Wendy Davis says she is lucky to be alive after surviving an attack in 1990 from the man who would go on to become the Claremont serial killer.
The Claremont serial killings, which took place from 1996 to 1997, led to one of the longest-running and most expensive murder trials in Australia's history.
On 24 September, 2020, Bradley Robert Edwards was found guilty of the wilful murder of 23-year-old Jane Rimmer and 27-year-old Ciara Glennon.
There was not enough evidence to convict Edwards of the murder of 18-year-old Sarah Spiers, whose remains are yet to be found.
Edwards was also charged with assaults on two teenagers in 1988 and 1995, the latter crime involving the brutal abduction and rape of a 17-year-old at Karrakatta Cemetery near Claremont.
But there is another, lesser-known crime that Edwards committed at Hollywood Hospital in 1990.
Had this crime been better acknowledged it might have been the warning sign that prevented the Claremont serial killings from ever taking place.
Wendy Davis was the victim of this crime, and she has written a book about her story titled Don't Make a Fuss: It's Only the Claremont Serial Killer.
In May 1990, Ms Davis was a 40-year-old social worker in a senior position as a grief counsellor in the palliative care unit of the Hollywood Repatriation Hospital in Nedlands, west of Perth.
"I was in the prime of my life. The mother of three teenage daughters, happily married with two large Rottweilers and a few cats. It was just a normal life."
But that all changed when Edwards set foot in Ms Davis's office.
At the time, Edwards worked for Telecom, now Telstra, and was part of a team undertaking work at the hospital.
"He asked if he could use the toilet," Ms Davis said. "There was a lot of stuff going on at the hospital, I didn't think anything was amiss. I sort of grunted and nodded and got back to my work."
Ms Davis heard Edwards move behind her, flush the toilet, then go to the ward door.
He then returned and asked Ms Davis's permission to retrieve a pencil from the toilet, which he said he had dropped.
"I just started to think that's a bit strange … and then I thought to myself, 'Hang on, he wasn't in the toilet long enough for the flush to happen,'" she said.
"I thought there was something on that cloth, and for those first few seconds I thought I was going to die.
"I can't even describe the feeling. I was sure that was the end of my life."
Ms Davis recalled being pulled up by her neck.
"I had to take a breath in and I realised there was nothing on the cloth and I was still alive.
A struggle ensued, during which the chair fell over and Ms Davis remembered her face being crushed against Edwards's shirt, his arms around her.
"We were very close to the toilet, he was pulling and pulling me, and I got my left leg and kicked as hard as I could — really, really hard. I got him in the shins."
Edwards abruptly let Ms Davis go and she fell back, looking directly at him.
"He was saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,'" she said.
The attack, which lasted in total about 10 seconds, left Ms Davis with bruising on her neck and trauma that would last her whole life.
Edwards was found with cable ties in his pocket which were dismissed as usual for Telecom workers.
He was charged with common assault despite admitting to a security guard that he was trying to pull Ms Davis into the toilet.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years' probation in 1990.
Ms Davis, who always felt the attack was violent and sexually motivated, discovered during Edwards's murder trial that he was ordered to attend a year-long sex offenders treatment program following the Hollywood Hospital attack.
"I'd been very much aware I was at risk of rape, or worse," Ms Davis said.
"I'd been told there wasn't enough evidence to confirm this.
Too shaken to continue working in the office, Ms Davis left the job she loved.
In the following years her marriage broke down, and she partly attributes this to the aftermath of the attack during which Ms Davis suffered from insomnia and terrible anxiety.
"I was so traumatised. My personal relationships were affected. I was less trusting of everybody and didn't feel supported after the attack," she said.
Edwards not only kept his job after the assault but, in the coming years, would go on to be promoted twice.
Ms Davis said her way of coping was to bury the memory.
"I didn't think about it, I didn't talk about it," she said.
In December 2016, two-and-a-half decades after the attack, a call from WA Police forced Ms Davis to confront her memories.
The police were investigating possible links between old crimes and had become increasingly interested in the Hollywood Hospital attack.
Over the following two-and-a-half-year trial, Ms Davis would be regularly called on to give information to detectives and WA Police.
On December 3, 2019, Ms Davis gave evidence regarding the attack in the District Court of WA.
But it was the writing of her book that gave Ms Davis the true catharsis she felt she needed.
Throughout its pages Ms Davis regularly reflects on the possibility that the Claremont murders could have been prevented had Edwards's attack on her in 1990 been taken seriously.
The final sentences in her book ring true — "I did my best at the time, but no-one would listen. My only hope is that we are listening better now."
