'He threw my half-naked and bound body into a bush': Victim recounts Edwards' rape

Horrific details of how accused Claremont serial killer Bradley Edwards abducted and raped a teenager before throwing her limp, half-naked and bound body into dense shrubs at a cemetery have been revealed for the first time.

Now aged in her early 40s, the victim was in court on Monday flanked by her father as prosecutor Carmel Barbagallo read aloud four of her police statements during the 11th day of Mr Edwards' triple murder trial.

The woman left the courtroom after her first statement was read.

Mr Edwards has admitted to the rape, but pleaded not guilty to the murders of Sarah Spiers, Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon.

The rape victim was aged 17 at the time of the offence, which occurred on February 12, 1995 at about 3am as she walked to a friends’ house after a night at Club Bayview.

The house was 700 metres from the Claremont venue. She was attacked as she walked along a footpath beside Rowe Park off Gugeri Street.

“The area where I was walking was very dimly lit, I could see where I was walking but that was about it," the teenager said in her police statement after the incident.

"I was walking along a footpath when a man jumped out at me and pushed me down on to the lawn.

“More or less simultaneously as I landed this person rolled me onto my front and grabbed both of my wrists.”

The victim said Mr Edwards then bound her hands “very tightly” behind her back as she tried to wriggle free and push him away. He also bound her feet.

“I didn’t say anything to him, I was too frightened,” she said.

“He scooped me up into his arms as though he was carrying a baby.

“I kept my eyes shut, I thought that it would be better if he thought I couldn’t see him.

“I felt him start to walk in a brisk action. He wasn’t running, but he was trying to walk as quickly as possible.”

Mr Edwards took the teenager to a nearby vehicle, gagged her and put a hood over her head.

“I remember that [the cloth] was pushed quite deep in my mouth because it made me cough and it was sort of blocking the passage of my throat,” she said.

She said Mr Edwards then drove around for “about half an hour” before stopping at Karrakatta Cemetery, which was about one kilometre from where he abducted her.

“He dragged me by holding under my arms and pulling along so my heels were dragged in the dirt,” she said.

He then raped her twice, never saying a word as she quietly sobbed.

"I was in a state of shock, I remember repeating, 'Oh my god, I can't believe this is happening'," she said. "It was very painful ... I tried to relax my body so it wouldn't hurt.

“I just laid there with my eyes closed. I wanted him to think that I was unconscious." After Mr Edwards got up, he paced around for “a little” before scooping the girl up and walking to an area of dense scrub and throwing her into it. He then drove away.

Five minutes later, after she was sure he had left, the distressed teenager ran out of the cemetery, half-naked and with her hands still bound. She tried to wriggle her vest off her shoulders to conceal the lower part of her body by holding it between her two elbows. Fearing if she knocked on a house the residents would think she was “crazy”, she ran to a Good Samaritan nursing post, found an emergency phone and knocked it off the dial.

She said she tried to dial triple-zero with her chin but it didn’t go through.

She then ran across the road to a public pay phone and made a reverse call to her father, who woke to the call about 5.30am.

"[My daughter] was crying hysterically," he said.

"She said, 'Dad can you come and get me?' to which I asked her, 'Where are you, what's happened?'

"I asked her if she was alright and she said 'No, I was taken by a man and tied up in the cemetery'."

The father said he told his daughter to go across the road to Hollywood Hospital and wait for him, which she did, bashing on the doors while she waited for someone to let her in.

The father said that when he arrived, he found his daughter distressed, with her hands still bound.

I always thought the cord I removed from [my daughter] was a Telecom extension cord.Karrakatta rape victim's father

"[She] was panicky and extremely distressed and sobbing, she hugged me and her mother," he said.

"[She] asked me to take the cord off her wrist and I did so with some difficulty.

"It appeared to tighten more as I pulled it.

"I always thought the cord I removed from [my daughter] was a Telecom extension cord."

The Supreme Court trial also heard evidence from Hollywood Hospital security guard, Wayne Wookey, who told police at the time he had noticed a Telstra van drive past the hospital around 45 minutes before the girl had arrived hysterical.

The court also heard from a forensic police officer who was one of two forensic officers to attend the crime scene within hours of the rape.

Senior Constable Dianne Bickhoff said she took photographs of the cemetery crime scene, including the victim’s shorts, shoes and underwear, in-situ before they were bagged for forensic examination.

However photographs of the items in-situ have never been found.

The victim’s shorts form an important part of the state’s case against Mr Edwards as it’s alleged tape lifts taken from the garment revealed blue fibres prosecutors claim are from Mr Edwards' Telstra-issued work trousers.

The same fibres were also allegedly found on the bodies of Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon.

Defence lawyer Paul Yovich, during his cross-examination of Sen. Const. Bickhoff, poked holes in the integrity of the shorts evidence and how the item was collected, given the photographs that showed where they were found were either never taken, or went missing.

The trial continues.