with Ciara Glennon’s fingernail samples through contamination.

The prosecutor also detailed how similarities in fibres found on the victims could show that the person who raped the teenager at Karrakatta cemetery also killed Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon.

The prosecution say that person was Bradley Robert Edwards.

Join Natalie Bonjolo, Tim Clarke and Damien Cripps as they take you through the start of the prosecution’s closing statements in WA’s trial of the century.

If you have any questions for the Claremont in Conversation podcast team, send them in to claremontpodcast@wanews.com.au

The West Australian has also 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 One and Part Two.