The Problem With Hybrids
Gas prices are causing many people to change cars and one of the most popular options is hybrids. They get better gas mileage than normal gasoline cars and most are still practical. 4.00 per gallon the amount of money you pay up for a hybrid can be made up quicker through gas savings. These cars can be made much better in lots of ways. A Toyota Prius gets about 45 MPG, but that is only 3-4 MPG better than a Volkswagen Jetta 2.0 TDI. They need to make a diesel hybrid, that would get over 60 MPG. Toyota could easily do that, just take a Camry or Corolla, put their 135hp 2.0D-4D engine in, and their hybrid batteries in the car. Almost all the hybrids have problems with them that ruin most of these cars. 2,000 overpriced, and shudders over bumps, bumps that in most small cars you wouldn't notice. 6,000 less. The Ford Escape/Mazda Tribute/Mercury Mariner hybrids can't have stability control, but the normal versions have it as standard equipment. That means these SUV's can flip over simply by swerving at 35 MPH (the Escape without ESP failed the tip test in the government crash tests). The Lexus GS450h has a trunk the size of a shoebox and the LS600h gets worse gas mileage than a LS460. There are good hybrids though, for example the Chevy Tahoe/GMC Yukon hybrids are the best versions of those vehicles. The Chevy Malibu/Saturn Aura hybrids, Toyota Camry hybrid, Nissan Altima hybrid, and Honda Civic hybrid are all good cars and make sense as alternatives to the normal cars. The only real way hybrids can be a solution to high gas prices is to make diesel hybrids.
The book covers the controversial, and sometimes ridiculous methods the police used in their search for the Claremont serial killer. Initially it was thought the girls were taken by a taxi driver, so the police interviewed and took DNA samples from every taxi driver in Perth. There were over 1500 of them. Police then had local businesses print, and donate wanted, and information posters in regard to the horrific crime, and had them handed out or posted all over Perth. This author owned a company called Eureka printing at the time and donated 10,000 posters. The state government then introduced a one million dollar reward, and the Macro Taskforce was formed. Headed by Detective Paul Ferguson, who later had to resign from this position, as he was charged with the rape of two prostitutes and later acquitted. He was later accused of stealing a dealers drugs, and again nothing happened to him.
The next head of the task force was corrupt cop David Caphorn. Controversially and rather stupidly this taskforce invited members of the public to ring in and nominate suspects. These mostly innocent people were then interviewed and DNA tested, in other words harassed. There were over 4000 suspects! I was later nominated as a suspect and interviewed and DNA tested only to be cleared and then 15 years later interviewed again and cleared in June, 2011 as were another 2000 innocent men! I am not happy about it. The ironic part about this is I was living in Perth at the time of course and had rung the police nominating a suspect of my own. A promiscuous, eccentric, lawyer mate of mine had started acting rather suspiciously. He had come to my home at 4 am one morning and broke down crying drunk in front of my wife and I, claiming he had killed somebody, but when questioned further he would not elaborate.
The matter was forgotten until much later, when this bloke鈥檚 wife informed me that he had been at Club Bayview and the Claremont Hotel the nights all three girls went missing. He also had in his possession a replica 9mm Beretta which I had lent him. I reported all this to the police and he was investigated but refused to provide DNA or account for his whereabouts on the nights of the killings and abductions. He is still a suspect to this day. This author has since had discussions with the author of this book, Debi Marshall and made a full written statement to her. David Caphorn the head of this investigation then focused his attention on a male public servant caught suspiciously cruising the streets of Claremont late at night several nights in a row. This person was relentlessly followed and harassed by police for weeks. He was questioned at length and his house was searched and his car and phone bugged. He was innocent. He is still a suspect.
The investigation into this man was badly thought out, blinkered and hampered by the tunnel vision of Detective David Caphorn. Detective Caphorn had a history of this type of behaviour. In later years he had negative findings registered against him by the West Australian Crime and Corruption Commission for framing an innocent man for murder. Andrew Mallard served 12 years in jail before they realised he was innocent and had been framed, eventually they found the real killer Simon Rochford, who had already been convicted of murdering his girlfriend and was in jail. He killed himself when they found out about the second murder. The police then continue to harass another innocent Perth resident Claremont psychiatrist Peter Weygers, also the lord Mayor of Claremont who had been critical of police publicly. A twist in the story is that he was a suspect because he was renting his house out to a taxi driver mate of his, who because of his suspicious actions, had attracted police attention, and was a leading suspect. This story has some weird and interesting twists and turns, and when you think you have heard it all the police make a shocking revelation.
