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More than three decades ago the New South Wales police announced it had formed a special team to catch a man, later dubbed the “Night Stalker” or the “Moore Park rapist”, who terrorised women across Sydney in the early 90s.
A poster with a sketched image of the man, based on one of his victim’s recollections, was also released. Below the image it said: “Do you know this person? Serial rapist sought over possible seven attacks.”
But it wouldn’t be until 2024, thanks to a breakthrough in forensic technology, that the Night Stalker would finally be caught and unmasked as Glenn Gary Cameron.
On Tuesday, the light-haired man, now 61, was beamed via video into Sydney’s Downing Centre court from prison. He pleaded guilty to 13 charges against at least eight women, committed while he was in his 20s.
Court documents, released after his guilty pleas, detail how Cameron’s crimes and the investigation unfolded.
Victims offered fake jobs and cash for modelling
In July 1993, just two months after a taskforce was launched into the sexual assaults, it was disbanded. Cameron’s attack on his eighth victim, and last known victim, was May that year.
The ages of his victims varied. The youngest was 17, and she is now 48. The oldest was 45 when she was assaulted, now 77. One woman did not get the chance to see Cameron brought to justice – she is listed in court documents as deceased.
Many features of the cases bear similar patterns. A number of the victims were of Asian ethnicity. Most women were near a train station, on their way somewhere, when Cameron introduced himself.
Cameron offered many of his victims cleaning work. One was asked if she’d like to do some modelling. Some said yes, because they needed money.
He stopped his fifth victim, then 24, as she entered Central railway station. Cameron then said to her: “There was another girl that did the cleaning but she has burnt her skin and I have just taken her to the hospital. I need someone to help me clean the office now.” She had lost her job the day before, so agreed to go with him.
Most of the women were then lured into following him to Moore Park, a large park in Sydney’s east. He pulled a knife and sexually assaulted them. He forced some to pose for pictures. After he was done, he’d let them go.
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In about the early 1990s, he started working at a funeral parlour in Newtown. He had been in the army, but was discharged after a year for using drugs and going awol. After he left, he was homeless, slept in his car, and used drugs heavily.
“I think in my early years, especially like in my late teens and early 20s, I was very reckless, you know. I didn’t care if I lived or died, that sort of thing,” Cameron told police after he was caught.
While secretly carrying out the attacks, he was in a relationship with a woman that he ended up marrying in 1990 or 1991.
In 1993, the year he committed his crimes against his final victim, Cameron and his wife had a child, and then a second in 1998.
He then met his second wife in 2008 or 2009 after she had moved to Australia from Thailand. In around 2012-2013, the pair moved to Alice Springs.
DNA left on a glass of beer and a fork
In July 2022, almost 29 years to the day since the taskforce was disbanded, Strike Force Girtab was established by the NSW sex crimes squad to investigate DNA linked to each of Cameron’s eight victims.
The strike force followed a police initiative to identify and review historic sexual assaults. It linked four of the cases to the same DNA.
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The police undertook a familial search on the national criminal investigator DNA database and it identified Cameron’s daughter as being linked to the DNA. Prior to identifying Cameron as her father, NSW police identified two other suspects.
In January 2024, the police set up an operation at the Sydney international airport after learning Cameron was travelling from Alice Springs to Thailand.
While he was at the airport, they covertly nabbed a schooner glass and fork he had used to test if the DNA matched.
He was arrested a short time later.
When the allegations of his first victim were put to Cameron, he told police: “No. That, no definitely not. I wouldn’t, that doesn’t even sound like anything I’d do.
“If my, my DNA is with that lady obviously I’ve had sex with her, OK. But that’s all I know … I’ve had sex with a lot of ladies.
“I know I sound like a sleaze bag but I have because of the people I was with and the things I was involved in.”
For the remainder of the allegations – first recorded from the women by police 30 years earlier – Cameron responded: “No comment”.
Cameron had initially faced 36 charges, including 19 counts of aggravated sexual assault involving a threat to inflict actual bodily harm on a victim with a weapon and eight counts of indecent assault.
On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to 11 counts of aggravated sexual assault, one count of attempted aggravated assault and one count of indecent assault. Nine of the initial 36 charges were withdrawn, while the remainder would be taken into account when Cameron was sentenced, the court heard.
After his pleas were read out, Cameron was asked by magistrate Greg Grogin if he agreed with what had been outlined.
“Yes, your honour,” he responded.
Cameron was scheduled to be sentenced on 24 October.
