Episodes

The boys on the ice – BBC News

The tragic ‘Arran’ stowaways – cruelly abused, then abandoned barefoot on the ice fields of Newfoundland in 1868 | Abroad in the Yard

Stowaways thrown off ship near N.L. remembered by descendants 150 years later | CBC News

The Arran Stowaways: graphic novel revives 150-year-old scandal | The Scotsman

04 Feb 1869 – CRUELTY TO STOWAWAYS ON THE HIGH SEAS. – Trove (nla.gov.au)

The Greenock Stowaways: Author Denise Mina charts chilling story of beaten, starved and abandoned young boys – The Sunday Post

Greenock stowaways – Wikipedia

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn

Hosted by Dawn and Cole

Researched and Written by Peter Bull

Produced and Edited by Dawn Young and Peter Bull

Production Company Name by Granny Robertson

Music:

Dawn of the Fairies by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

Gothic Wedding by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

Dawn:

Trigger warning Wee Ones. This story may be upsetting and does contain crimes targeting children, so listener discretion is advised.

In 1868 a group of boys from Greenock in Scotland stowed away on a ship bound for Quebec in Canada, all thinking they were going to have a great adventure, but instead faced a harsher and more shocking reality they never could have expected, that would leave most of the boys out in the cold.

Hi Wee Ones it’s just me, Dawn, today, so let’s get started.

[THEME TUNE]

Greenock lies on the south bank of the mouth of the River Clyde on the west coast of Scotland, and is about 27 miles or about 44 kilometres west of Glasgow. It was the 7th of April 1868 and 11 year old John Paul lived in Dalrymple Street in Greenock. Times were hard back then and John Paul didn’t even have shoes, however, he did have a good friend called Hugh McEwan who was also aged 11, and just like many young boys today they loved adventure and thought their next adventure would take them away from the hardship they were experiencing. So the two friends, John Paul and Hugh McEwan, decided to make their way to Victoria Dock in Greenock, where wooden trading vessels would set sail carrying their cargo to far-flung destinations, and hopefully carrying the two friends away to a better life. They soon found a ship, the Arran, named for the island to the west of Greenock in the Firth of Clyde, and the two friends decided to stowaway onboard. It was common in those days for boys to sneak on board ships in the harbour seeking escape, so ships were routinely checked for stowaways and any found were sent back to the shore on tugs. It wouldn’t be long before two stowaways were indeed discovered during a routine search of the Arran while still in the Firth of Clyde, however, seemingly lucky for the two friends they were not the two discovered and they remained on the ship. The Arran then sailed onwards down the Firth of Clyde and downed the Irish Sea, leaving Greenock far behind to head across the Atlantic Ocean to deliver its cargo of coal and oakum, which is a fibre made of painstakingly untwisting old ropes, and heading to Quebec in Canada. John Paul and his friend Hugh McEwan were relieved to have not been found and they hoped this would remain the case. However, when the ship’s carpenter was preparing to batten down the hatches for the ship’s long journey across the Atlantic, he found the two friends and hastily took them to the captain. However, by this time it was too late for them to be sent back to Greenock. Captain Robert Watt, who was 28 years old and was from the island of Arran, the ship’s namesake, had a reputation for treating those under his command kindly. When the boys reached the captain he grabbed John Paul by his collar and demanded to know what he was doing there. John Paul explained that he and his friend wanted to be sailors, to which the captain laughed. He then asked them what they had had to eat since they had got on board. John Paul told the captain that they had just had four of the ships barn biscuits between them. The captain told them not to expect much more from him, but told the carpenter to take the two boys to the cook, William Saltoun, who was good-hearted and gave them a warm meal, and the two were allowed to sleep in a sail locker. However, it seemed that the Arran wasn’t just joined by the two friends, John Paul and Hugh McEwan, as it wasn’t long before five more stowaways made themselves known to the crew. They were 12 year old Hugh McGinnes, who like John Paul was without shoes, twelve-year-old Peter Currie, James Bryson and David Brand, who were both 16 years old, and finally 22 year old Bernard Reilly, all of whom were also given food and a place to sleep. Although there were now seven extra people on board, the captain initially allowed the boys an ample supply of rations and initially treated them quite reasonably, despite the unexpected nature of their presence on board. The stowaways were given tasks throughout the ship, which included washing down decks and other menial tasks often allotted to boys onboard a ship.

For the first few days of the voyage things didn’t seem so bad and there was fine weather, but as they continued they began to encounter rougher weather and a series of strong gale force winds, which made the stowaways feel very seasick. This was witnessed by the ship’s first mate who ordered the steward to withhold most of their rations, despite there being plenty of food on board. The first mate was 31 year old James Kerr, who was from Lochranza on the island of Arran, and was described as being a rough-looking man with a coarse, unfeeling and dominating nature. James Kerr and the captain were brothers-in-law. The first mate, when passing the boys, would kick them without provocation, although one of the boys, 12 year old Peter Currie, was spared most of this as his father was a friend of the first mate. From then on the boys were only given a few of the ship’s biscuits each day, however, the kindness of the cook continued and he slipped the boys a few scraps of food, along with any potato and turnip peelings, but the boys still had barely enough food to survive so they started to steal whatever they could get their hands on from the ship’s stores, which included currants, oatmeal and more of the ship’s biscuits in order to stave off their hunger, but they were severely punished when caught.  This included when a barrel of grain was found to have been opened and the boys were suspected immediately of being responsible, so they were handcuffed together and had no food at all for an entire day as punishment.

As the Arran continued its journey across the North Atlantic, the lack of food was not the only problem the stowaways had to endure as the harsh conditions also became a challenge, and a member of the ship’s crew later described the boys as being thinly clad and not being able to stand the severe cold that even the men struggled with, especially as John Paul and Hugh McGinnes had bare feet. John Paul and Hugh McGinnes did try to escape the bitter cold by going below deck to the relative warmth there, however, when the first mate discovered they were missing he would drag them back up onto the deck and beat them. James Bryson, who was 16 years old, was singled out for particularly brutal treatment, which started when others complained he was dirty. So, one day the first mate told James to take off his jacket, waistcoat and shirt, leaving only his semmit or vest on, before proceeding to flog James with a coil of rope about half an inch or 2.5 centimetres thick for about three minutes, inflicting many horrible and painful blows to his back, causing James to scream in agony. James was then made to remove the rest of his clothes and lie down on the deck naked, the first mate ordered one of the crew to draw water from the sea and several buckets of ice cold sea water were thrown over the boy as he lay shivering and cold on the deck. The captain, who was easily influenced by his brother-in-law the first mate, joined in by scrubbing poor James all over his body with a broom, all while the first mate stood over James holding a rope threatening to  strike James should he run away. The first mate then took the broom from the captain and scrubbed James even harder than the captain had. When he had finished he ordered one of the other stowaways, 16 year old David Brand, to scrub James for a third time, all while being held down by the first mate. James was scrubbed from his neck to his foot, on his back and front, until his blood flowed. Once finished, James was then ordered to the forecastle at the bow of the ship, while still naked, and he was made to wait around half an hour before his vest was finally returned, followed later by his jacket. He was made to remain at the forecastle until nightfall, before finally being allowed to return below deck. Also, all the boys, except for 12 year old Peter Currie whose father was the first mate’s friend, were beaten on a regular basis.

As the Arran ship began to approach land in early May 1868, it encountered large fields of ice floating in the sea off the North Atlantic, and the ship drifted into St George’s Bay on the coast of Newfoundland. The ship was moored to the ice, with Captain Robert Watt and the first mate, James Kerr, disembarking briefly. This brief respite gave the boys, who were all starving due to the lack of food, the chance to get what they could while the captain and first mate were off the ship. David Brand entered both the Captain’s and first mate’s cabin and made off with a pocketful of the ship’s biscuits. He mentioned this to James Bryson who also went to see what he could find, but all he could find was a barrel of currants, which he managed to grab a pocketful of. Unfortunately, just as he was making his way out of the cabin, he was caught red-handed by the captain and first mate, who had just returned from their foray onto the ice. David had managed to dispose of the biscuits from his pockets, but there was no escape for James, whose currants were ordered by the captain to be given to the rest of the boys. James Bryson was again brutally punished by being made to strip naked and being lashed by the first mate with the ship’s lead line, which is a rope with a lead weight on the end used to determine the depth of water. He was then made to sweep the decks, whilst still naked. Another member of the crew who witnessed the barbaric punishment James endured described the boy’s skin afterwards as resembling red and white tartan.

The Arran was now trapped in the ice in St George’s Bay on the coast of Newfoundland. The eldest of the stowaways, 22 year old Bernard Reilly, started to consider leaving the ship as he had dreams of making it to Halifax in Nova Scotia to work on the railways there. So he persuaded James Bryson that it might be worth attempting to cross the fields of ice towards the barely visible land to escape the misery on board the ship. At that point a trek across the ice would have seemed like the only way to escape the harsh punishment James had to endure on board, the other boys however were terrified of the idea of leaving the ship and crossing the ice. While the plan by the stowaways to leave the ship was still been discussed, somehow the captain learned of Bernard Reilly’s plan to leave the ship and offered him the use of his telescope to get a better view of the shore. While Bernard declined the use of the telescope, the captain assured Bernard that there were houses not so far away. Bernard passed this information along to James Bryson, who decided to join Bernard to make his way across the fields of ice towards the distant shore. However, there was soon no choice in the matter, as while the other stowaways were deciding what to do, the captain ordered that all of the stowaways would be put overboard, with the exception of 12 year old Peter Currie who was the son of the first mate’s friend. George Henry, who was another member of the crew, later said he heard the youngest boys crying when they were asked to go, and he was concerned as the ice was broken and very rough looking, and two of the boys had bare feet and their clothing was ragged when they left the ship. It was around ten to 15 miles or 16 to 24 kilometres from the ship to the land and George Henry thought it unlikely that those without shoes would ever reach land.

On the 9th of May 1868 at around 8 or 9 in the morning, the stowaways set off across the fields of white desolation, with the ship’s first mate only sparing the boys one biscuit each as they left. The ice flow was made up of slabs of various sizes, some as large as a football pitch but many others much smaller, so as the stowaways reached the end of one slab of ice they had to jump towards the next slab to make progress towards the land. John Paul’s friend, Hugh McEwan, who had been especially unwell during the journey across the Atlantic and had even been seen spitting blood occasionally, started to lag behind the others as they made their way across the ice. Hugh McEwan accidentally slipped into the freezing water but was pulled out by James Bryson. He continued onward, before falling yet again into the cold and icy water.  This time he managed to pull himself free, but was growing weaker with every step. John Paul witnessed his friend Hugh McEwan slip and fall into the water for a third time, where he tried to kick and get out of the icy grip of the water. John Paul was also in the water at this point and his friend tried to get hold of him, but he let go. John Paul managed to get out by scrambling onto the edge of the ice, and he was only able to watch as the ice closed over the head of his friend. He never saw him again. It would be a few hours later when Hugh McGinnes was overcome by exhaustion and sat down on the ice, his shoeless feet swollen and sore. He was urged to continue by the others or he would be frozen, but he said he couldn’t go any further. The others were left with no choice but to leave him there, with nothing to protect him but his ragged and frozen clothes. The remaining four stowaways continued their perilous journey towards land, but as they got nearer and nearer the large slabs of ice became rarer and rarer, but they continued to struggle with each of them slipping and falling into the water, somehow managing to get free. This only caused their clothing to freeze solid to their bodies. Somehow they managed to reach the end of the ice just as the sun was starting to set. However, although they could see a few houses and lights, they had not reached shore as there was a channel of water and drifting ice around a mile or 1.5 kilometres wide between them and the relative safety of dry land. 22 year old Bernard Reilly and 16 year old David Brand tried to paddle towards the shore on the pieces of ice and a batten board they had manage to get from the ship, but this stranded the other two boys, John Paul and James Bryson, who were frozen, famished and exhausted, but shouted for help in the thinly veiled hope that someone on shore would hear them.

On the southern shore of St George’s Bay in Newfoundland was Highlands, a busy agricultural and fishing community where fishermen lived in little cabins on the beach. Catherine Ann McInnes was one such resident whose family had emigrated to Newfoundland from Loch Morar in the Scottish Highlands. Catherine either saw the boys in the fading daylight or heard their cries, and she raised the alarm. It is believed that her husband would have been among the local men who set out to rescue the boys. It would have been difficult to see the boys from a mile or 1.5 kilometres away at that time of evening, if they’d arrived just half an hour later they may not have been seen at all, and were therefore very fortunate to have survived their ordeal.  The four cold and frostbitten stowaways were taken to the villagers homes to recover. The boys had been blinded by the glare of the ice and it took a week for them to be able to see properly again. John Paul’s feet were also badly lacerated from the long walk on the ice without shoes, which took over a month to heal. He also lost fingers to frostbite. Unfortunately the bodies of John Paul’s friend, Hugh McEwan, and the other boy, Hugh McGinnes, were never found.

When the ship, the Arran, finally arrived in Quebec, Canada, one of the crew sent a letter back home to Greenock in Scotland describing the cruelty and treatment that the stowaways had endured whilst on board. When the letter arrived news quickly spread around Greenock. A telegram was sent asking for information about what had happened, and in reply it was stated that four of the six boys who had been put down in the ice had survived and three of them were still in Newfoundland, but the fourth, Bernard Reilly, who was the eldest of them, had already set off to find work in Nova Scotia.

Almost six months after the Arran had set sail from Greenock with the stowaway boys on board, the remaining three boys who survived their journey across the ice to Newfoundland arrived back in Scotland. However, there was some confusion about the returnees, when one of the boys believed to be alive was named Hugh McGinnes, but his mother was devastated to learn instead of expecting to greet her son she found out instead he had perished on the ice due to exhaustion. Also one of the boys believed to have perished in the ice was John Paul, but in fact he had returned alive.

The story of what happened made news all around the world even back in the 1860s, as people were horrified of what had happened to these boys on the ice.

The three boys had returned home just in time to appear as witnesses at the trial at the High Court of Judiciary in Edinburgh of Captain Robert Watt and the first mate James Kerr of the Arran. On the final day of the trial on the 25th of November 1868 the Scotsman Newspaper reported that the courtroom was crowded, with many waiting outside for several hours in the hope of gaining admission. James Kerr, the first mate, was found guilty of assault and sentenced to four months in prison. Robert Watt, the captain, was charged and found guilty of culpable homicide, which is roughly the equivalent to manslaughter in English law, and he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. However, as the Scotsman Newspaper reported in their edition the following morning, the verdict was received by the audience with loud hisses.

After serving their sentences both men returned to their jobs and sailed for many years. Of the stowaways, James Bryson emigrated to the United States where he became a tram conductor. David Brand started a ship engineering firm in Queensland, Australia. Bernard Reilly, who went to Nova Scotia, probably never returned to Scotland.  And John Paul married and started a family and became a riveter and rose to the rank of foreman in Greenock’s shipyards, but when his wife died he left for Southampton. When John Paul himself died he was given a grand funeral with a polished elm coffin covered in beautiful flowers and wreaths, and a large number of people assembled at the cemetery to pay their respects, including 100 members of the Boilermaker’s Society in full regalia. Peter Currie, who had remained on board the Arran, died of tuberculosis two years later after returning home. The Arran herself was wrecked on Sand Island in the Gulf of Mexico in 1886 while sailing from Greenock to Mobile, Alabama.

Much of our story came from the BBC article “The boys on the ice” by Sarah McDermott.

Although it may be over 150 years since the tragedy of what became known as the Greenock Stowaways, their story will never be forgotten, of the boys left out in the cold.

And that’s the end. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and know just the person who’d also like it, please share it with them don’t keep it to yourself.

Cole:

Please also get in touch on social media if you have any questions, comments or suggestions and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. All social media and contact details are on our website scottishmurders.com, as well as all the source material and photos related to this episode.

Dawn:

So that’s it for this week, come back next time for another episode of Scottish Murders.

Dawn and Cold:

Join us there. Bye.

Granny Robertson:

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn.

Sources

Dunblane – Wikipedia

Dunblane massacre – Wikipedia

Andy Murray – Wikipedia

Dunblane school massacre | Facts & History | Britannica

The life and death of Thomas Watt Hamilton | The Independent | The Independent

Lorraine Kelly: I’ll never forget Dunblane massacre victim’s tiny handprint (thescottishsun.co.uk)

Dunblane massacre: What was the Snowdrop campaign? (thescottishsun.co.uk)

What’s in a name? Galanthus plicatus Sophie North : Grows on You

EAGLETON NOTES: The Dunblane Commemoration (galenote.blogspot.com)

Dawn:

Trigger warning Wee Ones. This story may be upsetting, and does contain crimes targeting children and of suicide, so listener discretion is advised.

As snowdrops grew signalling the start of Spring, a terrible and shocking crime would be forever synonymous with a small town in Scotland, and impact not only those there but throughout the whole country.

Hi Wee Ones it’s just me Dawn today, So let’s get started.

[THEME TUNE]

On the 13th of March 1996 it was just the start of Spring, which was signalled by snowdrops starting to appear near Stirling in the small town of Dunblane, which is about 32 miles or 52 kilometres north east of Glasgow. Thomas Hamilton was outside of his home in Kent Road in Stirling at 8:15am scraping the ice of his van, despite the signs of Spring. Once done he got into his van and drove the five miles or eight kilometres north to Dunblane.  At around 9:30am Hamilton arrived at the grounds of Dunblane Primary School and parked his van in the car park there near a telegraph pole or telephone pole. He then proceeded to cut the cables at the bottom of the pole with a set of pliers, cutting off telephones of nearby homes. Hamilton then walked across the car park, entered a door on the north west side of the school and headed towards the gymnasium, carrying four legally owned handguns including two nine millimetre Browning pistols and two Smith and Wesson M19 .357 Magnum revolvers, along with 743 cartridges of ammunition. At the same time a class of 28 primary one pupils, aged around five or six, along with three staff members, were preparing for a physical education lesson in the gym. On the way towards the gym Hamilton fired a couple of shots into the stage of the assembly hall and then the girls toilets, before finally entering the gym. Hamilton was immediately confronted by a teacher, Eileen Harold, but he proceeded to rapidly shoot randomly around the gym, before striking Eileen in the arm and chest as she attempted to protect herself. Eileen managed to stumble into a nearby store cupboard, along with several other children who were also struck and injured. Gwen Mayor, who was the teacher of the primary one class, was shot and killed instantly. However, the third member of staff, Mary Blake, was able to make her way to the store cupboard, along with several children who were in front of her. In just the first few steps into the gym, Hamilton had fired 29 shots with one of the pistols, along with killing one pupil and injuring several others. Hamilton then fired six more shots as he moved along the east side of the gym, and fired another eight shots towards the opposite end of the gym. He then headed towards the centre of the gym and then shockingly fired 16 shots at point blank range at a group of children who’d been incapacitated by his previous shots. It was just then that a primary seven pupil aged around 11 or 12 was walking outside along the west side of the gym and heard loud bangs and shots and decided to look inside. He was immediately spotted by Hamilton who proceeded to shoot in his direction, but thankfully he was only injured by flying glass from the window and was able to run away to safety. It was from there that Hamilton fired 24 shots in various directions, before firing towards a window next to the fire exit at the south east end of the gym, seemingly towards an adult who may have been walking along the playground at the time. Hamilton then opened the fire exit door and fired four more shots in the same direction outside. He then exited the gym briefly where he fired towards the cloakroom of the library, where he struck and injured Grace Tweddle who was another member of staff at the school. Catherine Gordon, who was teaching a primary seven class in a mobile classroom near the fire exit where Hamilton was standing, saw him fire his shots so she immediately instructed her class to get down onto the floor, just before Hamilton fired nine bullets into the classroom striking books and equipment, with one bullet passing through a chair where only seconds earlier one of the pupils in her class had been sitting. Hamilton then headed back inside the gym, dropped the pistol he was using and took out one of the two revolvers he also had on him. He then placed the barrel of the gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. This put an end to his reign of terror where he had shot 32 people in just a few minutes, 16 of which were killed in the gym including Gwen Mayor, another died on the way to hospital and 15 pupils, along with Eileen Harold, sustained gunshot wounds.

