The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 4

The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday, March 4, 1987 A. lovine letter from a. mnotlier wlio killed. 4 Page 4 credit to your father. The address is at the top of this page and so just write to C.

M. Birnie at that address and your Mom will receive it. I have a TV and a radio in my room so I can see all of the shows and I can keep up with all of the latest, songs. I'm sending this letter to the Busselton Police, Station, as I don't know your address. Hope your Dad doesn't get upset by this.

Lenny is supposed to be coming up soon to see me, so I'll ask if this letter got to you. I'd better close now as it's almost tea time. I hope I do hear for fsicl you really soon and if you and Dad agree, could I have a photo of all of you Your hopeful Mother. PS: I've been told that the Welfare are looking in, on you kids so I'll send it to them to pass on to you Please, kids, try and go on and behave yourselves don't get into any trouble, because of what I'm-; supposed to have done. I love you kids very much and I don't ever want to hear that any of you have got into.j any trouble of any kind.

Once again, my love to all of you kids and I hope one day you'll come to see yourv old Mom. Maybe, you'll write to me 'cause I'd really to hear from all of you. I love you kids, Catherine Birnie's letter: Dear Kids: Hi, Mom here and I'm not sure if indeed you'll receive this, but Til try. First, the reason I changed my last name to Birnie was so that you kids wouldn't be hurt by the newspapers and the television people. I'm not proud of what has been said about me, but I have to live with that and the memories.

As to why this happened I can only hope that the doctors can help me to find out. Maybe they can do tests or something so then I can come to grips with all of this. I never stopped loving any of you kids, but I thought you'd be safer with your father. Maybe, I was wrong about leaving you with him and if that's the case then I'm truly sorry. Secondly, the reason I'm asking for a divorce is because I'll be in here for a very long time and he can't get on with his life if he is still tied to me.

My two lawyers and Q.C. don't hold out much hope for me getting out before 10-15 years have passed. I would like it very much, if your dad would allowed sic you to, if you would write to me please. Also if he'd allow you's sic and if you's fsicl wanted to, would you please come and see me one day. I bet all of you have grown up so much and are a fpm A 1 ilrtw wrA frJP a-Aa ml i ll ww Si Ml i jr mm No remorse by killer, says judge PERTH: A Supreme Court judge said yesterday a woman had shown no remorse for her part in the murders of three women and a girl last year.

Justice Wallace sentenced Catherine Birnie, 36, to strict security life imprisonment after she pleaded guilty to four counts of wilful murder. She was further sentenced to 10 years jail for the deprivation of liberty and to 20 years jail for the aggravated sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl who escaped and led the police to Birnie and her de facto Mr Brian Singleton, QC, for Catherine Birnie, said his client had signed a detailed statement admitting direct or indirect involvement in the murders of Mary Neilson, 22, Susannah Candy, 15, Noelene Patterson, 31, and Denise Brown, 21. Her de facto husband, David Birnie, was sentenced to strict security life imprisonment three weeks ago when he pleaded guilty to the four murders. He was also sentenced yesterday to 10 and 20 years respectively for the deprivation of liberty and sexual penetration of the 16-year-old girl. Justice Wallace told Catherine Birnie that while her pleas of guilty had spared the relatives of the By ANTHONY DENNIS PERTH: It was a simple letter t( love, written by a mother to her children.

Except that the words had been scrawled behind bars, by the hand which helped cruelly to erase the lives of four young women. One day a few years ago, the woman now called Catherine Birnie, an apparently affectionate jnother of six, unexpectedly deserted her husband for another man, whose name she took David Birnie. But this was to be no ordinary passion. In the end, hand in hand, they would be propelled into a courtroom, each accused of ghastly primes. And yesterday, in the ornate Perth Supreme Court, a judge sentenced Catherine Birnie Jo life in strict security, the same sentence as David had received a month earlier.

