In her first interview since her ordeal 30 years ago, Kate Moir has spoken up about what she went through on that horrific night in 1986 and how she escaped on Channel 7’s program, Murder Uncovered.
Kate, then 17, had been having some drinks with friends in Perth when a ‘harmless-looking’ couple offered her a ride home – but outside Kate’s house she realised she couldn’t get out of the car. The door handles had been removed.
With a knife suddenly held to her throat, Kate realised she was in incredible danger.
She tells Murder Uncovered she asked the Birnies if they were going to rape her, or kill her.
The chilling reply was: ‘We’ll only rape you if you’re good.’
What followed was an evening of twisted and sick physical and mental torture.
‘They made me dance in front of them to (Dire Straits song) Romeo and Juliet. It was two hours of mental torture. I cried when I danced,’ she explains.
After being raped three times, she was chained to the foot of the bed and forced to swallow sleeping pills. But, determined to escape, she hid them under her tongue before stuffing them under the mattress.
‘I thought if I went to sleep I’d never wake up.’
In the morning, David Birnie left for work which gave Kate a glimmer of hope.
Somehow Catherine had forgotten to secure Kate to the bed, and when she went to answer a call at the door Kate broke the latch on the bedroom window and fell out into the driveway.
Running to a nearby store wearing nothing but legging and a singlet she asked a man outside for help, who took her to a police station immediately.
It turned out the Birnies had been on a killing spree and had already murdered four people in the month before.
The Birnies went to prison, where David committed suicide. His wife, Catherine, is up for parole this year.
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