Amongst those pupils at Dunblane Primary School who managed to escape the tragedy that day were Andy Murray and his brother Jamie, who you may know today as professional tennis players. Andy Murray later said that he was too young at the time to understand what was happening at his school that day, but that it did have an impact on him, especially as he knew Hamilton from having attended his youth groups, and his mother had given Hamilton lifts in her car. Andy Murray has said that he focused on playing tennis which allowed him to deal with what had happened that terrible day in Dunblane.

Hamilton’s brutal and horrific actions were just the final act of someone whose entire life had been a complex web of hatred and lies.

Hamilton’s mother, Agnes, was born in 1931, but as the illegitimate daughter of a widow, Rachel Hamilton, which at the time would have been seen as a scandal, she was given away to relatives, James and Catherine Hamilton, who had no children of their own. In 1950, when Agnes was 19, she met and fell in love with Thomas Watt, who was a bus driver, and they were soon married. Two years later their son also called Thomas was born. Unfortunately 18 months later Agnes’s husband and the father of her child left her for another woman, so she returned to live with her adoptive parents, who unusually adopted her son Thomas as their own, making his mother his older sister instead.

In 1974 when Thomas Hamilton was 19, he was asked to quietly resign from the scouts after leading two incompetent camping trips to Aviemore in the Highlands. For one trip Hamilton had failed to book a hostel, even though he told the parents of the boys otherwise, forcing the boys to spend a cold night in the back of a van. And for the other trip Hamilton instructed the boys to dig snow holes making them cold and tired. The boy’s parents complained to the then scout organiser in Stirling, Comrie Deuchers, and Hamilton was dismissed. There was no hint of anything inappropriate or untoward but merely that he was not competent as a leader. However, for Hamilton he felt this was not the case and he became angry and was convinced people, including Deuchers, were spreading rumours he was a pervert, and this grievance would dominate the rest of his life.

Hamilton decided to form his own independent boys athletic clubs in school gyms, even mentioning his leadership and organisational role in the scouts, albeit without stating that in fact his leadership and organisational skills had been lacking and he’d been asked to resign due to his thoughtlessness. In the early 1980s there were series and sustained attempts by the Central Regional Council to stop Hamilton from holding his boys club meetings at schools in Dunblane, however, these were overturned by parents and the local government Ombudsman for Scotland, Eric Gillett. Gillett felt contempt for the decision to close the youth club solely on the strength of rumours saying that they were “vague” and should “have been heavily discounted” and that Hamilton was being treated unfairly and unjustly. Hamilton also received help from a retired counsellor for Stirling, Francis Saunders, who later said “I never got the impression that he was concealing misconduct” but added “He did have an ingratiating almost oily manner but I put that down to the buffetings he received.” Saunders and many others believed Hamilton was innocent until proven guilty, which was further aided by his enthusiasm for getting boys into athletics and his convincing denials of any guilt. Hamilton was able to mostly see off the police and the bureaucrats, this included four Scottish police forces who investigated him after receiving numerous complaints and accusations, but each time detectives failed to find any case that would stand up in court.  Hamilton managed to gain the support of others many of whom believed that the accusations were just unsubstantiated gossip.

Hamilton moved to a flat in Kent Road in 1983 with his adopted father James, who was in fact his adoptive grandfather of course. In a strange turn of events Hamilton’s flat was directly beneath the flat belonging to Comrie Deuchers, the same person who dismissed Hamilton from the scouts almost a decade earlier. However, according to Deuchers, he could not believe it when he saw Hamilton get out of the removal van when he first arrived, but he was surprised to find Hamilton was quite civil towards him. In 1984 David Vass, who was the Assistant Scout Commissioner for Stirling, was being asked on numerous social occasions about why Hamilton had left the scouts, but David Vass was unable to give a full answer due to the fact he had not been involved with the scouts at the time. However, this drew the attention of Hamilton who decided to confront David Vass and arrived at his house carrying a brown paper bag. Hamilton then accused him of spreading rumours, but after ten minutes he was told to leave, at which point Hamilton reached into the brown bag to turn off a tape recorder he had with him, before leaving.

Hamilton’s strange behaviour was known to parents and members of the boys clubs, but many thought he was just trying to give boys experiences he would have liked as a child. Although Hamilton had convinced himself that he was behaving properly, this was far from the truth. Hamilton was said to have favourites and they would go off on camps together to Loch Lomond, only for the boy to be sworn to secrecy when they returned. According to parents, Hamilton had made the boys hand over their clothes and dress in baggy swimming trunks, with one later claiming that he made the boys rub suntan lotion on him. Hamilton had photographs of many bare-chested boys on the walls of his home and even had collections of videos of boys running around his camp in Loch Lomond. In 1988 one of the parents handed in a dossier to the police who followed this up with a raid of the Loch Lomond camp, but there were no prosecutions. A few years later photography shops in nearby Stirling refused to develop pictures of the boys at the Loch Lomond camps saying they were obscene, but they were deemed not obscene enough by the police for Hamilton to be prosecuted.

Hamilton continued to live with his grandfather, or father, James, until 1992 when James walked out seemingly due to claims of being humiliated and pushed around by Hamilton. That same year Hamilton was banned from Fife Council schools after concerns about films he was making of boys. Around this time Hamilton also started to write letters to people he seemingly had grievances with or saw as enemies. In these letters he stated they were jealous of his successful boys clubs and were spreading rumours about him being a pervert. These letters continued until just before the killings in Dunblane. One of the recipients of the letters, David Vass, who was the Assistant Scout Commissioner for Stirling, described these letters as being utterly bewildering. In 1993 the Central Regional Council warned its teachers to inform their legal department before dealing with Hamilton. Also that year a couple of police inquiries were made. A year later in 1994 Hamilton would be cautioned by the police after he was caught behaving indecently in Edinburgh with a young man. Just a few months before Hamilton would carry out his terrible atrocity at Dunblane Primary School, he was denied membership of a local gun club after a couple of members who knew him mentioned that the club should have nothing to do with him. And only days before the killings he posted copies of letters he had written throughout the years addressed to parents in Dunblane, to council officials, to the Secretary of State for Scotland and even to the Queen. The letters claimed that rumours regarding his behaviour had caused his business to fail and his attempts to further organise boys clubs were being subject to persecution by police and the scout movement.

The days following the tragedy at Dunblane Primary School were full of grief and sadness at the loss of so many lives. After it was discovered that the killings were carried out using handguns that were owned legally, a campaign began named for the flowers that were in bloom at the time of the shootings. The Snowdrop Campaign urged people to sign a petition calling for a ban on the private ownership of handguns, as well as releasing a poster featuring a school blackboard with “Ban all handguns” written in chalk. The petition received over 750,000 signatures. Also, after the tragedy in Dunblane, Lord William Cullen chaired a public inquiry which recommended tighter controls on handgun ownership, and added its weight in considering whether banning ownership of handguns outside of gun clubs would be in the public interest. The inquiry also recommended changes in school security and how those who work with people under 18 are vetted. In 1997 the Snowdrop Campaign, along with public debate and recommendations from the inquiry, were successful in forcing the then conservative government to pass the Firearm Amendment Act. This banned all handguns, except .22 calibre single shot weapons, in England, Scotland and Wales, although it did not cover Northern Ireland. That same year the law was further extended to ban .22 calibre handguns after a general election that year. Once the law was passed around 160,000 handguns were surrendered to the police, and after one of the most successful campaigns in the history of the UK, the Snowdrop Campaign was disbanded.

In April 1996, a month after the tragedy, the gymnasium at Dunblane Primary School was demolished and replaced with a memorial garden. A few months later a memorial service was held for the victims and was broadcast live on television. The following year flowers such as two roses “Gwen Mayor” and “Innocence” were developed in memory of the victims, and a Snowdrop was named “Sophie North” in memory of one of the children killed. There is a story behind why the Snowdrop was named after Sophie North. It came about after a resident of Dunblane found a Snowdrop growing in her garden, and after hearing about what happened to Sophie, who was not only one of the victims of the Dunblane killings but had also lost her mother to cancer just a couple of years prior, she decided to name the Snowdrop after her. To mark the second anniversary of the massacre at Dunblane, a memorial garden was opened at Dunblane Cemetery where Gwen Mayer and 12 of the children lie buried. It features a fountain with the names of those killed, and three stained glass windows in memory of the victims were placed in local churches. In 2001 a standing stone on a Caithness flagstone base was dedicated in Dunblane’s cathedral, which featured quotations from poets and writers. People of Dunblane or Scotland or the whole of the United Kingdom will never forget the events that occurred that day, when the lives of so many at Dunblane Primary School were taken.

And that’s the end. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and know just the person who’d also like it, please share it with them don’t keep it to yourself.

Cole:

Please also get in touch on social media if you have any questions, comments or suggestions and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. All social media and contact details are on our website scottishmurders.com, as well as all the source material and photos related to this episode.

Dawn:

So that’s it for this week, come back next time for another episode of Scottish Murders.

Dawn and Cole:

Join us there. Bye.

Granny Robertson:

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn.

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn

Hosted by Dawn and Cole

Researched and Written by Peter Bull

Produced and Edited by Dawn Young and Peter Bull

Production Company Name by Granny Robertson

Music:

Dawn of the Fairies by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

Gothic Wedding by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

Elaine Doyle murder: Killer John Docherty loses appeal – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Brother tells of night she died – BBC News

Elaine Doyle: Trial hears of teenager’s final night – BBC News

Elaine Doyle: Parents unaware daughter lay dead nearby – BBC News

Elaine Doyle: Man ‘wanted to confess’ to murder – BBC News

Elaine Doyle: Evidence at scene ‘suggests a struggle’ – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Police ‘blunder’ after body found – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: John Docherty guilty of 1986 killing – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Scotland’s first cold case trial – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Trial judge begins directing jury – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Witness saw man ‘following’ girl – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Investigation ‘not good enough’ – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Witness questioned over car ‘tail’ – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Man accused by former friend – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Bullying claim over confession – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Man denies being sketch ‘suspect’ – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Witness admits giving false alibi to police – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Witness unaware he was named as killer – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Killer witness halts murder trial – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Trial told of crime scene ‘guess’ – BBC News

Elaine Doyle murder: Claim over conflicting evidence – BBC News

John Docherty jailed for 21 years for killing Greenock schoolgirl Elaine Doyle | HeraldScotland

Elaine Doyle: ‘Ginger hair put me in frame’ | The Scotsman

Elaine Doyle’s murderer brought to justice

First Cold Case Unit indictment served for historic murder case.

Elaine Doyle Murder: John Docherty Can Appeal Without Any Limitations – Criminal Defence Lawyers Edinburgh

HOW Police Persistence Finally Paid Off In The Elaine Doyle Murder Inquiry – Inverclyde Now

Elaine Doyle Killer Jailed For Life – Heart Scotland

Murder detective: ‘It was an honour to get justice for Elaine Doyle’s family’ | Greenock Telegraph

Who was Elaine Doyle? The murdered Greenock teen killed on way home from Celtic supporters’ Club – Daily Record

Man held over 1986 killing of Elaine, 16 | UK | News | Express.co.uk

Man Found Guilty Of Elaine Doyle Murder – Heart Scotland

John Docherty jailed for 21 years for killing Greenock schoolgirl Elaine Doyle | Glasgow Times

Elaine Doyle verdict: Elaine’s killer found guilty 28 years after she was murdered | Glasgow Times

Documentary to tell story of 28-year hunt for murderer of Greenock teenager Elaine Doyle, strangled to death in 1986 after returning from night out at Celtic Supporters’ Club – The Scottish Sun

Elaine Doyle’s killer snared after 28 year-old murder is solved by new DNA tests | Daily Mail Online

Elaine Doyle murder: Former soldier John Docherty found guilty of teenager’s killing in 1986 – Daily Record

Greenock Visitor Guide – Accommodation, Things To Do & More | VisitScotland

Steven McIntyre jailed for murdering Jack Doyle in Greenock – BBC News

John Docherty denies 1986 Elaine Doyle murder | The Scotsman

Man in court over 1986 murder of Elaine Doyle | Glasgow Times

John Docherty in court over Elaine Doyle death in Greenock – BBC News

APPEAL AGAINST CONVICTION AND SENTENCE BY JOHN DOCHERTY AGAINST HER MAJESTY’S ADVOCATE

Elaine Doyle’s father appeals in ‘cold case’ murder – BBC News

Dad of murdered Elaine Doyle dies without ever finding out who killed his daughter – Daily Record

Elaine Doyle murder: Accused ‘reacted’ to police hunt jibe – BBC News

The killer of Elaine Doyle was in the same class at school as her brother – Daily Record

Watt Institution : Historic Buildings & Conservation : Scotland’s New Buildings : Architecture in profile the building environment in Scotland – Urban Realm

Collective Architecture

Elaine Doyle went to her first grown-up disco in 1986 – it was her last – Daily Record

Elaine Doyle Killer John Docherty during police interview afterview – YouTube

Elaine Doyle Murder: John Docherty Can Appeal Without Any Limitations – Criminal Defence Lawyers Edinburgh

Elaine Doyle murder: John Docherty guilty of 1986 killing – BBC News

Elaine Doyle Killer John Docherty during police interview afterview – YouTube

Dawn:

It was suggested by two of our wonderful listeners that we cover this case. So, thank you Haley and Eddie for the suggestion. I hope I’ve done this sad and complex case justice.

49 year old John Docherty was arrested for the murder of 16 year old Elaine Doyle. Police officers involved in the case were relieved that Elaine’s killer had been caught and charged, however, Elaine Doyle’s murder inquiry had been anything but straightforward.

Hi Wee Ones, it’s just me Dawn today, so let’s get started.

[THEME TUNE]

It was the morning of Monday the 2nd of June 1986 and Jack and Maureen Doyle awoke after having a restless night’s sleep. Their daughter, Elaine, had been out the previous evening and had been due back about 12:30am, however, she had not turned up. Jack and Maureen had assumed that Elaine had decided to stay at her friend Lynn’s house for the night instead, as she often did. But still, until they knew Elaine was safe and sound, they couldn’t settle. Not wanting to call Lynn’s parents and wake them up to check that Elaine was there, they decided to wait and call in the morning and speak to Elaine then. So that morning Maureen opened the curtains, and was faced with a large amount of police presence on the street outside. She immediately began to have an awful feeling, which only deepened when she called Lynn’s home to find out that Elaine wasn’t there. Maureen quickly called round Elaine’s other friends but was met with the same story, Elaine was not there, and had last been seen about midnight walking towards her home. Just as panic was setting in, there was a knock at the door. Maureen opened the door to find two police officers standing there. She invited them in and immediately told them that her daughter had not come home last night and asked if the police presence was anything to do with her daughter. Elaine Doyle lived at Ardgowan Street in Greenock with her mum Maureen, dad Jack, and older brother John. Greenock is a town located in the West Central Lowlands of Scotland by the Firth of Clyde, about 25 miles or 40 kilometres west of Glasgow. According to visit Scotland, Greenock is the home to the world’s first Burns Club, with many of the founding members having known Robert Burns himself.  The Doyle family lived in a block of flats located a two-minute drive from the town centre. 16 year old Elaine worked during the week as a jewellers assistant in Greenock, but on a weekend she enjoyed nothing more than spending time with her friends and attending a local disco. She just loved dancing. The group of friends weren’t really interested in boys and they just enjoyed hanging out, having a laugh and dancing. Elaine had a good relationship with her mum Maureen and Dad Jack, who was a postman, however, Elaine and her brother John, who was 21 at the time, had been drifting apart and hadn’t been talking much to each other. Elaine’s brother, John, would later say that they would disrespect each other and get on each others nerves. He saw Elaine as his annoying little sister. However, Elaine didn’t let the conflict with her elder brother stop her from enjoying herself and, on Saturday the 31st of May 1986, Elaine and her friends spent the evening at their local pool hall. Elaine then stayed the night with her best friend, Lynn Ryan. The two parted ways on the Sunday afternoon and Elaine headed into town to buy some leggings for both of the girls, before heading back to her own home to get ready for going to a disco that night. After spending hours getting ready, and eventually settling on wearing a black and white dress with her favourite blue leather jacket, Elaine said bye to her parents, with her dad saying in reply “Watch yourself”, before she headed off to meet up with Lynn and their other friends, with the group then heading to the disco, which was on at the Greenock Celtic Supporters Club in Laird Street, about a ten minute walk from Elaine’s house. The group of friends had a good night, they laughed, danced lots and had between one and two pints each. Elaine called her parents about 8:30pm to say she would be home about 12:30am and not to wait up, before carrying on enjoying herself. About 11:30pm, the group of girls walked to a hamburger stall located in Cathcart Street, about a ten minute walk from the disco, where they bought a burger and chatted about their night out. About midnight Elaine said bye to her friends, turning down a drive home from a friend’s brother as they lived in the opposite direction from Elaine, and Lynn saying in reply “Okay, I will see you tomorrow.” Elaine then began to walk the 15 minutes home. This would be the last time Lynn would see her best friend again.

On Monday the 2nd of June just after 7:30am, the Greenock police received a phone call from a member of the public who had gone to their car to go to work and had instead found a body lying in a lane off Ardgowan Street next to an Air Training Corps Hut. PC Alan Stewart was asked to attend the scene, and he did indeed see a body. He saw a naked female lying on its side with a blue leather jacket, a black and white dress, and a pair of shoes nearby. Sadly, PC Alan Stewart confirmed that the female was dead. Senior officers and forensic officers were immediately dispatched and the surrounding area was cordoned off, and a murder inquiry was launched. It was immediately noted that the scene of the crime suggested that a struggle had taken place as a clump of hair was found on the ground near the body, and the female also appeared to have a black eye. Following the post-mortem, it was surmised that she had been struck on the head and either made to remove her clothes or they had been removed. It was then thought that she’d been forced to the ground, had her face pushed into the ground, while her murderer sat or knelt on her and placed a ligature around her neck, believed to have been a rope, but this was never found, and strangled her. The official cause of death was “asphyxia due to strangulation by ligature”. The attack was thought to have been a sexually motivated one due to her being naked, but it is believed there was no conclusive evidence of sexual assault.

