Who is Bradley Robert Edwards?

It was a question posed by prosecutor Carmel Barbagallo SC in the WA Supreme Court on the second day of his trial on three counts of wilful murder and a question more fully answered on day three as the first witness took the stand.

That witness was Edwards's first wife, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and who painted the most intimate portrait yet seen of the man charged with the three killings that rocked Perth in the mid-1990s.

It is the prosecution's case that Edwards murdered Sarah Spiers, 18, Jane Rimmer, 23 and Ciara Glennon, 27, after abducting them from the streets of upmarket Claremont after they had each spent happy evenings socialising with friends.

Edwards is accused of killing Sarah Spiers, Ciara Glennon and Jane Rimmer. ( Fairfax Media )

Ms Spiers's body has never been found, while the remains of Ms Rimmer and Ms Glennon were found, weeks after they disappeared, at remote bush locations to the south and north of the city respectively.

A teenage romance that led to marriage

Ms Barbagallo took Edwards's ex-wife through the details of their marriage and how their relationship began in the late 1980s.

The woman described how she had met Edwards through a man she was dating at the time, who worked at Telecom with Edwards.

She and Edwards had got together during an event known as the Sandhurst Run in WA's north, a rock concert held over a weekend, and she had immediately ended her relationship with her previous boyfriend.

They had shared a three-bedroom villa in suburban Noranda, but the boyfriend moved out and some months later Edwards moved in.

By her account, she and Edwards led an ordinary suburban existence.

Bradley Edwards and his first wife owned a horse together before their marriage ended. ( Supplied: WA Supreme Court )

They had two dogs and also a horse, which was kept on an agistment property in Perth's foothills where they would visit every Saturday and Sunday.

Edwards would drive her to work in the city every day in his Telecom work van, then pick her up again in the late afternoons.

They had friends from the agistment property with whom they would socialise, having dinner together and barbecues.

His ex-wife said Edwards was not a big drinker, and while his favourite drink was beer — Redback or Corona — she never saw him very drunk.

A picture of Edwards's mundane suburban life has emerged during the third day of trial. ( Supplied: WA Supreme Court )

Although they were still in their late teens when they got together, by 1990 she was keen for them to marry. He, apparently, was not, as was illustrated in testimony the ex-wife gave about a fight they had with major consequences.

"I was asking questions of whether we were going to think about getting married or if marriage was on the cards for us," she said.

"He seemed to get a little bit upset about it."

The next day, Edwards attacked a woman at Hollywood Hospital without warning, grabbing her from behind as she sat at her desk, stuffing a cloth into her mouth and dragging her backwards across the room.

Edwards's ex-wife was not questioned further about what she referred to as "the Hollywood Hospital incident", other than it had meant he did not pick her up from work as usual that day and she was forced to take the bus home.

The relationship starts to break down

Their marriage began to collapse in 1994 and 1995 after Edwards began spending excessive amounts of time on his computer at night, according to his ex-wife.

"He wasn't interested, wasn't present in the marriage," she said. "It slowly deteriorated."

In 1995, Edwards has admitted brutally raping a 17-year-old girl he abducted from Claremont and assaulted in Karrakatta Cemetery.

Around the same time his ex-wife began to take an interest in a man she met at work and they began spending time together with his children at the agistment property.

The man moved into the Huntingdale home she shared with Edwards and became their boarder, which was a "helpful arrangement" for all three parties, Edwards's defence counsel Paul Yovich SC said.

Money was tight for the young married couple and the man's contribution to the mortgage came in handy.

Police searched Edwards's former Huntingdale home in 2017, 10 years after he sold it. ( ABC News: Eliza Laschon )

Sometime before Christmas in 1995, Edwards caught his wife and the man embracing on the man's bed — the first time they had become physically intimate, the ex-wife said.

Edwards's reaction was unexpectedly mild — while he was "upset", she apologised and he "appeared calm" with no further recriminations.

Edwards never again broached the subject and the trio continued to live under the same roof.

Accused Claremont serial killer Bradley Edwards's first wife left him for another man. ( Supplied: Supreme Court of WA )

But the ex-wife realised around this time that she had romantic feelings for the flatmate and she moved out to her parents' house for a week or two to try to sort out her feelings.

She did not tell Edwards why she was moving out and he never asked.

A dinner and an invitation

At one point during the separation Edwards turned up at her parents' house unexpectedly, but they did not discuss their relationship.

Instead he stayed for several hours and they enjoyed "pleasant" conversation over dinner, during which he invited his ex-wife to go to a fireworks display that evening, which she refused.

The prosecution claims Edwards was so upset by this rejection that he went out and murdered Sarah Spiers that night, but in her testimony the ex-wife said Edwards "did not seem upset" at her.

"He accepted it," she said.

She also could not say exactly when this event took place, contrary to the prosecution's assertion that it was Australia Day, 1996 — the night Ms Spiers vanished.

The ex-wife never returned to the marital home to live.

Instead, she moved from her parents' house into a house with her and Edwards's former flatmate.

A final fling

Despite this, some weeks later Edwards invited her to a dinner with his parents and siblings at the Lakelands Tavern in Thornlie, a "cordial and friendly" evening she said she was "very happy" to attend.

The pair ended up back at the former matrimonial home, where they had sex and the ex-wife spent the night.

When she got up the next morning, she found Edwards in the laundry ironing a shirt for work.

She said she initiated a conversation about their future together, but he did not respond.

His silence made it clear to her he was not interested in reconciling or repairing their relationship in any way, she said.

The estranged spouses had little contact after that, despite their shared dogs, shared ownership and mortgage on the house in Huntingdale and a shared loan on a car.

Delivering some major news

A rare moment of conversation between the pair came in May or June of 1996, although the ex-wife appeared uncertain of exactly when it took place.

It was an important conversation — she was calling him to tell him she was pregnant by another man.

She said Edwards did not become angry or in any way emotional, he merely questioned whether the child could be his.

When she said it could not, "he accepted that and did not get upset".

It was around this time the prosecution argues he abducted and murdered Ms Rimmer.