1986: Jealousy Sealed the Fate of the another Victim in the Birnie Killings Near Fremantle
Noelene Patterson had run out of petrol on Canning Highway near Fremantle when David and Catherine Birnie pulled over, on this day in 1986, and offered her a lift, only to force her into their car. She was held captive for three days, one of several women the couple had already taken that year in a string of killings that had gone unsolved by police.
Unlike their other victims, David Birnie seemed to grow fond of Patterson, allowing her small comforts and talk of letting her go, a softness that stirred his wife’s jealousy. According to accounts of the killings, Catherine Birnie’s resentment decided the outcome: David forced sleeping pills down Patterson’s throat and strangled her, then buried her body in bushland outside the city.