While forensics were working on gathering evidence from the scene, police officers were given the task of starting door-to-door inquiries. PC Alan Stewart and PC William Carmichael teamed up and approached the block of flats that was closest to the scene where the body had been found, firstly knocking on the door of a Mr and Mrs Doyle. Following Mrs Doyle explaining to the police officers that her daughter hadn’t come home after a night out, she invited PC Carmichael and PC Stewart into her home to give them more information about her missing daughter Elaine. She was asked to describe her daughter and what she had been wearing the previous evening, at which point both police officers believed that it was very likely that the dead female lying in the lane 50 yards or 46 meters from the flat they were in and Elaine’s home, was Mr and Mrs Doyle’s missing 16 year old daughter Elaine. Elaine had made it within reaching distance of the safety of her home before being brutally attacked and murdered. Armed with a description from Mr and Mrs Doyle of what Elaine had been wearing the night before, the two PCs then left the Doyle household and returned to the scene of the crime to inform their superior officers of their findings and thoughts. The superior officers also agreed that they had likely found out the identity of the body. However, a member of the Doyle family would have to be asked to formally identify the body. This couldn’t be arranged immediately as Elaine’s body was still at the scene as evidence was still needed to be collected.

Now, due to where the body was found there were quite a number of flats that were overlooking the scene of the crime and it had been noted by police officers that members of the public could see exactly what was going on, as well as looking directly to where the body was lying. At this time forensic tents didn’t exist and so in order to preserve the dignity of the victim, officers decided to hang blankets obtained from the back of police cars over the fence in front of the Air Training Corps Hut to try and obscure the view of Elaine’s body. Which would have been fine, but one police officer also wanted to give Elaine some dignity and so placed a blanket over her body. Although seemingly a kind gesture, this could impact on any forensic evidence that may have been found on the body, although such things were relatively new back then so would certainly not have been done maliciously. When forensic officers came to forensically examine the body, firstly they were annoyed that a blanket had been placed over the body. But also when they began to use strips of tape to try and collect any hairs or fibre that may be on the body, their samples were contaminated by fibres from the blanket. Back in 1986 DNA and forensic evidence was still in its infancy, and it wouldn’t be until almost two years later before a DNA sample found on another murder victim led to the arrest and conviction of the murderer. But the forward-thinking forensic officers at the scene did deem it prudent to use strips of tape to collect what evidence may be on Elaine’s body, despite the extra fibres from the blanket, even if nothing was able to be done with it at the time. The samples were checked to see if any of the killer’s hair had been taken from Elaine’s body, but sadly nothing was found. The strips of tape samples were carefully and correctly stored in the hope that one day forensics would advance enough to be able to use them. Once forensics had taken samples from Elaine’s body she then was able to be transported to the mortuary, where Elaine’s dad, Jack, and her brother, John, did formally identify the body as being Elaine.

Following the identity of the body being confirmed as Elaine, a massive press appeal by the police and the Doyle family was made for any witnesses to come forward with any information they had. However, the police believed they may already have a line of inquiry. While all of Elaine’s clothing had been found at the scene, her bag was not found. Police believed that it had been taken by Elaine’s killer, and so appealed for information about this too.  However, this line of inquiry fizzled out a week later when Elaine’s bag turned up on the steps of a library, a three-minute walk away from where Elaine’s body was found. The bag and contents were burned and there were no clues from this discovery. But who had placed it there? Had the killer burned it and placed it there, or had the killer discarded it and it had been found by someone else who had burned it and put it there? If it had been the killer who had left Elaine’s bag there, then this was even more chilling, as it meant the killer was a local. Sadly these questions were to be left unanswered. Even more discouragingly, following the appeal for witnesses, although police did receive a vast number of calls, sadly, no one appeared to have any evidence or leads for the detectives. Meanwhile the close-knit community of Greenock were in shock by what had happened to Elaine, especially as Ardgowan Street was such a quiet place in a well-off area of town, with wide tree-lined streets and big old Victorian houses. They couldn’t believe there was a murderer in their midst, walking their streets. Parents were fearful of letting their children out and people became suspicious of others. Which wasn’t helped when in August 1986, according to BBC News, a witness had reported seeing a ginger or auburn-haired man acting suspiciously in a stairwell in Greenock. An artist’s impression was created and released and then the fingers really started to be pointed, with one disgruntled employee even pointing the finger at his boss. It was a scary time if you happened to have ginger or auburn hair in Greenock. Another man, Stephen Friel, reported that as soon as the artist’s impression was released it spread like wildfire that he had killed Elaine Doyle, just because of his hair colour. It was also reported to police by a witness that while Stephen had been on a night out in Greenock he had been attacked by a group of youths for saying “That wee girl, I did it.”, a claim which Stephen denies ever happened.  Going on to say in the Scotsman Newspaper on the 13th of May 2014 that it was “evil people” that were to blame for the rumours. All of the finger pointing red herring reports had to be investigated though. 

As well as this, while PC Stewart and PC Carmichael came across Mr or Mrs Doyle on their very first door-to-door visit, there still were many many more houses and flats to be visited to gather as much information about Elaine Doyle’s murder as possible. In fact the area to be covered was so large and the endeavour so massive that many other officers were drafted in from other police forces to help with the inquiry. The aim was to speak to every single tenant that lived along the route that Elaine would have taken from leaving the hamburger stall to her home in Ardgowan Street. The fact that Elaine had deliberately, and sensibly, walked along more open well-lit streets in order to be safe, only made the number of houses or flats she passed that needed to be visited even more. Plus, to be absolutely sure they had spoken to everyone who may have seen anything at all, the police also included an extra couple of streets around Ardgowan Street to their door-to-door inquiries. They also did their best to track down and speak to every single person who had signed in at the members only Celtic Supporters Club that evening, who they had been with, and if anyone had seen or spoken to Elaine. As well as appealing for any witnesses who were in the area that evening to also come forward. A mobile police unit was set up near Ardgowan Street for any witnesses to more easily give witness statements. The door-to-door inquiry took seven to eight months to complete, with some tenancies having changed hands a couple of times before the police got round to visiting. It was a massive operation, but the police were determined to track down Elaine’s killer. All in all, at the end of the inquiry, 14,000 names featured in the investigation, 4,500 statements had been taken and almost 2,400 door-to-door forms were completed. Every single bit of evidence, witness statement or potential suspect had to be investigated and, while there were some red herrings and obvious misdirection when it came to the reporting of people with auburn or ginger hair colour being involved in Elaine’s murder, there were other witnesses and suspects whose statements had to be investigated, some of which really did give the police food for thought.

Firstly, there was the witness statement from Elaine’s friend, Lynn Ryan. When asked if she could think of anyone who would want to harm Elaine she mentions a William Campbell, who was known as Daft Willie. She said that he spent a lot of time around the pool hall and would speak to Elaine. She said Elaine would joke with Willie that he was her boyfriend when he was feeling low, just to cheer him up. It was reported that he had learning difficulties and was easily wound up, and he did have auburn hair. According to the BBC news on the 9th of April 2014, Lynn stated that she “wouldn’t have been surprised if he had turned violent.” When questioned, William Campbell said that his hair may have been auburn, but it was a different style to the artist impression one. According to the BBC News, a police report said that he and Elaine were “on talking terms at the pool hall.” Lynn also mentioned that Elaine told her and other friends that in the weeks leading up to her death she thought that a blue car was following her.  Police now had another line of inquiry.

When Lynn was shown the artist’s impression released in August 1986, she said she thought it looked like a man called Francis McCurdy, who was known as Spike. Francis McCurdy was ruled out, and actually went on to marry Lynn, Elaine’s friend.

Following on from Lynn’s revelation that Elaine thought she was being followed by someone driving a blue car, the police were keen to speak to 19 year old Donald McKirdy. Donald worked as a clerical assistant for Strathclyde Police back in 1986 and had permed his collar length dark brown hair. When questioned by the police, he said that he did borrow his dad’s silver blue Vauxhall Nova car and did enjoy driving around the streets of Greenock on a night, either alone or with his friends. He said he didn’t go out specifically to look at girls, but invariably did. In fact he thought he had probably looked at thousands, but he denied ever looking at Elaine. However, after thinking about this, he then stated that he may have looked at Elaine, but as he didn’t know her or what she looked like, he didn’t know it was  Elaine. He said he hadn’t recognised her when he saw her photo in the newspapers. According to BBC news on the 2nd of May 2014, around the same time another female had reported that a male with curly hair, driving either a green or blue car, had asked her if she wanted a lift. At the time, Donald McKirdy also borrowed his mum’s car, which was green.

Another man to be questioned was 18 year old Allan Cleary, who had known Elaine from visiting the jewellers shop where she worked where he bought an earring, and he had often been walking past the jewellers as Elaine was putting down the shutters of the shop at the end of the day. He told detectives that she was good looking, but that he didn’t try to chat her up. He also told detectives what he had been wearing that night, as well as the fact that he had seen Elaine on the night of her murder at a hamburger stall in town in the early hours of the 2nd of June 1986. A week after giving his statement to the police and seeing that police were appealing for witnesses to come forward again, and realising that Elaine had last been seen at the hamburger stall before going home at about 12 midnight not the early hours of the morning as he had falsely told the police previously, he asked a friend of his to give him an alibi. His friend refused.  Allan Cleary went back to the police a week later and told them he had lied, told them that he’d been wearing entirely different clothing and that he had been at home watching TV with his parents at the time of the murder. He said he lied because he had been scared that he may have been walking around by himself alone at the time of the murder, and so he made the story up.

Also walking about the streets on the evening Elaine Doyle was murdered were two ex-prisoners, 19 year old Robert Brown and 17 year old Brian Buckley, who were looking for affluent houses to break into and rob.  When Robert was questioned by the police, he said that he had only been showing Brian where the more affluent houses were, as Robert was from Greenock, then he had returned to his home. He said that Brian Buckley turned up at his house later carrying a guitar and cans of lager he had stolen. According to the BBC news on the 30th of April 2014, Robert told police in his statement that he didn’t think Brian would commit a murder, although went on to say “He is a bit of a nut case.” When questioned, Brian Buckley told a different story, saying that both men had in fact been out to rob houses that evening. They had found a house that had a window open so Brian climbed inside and Robert was supposed to wait outside as the lookout, but he lost his nerve and ran away, leaving Brian in the house alone. Brian admitted that he was angry he had been left.

Police also questioned 35 year old James Wilson who told the police that he had been kerb crawling in the area for years, where he would stop and ask attractive girls if they wanted a lift. He also admitted driving to Glasgow where he would pick up sex workers. He was married to a nurse who worked the “twilight shifts”.

The police were also keen to speak to 24 year old Colin Dominick when one of his friends made a statement to the police, which, according to the BBC News on the 7th of May 2014, said “He keeps on bringing up the subject of the murder and told me she had been killed by the use of a car aerial and a belt.”  Colin’s friend said he had dismissed these claims thinking that Colin was just acting big. Another statement made also said that Colin Dominick would park his father’s blue Datsun Bluebird car in the town centre on the weekends where he would watch girls going in and out of pubs and clubs and would often make inappropriate remarks. When questioned by the police, Colin Dominick denied all of these allegations, saying he knew nothing about a belt or a car aerial. But police were very suspicious as one of the items found near to Elaine had been a car aerial, a fact that had never been released to the public. If this had just been a guess, it was an incredibly good one.

Detectives also visited and took a statement from 16 year old Colin McIntyre, who worked in a nearby club and who knew Elaine from attending the pool halls. Colin McIntyre told detectives where he had been the evening Elaine had been murdered and, apparently satisfied, the detectives had left. However, apparently later the same day it is alleged that Colin McIntyre visited the police station and made a further statement, very different and much more graphic than the first one. The reason I say alleged is because Colin has denied that he ever wrote the unsigned statement. He has said that he was terrified by threats of violence by the police and has alleged that a detective Langford-Johnston, a detective working on the case, and his colleagues, bullied him and made up the statement.  The statement supposedly by Colin is very graphic and detailed. It says that Colin and three of his friends, one being called Wilks, met up with Elaine, who they knew, and the four agreed to walk Elaine home, before the five of them went down the lane where Elaine’s body was found. At this point one of Colin’s friends apparently began kissing Elaine and taking her clothes off. A struggle ensued and Elaine had apparently sat down on the ground, naked. Elaine then apparently tried to stand up but fell backwards and hit her head, lying there not moving. Allegedly, then Wilks picked up a piece of string and put it around Elaine’s neck, killing her. Then they apparently all left in a panic. Following the statement being made, Colin was then released.  However, Colin McIntyre had an alibi, which checked out, and he was never charged with wasting police time.

While the police were speaking to as many people as they could and sifting through all the information they had been given, a glimmer of hope appeared in the form of 24 year old Martin Brown. Martin, who used to live in Greenock but had moved away, had returned to Greenock for a few days to visit his parents, who still lived there at the time of Elaine’s murder, to watch the World Cup with his friends. Around the same time that Elaine would have been close to Ardgowan Street and the safety of her home, Martin was walking back from friends to his parents house, walking near Ardgowan Street. He said that he witnessed a female walking towards Ardgowan Street, being closely followed by a male who looked like he was hurrying to catch up with the female. While he said he only caught a glimpse of the man’s face, he would forever remember it due to the man’s big eyes and angry expression. Martin thought that perhaps they had been a couple, and by telling the police he thought that they could be identified and questioned, and in turn eliminate Martin, as Martin was going back to his home in London the next day and he didn’t want it to appear suspicious. Martin initially said that the man had auburn or ginger hair, but later changed his statement saying he couldn’t be sure as he was colour blind. But he was able to describe the male as being tall, slim and with military tattoos. Sadly, Martin was not able to say whether the female he saw was Elaine or not from the pictures he was shown.

Armed with this new lead of a potential description of Elaine’s killer, the police doing door-to-door inquiries were given this description to see if it matched any males they came across. However, despite the vast number of male residents that were included in this inquiry, no male matching this description was found.

Despite the massive number of police officers involved in this case, the truly amazing amount of information that had been collected by police officers from members of the public, witness statements, numerous possible suspects, and the fact that the Serious Crime Squad had taken over this case, sadly the case began to go cold, the inquiry was scaled down, and Elaine’s murder went unsolved. Elaine’s family however never gave up hope that one day their daughter’s murderer would be brought to justice. Elaine’s dad, Jack, was particularly active and campaigned relentlessly for justice for Elaine. The Doyle family maintained a great relationship with detectives and they kept in regular contact to keep the family updated,  despite there being no new leads. As the years passed by, Elaine’s parents, Jack and Maureen, and Elaine’s brother, John, tried their best to remember Elaine how she was and the good times they spent together, but life would never be the same again. Life did go on for the Doyle family though and John married and had a son, who he called Jack, and a step-daughter called Sarah Jane, but Elaine and getting justice for her was never far from the family’s mind.

While Elaine’s case was reviewed periodically, it wouldn’t be until 2005 when the first forensic review would be carried out. It turned out that the clothing Elaine had been wearing on the night of her murder had become contaminated over the years, however, the forensic officers back in 1986 who had used strips of tape to collect any evidence from Elaine’s body, despite the blanket having been placed over the body, had made sure that these samples had been stored in such a way that they had not been contaminated, and so were sent off for the forensic lab to see if they had captured anything from Elaine’s body at the time. And lo and behold they had. From samples from Elaine’s face and back, a DNA profile was obtained of who detectives believed was Elaine’s killer. The police database, sadly, however, did not find a match to the profile obtained, but it was a huge breakthrough, they just needed to find a match.

Due to the breakthrough, a small team from Greenock police continued to work on the case, going through the witness statements and the over 14,000 names that came up in the initial investigation. From this, a list of 722 potential suspects was collated, and the arduous task of tracking down each person that was on the list and collecting a DNA sample from began. This was such a massive endeavour that it would take years to get to the point of actually collecting DNA samples. But for the small team of officers carrying out this massive inquiry help was on the way in the form of the Cold Case Team, which had been set up in 2011, who would be carrying out a cold case review, which would be led by Detective Superintendent Bobby Hendren. The cold case review of Elaine Doyle’s murder inquiry was called Operation Evergreen. At that point the small team became 40 strong, a whole floor in the Greenock Police Station was taken over and every single bit of information was gone over with a fresh pair of eyes, and finally the team were ready to begin to collect DNA samples from the males on the list. This included asking Australian and Canadian officials to collect samples from six of their residents. It also included tracking down and obtaining a DNA sample from many men named John Docherty, whose name had been missed in the initial investigation, who lived in the Greenock area at the time of Elaine Doyle’s murder. A John Docherty had apparently been at the Celtic Club with his friend the same night Elaine had been murdered.  His friend had been questioned by the police in 1986 and he had told the police this information, and they had written this information down with a note that said, John Docherty should be tracked down, interviewed and eliminated. However, sadly, this note had been overlooked at the time of the initial investigation and John Doherty had never been interviewed.

While the Cold Case Team were working hard on Elaine’s case, on the 2nd of June 2011, which was the 25th anniversary of Elaine’s murder, Elaine’s dad, Jack, made a televised appeal asking for information on Elaine’s murder. He said “For Maureen (Elaine’s mother) and I time has not healed the wounds. The passage of time teaches you to cope with the heartbreak, but as any parent who has lost a child will know, the pain Maureen and I feel on a daily basis is as real as when we first received that awful news. What Maureen and I are asking for today is for answers to these questions. Elaine was so young and had so much to offer others. We have been robbed of the opportunity to watch her grow into adulthood and become a mother herself. We know nothing can bring Elaine back to us, but if we could just have some of our questions answered then I know that this would bring us some comfort and make our daily lives just that bit more bearable.”  Tragically, this would be Elaine’s dad Jack’s last appeal for information, as on the 6th of January 2012 he passed away at the age of 69, having lost his battle with cancer. In an absolutely horrendous twist, Jack passed away three days after finding out that his 17 year old grandson, also called Jack, had been murdered. The teen had been stabbed through the heart and left for dead. His murderer was caught, tried and sentenced to life imprisonment, to serve a minimum of 15 years. At the trial it was reported that had Jack received medical attention immediately, he could have survived.

Having come across the name John Docherty from the initial investigation, detectives from Operation Evergreen began the task of tracking down and obtaining a voluntary DNA sample from any John Docherty who lived in Greenock. However, the name John Docherty was a very common name in Greenock and detectives would find at least three living in very close proximity to each other, one of whom was appalled at the very suggestion he had ever set foot in the Celtic Supporters Club as he was a massive Glasgow Ranger supporter, a rival football team. However, eventually detectives finally tracked down the correct John Docherty and discovered that he was still living in Greenock. And so in May 2012 two detectives visited him at home to ask for a voluntary sample.

John Docherty had been 21 at the time of Elaine Doyle’s murder. He had gone to school with Elaine’s brother John, but it was unclear if he knew Elaine or if Elaine had known him. At the time of Elaine’s murder, John Docherty had been living with his parents at Ann Street in Greenock, which is a 19 minute walk away from Elaine’s home, and he’d been engaged to a Linda Hargie. This relationship had lasted on and off until 1995. A year after the murder, John Docherty had left Greenock to join the army, where he served six years, before returning once again to Greenock where he became a driver for the council. Over the years, after his relationship ended with Linda, John Docherty met and moved in with another female, who he had a young daughter with.

