rapes should be screened for semen, then bagged, labeled and stored at -94°F.

If the rapes had happened now, and the rapist had any kind of criminal record, his DNA profile would have been one of hundreds of thousands on the Australian national DNA database, and these semen samples would have been enough to implicate him. But this was 1982. The use of DNA as an investigative tool was still years in the future.

And who were the police looking for? Because of his mask and the trauma of an ordeal that lasted for several hours, victims could offer police only the vaguest of details about their attacker’s appearance. Then, in July 1982, the rapes suddenly ceased.

The Rapist Ends His Hiatus

The rapist resumed his attacks in September 1984, attacking fivewomen between September 7 and January 2, 1985. But these crimes were only later positively identified as this particular rapist’s work. Other serial sex offenders were at large for long periods during the 1980s – one, in particular, operating across Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. This fact was later directly attributed to the lack of a central rape squad with the ability to quickly gather and compare information from investigations carried out by different divisions of the force and into previous similar incidents.

Then, on the night of July 5, 1986, a man with a balaclava over his face emerged from his hiding place in a Narong Road apartment, grabbed the terrified female occupant, held a knife to her throat and raped her. Three similar attacks ensued in the adjoining suburb