NSW: Police make arrest in 1997 Sydney prostitute murder

AAP General News (Australia)
12-19-2000
NSW: Police make arrest in 1997 Sydney prostitute murder

By John Kidman

SYDNEY, Dec 19 AAP - Detectives investigating the 1997 killing of teenage Sydney prostitute
Rebecca Bernauer today made a long-awaited breakthrough with the arrest of a man living
near the murder scene.

Police swooped on a boarding house in Hayden Lane at Kings Cross shortly after 6.30am
before leading the suspect away for questioning.

Ms Bernauer's naked body was found in the same lane by a man dumping rubbish on his
way to work on June 7, 1997.

The 18-year-old was first thought to have fatally overdosed on heroin but a post mortem
revealed she had been raped then strangled.

The man taken into custody today is of South American extraction and is understood
to be a cleaner at a sex parlour in Kings Cross.

According to police sources the results of recent DNA tests of clients and other staff
at the brothel played a significant role in the case.

Known as "Charlie" on the streets, Ms Bernauer was found wedged behind an abandoned
fridge in Hayden Lane.

Except for her black clog-heeled shoes, Ms Bernauer's handbag and clothes - a black
velvet jacket and leopard skin flared pants - have never been recovered.

There were two accounts of where the troubled teenager was last seen alive. The first
placed her at home the day before.

Fellow street worker Brenda Ross told police she met her friend at her tiny Tusculum
Avenue bedsit in Potts Point about 1.20pm on Friday June 6.

The pair arranged to attend a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in a church basement at 8pm
but Rebecca failed to show.

The second account of her final movements had her in Darlinghurst Road much later on
the night she died.

Originally, her "spot" - the place where she solicited clients - had been near the
corner of William and Forbes Streets at Kings Cross, in the doorway to a block of flats
beside a cafe.

She had been popular there, according to police.

But a dispute of some kind later forced her to move.

Investigators always believed Ms Bernauer was killed elsewhere and her body dumped.

The murder probably took place "at premises nearby and the offender has moved her body
only a short distance", one detective said earlier this year.

AAP jk/ij/sp

KEYWORD: BERNAUER

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