When police officers asked John Doherty to give a DNA sample they said that he was more than willing to give one and told the detectives quite casually that he had also been at the Celtic Club that night, appearing to be forthcoming and open with officers. The DNA obtained from John Docherty was then sent to be forensically tested and compared with the DNA profile that had been found on Elaine’s body. It wouldn’t be long before Detective Sergeant Mairi Milne, part of Operation Evergreen and who had worked on and off on the case since 2008, received an email saying that the sample taken from John Docherty was a match to the DNA profile found on Elaine’s face and back. Former Detective Sergeant Mairi Milne said in the Greenock Telegraph on the 11 of October 2019 “I was stunned. I read the email and it said we had a one in a billion hit.” 

While the initial reaction to this was absolute relief for all involved, the hard work didn’t end there. Now John Docherty’s life had to be gone over with a fine-tooth comb in order to find out everything possible about him, such as what was he like, what had he been like back in 1986, who did he know, where did he work, who were his friends, was he definitely at the Celtic Club, and was there any chance that Elaine and John Docherty had come into contact at the Celtic Club that night? Speaking on the Crime and Investigation Channel TV show Murder Town The Elaine Doyle episode released on Monday the 28th of October 2019, former Detective Mairi Milne said that they also had to track down all of John Docherty’s friends from 1986 and find out what they could from them without raising any suspicions. Again, this all took time and planning. The detectives also contacted Martin Brown, who back in 1986 had said he had seen a man with big eyes and an angry face following a female close to Ardgowan Street, bearing in mind that when Martin was initially spoken to he had said that he wasn’t able to say if the female he saw was Elaine, he didn’t think so. However, over the years, and having seen other pictures of Elaine, he had been quite definite that, yes, the female he had seen was indeed Elaine. Now detectives approached him with more photographs, including one of John Docherty back in 1986, in the hope that he would be able to identify him. They wouldn’t be disappointed. Martin was able to identify that the big-eyed, angry-faced man he had seen that night back in 1986 had been none other than John Docherty.

Armed with this information, and having gleaned all of the information they possibly could from John Docherty’s former friends, as well as having obtained a further DNA sample from John Docherty for absolute confirmation, which also matched the DNA profile taken from Elaine, they were finally ready to bring him in for questioning on the 22nd of March 2013, 26 years and nine months after Elaine Doyle had been murdered. I’ve included a short clip of John Docherty being interviewed on our website, but he basically denied knowing anything about the murder other than what he had read in the papers. He said he had been at his parents home watching TV with them on the night of the murder, however, sadly his parents had both passed away so were unable to corroborate his alibi. Although being questioned thoroughly, John Docherty was unable to give a reason why his DNA had been found on Elaine’s back and face. And so on the 23rd of March 2013, John Docherty was arrested and charged with Elaine Doyle’s murder, appearing in court a few days later for a private hearing where he was formally charged and remanded in custody. However, in a strange twist John Docherty was granted bail and was able to live his life as a free man until his trial. John Docherty then made his first public appearance at the High Court in Glasgow on the 10th of February 2014 where he faced the charges of murdering Elaine Doyle, as well as theft of her bag and assault to injury, where he was accused of assaulting his then fiancée Linda Hargie between 1990 and 1995. At this preliminary hearing, John Docherty denied these charges and lodged a special defence of alibi and incrimination. A trial date was then set for the 24th of February 2014 at the High Court in Edinburgh. This case was the first to come to trial following a Cold Case Team investigation.

Following John Docherty’s arrest being made public, Elaine Doyle’s family, as well as all the residents of Greenock, breathed a sigh of relief, finally the killer had been caught.  However, there was also a huge amount of shock from the community, as well as from John Docherty’s colleagues, that this man had been living and working in Greenock pretty much since the murder. His colleagues were incredulous that this quiet family man had committed such an atrocious murder.

So, when the trial started on the 24th of February 2014 it attracted a lot of attention. It was explained in the opening days of the trial to the jury that the special defence of incrimination that John Docherty’s Defence Queen’s Council, Donald Finley, had put forward meant that from the list of 722 potential suspects the police had investigated, a short list of 41 names had been put forward by the defence as potentially just as likely to have committed the murder as John Docherty. The names of the 41 males put forward by the defence took to the stand in the trial for questioning, but I’m only going to cover just a few of these potential suspects testimonies, some of which I have mentioned previously. First up was Donald McCurdy, who was 19 at the time of Elaine’s murder, who worked as a clerical assistant at Strathclyde Police and who liked to borrow his dad’s blue car and his mother’s green car to go around the streets of Greenock on a night looking at girls. At the time he had categorically denied that he had known Elaine or even seen her, not recognising her from photos, however, on the witness stand under questioning he admitted that he did know Elaine as she had regularly walked past his then home, which was located not far from Ardgowan Street. When asked why he had lied he said he didn’t know. When it was put to him that he was in fact the man driving the blue car Elaine had seen following her weeks before her death Donald McCurdy said “Not to my knowledge, no”, but on further questioning said it was quite possible. Donald McCurdy denied killing Elaine Doyle. Allan Cleary, who had been 18 at the time, was next on the stand. Allan Cleary had initially lied to police about seeing Elaine at the hamburger stall in the early hours of the morning when actually Elaine had already been murdered. He lied about what he’d been wearing and asked a friend to give him an alibi. Under questioning, Allan Cleary admitted making a terrible error of judgment. When asked why he had misled police in their inquiry into Elaine’s murder, possibly suggesting he had an ulterior motive, he replied “I don’t have an answer.” He was asked what kind of man goes out of their way to lie about something so serious, unless they have something to hide? In reply he said “An evil man.” He was then asked if he wanted to admit to murdering Elaine Doyle, to which he replied “No, because I had nothing to do with it.” The jury was told that Allan Cleary had been at home with his parents watching TV at the time of the murder. Next in the dock to be questioned was Robert Brown, who was 19 at the time and one half of the pair who were out looking to rob houses on the night Elaine was murdered. Robert Brown was asked if he knew if his partner in crime, Brian Buckley who was 17 at the time, had been anywhere near Ardgowan Street on the night of their robbery attempt, to which he said he hadn’t known where Brian Buckley had gone. He was then asked if he had been aware that Brian Buckley had accused him of murdering Elaine. He said he had not. Apparently after a televised appeal in 2008 a man claiming to be Brian Buckley had telephoned police saying he had information about the murder. Apparently Brian Buckley had got Elaine’s surname wrong but had given other very accurate information. When Robert Brown was asked why he thought Brian Buckley would do this Robert said that the defence would have to ask Brian himself. Defence Counsel, Donald Finley, then said in reply that they would be asking Brian Buckley this question, however, was Robert aware that Brian Buckley was currently serving a life sentence for murdering a young woman? Robert was shocked and replied that he hadn’t known this. Shortly after this Robert asked for a break. Then it was the turn of Brian Buckley himself. The court was told that 45 year old Brian Buckley was serving a life sentence having been convicted of strangling his 25 year old partner to death four years earlier, as well as having a long history of dishonesty and assault. Brian was firstly asked about the night Elaine Doyle had been murdered and Brian told his side of the story, admitting that he had been angry that his friend had abandoned him on the robbing expedition. The defence, Donald Finley, then suggested to Brian that he had been looking for someone to take his anger out on, which is when the “no comments” started. Brian Buckley replied no comment to many questions after this, including when being asked how he had strangled his girlfriend and why he had killed her, with the Defence Counsel, Donald Findlay, suggesting that there were similarities between the murder of Elaine Doyle and Brian Buckley’s girlfriend. The final tipping point for Brian Buckley was when Donald Findlay asked the question “Why are you not prepared to tell the jury what kind of man you are?”, at which point Brian swore at the defence and stepped down from the witness box. He was immediately surrounded by security, to which he stated “Do you want me to start fighting?” Brian Buckley was then removed from the courtroom. Colin Dominick, who was 24 years old at the time of Elaine Doyle’s murder, had been questioned by the police due to his friend making a statement that Colin had kept bringing up the murder and told his friend that Elaine had been killed using a car aerial and belt, with Colin Dominick denying this or of knowing anything about an aerial or a belt, despite an aerial being found close to Elaine’s body. In court, Colin Dominick said he wouldn’t have known Elaine if she had walked passed him. When he was asked about allegations supposedly made by his ex-girlfriends about him stalking them after their relationships had ended, of repeatedly sounding his horn outside their houses late at night, or of one ex-girlfriend being dragged into a shop doorway and being punched, he denied these, saying he had never been violent towards a woman in his life and didn’t know why they were telling such lies about him. Then it was the turn of Colin McIntyre, who had been 16 at the time of the murder and who, after giving the police an initial statement, had apparently gone to the police station to give another one, but this time it was much more graphic, saying that he had stood by and watched Elaine be stripped and strangled. Colin McIntyre contested this statement though saying that he’d been threatened with violence from police officers and that police officers had actually written the statement, a fact that defence QC, Donald Findlay, disputed. He put it to Colin McIntyre that he did actually confess to being involved in Elaine Doyle’s murder, either for attention or because he was involved. Colin McIntyre reiterated that no, this was not correct, he had been forced to confess for fear of threats of violence from the police and that he’d been scared. Ignoring this response, Donald Findlay continued by saying that it sounded like a statement from somebody who’d actually been there, asking Colin McIntyre if it was him, to which he said no. But Donald Finlay pushed on, asking Colin to tell everyone now who had killed Elaine, with Colin McIntyre stating that he didn’t know. Donald Findlay finished up by asking why officers would put their careers and pensions on the line by fabricating a story, to which Colin McIntyre said “I think about it a lot, and I don’t know why.” A stream of potential other suspects came and went one after another, until finally it was the turn of witness Martin Brown, who had been 24 years old at the time of Elaine’s murder and had been walking back to his parents home when he happened to see a female being followed by a male with big eyes and an angry face. He told the court that the male he had seen had been wearing dark clothing and had big eyes, but that he’d only seen his face for a split second, although had glanced twice at the female walking in front of the male. When cross-examined by Donald Findlay for the defence, he first asked Martin how he could be so sure the female he had seen that night had been Elaine after ten years, when he hadn’t recognised Elaine from photos at the time, after describing her at the time as being about 20 years old with shoulder length hair, with much of the description from Martin Brown not matching Elaine. Martin replied that he hadn’t recognised Elaine as being the female he had seen that night initially, however, upon being shown newer photos to the ones in the newspapers of Elaine, he instantly recognised her. Donald Findlay next asked Martin how he could be so sure that the male he had seen that night following close behind Elaine was John Docherty, to which Martin Brown said that in 2012 when police had brought him 12 mug shots to look at he had been able to narrow them down to three and there was one that he thought was similar to the person he had glimpsed the night of Elaine’s murder back in 1986. Donald Findlay continued by stating that according to Martin Brown’s statement the male would have caught up to the female pretty quickly,  to which Martin agreed saying he would have caught up to her in a second or two. Donald Findlay then jumped on the fact that if the male had caught up to the female within a second or two and a struggle had taken place then surely Martin would have heard this, to which Martin Brown said “I would have heard her. I would have heard something. I heard nobody.” Next on the stand was forensic scientist, Pauline McSorley, where she described testing the DNA that had been found on Elaine’s body, going on to see that two results had been found on Elaine’s back and face that could not be accounted for, until a DNA sample that had been volunteered by John Docherty in May 2012 had been tested, and it was reported in the BBC News on the 17th of June 2014 that the results showed that it was 560,000 times more likely it came from the accused than any other unrelated male. The defence also brought up the fact that a blanket had been placed over Elaine’s body possibly contaminating any evidence that was found. However, the question still remained, how did John Doherty’s DNA get onto a blanket taken from the back of a police car? Then, in a further blow to John Docherty’s case, his ex-fiancée, Linda Hargie, who had been in a volatile on and off relationship with John Doherty from 1984 to 1995, took to the stand. It was explained that she had been approached by police after John Docherty’s arrest when they were trying to glean as much information about John as possible, and what Linda had to say was very interesting. Apparently, Linda had been aware that John Docherty had been at the Celtic Club on the evening before Elaine Doyle was murdered, and when appeals were being made for anyone who had been at the club that night to come forward, she suggested he should go to the police.  But, according to the BBC news on the 4th of June 2014, his response was that he had no intention of contacting police, going on to say that it was unlikely they would come to the door for him because he hadn’t signed the visitors book. She went on to say that one day, a few years later, when the relationship had become more turbulent and when John Docherty was in the army, the couple had an argument just as John was leaving to go back to the army and Linda had brought up the murder of Elaine Doyle again saying something along the lines of “I wonder what would happen to your army career if they knew you had not fulfilled your obligation.” She said that John Docherty reacted very angrily to this remark, turning and pushing Linda by the throat or shoulders against the wall, holding her there while saying “Never say that again.” Despite being aware that John Docherty had been at the Celtic Club on the night of Elaine’s murder, Linda made the decision not to come forward to the police, despite being aware of media attention around the case over the years, going on to say that she was “totally shocked” when John Docherty had been charged with the murder.

After 52 days of evidence, and following the closing statements, Judge Lord Stewart, who had been presiding over the trial, began his legal direction to the jury, which consisted of eight women and seven men. He told them they must put aside emotion and follow the evidence they accepted to its logical conclusion, whether the outcome be conviction or acquittal. Lord Stewart also made it clear that the jurors had to be satisfied that the DNA found on Elaine’s body had got there during the commission of a crime. The jury then retired, but it would take only four short hours before the jury were back with a verdict.

On the 17th of June 2014 John Docherty was found guilty. So, despite all of the noise produced by the defence by bringing in 41 potential other suspects to the trial, the jury was sure, beyond a reasonable doubt that on the 2nd of June 1986 John Docherty had indeed murdered 16 year old Elaine Doyle. John Docherty’s sentence would be a mandatory life sentence, but Judge Lord Stewart asked for reports on John Docherty before he handed down the fixed term that John Docherty must serve before being eligible for parole. Sentencing was deferred until August and John Docherty was remanded in custody.

The conviction of John Docherty brought a close to one of Scotland’s longest running unsolved murders. A sense of relief was felt by all following the verdict, with Elaine’s brother, John Doyle, saying he thought it was a just verdict, and Elaine’s mother, Maureen, saying that “The result at court doesn’t make our day-to-day living any easier. The pain doesn’t go away. But my son John and I take comfort that we now have justice for Elaine.” Maureen went on to thank everyone who had been involved in the case since 1986, as well as the people of Greenock for their continued support over the years. Detective Superintendent Bobby Hendren, who had led the cold case review, also said that he was extremely pleased with the verdict. Going on to say that he hoped it gave the family some comfort.

John Docherty then appeared to hear his sentence on the 5th of August 2014. He was given a life sentence and ordered to serve 21 years before being eligible to be considered for parole. John Docherty’s Defence Queen’s Council, Donald Findlay, said that his client was adamant that he had been a victim of a miscarriage of justice, that he did not kill Elaine Doyle, and that he intended to fight until he proved he’d been a victim of a miscarriage of justice. John Docherty went on to appeal the verdict, as well as appealing that the minimum term of 21 years was excessive. It was reported in the BBC News on the 20th of May 2016 that John Docherty’s appeal had been rejected, with the Lord Justice General, Lord Carloway, saying “This was a compelling circumstantial case and the appeal against conviction is refused. This was a murder of an innocent 16 year old girl making her way home along the public streets after a night out in central Greenock. It is a crime of rare callousness and brutality and, as the trial judge said, it caused widespread public revulsion and anxiety and terrible anguish for the deceased’s family over many years.” John Docherty will be 70 years old when he is eligible to be considered for parole in 2035.

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Cole:

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Dawn:

So that’s it for this week, come back next time for another episode of Scottish Murders.

Dawn and Cole:

Join us there. Bye.

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Murder of six-year-old June Cruickshank sent shockwaves through Aberdeen 60 years ago

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Dawn:

One wee girl’s trip to the corner shop and another wee boy’s passion for pigeons would result in a heartache for two Aberdonian families. 

Dawn:

Hi Wee Ones, it’s just me Dawn today. So, before I start this week’s episode I need to give you a trigger warning, as both of the cases discussed today are particularly horrific and graphic and does contain crimes targeting children and child abuse, so listener discretion is advised.

It was early evening on Sunday the 8th of January 1961 and 26 year old Maureen Higgins was on her way to choir practice. She was walking briskly along Printfield Walk when she saw what she thought was a wounded dog crawling slowly along the gutter. As she got closer though she realised with horror that it was not a dog but a small child, and that the child’s clothing was drenched in blood. Six year old June Cruickshank was a popular girl. She had many friends and was well known in her area. She lived in the middle flat of a tenement block on Printfield Walk in the Woodside area of Aberdeen with her mum Anne, her dad David and her brothers and sisters, Brian aged 12, Norma aged 11, Anne Marie aged four, and David aged two. Printfield Walk is a six minute drive north of Aberdeen, and Aberdeen is a city in the north east of Scotland. It is Scotland’s third most populous city, and according to Visit Scotland you may just see a pod of dolphins playing in the waters there. However, back at the flat in Printfield Walk Anne, June’s mum, was getting the tea ready for her family. She realised that she needed a packet of custard powder for their dessert and so she gave June a sixpence, which is about five pence or six cents in today’s money, and asked her to go to the local shop for her, which was located about 135 yards, or 123 meters, away from the flat. It was getting dark now as June made the short journey to the shop, but just before 6pm June was paying for her purchase and received a half penny in change from the shop assistant. She then left the shop and headed for home. Meanwhile, Anne, June’s mum, realised that she was short of another item and so sent her son Brian to the corner shop to buy it. When Brian returned to the flats he said that there had been no sign of June. Becoming worried, Anne popped her head out of the window for flat to look for her daughter. Down on the street outside June’s tenement block, Maureen Higgins had minutes before found June in the gutter just outside the tenement block, covered in blood. Maureen had immediately gone to June and placed her coat over her. She had then shouted to a passing shipyard worker to get help, before turning back to June to offer her comfort. She then noticed a woman looking out of a flat window in the tenement block and shouted to her if she was looking for a wee girl, to which the reply was yes. Maureen shouted back that there was a girl down on the street. Panicking, Anne ran from the flat down to the street, only to find that it was her six year old daughter, June, that was lying there covered in blood, unmoving, and still holding the custard powder in her wee hands. The police and ambulance arrived but there was nothing that could be done for June and she sadly died. Anne Cruickshank was devastated, shocked and unbelieving. What had happened to her wee  girl? At first she assumed that June had been struck by a car, that was until her husband, David, arrived home from the police station and told her just what had happened to their wee girl. June’s throat had been slashed.