The judge said he hoped that they would never be released to meet each other again. For two years the children of Catherine, who with David Birnie, a former truckie, labourer and apprentice jockey, committed the abduction, rape and murder of four young women, heard not a word from their mother. But one day, two months after her arrest in November last year, a revealingly Coherent letter, delivered by the local police, arrived at the scruffy family home. It was dated January 4, 1987. It began cheerily enough.

"Dear kids, Hi! Mum here the reason I changed my married name to Birnie was so that you kids wouldn't be hurt by the newspapers and the television people. "I'm not proud of what has been said about me but I have to live with that and the memories. As to why this happened I can only hope that the doctors can help me to find out." Then later: "I never stopped loving any of you kids. Maybe I was wrong about leaving you but I thought you would be safer with your father. She added that she had a television set and radio in her room can keep up with all of the latest and warned the children not to "get into any The woman who wrote the letter had herself got into plenty of trouble.

Each of the four victims, Mary Catherine Birnie and David Birnie killed without mercy. you be identified, and then finally mutilated them. "You personally extinguished the life of two of your victims and certainly participated in the death of the third. "The only appropriate punishment is the sentence I intend to impose, strict life security in prison," Justice Wallace said. lated, and carried forward to its conclusion without mercy.

"You willingly joined in the selection of your unfortunate victims, carried them off at knifepoint and held them in captivity for the sole purpose of the sexual gratification of your partner in crime and then murdered them, lest victims the trauma of a trial he did not accept such pleas as demonstrative of remorse. "This is because of my understanding of the active part you played in all crimes and I believe that the actions would have continued if you had not been discovered," the judge said. "Each was premeditated, calcu The revelations of the past months have bewildered the family of Catherine Birnie. The reality of his daughter's gruesome crimes caused her 76-year-old father to have a nervous and physical breakdown. Donald's mother has remained incredulous at the details of the Birnie case.

She believed that David Birnie, whom they loathe, cast some spell over Cathy. They insist she could not be held responsible for her actions. Yet in their prison visits none of the family has ever confronted Cathy with the issue of her guilt I suppose we're all too scared at the answer," Edna said. Now Catherine Birnie is at the uneasy beginning of a long prison sentence. If some of the public had their way she would have been hanged.

Some members of her own family are concerned that she may not be safe in prison. She, too, has expressed fears that her welfare might be imperilled if she were to be released into the main wing of the prison. Her nephew, Leonard Nock, said: "All Aunty Cathy wanted was someone to lean on. She nevtt had a mother. She's a very carirtg person.

She and I are very close. I used to call her my mum. "She was never the violent type, she never used to hit the kids. It's not the Cathy we used to know and love." '1 young age in a driveway accident. The children obviously adore their father (who has decided not to speak publicly about the case again).

Her family remembers Cathy as a wholly non-violent type. Indeed, even Donald, the most tragic of deserted husbands who met David Birnie only once after he had been invited to a family Christmas party and ordered him out of the house, has insisted that he would have his wife back, no matter the crime. "You can't stop loving someone after 15 years of marriage," said Donald's mother, who rescued Cathy when she was 19, an unmarried mother on parole from prison after convictions for drugs and breaking and entering. In her letter to her children, written on small yellow paper with the faint impression of a sailing ship, Cathy wrote: "The reason I'm asking (your father) for a divorce is that I'll be in here for a very long time and he can't get.on with his life if he is still tied down to me. My two lawyers and QC don't hold out much hope of me getting out before 10-15 years have passed.

"I would like it very much, if your Dad would allowed sic you to, if you would write to me, please. Also if you are allowed and if you want to, would you please come and see me one day." teenage years, the pair attracted the eye of the law in their crimes together, for they committed a series of break-ins for which they were caught and jailed. A judge once warned Catherine that it would be in her interests to make a break from the dangerous influence of David Birnie and marry someone else. For some years before February, 1985, she appeared to have taken his advice but even in those years the weird mental command he had over her seemed to continue. But now the couple are apart, locked away in lonely prison cells, he in the tough Fremantle jail, she in Bandyup women's prison, but jointly ranked among the most fearful killers in Australian history.

