Man charged after longest running Australia's murder probe

Australian police have made a breakthrough in the country's longest running murder investigation.

Police in Western Australia (WA) have arrested and charged a 48-year old man over the historic Claremont serial killings in WA in 1996 and 1997.

Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon both disappeared from the upmarket Perth suburb of Claremont in 14 months between January 1996 and March 1997.

Rimmer's body was found in bushland of south of Perth in August 1996 while Glennon's remains were found in April 1997.

A third woman, Sarah Spiers, also went missing from the area in the same time frame but police said the investigation into her disappearance was ongoing.

Karl O'Callaghan, commissioner of WA Police, said the man had been charged with two counts of homicide as well as two counts of aggravated sexual penetration, two counts of deprivation of liberty, one count of breaking and entering and one count of indecent assault.

"This has already been the biggest and most complex police investigation in WA history," O'Callaghan said at a press conference on Friday.

"Hundreds of police have worked on this case over the past 20 years. We never give up."

In addition to the murders of Rimmer and Glennon, the man was also charged with attacks on two other women in the same time period.

The charged man's daughter was also arrested and questioned but has not been charged.

The disappearances in 1996 and 1997 prompted the Macro taskforce which has become Australia's longest-running and most expensive police investigation to date.

The Macro taskforce investigated in excess of 3,000 people in relation to the murders and conducted interviews with more than 500 people who were in the nightclub that Rimmer disappeared from in 1996.

source: Xinhua