A murder investigation was launched by the police, which became the largest Aberdeen murder investigation since the murder of Helen Priestly in 1934, which is a case that we will also be covering. The area where June’s body was found was cordoned off and every available officer was involved in searching the murder scene and the surrounding area, including an Alsatian tracker dog called Rennie, as it was believed that June may have been attacked elsewhere. This search quickly led to the area where the actual attack had happened, which was a lane sandwiched between a hut and a petrol pump, directly across the road from the local shop June had visited. This area was also cordoned off and searched. Detectives quickly determined that there would have been no reason whatsoever for June to have voluntarily crossed Great Northern Road as the local shop was on the same side of the road as her flat on Printfield Walk. So they believed that upon June leaving the local shop she had most likely been lured across Great Northern Road and into the dark lane, where her killer had then barbarically cut her throat. It would appear then that June had found some amazing strength and courage and after her throat being brutally cut she’d managed to walk back across Great Northern Road and make it all the way home, where she finally collapsed outside her flat. She just couldn’t make it any further.  Sadly, June’s desperate attempts to make it home and get help, while bleeding profusely, went unnoticed as it was dark at this point and, even if she had been seen, people may not have realised what was happening as they wouldn’t have been able to see the blood streaming from her neck wound. It seems incredulous for June to have crossed such a busy road while trying to make it home and not be seen by any passing cars. However, this would appear to be the case, as when the police made an appeal for people to come forward not as many people did as the police would have liked. An appeal by the police went out at 10pm on the day of the murder, Chief Constable Alexander Matheson held a press conference and asked for witnesses to come forward if they had seen a man or a youth with June or if they had seen a man or youth with blood on his clothing in the Woodside or Printfield area. Police officers also went door to door from one end of Great Northern Road to the other, and yet at a press conference on Monday, the day after June’s murder, Chief Constable Matheson said that they were struggling with this case and they weren’t getting any leads. He also said that they were appealing for five men and three women to come forward as it was believed that they could help them with their inquiries, giving the description of one of the men as having tussled hair. He went on to say that this was a motiveless attack, June had not been sexually assaulted or robbed, and she still had the half penny change from her trip to the shop, which at the time seemed pretty insignificant.

While June’s mum, Anne, was attending to June on the street, a woman who was passing by happened to see something shiny beside June and so picked it up. It was a shilling. Assuming it was June’s, she handed it to June’s mum, who in turn, and not thinking straight, assumed it was June’s change from the shop. She wouldn’t think about this until later, but when she did she realised how odd it was as June wouldn’t have had this much change, and so she told the police and they took it into evidence. This discovery wasn’t disclosed to the public at the time, but would become very significant. But I’ll come back to that later. Following the door-to-door inquiries, a statement was released from the police who were keen to speak to a total of 19 individuals now, mostly men, that had been seen in the area at the time of the murder. However, discouragingly, only two people responded to this plea, which was really frustrating for the police. As hardly anyone was coming forward, the police were getting no solid leads and the case was going cold. A reconstruction also took place where June’s 15 minute journey from leaving her home to go to the corner shop to being found in the gutter outside her home was re-enacted, but again there was very little that came from this either. The police also carried out an extensive search for the murder weapon within a one mile radius, which was thought to be a sharp edged instrument, but again this brought no results. Things weren’t looking too good in the hunt for June’s killer. Frustrated by the lack of leads, June’s dad, David, made a statement through the Scottish Daily Express Newspaper saying “To whoever is sheltering my daughter’s killer, for God’s sake please come forward and tell the police all you know, before there is another terrible tragedy.” Following this, a Mr Robert McIntosh generously offered a £1,000 reward, which is around £22,700 and $31,200 in today’s money, for any information which led to the arrest and conviction of the killer. June’s dad, David, was a taxi driver and Robert McIntosh was his employer. Now, news of what had happened to June had spread like a wildfire. Mothers in the area were shocked at what had happened and in fear for their children. The school June had attended had allowed the pupils to go home early each day while it was still daylight, but most mothers were collecting their children from the school gates. One mother, whose child was good friends with June, said to the Evening Express Newspaper “It is all so terrible. June was such a lovely girl, and she and my youngest lassie were such great pals.” Another mother was reported as saying “I will do all of my own messages from now on.” In Scotland we call shopping messages.

On the 12th of January 1961, four days after the brutal murder, with the police still not having received any viable leads into the identity of June’s murderer, June’s family gathered for her funeral. It was a cold day in Aberdeen and the snow was lying on the ground, as four funeral cars and June’s tiny white coffin left from the family’s address at Printfield Walk, as mourners congregated on the pavement across from the family’s home to pay their last respects. The funeral took place at Trinity Cemetery, located a seven minute drive south east of the Cruickshank’s family home, and was a private service.

Following June’s funeral, with still very few witnesses coming forward and no new leads, the lead detective working on June’s case, Chief Inspector McIntosh, attended a football match at Pittodrie Stadium in Aberdeen where, over a loudspeaker, he appealed to everyone at the match to please come forward if they knew anything or had seen anything, anything at all. Again though, frustratingly, nobody came forward. And while the police had been appealing for possible witnesses to come forward that had been seen in the area, which had by this point now increased to 35 people, still only two had come forward. Even if they hadn’t seen anything why not just come forward to rule themselves out? It was so frustrating for the police, they just couldn’t understand the reluctance. A wee girl had been murdered. One man the police were desperate to locate was a man who had been seen the night June had been murdered on a bus, as he had been seen with blood on his forehead and face. I mean he may have had nothing to do with the murder, but why not come forward and rule yourself out? However, it doesn’t look great having been seen with blood on you when a wee girl has been murdered, and they may have been frightened or maybe they didn’t have an alibi for the time. But it was still really frustrating for the police. While the police didn’t get any new leads from the appeal at the football match, it did touch a couple of supporters hearts, who travelled to June’s grave and laid a wreath.

As the police continued to receive radio silence from potential witnesses, Chief Constable Matheson decided to try another tactic. He agreed to conduct a television interview, and, according to the Blood and Granite book by Norman Adams, this was the first of its kind ever given by a Scottish Chief Constable. The Chief Constable was very frank saying that they were making very little headway in the investigation, and once again pleaded with any witnesses to come forward.  He tried to alleviate any fears about talking to the police, going as far as saying that witnesses could write to him directly with their name and address and he would send an officer to take their statement. So the police were really doing everything they could, but it just wasn’t enough.  Apparently, a few people came forward following this appeal, but there was nothing they could add to the investigation. This incredible reluctance of witnesses to come forward was also frustrating a Highland novelist, Jane Duncan, who wrote a letter to the Press and Journal Newspaper. She urged people to come forward to help solve “the most depraved of all crimes – child murder”. Going on to say that by not coming forward with any information basically made you “an accessory” to the crime. Which was a pretty strong statement to make, and sadly it didn’t work either. The police continued to receive anonymous misdirection tip-offs, which all had to be checked, of people pointing the finger at other people with nothing to substantiate it and rumours circulating, mostly ending up being false. One such rumour, which I got from the Blood and Granite book by Norman Adams, where actually I got a lot of the information for this story in, was that a primary school in the area had shut its doors and sent all its pupils home after two girls had been attacked. Obviously this caused even more panic and fear among parents in the area, however, once investigated it turned out that, yes the school had closed its doors and sent the pupils home, but not because anyone had been attacked, but because there had been a burst water pipe and the classrooms were flooded. The police didn’t really need to be constantly dealing with this misinformation, which was causing more fear among the community, while they were getting no further forward with finding the murderer of June Cruickshank.

There was a bit of hope that they might have a lead when Chief Constable Matheson was contacted by his counterpart in Paisley, which is about 160 miles or 257 kilometres south west of Aberdeen, who thought that he might have found a link between June’s murder and a murder of a six-year-old boy in a park in Paisley in August 1960. Glasgow’s top detective, Detective Inspector Tom Goodall, and Detective Fred Pender from CID in Paisley, reviewed the two cases and visited the murder scenes, however, while they determined there were similarities, nothing else came of this, as, according to the Blood and Granite book, they came to Aberdeen for one night and then left and that was the end of that. And that’s as far as the murder investigation would get, until nearly three years later when the case was finally blown wide open.

George Forbes was a seven year old boy who lived with his parents Mary and John, both in their 40s, and his older siblings; Billy who was 14, Helen who was 12, and Kenneth who was ten, in a tenement block on the corner of Justice Street and Commerce Street in Aberdeen, which was located about a nine minute drive south east of June’s family home. George loved nothing more than going in search of pigeons. He loved pigeons, and could regularly be found down at the docks feeding the birds. At 7pm on Sunday the 7th of July 1963 George said bye to his mum and dad, via sign language as they were both deaf, saying that he wouldn’t be long, before turning on his heels and running out to play, his parents no doubt assuming that he was off to feed the pigeons. George’s tenement block was actually really close to the cemetery where June’s funeral had taken place, being a mere three minute drive away, and a seven minute drive away from June’s home. As it was the school holidays, George would have known that he was allowed out a bit later, but as darkness fell, the hours passed and still there was no sign of George, fearing the worst, George’s mum and dad reported him missing and a massive search took place, which covered a one mile or 1.6 kilometre radius from George’s home. George’s dad and his brothers and sisters were also out searching daily. With George’s habit of going in search of pigeons being known and reported to the police, derelict buildings and sheds were checked, as well as the harbour where George liked to feed the birds. Even business owners around the harbour area, who had closed down for the holidays, were asked to open their premises up to check if George had perhaps made his way inside and was injured. Members of the public were approached and asked if they had seen George, who, according to the Bloods and Granite book, had been wearing a blue fleck v-neck pullover, a grey shirt, light khaki shorts and black gym shoes. Rennie and Colonel,  two sniffer dogs, were even brought into help with the search, and door-to-door inquiries were carried out, but George was not found. He had vanished.  However, worryingly, and even more so with George having not been found with the extensive searches, the police had two witnesses come forward saying that they had seen George at the harbour messing about on the rocks. So they were leaning towards the fact that maybe he had fallen in and drowned, especially as none of the searches had turned up anything. The searches however went on and George’s mum was reported to be still holding out hope that George would return, although within a couple of days the newspapers were reporting on another story, appearing to have already come to their own conclusion about what had happened to George. A press conference finally took place outside the Forbes’ family home, where detectives stated that nothing had been turned up by the thorough and extensive searches and that they were working on the basis that George Forbes had likely, sadly, fallen into the sea and drowned. However, George’s body was closer than anyone could have imagined.

The months would have gone past slowly and agonisingly for the Forbes family, just like the Cruickshank family before them, with no resolution to what had happened to their child. Until that is on Tuesday the 19th of November 1963, just over four months since George had gone missing and just over two years and 10 months since June Cruickshank had been brutally murdered, when the front page of the Press and Journal newspaper announced that a man had been charged with June’s murder. Apparently, a witness had come forward but for something completely different.

So, a couple of seven year old boys had been in a greenhouse or an allotment that had belonged to a man they knew as Jimmy. While they were in the greenhouse, Jimmy had put a rope around one of the boy’s neck, put the other end over a hook and pulled, leaving a red welt on the boy’s neck. The boy’s friend had got such a fright that he’d legged it out of the greenhouse, but thankfully the boy that had the rope around his neck was freed. Anyway, when he got home his dad saw the red mark around his neck and asked him what had happened. The boy told his dad the tale and his dad quickly took his son to the police station to make a statement. The friend of the young boy who had escaped was also questioned and he corroborated his statement. When the boys were being questioned about whether they had seen any other boys in this man’s allotment greenhouse, one of the boys mentioned George Forbes. The police found out that the greenhouse belonged to 39 year old James John Oliphant and so they brought him in for questioning about putting the rope around the boy’s neck in his greenhouse. But when the police turned the interview to George Forbes’ disappearance and asked Oliphant if he knew anything about this, they were shocked by what they heard next. According to the Blood and Granite book Oliphant said in reply to this question “Will it make it any easier on me if I tell you? I’ll take you to where that loon Forbes is. He’s down at my greenhouse. He started screaming and I cut his throat with a knife.” So, just to let you know that a loon is what Aberdonians call a boy. So, with the detective still in shock about what Oliphant had just confessed, a young Police Constable remembered the murder of June Cruickshank, which prompted the officers to ask Oliphant if he had anything to do with her murder. And according to the Press and Journal newspaper, Oliphant replied “Aye, it was me. I gave her a shilling. I took her round the back of the petrol station. Later she screamed. I ken I’ll get hung for this. I’m finished”, and apparently then he started to cry. So, for everybody outside of Scotland, ken means know. So, he knows he’ll get hung. He kens he’ll get hung. However, where had this man come from suddenly, having not come up in June’s murder investigation at all? How had he been missed? Well, because the police thought that June’s killer had been known to her and so restricted the search areas to a one mile or 1.6 kilometre radius, but Oliphant actually lived in Market Street, which was about 2.9 miles or 4.6 kilometres away from June’s family home in Printfield Walk. The murder of June Cruickshank and the disappearance of George Forbes had never been put together, because it was assumed that George had drowned.

On Saturday the 16th of November, four months after George went missing, police descended on Oliphant’s greenhouse on the allotment and began digging. Four hours later, a bundle wrapped in tarpaulin was carried from the greenhouse to a waiting van, to be taken to the morgue for a postmortem to be carried out. Which showed that George’s throat had been cut in almost exactly the same way to June’s. Both June and George’s parents were informed about the confession to their children’s murder, and George’s parents were asked to attend the police station to identify the clothes found with the remains in the greenhouse. They were identified as being George’s clothes. All the hope the couple had kept hold off for the past four months would have evaporated, and they would have been absolutely devastated.  And the devastation continued, as you will never guess where Oliphant’s allotment and greenhouse was located. Right behind the Forbes’ tenement  building. In fact their kitchen window looked right onto the allotment and greenhouse where their son had been buried. And, sadly, they would have to endure that until they could be moved to another address, which wasn’t forthcoming. June’s parents were equally as distressed by the news. Obviously they welcomed their daughter’s killer being found, but June’s dad, David, was now suffering with stress and was very unwell. It was unimaginable pain and grief that the families of June and George were going through.

James John Oliphant, who was 39, was formally charged with the murder of June Cruickshank and George Forbes, as well as three offences of indecency and one of assault, all directed towards young children. He was remanded in custody so further investigations could be carried out, which would be overseen by Chief Constable William Smith, who had taken over from Chief Constable Alexander Matheson who had headed the June Cruickshank murder inquiry, as sadly Chief Constable Alexander Matheson had died at the age of 55, never having seen June’s killer be brought to justice.

So the question was, what was Oliphant doing hanging about the shop where June had been? Apparently he was there for work. He worked for Aberdeen sewage department. He was known to his colleagues as Big Jim and they had been working near where June lived at the time of her murder. So just wrong place wrong time. June should have been perfectly safe walking to her local shop just a few hundred yards from her home. Oliphant appeared at a brief hearing on Monday 3rd of February 1964, where the attendees at the hearing were told of what led to Oliphant’s confession of murdering both June and George, the story about the shilling and his admittance to giving June this, as well as detailing the subsequent manhunt for June’s killer and the search for missing George. To me it’s crazy that nobody suspected Oliphant at all, not his work mates, his neighbours or the police. The police never had him as a suspect because of the distance he lived away from June’s home, and because the murder of June and the disappearance of George were not linked there would be no reason to have extended the search radius. As this was a massive manhunt, it’s possible that police did question some people working in the area, however, according to the Blood and Granite book, Oliphant was not one of them as he was ruled out because of where he lived. Helpfully though the police did question all of its colleagues after he confessed, where they said, according to the Blood and Granite book, that he had behaved perfectly normal at the time of June’s murder. Also at this hearing Oliphant, with absolutely no emotion, pleaded guilty to the culpable homicides of June and George. Now he had initially been charged with murder, however, after psychiatric review, he was deemed to have diminished responsibility, with the reason being rooted in his childhood. Oliphant was the eldest of eight siblings. He didn’t know his biological dad but he had a stepdad, and this is where things get even more twisted. Oliphant’s stepfather forced the young Oliphant into a sexual relationship with him. He would frequently tie up, gag and beat young Oliphant with a stick, all so his stepdad could satisfy some sick, twisted sexual desire. Psychiatrist, Dr Henderson, went on to say in his report that this abuse that young Oliphant suffered had driven him to try and force young children to suffer as he had. Oliphant had eventually run away from home and found work in a farm, where he slaughtered pigs by cutting their throats. He never really had any friends and was pretty much a loner, apparently wandering about at nights on his own. Dr Henderson also said that at no point did he ever show any remorse for what he had done to his victims or their families. A Doctor Andrew Wiley, who also carried out a review of Oliphant, said that he was of low intelligence and had been certified as mentally defective in 1942. When Dr Wiley was asked in his professional opinion if Oliphant were to be released into society would he likely commit offenses again he replied “I am off the opinion that he would be liable to commit such offenses again.” Other medical professionals also backed this statement up. After listening to all the reports, Lord Strachan, who was residing over the hearing, was ready to give his verdict. James John Oliphant, now 40, would be sent to the state hospital at Carstairs without limit of time. It was confirmed by the Scottish Daily Express Newspaper and reporter Bill Beatty that without limit of time meant a life sentence when talking about a mental health hospital. The only way Oliphant could go free is if the Scottish Secretary agreed to this, and there would have to be pretty solid grounds for this decision to ever be made. As it turned out, Oliphant died in the state hospital at Carstairs in February 1988, 24 years after his sentence.

The Cruickshank and the Forbes families would never come to terms with what had happened to their children, wee June and George, and Oliphant’s sentence would not have given them much comfort, but they forever would have a connection and an understanding. After Oliphant had been convicted, the two families came together at the Forbes’ flat, where they had a cup of tea and shared their heartache. Over time the allotment, the Forbes’ tenement block and the corner shop where the terrible tragedy all began, were all knocked down and rebuilt on, but for the two families at the centre of the tragedy rebuilding their lives would not be that easy.

All the background information about Oliphant came from the book Blood and Granite by Norman Adams. I know I’ve mentioned this book a few times but it really does warrant it I think. I’ve read all the stories in this book about murders from Aberdeen and it’s full of information and it’s really well written, so I think it deserves to be mentioned a few times.

Dawn:

And that’s the end. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and know just the person who’d also like it, please share it with them, don’t keep it to yourself.

Cole:

Please also get in touch on social media if you have any questions, comments or suggestions and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. All social media and contact details are on our website scottishmurders.com, as well as all the source material and photos related to this episode.

Dawn:

So that’s it for this week, come back next time for another episode of Scottish Murders.

Dawn and Cole:

Join us there. Bye.

Granny Robertson:

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn.

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn

Hosted by Dawn and Cole

Researched and Written by Dawn Young

Produced and Edited by Dawn Young and Peter Bull

Production Company Name by Granny Robertson

Music:

Dawn of the Fairies by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

Gothic Wedding by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

Pan Am Flight 103 – Wikipedia

Remembering Pan Am Flight 103 — FBI

BBC NEWS | Magazine | ‘I missed the Lockerbie flight by minutes’

Jaswant Basuta | View from the Mirror (blackcablondon.net)

PA103 Archives: Victim: David Scott Dornstein (syr.edu)

Orphan of Lockerbie’s son who lives as recluse near crash site is heir to £18m fortune – Mirror Online

Destroyed by the curse of Lockerbie | UK news | The Guardian

Lockerbie orphan is found dead in Thai hotel | The Independent

‘Orphan of Lockerbie’s’ son who inherited £18m fortune still haunted by the atrocity 30 years on | Daily Mail Online

The £18m heir of Lockerbie: The little boy who’d give up his fortune to have his dad back | Daily Mail Online

Pan Am Guilty of ‘Willful Misconduct’ – Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial – Wikipedia

Scottish Court in the Netherlands – Wikipedia

Lockerbie Trial, Verdict and Appeal – scotcourts.gov.uk

The Lockerbie Bombing: The Tragic True Story Of Pan Am Flight 103 (grunge.com)

Libya Admits Culpability In Crash of Pan Am Plane – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Lockerbie bombing: How brother of one of the victims tracked down suspected bomb-maker | Daily Mail Online

Lockerbie: The Gaucis and compensation (timesofmalta.com)

Dawn:

A seemingly routine flight from London on the way to New York would forever change many lives as it passed over a small town in Scotland.

