In the 1990s, former detective Andrew Patterson was part of a Perth special task force investigating paedophiles, when he received descriptions of an underground chamber.
A brave victim-survivor came forward with information about a sexual predator, and claimed the offender had a cellar with “shiny chrome walls”.
Former detective Andrew Patterson describes walking into the offender’s home and what he found below on the Crime Insiders podcast:
In the 1990s, police didn’t have the internet to track an offender’s behaviour and heavily relied on victim survivor testimony.
After the witness interview, Patterson decided to search the house for signs of a basement.
“Perth is built on a sand plain, so very few properties have any underground cellars or anything like that. So we thought it was a bit unlikely,” Patterson said.
“We went right through the place like an absolute dose of salts,” he said.
Patterson said the offender wasn’t cooperating with the police until they threatened to tear up the floorboards with a crowbar.
“We pushed the envelope a bit… and he ran a screwdriver along the crack between two of the carpet squares, which then hit a hidden switch, and the entire square came up as a trapdoor.”
“Sure enough, there was a chamber underneath, and we went down into it. That was a bit of an eerie moment, I have to say.”
Police connected the witness testimony with evidence from the chamber. The discovery saw the offender, a man in his 60s, convicted with possession of child exploitation material.
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