Catherine Birnie

The case was detailed on episode 75 of the True Crime All the Time podcast on April 22, 2018.

On 9 November 2017, the case was discussed by Georgia Hardstark in an episode of the podcast My Favorite Murder.

The case was covered by Casefile True Crime Podcast on 27 August 2016.

The 2016 Australian film Hounds of Love is based on several true murders, but most closely resembles the Moorhouse Murders.

Her case was to be reviewed again in January 2010; however, on 14 March 2009, new Western Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter, following requests from the victims' families, determined she would stay in jail for life. This decision makes her the third Australian woman (after Katherine Knight and Patricia Byers) to have her papers marked "never to be released". Her appeal of this decision was turned down in March 2010 by Porter. Her fourth bid for parole was declined in 2016. In 2016, the Birnies' final victim—who survived—began a campaign to end Western Australian laws that automatically put convicts up for parole every three years. Moir has stated Birnie has never even applied for parole. In 2017, her youngest son, Peter, called for her execution. He has stated that his association with Birnie has resulted in his being assaulted. He supports Moir's campaign.

Catherine Birnie is imprisoned in Bandyup Women's Prison. Since being incarcerated she has worked as a prison librarian and appeared in a prison production of Nunsense. In 2007, her parole application was rejected and the then Attorney-General of Western Australia, Jim McGinty, said that her release was unlikely while he remained in office.

David Birnie was found dead in his cell at Casuarina Prison on 7 October 2005 at 4:30am (WST). He was 54 years old. An inquest found that he had hanged himself from an air vent using a length of cord. Various factors led to his suicide; a failure to provide him with his anti-depressants had exacerbated his depression, his computer had been confiscated and he was suspected of sexually assaulting another prisoner. He was described by a former prison officer as a 'model prisoner' who looked after injured animals. Catherine was not allowed to attend his funeral.

The case was included in Season 1, Episode 6 ("The Moorhouse Horrors") of Crime Investigation Australia, first aired 2005.

Initially David was held at the maximum security Fremantle Prison, but he was soon moved to solitary confinement to keep him from coming to harm from other prisoners. The original death row cells were converted for him and he stayed there until the prison was closed in 1990. The cell can occasionally be viewed on the True Crime Tour held daily at Fremantle Prison. While incarcerated, the Birnies exchanged more than 2,600 letters, but were not allowed any other form of contact.

In late 1986, David Birnie was employed at a local car wrecker's shop. For more than a year, David and Catherine had been practicing how to make their sexual fantasies of rape and murder come true, while he was weeks away from committing his first crime.

22 year old Mary Neilson was studying psychology at the University of Western Australia and working part-time in a delicatessen when she met David Birnie at the spare parts yard he worked at. David offered to sell her cheap tyres for her car, and subsequently gave her his phone number. On 6 October 1986, she went to the Birnies' house. She was gagged, chained to the bed and raped by David while Catherine observed. She was taken to Gleneagles National Park near Albany Highway in Bedfordale where she was raped again and strangled with a nylon cord. He then stabbed her thinking that it would speed up the decomposition as he "read that in a book somewhere", and they buried her in a shallow grave. She would have received her degree for psychology from the university one year after her murder.

She escaped the day after her capture. After David went to work, Catherine went to the door to carry out a drug deal, and forgot to chain Moir to the bed. She escaped by climbing through a closed window by breaking its lock; however, she hit her head on the concrete. After knocking on various neighbours' doors, she jumped a gate and was attacked by a dog. She managed to flee, and ran into a vacuum cleaner shop on 10 November 1986. She later described herself as "hysterical. I'm barefoot wearing my black leggings, a black singlet, knickers...". She informed the shop owner that she had been raped. When the police arrived, she said she had been abducted at knifepoint by a couple who had taken her back to their house and raped her. The police were initially sceptical of her story, but 22-year-old Constable Laura Hancock believed her from the outset, due to the amount of detail she provided, including their address and telephone number. The Birnies had given themselves aliases, but Moir had read David's name on a medicine bottle. Moir stated they had watched the film Rocky on VHS, and described a drawing she had concealed in the house as proof of her presence. Subsequently, the police found her drawing in the home, as well as the VHS copy of Rocky in the Birnie's VCR. David and Catherine were arrested, and during their interviews, they gave conflicting information; Catherine denied ever meeting Moir, while David insisted Moir had come to their house voluntarily to engage in consensual sex. Detective Sergeant Vince Katich convinced David to confess, and reveal where they had buried the bodies so that they could be dug up before dark; David revealed there were four graves.

There is speculation that the Birnies were responsible for the disappearance of Cheryl Renwick in May 1986, and Barbara Western in June 1986. It has been suggested that David was responsible for the disappearance of Lisa Marie Mott in 1980; however, his first wife accounted for his whereabouts on the day Mott disappeared.

In 1985 she left her husband and six children and went to live with David. The couple was never legally married, but Catherine changed her surname by deed poll to Birnie.

In the early 1960s, Birnie's parents decided to move the family to another Perth suburb, where David met Catherine Harrison through mutual friends. At 15, David left school to become an apprentice jockey for Eric Parnham at a nearby Ascot racecourse. During his time there, he physically harmed the horses and developed a habit of exhibitionism. One night, David broke into the room of an elderly lady where he was boarding. He was naked with stockings over his head and attempted to commit his first rape.

David John Birnie (16 February 1951 – 7 October 2005) and Catherine Margaret Birnie (nee Harrison) (born 23 May 1951) were an Australian couple from Perth, Western Australia. They murdered four women ranging in age from 15 to 31 at their home in 1986, and attempted to murder a fifth. These crimes were referred to in the press as the Moorhouse murders, after the Birnies' address at 3 Moorhouse Street in Willagee, a suburb of Perth.

Catherine Margaret Birnie (née Harrison) was born on 23 May 1951. She was two years old when her mother, Doreen, died giving birth to her brother, who died two days later. Unable to raise her, her father, Harold, sent Catherine away to live with her maternal grandparents. When she was ten, a custody dispute resulted in Harold regaining sole custody of Catherine.

Her time in prison throughout her adolescent years offered Catherine a chance to break away from David. Encouraged by a parole officer, Catherine began working for the McLaughlin family as a housekeeper. She married Donald McLaughlin on her 21st birthday.