Dawn and Cole:

Hi Wee Ones!  I’m Cole and I’m Dawn, and this is Scottish Murders.

[THEME TUNE]

Promo for Into The Night Podcast

Dawn:

On the 21st of December 1988, Jaswant Basuta checked in with his luggage onto his flight to New York from Heathrow Airport in London with plenty of time to spare as he assumed it would be busy due to the Christmas rush. He had just attended a family wedding in Belfast and was heading home, where his wife would be waiting to pick him up from the airport. At the airport he had already been joined by some relatives from nearby Southall to see him off and they decided to take him to the upstairs bar for a drink. Jaswant wasn’t a heavy drinker, especially as being Sikh alcohol consumption is discouraged, however an exception was when there was a cause for celebration such as having his relatives around. So, when Jaswant did drink he liked a Carlsberg’s Special Brew, so he had one, then another and another, not realising his departure time was rapidly approaching, but he eventually insisted that he must be off for his flight only then noticing on the departure screens that the gate for his flight was closing. He quickly made it through security, passport control and finally made it to the gate, where he found it empty of fellow passengers. He saw some ground crew and a duty manager who he pleaded with to let him on board, however they refused. He then saw through the window that the aircraft he was supposed to be on had pushed back from the gate and was making its way towards the runway, he was too late. He wasn’t the only one to miss the flight that night, The Four Tops were recording a performance to be broadcast at Christmas and the New Year, however the tight schedule had not gone as planned and they were delayed. John Lyndon, also known as Johnny Rotten, former front man of the Sex Pistols, despite what you might assume was a stickler for being on time and had got into an argument with his wife who he said had packed too slowly and there was no chance to make the flight. Kim Cattrall was working on a film and was due to return home that night but changed her plans and was in Harrods instead purchasing a Wedgewood teapot as she had neglected to buy a gift for her mother so had decided to return on a later flight instead. Jaswant was feeling awful, not just for missing his flight but from drinking in the bar earlier, so resigned himself to spending the night in the departure lounge. He spent a while trying to doze off until he saw a couple of police officers walking towards him, who then asked if he was the passenger who had missed the flight. He said that he was, and they escorted him to the Heathrow Airport police station. Heathrow Airport police had discovered that when Jaswant hadn’t made it to the gate in time the ground crew had been anxious not to delay the flight and in doing so had admitted that his suitcase had been left on board the aircraft, in breach of security regulations. Jaswant then discovered that an hour after he had arrived at the gate, the aircraft he was supposed to be on, Pan Am Flight 103, had exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing all 259 passengers and crew on board, plus 11 people on the ground. Not only had his suitcase been left unaccompanied on the flight, three years earlier it had been known that Sikh terrorists had been suspected of blowing up a 747, and since Jaswant was Sikh and had just come from Belfast it would be fair to assume the police had found their suspect within just a couple of hours. However, when police questioned him further it quickly became clear he was innocent. The police also contacted his wife who was initially inconsolable as she had assumed her husband had perished along with other victims, but was understandably relieved when she discovered he was still alive. Jaswant, although relieved to have been saved, felt terrible for all the other people on his flight, and that he should have been another victim. He later said his experience made him humbler, more spiritual and felt it was his duty to do something good with his life and help others. A few months after the crash he was shown a photograph of his partially burnt and battered luggage and was asked if he wanted it back, but he felt no need to have it as he had his life and family and that was enough for him.

Cole:

David Dornstein had been working in Israel on a project for Alternatives in Jewish Education and was returning home early to surprise his family on the 21st of December 1988. He boarded the flight for the last part of his journey home, joining fellow passengers on Pan Am Flight 103. Also on board with the passengers was their luggage and unaccompanied luggage from feeder flights that had been transferred onto the aircraft, including within a baggage container in the forward cargo bay a light brown suitcase containing a Toshiba radio cassette player and within this, unknown to all those on board, was 450 grams of Semtex plastic explosives connected to a timer. The flight with 243 passengers and 16 crew on board left the gates around 6pm and took off from London’s Heathrow Airport heading to New York at 6:25pm. David, along with his fellow passengers and crew, were flying at 31,000 feet over Scotland when around 7pm Air Traffic Control tried to make a routine contact with Pan Am Flight 103, however instead of receiving a response moments later Air Traffic Control observed multiple radar echoes instead of one. The Semtex plastic explosive contained in the light brown suitcase had exploded. Due to the huge difference in pressure between the inside and the outside of the aircraft, a 50 centimetre hole had been punched in the fuselage. Within seconds of this explosion, the nose separated from the rest of the aircraft, striking off one of the engines and the tail assembly. The rest of the fuselage continued onward until it reached 19,000 feet and began to dive vertically, when the forward fuselage began to disintegrate tearing off both horizontal stabilisers. The rear fuselage and remaining three engines also separated and, along with the winged box structure, crashed onto the small town of Lockerbie. creating a large crater starting fires from the 90,000 kilograms or 200,000 pounds of fuel, killing 11 people on the ground. Wreckage from the nose section of the aircraft, including the flight deck, was found mostly in one piece about 2.5 miles or 4 kilometres east of Lockerbie, on the side of which read part of the name of the aircraft ‘Clipper Maid of the Seas’.

Dawn:

The  Flannigan family of Tom Flannigan, his wife Kathleen and their three children, David, Steven and Joanne, were from Lockerbie, Scotland, which is a small town about 75 miles or 120 kilometres south of Glasgow in Dumfries and Galloway. David Flannigan no longer lived at the family home in Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie, but had moved to Blackpool when he was 17 following an argument, but he was intending to spend Christmas with his family. With just a few days before Christmas it’s not hard to imagine the rest of the Flannigan family were in good spirits, despite David not being there, and maybe they also hoped that he would return for the festive period too, however, the night of the 21st of December 1988 would change everything for the Flannigan family. Steven Flannigan, who was 14, had taken a bicycle he was working on for his 10 year old sister Joanne as a Christmas present to be checked by his neighbour David Edwards in his garage, however, within minutes the wet and windy night turned into something far louder and stranger when they witnessed a fireball engulf the Flannigan family home, which had been obliterated by the wreckage of the main wingbox structure of an aircraft that had only minutes earlier been passing over the small town of Lockerbie on its way to New York, leaving a 10 metre or 30 foot crater. Tom, Kathleen and Joanne Flannigan, along with eight other residents, many of whom would also have been getting ready for Christmas, were also killed as wreckage from the aircraft crashed down onto their homes, adding to the deaths of the 259 passengers and crew who had been on board Pan Am Flight 103. David Flannigan understandably took the loss of his parents and younger sister hard in the years after that fateful night in 1988 and he tragically died of a heart attack having sadly drank himself to death in a hotel in Thailand in 1993. Unfortunately, this would not be the last tragedy to hit the Flannigan family when in 2000 Steven Flannigan died after being struck by a train in the early hours of the morning. Sadly, it’s not known whether he slipped and fell unconscious or perhaps was wracked by the nightmares of what he witnessed that terrible night in Lockerbie. On the 3rd of May 2000, almost 11 and a half years after Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland, the trial began of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah.  They had been indicted in 1991, but due to the lack of treaties between Libya and the United Kingdom or the United States, it was delayed until a compromise was reached to hold the trial at Camp Zeist in a special Scottish Court in the Netherlands. During the trial it was stated shortly after the disaster in 1988, an operation was launched to retrieve as much wreckage as possible, these items were taken to be examined and relevant parts were reconstructed, where, although most of the fractures were found to be consistent with the airborne breakup of an aircraft, there was an area on the port side of the lower fuselage in the forward cargo bay, which would be loaded with luggage containers, where these fractures were not typical and had been shattered. Around this area were signs of pitting and carbon deposits along with some panels that been bent and torn outwards in a starburst pattern. Also recovered were pieces of a luggage container which included pitting and carbon deposits, which were further analysed and showed traces of chemicals consistent with those used in the manufacture of Semtex plastic explosives, strongly indicating an explosion of a device within the baggage contained on board the aircraft. Further evidence collected including 56 fragments of a light brown suitcase which showed signs of explosive damage, including a small piece of circuit board and what seemed to be shattered pieces of a Toshiba radio cassette player, indicating that this had contained the explosive. It was known at the time in 1988 that West German police had recovered the same model of Toshiba radio cassette player which had been modified to contain an explosive device, but the same piece of circuit board was not part of the same model of radio cassette player. A light brown suitcase was also determined to have contained other items including branded clothing, pieces of which have been recovered including a label with ‘Made in Malta” written on it. In August 1989, police officers went to Malta to track down the origin of the clothing that had been contained in the light brown suitcase and visited Mary’s House, a shop which sold the same clothing brands, and spoke to the owner Tony Gauci who remembered a sale he had made two weeks before Christmas in 1988 to a Libyan man, which included many of the items the pieces of clothing had been determined to have come from. He recalled this sale in particular as he noted that the person didn’t seem that interested in the items he was purchasing, and stated during the trial that the man he had sold the clothes to was al-Megrahi. The small piece of circuit board was not tracked down until June 1990 when police officers were shown details of a timing device known as an MST-13 timer where part of its circuit board was identical to the fragment that had been found. Edwin Bollier worked for a firm that made circuit boards used in these MST-13 timers, and during the trial he stated that his principal customer was the Libyan Government, in particular Libyan Military Security, and had made frequent trips to Libya. He also stated that in December 1988, he had been asked to supply some MST-13 timer components to the Libyan Army, although he made other statements about his activities which conflicted with each other so was deemed to be an unreliable witness. The trial also stated that the light brown suitcase had been packed with the clothes bought from Mary’s House and the Toshiba radio cassette player, which contained the Semtex explosive device and MST-13 timer. It then had been carried on a flight from Malta to Frankfurt in Germany, then on to another flight to London Heathrow Airport, where it was finally transferred onto a flight for New York, Pan Am Flight 103. On the 31st of January 2001, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was found guilty, mostly due to the evidence of Tony Gauci, the owner of the Mary’s House clothes shop in Malta, identifying him as the man he had sold the clothes to, the pieces of which were later found with a fragment of the light brown suitcase. However, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah was found not guilty as he had been in Sweden on the day of the bombing so could not have been involved. An appeal was lodged in 2002, however this was denied as being without merit. al-Megrahi continued to maintain his innocence throughout the trial and his time in prison, and he said most of the evidence against him was circumstantial. It was also found out that the owner of the clothes shop, Tony Gauci, had received a $2 million dollar reward from the CIA for his testimony, which cast some doubt on the outcome of the trial. Although in 2003, Libya did formally accept responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing in a letter that pledged to compensate survivors and renounce terrorism, and represented the first official acknowledgement that Colonel Gaddafi’s Libyan government was involved. In 2009, a second appeal was due to be heard for al-Megrahi, but he applied to have this dropped due to his terminal prostate cancer prognosis, which also led to him being released on compassionate grounds a few months later. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi died in Tripoli, Libya in 2012.

Cole:

In 1988, Ken Dornstein was in his parents kitchen in New York when he heard about the Lockerbie bombing, but he did not know at that moment that his older brother, David Dornstein, had been on the plane, having changed his plans to return early to surprise his family. In the years after his brother’s death, Ken wrote a memoir about his brother called ‘The Boy That Fell Out of the Sky’ which was published in 2006. This would have been Ken’s way of honouring his brother. That is until 2009 when he heard about the only man convicted of the attack. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, had been released early on compassionate grounds due to a terminal cancer prognosis, and decided to find out more of what had happened to his brother and the other victims of the Lockerbie bombing. He examined documents from the trial and even travelled to Libya to interview many of those suspected but not charged. It was during an interview when the name Abu Agila Mas’ud was mentioned, including in a declassified CIA cable, which is an early form of text messaging between countries, along with his passport number, however, it wasn’t clear if this person existed or if it was a pseudonym. The declassified CIA cable had explained that Mas’ud had travelled with al-Megrahi to Malta in December 1988, where the trial had stated the bomb had been packed into the light brown suitcase and ended up on Pan Am Flight 103. Ken went on further trips to Libya in 2011, after the fall of Colonel Gaddafi, with a list of people he suspected of being involved, but found many of them had died or weren’t accessible. However, the wife of one of the suspects mentioned Edwin Bollier from Switzerland who had confessed to making components for bombs for the Libyans to be used in Europe, although he later recanted this. Ken travelled to Switzerland and tracked down Bollier who admitted not only that he knew al-Megrahi but may have met Mas’ud. Ken started to examine the files related to Bollier and found details of an East Berlin club bombing in 1986 where investigators mentioned a bomb technician called Mas’ud who had built the device, and mentioned the same passport number from the declassified CIA cable. Ken travelled to East Berlin and tracked down a Libyan operative called Musbah Eter who mentioned they knew Mas’ud. Later, in 2015, show trials were held of former Gaddafi regime members, who were paraded in front of the cameras. Behind one of the people photographed was a person that Eter confirmed was Mas’ud, who Ken decided to go to Libya and track down as part of a TV documentary ‘My brother’s bomber’, although this was unsuccessful. He then handed over his investigation to the FBI. It would not be until 2020, thanks largely to the investigation work carried out by Ken Dornstein, that on the 32nd anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing charges would finally be filed against Abu Agila Mas’ud, with his trial yet to be held.

Dawn:

The surviving members of the Flannigan family, Steven and David, were awarded £2 million or $3.5 million each in compensation by Pan Am, which David referred to as dirty money, and what remained of this after his death passed to his brother Steven. When Steven also died, his son Luke, inherited the money, later receiving another £6 million or $10 million from the Libyan Government as the only direct descendant of the Flannigan family, which was placed into a trust fund. He was given access to the money in 2018 when it was worth £18 million or $25 million, but he said that he would rather have had his dad back than have the money. In 1992, Pan Am were found guilty of wilful negligence as they had failed to implement security procedures that required unaccompanied luggage to be searched by hand, which may have detected the bomb within the light brown suitcase, and when someone fails to make the departure gate, like Jaswant Basuta, their baggage must be removed. It is sad to see how easily what happened could have been prevented had these procedures been properly followed. However, since Pan Am were bankrupt by then, their insurers paid out £2 million or $3.5 million for each victim in compensation. What happened to all those people on board Pan Am Flight 103 and those on the ground that night on the 21st of December 1988 will never be forgotten by those in Lockerbie, and is marked with a memorial in Dryfesdale Cemetery to all those who died, and a stained-glass window in Lockerbie Town Hall representing the countries where the victims of Pan Am Flight 103 came from.

And that’s the end. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and know just the person who’d also like it, please share it with them, don’t keep it to yourself.

Cole: Please also get in touch on social media if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. All social media and contact details are on our website scottishmurders.com, as well as all the source material and photos related to this episode.

Dawn: So, that’s it for this week, come back next time for another episode of Scottish Murders.

Dawn and Cole: Join us there! Bye!

Granny Robertson: Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn.

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn

Hosted by Dawn and Cole

Researched and Written by Peter Bull

Produced and Edited by Dawn Young and Peter Bull

Production Company Name by Granny Robertson

Music:

Dawn of the Fairies by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

Gothic Wedding by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

BBC News | UK | Teenager appeals for help in finding missing parents

Mystery of couple who never came back from the shops | The Independent

Double life that ended in twin shallow graves. Behind the extraordinary disappearance of a couple lay an ordinary tale of drug dealing gone wrong | HeraldScotland

Shot, Burned And Buried – Daily Record

Executed on all fours as she tried to help dying husband. – Free Online Library

BBC News | SCOTLAND | Anger over killer’s painting display

Refuge – 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline 0808 2000 247 (UK) or nationaldahelpline.org.uk

Cole:

It was seven days before Christmas 1997 and Roddy and Anne Marie Aitken had gone shopping for their last minute Christmas presents, but then disappeared. What had happened to the couple and their Christmas presents?

Cole and Dawn:

Hi Wee Ones, I’m Cole and I’m Dawn, and this is Scottish Murders.

[THEME TUNE]

Film History The History of Film Podcast Promotion

Cole:

On the 18th of December 1997, seven days before Christmas, Roddy and Anne Marie were shopping for the last of their Christmas presents. It was getting late so the couple called their daughter to say that they would be home in about an hour, but they never made it. Roddy and Anne Marie grew up on the same council estate in Drumchapel, which is about seven and a half miles or 12 kilometres north west of Glasgow. Roddy and Anne Marie went to the same school and hung around in the same groups, so it wasn’t surprising when they started dating. The young couple got married when they were both 18, and a year later they became parents when their first child was born. They named her Anne Marie after her mother. The young family continued to live in the Drumchapel area, having been given their own council house. Six years later their family was complete when the second child, Jamie, was born. It was around this time that the couple made the decision to move away from the Drumchapel area looking for a better life, and when a council flat exchange came up in the Fulham area in London they saw this as a great opportunity. The couple lived in the London area, firstly in Fulham and eventually moving to Sutton. Roddy had started his own roofing business and the couple appeared to be doing quite well for themselves. However, after about three years of living in London the couple’s luck changed when Roddy, who would have been about 28 years old, was involved in a car accident. The accident unfortunately was so bad and injured Roddy’s legs so severely that he was unable to work again, and subsequently had to collect disability allowance. This was a major blow for the young couple who had been doing so well for themselves and had such a young family to look after. Roddy and Anne Marie, who were both now on benefits, continued as best they could for another three years, until an opportunity to swap the London flat for a council house on the quiet rural street of Manse Road in Aberfoyle came up, which they jumped at. Aberfoyle is approximately 27 miles or 43 kilometres north west of Glasgow. It has beautiful countryside and is known as the Gateway to the Trossachs, and also where the infamous Scottish outlaw and folk hero Rob Roy MacGregor once roamed. So the couple relocated to Aberfoyle and started a new life there. They continued to live there up until their disappearance seven years later. According to the neighbours the family kept themselves to themselves and never caused any bother. Roddy and Anne Marie never felt as if they fit into the quiet rural community of Aberfoyle and were constantly lured back into their old haunts in Drumchapel, with Roddy regularly spending time drinking with his friends from his childhood and Anne Marie visiting her friends from school. So it appeared that Roddy and Anne Marie were just a normal couple living a quiet life. They did their best for the kids and made sure they never went without. Despite Roddy and Anne Marie both being on benefit, they made the decision that for Christmas 1997 they weren’t going to spend another Christmas in the cold, wet, dark, snowy Scotland but instead had booked a two-week holiday to Cyprus, for the couple and their son Jamie, who was 13, and they would be flying out on Christmas Eve. The three of them were delighted to be going abroad to a hot country, where they could drink, eat, sunbathe and be merry. The couple had saved up £1,000, which is about £1,800 and $2,300 in today’s money, for the holiday so they were going to damn well enjoy it. The only thing that perhaps had put a bit of a dampener on the holiday abroad was that their 19 year old daughter, Anne Marie, wasn’t going to be coming. She was going to be staying at home along with her boyfriend. Roddy and Anne Marie probably weren’t overjoyed about this but what could they do, she was 19. So, on the 18th of December 1997, Anne Marie persuaded Roddy to go with her to see his parents to give them their Christmas cards, as well as going Christmas shopping for a few presents she still had to get for the children. Roddy and Anne Marie drove to Drumchapel in their blue Vauxhall Astra to see Roddy’s parents. After seeing Roddy’s parents the couple went shopping in the area to buy last minute Christmas presents. The couple then drove to a supermarket on Milngavie Road in Bearsden, which is about an eight minute drive from Drumchapel, and this is where they were last seen at about 6.45pm. Before leaving the supermarket car park, they called their daughter to say that they would be home in about an hour as they still had bits and bobs to do. It was getting late and it was cold, dark, wet and snowy, but the drive home to Aberfoyle would take approximately 37 minutes. Back at home Anne Marie and Jamie waited for their parents to arrive, but they never did. Christmas Day came and went, with Jamie spending the Christmas period not in sunny Cyprus as expected but at a neighbour’s house. Anne Marie continued to stay at the property in Manse Road along with her boyfriend, waiting for her parents to turn up or for them to call. It wasn’t until Boxing Day, after Anne Marie’s grandparents finally pressured her to call the police, that Roddy and Anne Marie were even reported missing, eight days after their last phone call with their daughter.