In the months of incarceration that have followed the Birnies' arrests, there has been time enough for contemplation, and not only for them. When a reporter called at the house not far from the crashing waves of a seaside town south of Perth, the dejected figure of Catherine's husband Donald came to the door and emerged into the sunlight, surrounded by four of his and Cathy's children. The children appear well-adjusted, cheery and friendly. The eldest son is at university. Another child, the first, was killed at a arrest Catherine recalled that she felt a "twinge of terror" down her spine at the thought of how her de facto husband would react to the news of the escape.

Ever since Catherine was a young girl, the brooding, enigmatic figure of David Birnie had strolled in and out of her life. She was born Catherine Margaret Harrison, in a hospital in the Perth suburb of Subiaco, 35 years ago. She grew up the motherless victim of a custody battle between her father and her grandparents. David Birnie was a lonely figure who had suffered a traumatic, loveless childhood. In their some tyres.

Once inside the house she was chained to a bed and raped as Catherine watched. At a national park, she was strangled with a nylon cord by one partner as the other shone a torch. On October 21, 1986, Susannah Candy was abducted while hitchhiking. She suffered the same indignities as her predecessor and was buried in the same national park. But David Birnie formed an emotional attachment with the third victim, Noelene Patterson, who had accepted a lift from the couple after her' car had broken down.

It infuriated a jealously possessive Catherine. It was heard in court yesterday that she had issued a grim ultimatum to David. She held a knife to her breast and announced that she would kill herself if Noelene was not speedily murdered. David Birnie relented and Noelene Patterson was strangled with a cord while she slept. A fifth potential victim escaped after her abduction by the Birnies.

She had memorised the silent phone number of the couple before she managed to open a window and race for help at a nearby shopping centre. After her Neilson, 22, Susannah Candy, IS, Noelene Gladys Patterson, 31, said to have worked as a hostess on Mr Alan Bond's company jet plane, and Denise Reran Brown, 21, had suffered terrible atrocities. Each had been chained to a bed in the Birnies nondescript Willagee home, not far from Fremantle, before they were drugged, raped and apparently even filmed. One of the victims, Denise Brown, abducted on November 6, 1986, sat up in her own grave after the Birnies, believing her to be dead, began to bury her. The first victim, Mary Neilson, had come to the house to buy Psychologist says children troon 4 Expendable' 2 MELBOURNE: Youth suicide in Australia was the result of a throw-away society in which children were becoming expendable, a leading psychologist said yesterday.

v- Southern Family Life Service Association psychologist Ms Patricia Lo Cascio said youth suicide was a problem facing society as a whol "But it is a society where children do not seem tp matter any more," she said. Speaking outside a youth suicide workshop at Monash University, Ms Lo Cascio said not enough funds were being spent on troubled children. Australia was "putting Angers in the cracks df the dam at the moment, she said. The latest figures available showed that more than 1,400 males and nearly 400 females committed suicide in Australia in 1985. The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed that most of the male suicides 596 occurred in the 25 to 44 age group, with 325 in the the 15 to 24 age group.

The 25 to 44 age group was highest for females with 126 suicides, and the 15 to 24 group had 64. There were seven suicides in the one to 14 age group four boys and three girls. About 90 people, including social workers, teachers, ministers and doctors, attended the workshop, which covered various aspects of the youth suicide problem including identifying troubled children, prevention and protection, legal implications, and recommendations for changes. A Victorian police surgeon, Dr Peter Bush, said all were potential victims of a situation where far too many young people adopted a way out Dr Bush said despair at the social, political, and economic level could often lead children to suicide. "Everywhere you look, there arc problems society," Dr Bush said.

One priority should be to make more suppojt services available 24 hours a day. "Who picks up the pieces at 5 pm or at the weekends when the office door shuts?" he askef. Ms Lo Cascio said the isolation of overworked counsellors mirrored the children's isolation. "It is a mirrored helplessness. It snowballs," she said.

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