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Thread: Happy Couple Killers

  1. #1
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    Happy Couple Killers

    In my little town David and Catherine Bernie are infamous - for being sexual serial killers and for acting in tandem to catch, torture and kill victims.  I feel so sorry for all their victims, noone knew what was going on until a girl escaped and it all came out.

    I find it fascinating and horrific that someone not only does this, but will draw someone in to act with them, and that the women will accept and go along with this.  Especially when so many times the woman partner is used as a lure to make the victim feel safe.

    Just wondering how others see this.  Below is the info on these two - links and some detail.  What gets me is they practiced first before they went 'live' so to speak.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Catherine_Birnie

    http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/s...e/1_index.html

    The crimesOn October 6th, 1986, 22-year-old student Mary Neilson turned up at the Birnie house to buy some car tires. She had approached Birnie at his work at the spare parts yard and he had suggested that she call by his house for a better bargain. As Neilson entered the Birnie house, she was seized at knife point, bound and gagged and chained to the bed. Catherine Birnie watched as her lover repeatedly raped the girl. She asked him questions about what turned him on the most; this way she would know that Mary Neilson would eventually have to die. They took her to the Gleneagles National Park where David Birnie raped her again before strangling her with a nylon cord and stabbing her through the heart; she was then buried in a shallow grave.

    The second murder on October 20th when they abducted 15-year-old Susannah Candy as she walked along the Stirling Highway in Claremont. Within seconds of being in the car, she had a knife at her throat and her hands were bound. She was taken back to the Birnie house, where she was forced to send letters to her family saying that she had run away to Queensland with her friends before being gagged, chained to the bed and raped. After David Birnie had finished raping her, Catherine Birnie got into the bed with them, and David Birnie tried to strangle the girl with the nylon cord, but she became hysterical and went berserk. The Birnies forced sleeping pills down her throat to calm her down, and once Susannah was asleep, David put a nylon cord around her neck and Catherine tightened the cord slowly until she stopped breathing. They buried Susannah Candy in another shallow grave in the State Forest.

    On November 1st, they saw 31-year-old Noelene Patterson standing beside her car on the Canning Highway; she had run out of petrol while on her way home from her job as bar manager at the Nedlands Golf Club. Once inside in the car, she had a knife held to her throat, was tied up and told not to move. She was taken back to Moorhouse Street where David Birnie repeatedly raped her after she was gagged and chained to the bed. They had originally decided to murder Noelene Patterson that same night but David Birnie kept her prisoner in the house for three days and there were signs that he had developed emotional feelings for Noelene Patterson. Quick to notice, a jealous Catherine made an ultimatum, David would have to kill Noelene or she would kill her herself. He immediately forced an overdose of sleeping pills down her throat and strangled her while she slept. They took her body to the forest and buried it along with the others. Catherine Birnie reportedly got great pleasure in throwing sand in Patterson's face.

    On November 5th, they abducted 21-year-old Denise Brown as she was waiting for a bus on Stirling Highway. She accepted a lift from the Birnies; at knife point, Denise was taken to the house in Willagee, chained to the bed and raped. The following afternoon she was taken to the Wanneroo pine plantation. Safely in the seclusion of the forest, David Birnie raped Denise Brown in the car while the couple waited for darkness. As they dragged the woman from the car, David Birnie assaulted her again and plunged a knife into Denise's neck while he was raping her. Convinced that the girl was dead, they dug a shallow grave and lay her body in it, but Brown sat up in the grave; David Birnie then grabbed an axe and struck her twice at full force on the skull with it before burying her body in the grave.

    Their final victim, and the only victim to survive their attacks, was seventeen-year-old Kate Moir. She ran naked and weeping into a grocery store on 10 November 1986 and insisted on seeing the police. When the police arrived, she alleged that she had been abducted at knife point by a couple who had taken her back to their house and chained her to a bed, and that the man had repeatedly raped her while the woman observed. The next morning, while the man was at work, the woman unchained her and forced her to telephone her parents to say she had spent the night at a friend's house and was okay. The woman then led her back to the bedroom, but left to answer the door before securing her; the girl then escaped out the window. She told the police the phone number and address of the couple who had abducted her.
    When you go in search of honey you must expect to be stung by bees.

  2. #2
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    Re: Happy Couple Killers

    I grew up on the outskirts of a very small town and a guy that lived in my neighborhood ended up being a murderer.

    Most of the details are in this story:

    http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/1996/mar/13/accomplice-in-cross-country-spree-gets-life-in-nev/

    Accomplice in Cross-Country Spree Gets Life in Nevada Slaying
    Wednesday, March 13, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

    Prosecutors said Carolyn King was with the accused triggerman, Bradley Martin, when they kidnapped Donna Mae Martz from a Bismarck, N.D., hotel parking lot in September 1993, then murdered her in the desert near here the following month.

    Martin, 23, was sentenced Jan. 11 to two consecutive life sentences without parole by Elko District Judge Jack Ames, who also sentenced King on Tuesday.

    King, 30, from Hershey, Pa., was ordered to serve her sentence consecutive to any other sentence she has to serve.

    Both she and Martin were found guilty in Pennsylvania on Oct. 12 of the torture and suffocation of retired Palmyra, Pa., florist Guy Goodman, 70, and were sentenced to death by lethal injection.

    Goodman's murder on Sept. 17, 1993, was the start of a 12-state flight that passed through Elko before ending with the couple's arrest in Yuma, Ariz., on Oct. 5, 1993.

    Martin, who had a string of 20 felony convictions, was released on a four-hour furlough from a Lebanon County, Pa., penitentiary for a conjugal visit with King. Instead, they went to Goodman's home, murdered him, and took his car and credit cards.

    The pair resurfaced in Bismarck where they abducted Martz, 50, forced her into the trunk of her own car and drove to Elko, where Martin and King went shopping Oct. 3, 1993.

    They then drove into the desert, where Martin forced Martz to disrobe and lie down in a ditch where he shot her once in the head with a .357 magnum revolver, Deputy District Attorney Rob Lowe told the Elko Daily Free Press.



    ============

    Brad's death sentence was overturned, apparently.

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    Re: Happy Couple Killers

    Martin, who had a string of 20 felony convictions, was released on a four-hour furlough from a Lebanon County, Pa., penitentiary for a conjugal visit with King. Instead, they went to Goodman's home, murdered him, and took his car and credit cards.
    You've got to wonder why they didn't just stick to the conjugal visit.   
    When you go in search of honey you must expect to be stung by bees.

  4. #4
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    Re: Happy Couple Killers

    [quote author=honeybee link=topic=23415.msg1465465#msg1465465 date=1259945924]
    You've got to wonder why they didn't just stick to the conjugal visit.   
    [/quote]

    I think that Brad really thought that he could get away and be free.

    The really interesting thing to me about this couple is that they are not the typical killer couple. He's 7 years younger than her and he's white, while she's black. Usually, the guy is older and I think most killer couples are the same race (usually white).

    Goodman, the florist, had befriended Brad at some point, and visited and communicated with Brad when he was in jail. There were some suggestions that Goodman had a sexual interest in Brad. I don't think this had anything to do with the murder -- I think that Brad just saw an opportunity to get plenty of money for his escape.

    Brad apparently claimed to have a long history of abuse and that contributed to his death sentence being overturned. This was really shocking because I knew his older brother (who's about my brother's age) and there was nothing about their family that would have made us think this was possible. They seemed like just a normal family in our neighborhood.

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