Dawn:

So nobody called the police to report them missing for eight days? Why?

Cole:

Well all I could come up with is that their daughter, Anne Marie, was young and maybe just naïve. But why the grandparents didn’t call the police straight away I’ve got no idea.

Dawn:

That’s a bit strange.

Cole:

Yeah, definitely. So, anyway, on Boxing Day, once the couple had eventually been reported missing, the police instantly treated this as suspicious and they set up an operation which was called operation Bermuda, for obvious reasons.

Dawn:

Because they went missing. That’s clever.

Cole:

Initially the police organised and carried out massive searches, which included frog men searching lochs and rivers near the couple’s home, helicopters sweeping the area, as well as searches being carried out 200 metres, or 656 feet, from every major road, secondary roads and forest tracks on the way from Drumchapel to Aberfoyle. This was a huge undertaken as the area goes through forests and the minor roads are winding and isolated. Definitely not the place you’d like to find yourself stranded. The police hoped that they would find the couple’s blue Vauxhall Astra, thinking that maybe there had been some kind of accident, but after six weeks there was absolutely nothing to be found. They just completely vanished. It was established early on in the investigation that the couple’s bank accounts hadn’t been touched, and there was very little money in their accounts anyway. It’s never a good sign when the bank accounts haven’t been touched.

Dawn:

No, that’s a worry.

Cole:

Yeah. Their passports were also with the police, but Interpol had been notified to be on the lookout just in case. A reconstruction of the couple attending the supermarket in Bearsden was carried out to try and jog anyone’s memory about seeing the couple on the 18th of December. There was no information forthcoming and it appeared that the couple had just disappeared into thin air. Now at the same time as the search is being carried out, Detective Superintendent John Ogg, who was leading the investigation, had also ordered a thorough investigation into the Aitkens’ life to try and gain a better picture of them, and what he found when delving in a little bit deeper would turn the investigation on its head. It turned out that Roddy was known to the police.

Dawnn:

Oh.

Cole:

Oh indeed. It appeared that Roddy liked a good drink and had received a handful of convictions for minor drink related offences  over the years. Also when drinking with his friends in Drumchapel, he would regularly drive home, avoiding main roads in case he got caught by the police for drink driving. It also appeared that Roddy drank profusely in all and any pubs in Aberfoyle that would have him, although he had been banned from all but one pub there due to drink related offences. The police also found out something even more worrying about the Aitkens. Apparently Roddy had beaten Anne Marie for years. he’d beaten her so badly once that she had to have a metal plate put in her jaw.

Dawn:

Oh my God, that’s pretty bad.

Cole:

That’s real bad. So at this point the police were starting to think of other theories.  Had Roddy finally beaten Anne Marie so badly that he’d killed her and went on the run? Or had Anne Marie finally snapped and killed Roddy? Could Roddy have been drinking heavily on the night of the 18th of December and had an accident on one of the back roads home? But surely their car would have been found if there had have been an accident. Just to be sure though, the police had circulated the couple’s information and their car details further afield for any accidents involving their car, but again nothing had been reported.  If either of them had killed the other one then, due to Aberfoyle and the surrounding areas being so rural, a body could be hidden out there and never be found. The final theory was that a third party was involved in their disappearance. But why? And who? The couple’s daughter, Anne Marie who was then 20, made an appeal on Friday the 18th of January 1998 asking for any information about her parents disappearance. As the police began to put together a picture of Roddy and Anne Marie’s life, they also acquired their itemised mobile phone records, and one name appeared to come up regularly. It was Iain Meikleham. Iain, who was a 30 year old farmer who lived in Little Blairlusk in Gartocharn, about 17 miles or 27 kilometres south west of Roddy’s house in Aberfoyle. Now it’s not known how the two men became friends, they could have been friends since school or they could have met in one of the many pubs Roddy frequented. The two men became quite close, and looking at the itemised telephone records, it appeared that they talked regularly. Until that is about three weeks before the couple’s disappearance. So what had happened? Had the two men had a falling out, and why?  So, the police requested Iain’s telephone records to try and see if any of his records corresponded with Roddy’s telephone records, so they could start compiling a database of acquaintances of both men. Through this process the police noticed a name that kept coming up regularly on Iain’s phone, a John Parker. John was 27 and worked on his dad’s farm at Crosbie Mains, West Kilbride, which is approximately 40 miles and 64 kilometres away from Iain’s farm. Before long, the police had quite a comprehensive database of contacts stemming from Roddy and Iain’s telephone records, now they just had to figure out what, if anything, it had to do with the disappearance of Roddy and Anne Marie. Eight weeks into the investigation a drunk driver was stopped by the police in the Balfron area, which is about 18 miles or 28 kilometres north of Glasgow, and he had a controlled drug on him. This man’s name was given to the Operation Bermuda team for them to check against their database, and his name came up as an associate of Roddy Aiken. Two detectives from Operation Bermuda interviewed this man and they finally had a breakthrough. He told detectives that he had been paid by Roddy to take a parcel of money to Malaga. He informed the detectives exactly how the money was wrapped and how it got through customs. The detectives took a punt and decided to run Iain’s name through the customs and excise database to see if there was any information on him, and lo and behold they found that Iain had been stopped at Glasgow Airport in March 1997 on his way to Malaga, and had been in possession of £15,000, or $21,000, which had been contaminated with drugs. Iain had been let go but the police had kept the money. The way the money was wrapped exactly matched how the witness said his money had been wrapped by Roddy. There was finally a connection. The police subsequently compared customs and excise database with their own growing database of contacts all stemming from Roddy and Iain, and there were a number of contacts that had been associated with drugs. Slowly a pattern was building of a drug importation ring, with Roddy and Iain being slap bang in the centre of it all. By the middle of March 1998, the police had discovered that Roddy and Iain had made frequent trips to Malaga over the years each time with large sums of cash, with reasons such as they were planning to buy a car when they got to their destination. They also had received information from informants confirming that both Roddy and Iain were involved in major cannabis smuggling. So they knew how the money was getting out of the country, but they as yet didn’t know or have any evidence of how exactly the drugs were coming into the UK. Until that is a man came forward to state that he had been a drug courier for Iain. Iain had asked him to travel to Malaga and bring back a parcel for him. He said that he had swallowed 70 wraps of cannabis before heading home.

Dawn:

Oh that’s quite a lot.

Cole:

However, there was one piece of the puzzle missing. What had happened to Roddy and Anne Marie? So, the police painstakingly went back over the phone records again, something had bothered them from the beginning that they wanted an answer to. At 7.05pm on the 18th of December an unknown number had called Roddy’s mobile and spoke to Roddy for six minutes. This was a burner phone, but the police eventually found out that this phone was in fact Iain’s. Discovering this fact, the police then believed that they knew exactly what had happened to Roddy and Anne Marie on the 18th of December 1997, they just didn’t know why. On the 23rd of March 1998 at 6am, 14 people involved in the drug smuggling ring, including Iain and John, were arrested, their homes were searched and they were questioned at different locations. Later that day John Parker finally admitted the truth of what had happened to Roddy and Anne Marie Aiken, even going as far as taking the police to where the remains of the couple were.

Dawn:

Oh my God. What happened to them?

Cole:

Well let me tell you.

Dawn:

Go on then.

Cole:

John went on to describe in great detail what had happened the night Roddy and Anne Marie went missing. Apparently the lead-up to Roddy and Anne Marie’s murder all started a year before in November 1996, when Roddy had given John Parker £30,000, or $41,000, worth of drugs to sell, with his friend Iain vouching for him. John was supposed to sell the drugs and give Roddy the money, however, John decided to keep the money. Roddy was furious about this and obviously pestered his friend, Iain, constantly to get him the money from John, but this never happened. Roddy was annoyed with Iain for allowing John to get away with this and so started going to Spain and smuggling his own drugs into the UK, cutting Iain out. Iain wasn’t at all happy about this and decided the best solution would be to get rid of Roddy permanently.

Dawn:

Ah yes, that’s the best plan.

Cole:

Yeah. And I don’t really think he’s got a leg to stand on because his friend just stole £30,000 worth of drugs from him.

Dawn:

Well exactly. Just get the money for your friend and jobs a good un.

Cole:

I know. But the plan to get rid of Roddy was set in motion by Iain and his friend John Parker, and it culminated on the evening of the 18th of December 1997. Iain had indeed rang Roddy from his burner phone at 7.05pm, and after six minutes finally managed to persuade him to go to his farm that evening, which was 17 miles or 27 kilometres from where the couple were in Bearsden.  And to be fair it was only a small detour on their way home, and of course the promise of £30,000 or $41,000 being paid in full would have sealed the deal for Roddy. So the couple set off on the 27 minute journey and would arrive at the farm about 7.40pm, where they were greeted by the waiting Iain. Iain however had not banked on Anne Marie being present too, and so immediately made the decision that they would have to get rid of her as well. Iain approached the driver side where Roddy was and said to him to come into the house for the money, smiling all the while at the couple he’d known for quite some time and who they saw as a close family friend. Roddy obliged while Anne Marie waited in the car, he’d just be a minute after all. However, unbeknownst to Anne Marie, once inside the house her husband was taken out the back of the farmhouse at gunpoint, made to get on his knees and shot twice by Iain, once in the head killing him outright. Anne Marie would have heard the gunshots and probably would have been a little uneasy, but as it was a farm she maybe thought there was a reasonable explanation. She then saw Iain approaching and again smiling he asked her to come around the back of the house as he had something to show her, to which she trustingly obliged. As the pair rounded the corner of the house what she would have seen would have terrified her, her husband was laying still on the ground with blood all around him. She immediately ran to his side in the hope that she could do something for him, however,  as she knelt crying and terrified at her husband’s side, family friend, Iain, shot her twice in the head.

Dawn:

Oh my God, that’s awful.

Cole:

It really is. When the deed was done, John was responsible for driving the couple’s bodies back to his father’s farm in the horse box attached to the Range Rover. Iain had spent time chopping up the bodies and putting the parts into black bags, before loading the black bags onto the horse box, and John driving the hour long journey south back to his dad’s farm, with Iain following behind driving Roddy and Anne Marie’s blue Vauxhall Astra. When they reached John’s dad’s farm, they proceeded to burn the bodies of Roddy and Anne Marie. Now even though Iain had just cold bloodedly killed his friend and his wife and dismembered the bodies, apparently as the bodies were burning an arm and a hand moved in the flames and for one awful moment Iain thought that it was alive. Apparently this had caused Iain to have nightly nightmares. Iain and John then disposed of the couple’s car. The car has never been found. However, before doing so, John apparently helped himself to the Christmas presents in the couple’s car that they had bought for their two children, and proceeded to sell them on.

Dawn:

Oh lovely.

Cole:

Yes, what a nice man.

Dawn:

He sounds it.

Cole:

When John took the police to where the bodies were, they had to pick through sheep remains until they eventually found the badly burned bodies of the couple. It had taken three months and an extensive investigation, but finally they had the couple’s bodies and their murderers, as well as having taken down a vast drug smuggling ring. The trial of Iain and John started in August 1998 in Glasgow and lasted for three weeks. The couple’s daughter, Anne Marie, attended every single day of the three weeks while witness after witness testified against Iain and John. She cried uncontrollably as the evidence was presented describing just what had happened to her parents at the hands of a family friend. But after three gruelling weeks for the family, finally the verdict was announced. Guilty. When the sentence was read there was a clear relief displayed amongst the family. Iain was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years and John was sentenced to life. After the uncovering of the world that Roddy had actually been involved in, residents in Aberfoyle, who drank alongside Roddy for years, admitted that Roddy never appeared short of money and that they were never quite sure where it all came from, but he wasn’t the sort of man you asked that question to, being a big burly man who could clearly take care of himself. It was also speculated that perhaps Anne Marie put off calling the police for as long as she did due to the fact that Roddy was known to the police and he had made it clear he did not like them, but it could equally have been to do with the fact that her boyfriend had been a drug courier for her dad and she didn’t want anything like that coming out. Whatever the reason, at last Anne Marie and Jamie knew what had become of their parents on that fateful night.

Dawn:

And that’s the end. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and know just the person who’d also like it, please share it with them, don’t keep it to yourself.

Cole:

Please also get in touch on social media if you have any questions, comments or suggestions and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. All social media and contact details are on our website scottishmurders.com, as well as all the source material and photos related to this episode.

Dawn:

So that’s it for this week, come back next time for another episode of Scottish Murders.

Dawn and Cole:

Join us there. Bye.

Granny Robertson:

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn.

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn

Hosted by Dawn and Cole

Researched and Written by Dawn Young

Produced and Edited by Dawn Young and Peter Bull

Production Company Name by Granny Robertson

Music:

Dawn of the Fairies by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

Gothic Wedding by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

Brutal Scots knife killer who stabbed man to death in Paisley flat dodges court over rammy after she was released from prison

Knife killer’s sister caged for sick snaps of murder victim’s butchered body locked up AGAIN for blade rampage in Paisley

Father of mobile phone pics killer reveals death threat after shopping him – Daily Record

Killer who bathed in her victim’s blood has gone on the run after skipping court – Metro

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Glasgow, Lanarkshire and West | Killer who posed with body jailed

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Glasgow, Lanarkshire and West | Teenage murderer posed with body

Life for teen killer who knifed man 80 times | UK | News | Express.co.uk

Karen Duncan is on the run after dodging court

Sick killer Price | Barrhead News

MUG SHOTTS; EXCLUSIVE KILLERS’ JAIL SNAPS ON FACEBOOK Pics of smiling ganglang assassins are posted on fellow inmate’s web page. – Free Online Library

Scots killer Karen Duncan – who bathed in victim’s blood – spared jail for the second time in a month

‘Vigilante’ thugs hurled bricks at home of Paisley court witness who gave evidence against pal – Daily Record

Gunman’s life fell apart after brutal murder of his brother, court hears – Daily Record

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Glasgow, Lanarkshire and West | Jail for murder victim’s brother

Life for teen killer who knifed man 80 times | UK | News | Express.co.uk

Charity battler Betty couldn't help bloodbath killer grandson | Glasgow Times

‘You’re gettin’ it for ma mate’ Yobs smashed in window of court witness’ house with bricks after pal jailed – Daily Record

PressReader.com – Your favorite newspapers and magazines.

Laura Milne murder: Killer who hid body in cupboard is jailed for 18 years | The Scotsman

Aberdeen murder man gloated on camera | HeraldScotland

Boasting killer jailed for murder and mutilation of Aberdeen girl | HeraldScotland

Woman involved in gruesome murder back in Aberdeen working as hairdresser – The Press and Journal

Court of Session – Sentencing Statement

Barber Involved In Cut-Throat Murder Now Works As Hairdresser – UNILAD

BBC NEWS | Scotland | North East/N Isles | Killer boasted of murder on video

Jailed for brutal murder of north-east teen in 2007, now cleared of assaulting former partner – The Press and Journal

Demon barber: Female thug involved in cut-throat killing of teenage girl is working as a local hairdresser just one mile from murder scene – Daily Record

Dawn:

24 year old Scott Burgess and 19 year old Laura Milne had never met each other and lived in completely different parts of Scotland, but the fates of both would be decided by a knock on a door.

Hi Wee Ones, it’s just me Dawn today.

So, before I start this week’s episode I need to give you a trigger warning, as both of the cases discussed today are particularly horrific and graphic, so please be warned. 

Scott Burgess was 24 years old and grew up with his mum, dad and seven brothers and sisters. He then moved to Paisley, which is about 12 miles or 19 kilometres east of Glasgow, where he lived in a flat that was right next door to sisters Karen and Irene Duncan. Sadly, not much else is known about Scott, other than he kept in regular contact with his family. Upon moving into the flat in Paisley, Scott just went about his life quite happily, until sometime between the 23rd of August 2007 and the 6th of September 2007, when out of the blue the Duncan sisters, Karen and Irene, and Karen’s boyfriend Stephen Price, came knocking at the door of Scott’s flat.

Laura Milne was 19 years old and was brought up in the town of Ellon in Aberdeenshire, about 16 miles or 25 kilometres north of Aberdeen, which is located in the north east of Scotland. She lived there with her dad, Brian, and her older brother and younger sister. Laura was diagnosed with mild learning difficulties and was described as being vulnerable, naïve and easily manipulated, but that she had a huge heart and just wanted to help others. Sadly, Laura’s school years were marred as she was constantly bullied throughout this time by fellow pupil, Debbie Buchan. However, despite the relentless bullying, upon leaving school, Laura’s disposition hadn’t changed and she still just wanted to help others, which led to her finding work at a homeless charity in Aberdeen, where she was given a room to stay in and she worked in the kitchen, and she enjoyed this immensely. Laura was very close to her family and kept in constant contact with them, phoning and visiting them often. Laura continued to enjoy living and working at the homeless charity, even making friends with some of the homeless people there, including 18 year old Leigh MacKinnon and 22 year old Stuart Jack. However, Laura’s school bully, 19 year old Debbie Buchan, then appeared at the homeless charity. Despite Debbie’s bullying of Laura throughout her school life, Laura held no grudge and was quick to welcome Debbie into the homeless charity and her group of friends. Upon hearing about the reappearance of Debbie in Laura’s life, Laura’s dad, Brian, warned her not to trust Debbie, but Laura was adamant that things had changed, that the bullying was in the past, and that Debbie was now her friend. Laura, Stuart, Leigh and Debbie continue to spend quite a bit of time together, and on the 12th of December 2007 Debbie invited Laura to come to her flat after she had finished working in the kitchen, joining Leigh and Stuart there too. Laura would have been thoroughly looking forward to spending yet more time with her friends, and so upon finishing up in the kitchen Laura made her way to Debbie’s flat, and knocked on the door.

Scott Burgess was watching the TV in his flat having a few quiet drinks, but upon hearing the knock on his flat door he got up to answer it. As he began to open the door he was thrown backwards as three people barged into his flat. The uninvited visitors were his next door neighbours, Karen Duncan who was 16, Karen’s sister Irene who was 18 years old, and Karen’s boyfriend 19 year old Stephen Price. Scott would have quickly realised that the trio had been drinking heavily, and that this probably meant trouble. Just as this thought would have passed through Scott’s mind, Stephen Price head-buttered Scott and then proceeded to repeatedly plunge a knife into Scott’s body. Scott was stabbed at least 80 times in his back, his front and in his temple, with Karen also stabbing Scott twice with a screwdriver. This was an absolutely brutal, unprovoked attack, but what happened after the attack was even more gruesome.

Laura Mine’s knock on the flat door was answered almost immediately by Debbie, who invited her in to join Leigh and Stuart inside. It would have been clear to Laura that Stuart and Leigh had been drinking heavily, but despite this Laura would have been pleased to see her friends. However, having come straight from work she would have first wanted to freshen up in the toilet, before having a drink and joining her friends for the evening. Laura had only just stepped into the toilet and locked the door when suddenly the door was kicked open and she was dragged out and thrown to the floor. What followed was a brutal unprovoked attack on the defenceless Laura. Laura was punched and kicked repeatedly on her head and body by Debbie, Leigh and Stuart, with Leigh later saying that she thought she’d broken her toe she had “belted something so hard.” Debbie also repeatedly stamped on Laura’s head with her feet, while Leigh also hit Laura with a bottle several times. While Laura lay unconscious, bleeding and severely beaten on the floor, Stuart retrieved a knife from the kitchen and cut Laura’s throat, killing her. It was reported in the post mortem later that Laura had extensive bruising to her face and body, that one rib was cracked, her incisor teeth were loosened in their sockets, her jaw was fractured in three places, and she had head injuries. It was possible that Laura would have sustained brain damage due to the severity of the beating had she survived. While this attack was absolutely disgusting, what happened next is equally as shocking.

Scott Burgess was stabbed over 80 times, but what possible reason could there be for Stephen Price and Karen and Irene Duncan to barge into Scott’s flat and attack him so brutally? Well, apparently, it was all because Stephen Price had got it into his head that Scott had said something derogatory about his friends. That, and the fact that they had all been drinking heavily, might also have played a small part. So let’s go back to the day of the attack, because as horrendous as that was, there was much worse to come. So, it’s not known the exact day that Scott was attacked. I guess the trio were that out of it that they’d just forgotten, but it apparently happened between the 23rd of August 2007 and the 6th of September 2007. Stephen Price and the Duncan sisters had been in their flat next door to Scott’s flat getting drunk, and the conversation about Scott apparently having said something derogatory about Stephen Price’s friends came up. So, the trio sat there hatching a plan of revenge, before making there way to Scott’s flat, knocking on the door and barging their way in, with Stephen Price starting to attack Scott straight away. This attack was so vicious that Price actually stabbed himself in the arm. Scott would have quickly slipped into unconsciousness before dying. Now, you’d think after carrying that out you’d maybe be in shock. I don’t know, thinking [s__t ] what have I done. Maybe? Yes? However not these three. Stephen Price then proceeded to pose next to Scott’s dead body, brandishing the actual knife he had just killed Scott with and smiling, while the sisters took the photos on a mobile phone. But it gets even worse. After taking the photos, the Duncan sisters and Stephen Price then went back to the sisters flat where Karen and Stephen got into the bath, fully clothed, and Irene Duncan took photos of Stephen wielding the murder weapon again, while he and Karen splashed about in the bath, which was red with Scott’s blood, all while laughing. The photos also showed that Scott’s blood was all over Stephen, his face and his hands were covered, and it was even in his hair. The trio then carried on with their day as if nothing happened, drinking and laughing, while Scott’s lifeless body lay just through the wall from them. The next day however, after sobering up, there was another chance to, you know, come clean, face up to what had been done and do the right thing. But, no, instead the Duncan sisters went back into Scott’s flat, carried his body to the bathroom, dumped it face down in the bath, then filled it with water and bleach. They then proceeded to cut out parts of the carpet that had been soaked in blood and put it in the rubbish bin, where they attempted to burn it. They then gathered their bloodstained clothes they had all been wearing, the knife, the screwdriver, the mobile phone, after attempting to destroy it, and placed everything together in a black bag and buried it. So while the sisters were doing everything they could to cover up that they had committed a truly barbaric crime, Stephen on the other hand was busy mouthing off to his dad, James. In an article in the Daily Record newspaper on the 26th of March 2008, James advised that Stephen had said “I done a guy in. I stabbed him about 60 times, and I stabbed myself as well.” His dad thought that he was just making it up as he’d been known to make things up in the past, maybe not lies quite as extreme as he’d killed someone but he was known to make things up. Scott’s family however were becoming concerned as they’d not been able to make contact with him. And so after nine days of nobody hearing from Scott, his dad and brother, Christopher who was 18, went to his flat to see if he was there. When they looked through the kitchen window they saw blood and kicked the door in, before making the truly horrific discovery of Scott’s body in the bath, face down. The police were called and started a murder investigation. The details of the murder were soon released and an appeal was made, an appeal which James Price also saw and immediately became suspicious. He said that a week had passed and he had honestly thought that his son was just lying, but on hearing the details and the appeal he immediately called the police and told them what his son had said. He was utterly disgusted by what he had heard and he wasn’t having Scott’s murderer get away with it, whether it was a son of his or not. He said in a newspaper article “‘He’s just a monster. I can’t bear to think what he put that boy through. I know myself that he’s a scary boy, especially when he’s full of the drugs.” He went on to say that the next time he heard from his son it was via a text and it read “You’re dead.” Stephen Price was quickly arrested. He denied the allegation of course, however that was quickly about to change. Through diligent police work the buried bag was found with the blood soaked clothes, the knife, the screwdriver and of course the broken mobile phone. However, the Duncan sisters hadn’t done a very good job of destroying the phone and the gruesome photos were retrieved from it. After the photos were found, a police source reported in a newspaper article “I’ve never seen such graphic pictures of a murder.” Upon Stephen Price being told that they had retrieved the bag and all the pictures that had been taken, he changed his story and admitted he had murdered Scott Burgess. When the Duncan sisters were brought in for questioning they admitted their part in the murder, and were both charged with murder. However, the charge of murder against the two Sisters was reduced and instead Karen Duncan was charged with culpable homicide, and both sisters were charged with attempting to defeat the ends of justice by hiding or trying to destroy evidence. Stephen Price and Karen and Irene Duncan pled guilty to their charges.

Laura Milne was now lying dead on the floor of Debbie Buchan’s flat, having been savagely beaten and having her throat cut, but Debbie, Stuart and Leigh were not finished yet. In the days that followed, Stuart would cut off one of Laura’s ears and breast, before practically detaching her legs from her body, and almost decapitating her. Stuart, Debbie and Leigh then wrapped Laura’s head, torso and limbs in bedding and put them under the kitchen sink, where Laura’s body would stay for a week while the trio came and went from the flat as normal. As Laura was close to her family and contacted them regularly they would become suspicious if Laura didn’t contact them, and so Debbie Buchan replied to six text messages that Laura had received from family members pretending to be Laura, saying that she was fine and staying with friends but that they would see her soon. This would have added to the family’s torment when they eventually found out that Laura was already dead at the time of these text messages being sent to them. And even that is not the most disgusting thing to happen in this case. On the 14th of December, two days after Laura was brutally beaten and murdered, a video clip was recorded of Debbie Buchan and Stuart Jack who both seemed to be disgustingly rejoicing that Laura was dead, with Debbie saying “I feel so happy that she’s gone. She’s on my kitchen floor with a slit throat, a cut mouth, cut tit and her head kicked in.” When Debbie asked Stuart if he was glad Laura was dead he smiled and said “Yes, I am.” And when asked if he enjoyed cutting her throat he replied “Aye”, to which Debbie replied “Good. I really enjoyed stomping her head to [ f__k ]. There’s blood all over my walls.” Another video clip recorded a few minutes later showed Stuart dancing, with Debbie encouraging him. However, the trio were not exactly masterminds and each was desperate to tell their horrific secret. Debbie told an ex-boyfriend that she had been fighting with a female and that she was now “lying there looking funny.” Leigh told one of her friends that she had been at the flat when “a girl had been killed”, but it was Stuart who put the final nail in the coffin. He told two female residents, who were also living at the homeless hostel with them, that Laura had said that she was glad his granddad and sister were dead and so he killed her with a bread knife. He went on to say that Debbie and Leigh had been the ones who had beaten Laura, then he had got a knife from the kitchen and cut her throat. Naturally the two residents were probably dubious about what Stuart was saying, and so he led them to Debbie’s flat, opened the letterbox and said “Can you smell her body? She’s lying in there.” No doubt now believing what Stuart was saying, and also probably frightened, the two residents called the police, who found Laura’s decomposing body wrapped in bedding in a cupboard under the sink. Debbie and Stuart were arrested on the 20th of December 2007, and Leigh MacKinnon on the 21st of December 2007 in Glasgow, where she had fled after the attack and murder of Laura. Stuart Jack admitted murdering Laura and attempting to defeat the ends of justice and Debbie Buchan and Leigh MacKinnon admitted attempted murder and attempting to defeat the ends of justice, and they were charged with the same.

The Scott Burgess court case took place in January 2008 at the High Court in Glasgow. Scott Burgess’s family were also present for all of the evidence to be presented to the judge in order for them to decide on the sentences of Stephen Price and Karen and Irene Duncan, after the three pled guilty to their charges. The family had to sit through the horrendous sequence of events, hearing exactly what had been done to Scott’s body and of the horrific photos that had been taken. Following the evidence being heard, sentencing was deferred so the judge could take stock of all the evidence that had been presented, as well as asking for background reports on Stephen, Karen and Irene, so he could decide on the appropriate sentence for them. So I’ll give you a wee bit of background information about the three. The ring leader of the attack was Stephen Price. He had been brought up by his dad James and his step-mum Helen, when Helen had married James when Stephen was still a wee boy. Over the years Stephen was constantly in trouble with the police and was drinking heavily, having got in with the wrong crowd. And so in 2004, when he left school at 16 with no qualifications and no prospect of changing his behaviour, it was thought it best he move out of his parents home. Helen’s mum, Betty, had also played a part in Stephen’s life and so she agreed Stephen could move in with her at this time, thinking she could put him back on the straight and narrow by providing him with stability and encouragement. How wrong she was. Shortly after he moved in with his gran he was caught shoplifting and assaulted a member of staff. Then a few months later he assaulted a passenger on a bus. However, his gran would also get a taste of his nasty medicine when she had to call the police as he threatened to stab her and had become abusive towards her. After each incident he would always promise to do better and mend his ways, but this never happened. His gran wasn’t going to give up on him though. Anyway, it wasn’t long before Stephen slipped back to his old ways again, living between his gran’s house and homeless accommodation for a couple of years, and then he met Karen Duncan. Not much is known about Karen Duncan or indeed her sister Irene, other than they grew up in care. And according to an article in the Daily Record newspaper on the 6th of January 2007, Karen suffered a traumatic event at a young age. Following the Judge in the Scott Burgess case receiving the requested background information, it was back to the High Court in Glasgow, two months later on the 25th of March 2008, for Judge Lord Brodie to pass sentence. Lord Brodie sentenced Stephen Price to a life sentence, to spend 15 years in prison before being considered for parole. Lord Brodie said “This was a frenzied and sustained attack. It was an unprovoked attack on an unarmed man in his own home, showing a gross level of depravity.” He went on to say that had Stephen Price not pled guilty he would have given him 20 years. Karen Duncan, now 17, was given a jail sentence of seven years for culpable homicide and was to be supervised for a further three years after her release. And her sister Irene Duncan, now 18, was sentenced to 27 months in a young offenders institute for attempting to defeat the ends of justice, and was to be monitored for a year after her release. After the sentencing, Scott’s mum, Anne, spoke out saying she was furious and shocked with the sentences, that they were far too lenient after what the trio had done to her son. She couldn’t understand why the sisters murderer charge had been reduced, feeling that they should instead have been charged with conspiracy to murder, which carries a life sentence. Her feelings were that her son had not got justice. Scott’s mum also said in an interview in the Express Newspaper that she can’t sleep because every time she closes her eyes she sees them stabbing Scott. She said that she cries uncontrollably every time she thinks about Scott, and is still haunted by his death. Stephen’s step-mum, Helen, also spoke out saying that she was heartbroken and that she never thought Stephen could do what he had, but that she couldn’t abandon him.

Stuart Jack, Debbie Buchan and Leigh MacKinnon appeared at the High Court in Edinburgh on the 8th of July 2008 on the charges of murder and attempted murder of Laura Milne, where Stuart pled guilty to murder and attempting to defeat the ends of justice, Debbie pled guilty to attempted murder and attempting to defeat the ends of justice and Leigh MacKinnon pled guilty to attempted murder, attempting to defeat the ends of justice and of fleeing to Glasgow after the murder. The trial was due to begin on the 8th of July, however, due to the guilty plea the court was adjourned overnight in order for full details and evidence to be prepared to be presented to the court the following day. Following these developments, Laura’s dad, Brian, said that the family were relieved and pleasantly surprised that the trio pleaded guilty as it meant that they would not have to endure a four-week trial of heartache hearing exactly what had been done to Laura. He said in an article in The Herald newspaper that they would “just rely on the judge now to do his job.” All of the shocking evidence was then presented to the court on the 9th of July. However, it wouldn’t be until the 31st of July when the court reconvened and the sentences were finally handed down, before which Judge Lord Woolman had a few things to say in his statement. He firstly talked a wee bit about Laura and about her vulnerabilities, about the horrific unprovoked attack, about the attempt to defeat the ends of justice and the shocking video footage, and how it was difficult to comprehend the evil that lay behind this attack. He stated that in determining sentencing he had taken into account the information and evidence that had been submitted by each council, as well as the background reports, ages and the difficult backgrounds of Stuart, Debbie and Leigh. However, he stated that he had also taken into account the ferocious and sustained attack on Laura, on someone who was supposed to be a friend, as well as the fact they didn’t seem to fully appreciate what they had done. Just to let you know there’s not much known about the three, but I’ll tell you what I found out. 19 year old Debbie Buchan already had one prior conviction for assault, and at the time of the attack and murder of Laura Milne, Debbie was already on bail for two further complaints of assault. Debbie told the court that she was embarrassed and ashamed of her actions.  It was also noted that Debbie had said that she was sorry for her part in what had happened to Laura. 18 year old Leigh MacKinnon also had a previous conviction of assault. She had apparently been an intelligent girl and had enrolled in a college course, before drink and drugs took control.  However, the judge said he would not be taking this into account when considering her sentence as he deemed this irrelevant. 22 year old Stuart Jack lived a nomadic and chaotic lifestyle. He had no previous convictions but did drink alcohol to excess. Again, the judge said he would not take his excess alcohol consumption that evening into account when considering the sentence. Finally the judge was ready to pass sentence. Debbie Buchan  received a custodial sentence of nine years and four months. Judge Woolman also felt that the protection of the public was an issue and so he also gave an extended sentence of three years, meaning that when Debbie is released from prison, after serving at least two thirds of her custodial sentence, then she will be on licence and under supervision for a further three years. Leigh MacKinnon received a custodial sentence of nine years, and also an extended sentence of three years. Stuart Jack received a life sentence, meaning he will be on licence for life, with the punishment part of his sentence being 18 years, meaning he will have to serve at least 18 years before he will be eligible to apply for parole and released on licence. If he breaks the terms of his licence he will be recalled back to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence. All sentences were back dated to when they were first taken into custody, the 20th of December 2007 for Debbie and Stuart on the 21st of December 2007 for Leigh. Stuart Jack, Debbie Buchan and Leigh MacKinnon showed no emotion as their sentences were passed or as they were taken away to start them. If you’d like to read the full statement by Judge Lord Woolman, you can find it under the sources for this case on our website. Following the sentencing, a statement was released by the family and taken from the Scotsman newspaper it read “We are appalled that such a horrific crime has resulted in such a lenient sentence. They all played a part in Laura’s death and in our opinion Debbie Buchan and Leigh MacKinnon should have had significantly higher sentences. We also want it put on record that Debbie Buchan’s apology is of no consequence to us, and we hope their evil actions will always weigh heavily on their conscience. Yet again the judicial system has let innocent victims down. It is no wonder we are experiencing increased levels of serious crime with the apparent lack of punishment. No sentence will ever bring Laura back to us or erase from our minds the memory of what they did to her. We will have to live with this for the rest of our lives, Debbie Buchan and Leigh MacKinnon could be out walking the streets again in just six years.”

Speaking of being released and walking the streets again, Irene Duncan served her 27-month sentence and was released, where she proceeded to rack up numerous offenses, including a knife attack and assaulting the police. On the 6th of September 2018 she was witnessed leaving her property in Paisley wielding two large kitchen knives and wandering around the area with them. The police were called and when they arrived they saw Irene running behind a block of flats. When they followed they found the knives and a screwdriver lying on the ground near where they had seen Irene running to. She was arrested, charged and due to her breaking her bill conditions was jailed for 22 months, to be monitored for nine months after she was released. It also transpired that she was pregnant and would be giving birth in prison. Karen Duncan was released from prison in 2015 and also moved back to Paisley. Less than two years later on the 3rd of October 2017, when she was 26 years old, she was arrested after being verbally abusive and threatening towards a woman in the street in Paisley. The woman she was threatening was said to have been terrified. She pleaded guilty to the charge, and due to her being on a three-year supervision order after leaving prison, she was to appear in court to be sentenced for breaching her bill conditions. However, she never turned up and a warrant for her arrest was issued and the hunt for Karen began. She was caught however and she appeared in court, but she was given a reprieve and instead of going back to prison she was ordered to carry out 70 hours of unpaid work in six months. But it wouldn’t be the last time she found herself in court. In February 2019 she was this time in court due to the fact that her Rottweiler and German Shepherd dog had bitten a nine-year-old girl on her left bum cheek. She did apologise profusely to the girl and her mother and the girl made a full recovery, but she pleaded guilty to breaking the Dangerous Dog Act. She was fined £360, or just under $500. And then in August 2019, when she was 28 years old, she was arrested with her boyfriend after the pair carried out an attack on a couple who had been witnesses against their friends in court. Her boyfriend was seen to be carrying a knife and Karen threw bricks through the windows of the house while the couple were inside. She was heard to be swearing and shouting that the couple were going to get it due to them getting her friend an eight-year prison sentence.  The pair were arrested and Karen pled guilty to public disorder, but reported that she didn’t remember much about what happened. On sentencing again she got a reprieve, and instead was handed a community payback order. She would also be closely supervised for two years and ordered to repay damages, which were £297 or $411.

Debbie Buchan was released early from prison and on her release was being known as Debbie Robertson. She was to spend nine years and four months in prison back dated to the 20th of December 2007, however on the 25th of May 2016, eight years and five months after being sentenced, she appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court for assaulting her ex-partner. It was reported in court that 20 fresh human bite marks had been noted on her ex-partner’s back and chest, however, her ex-partner also said that his chest had actually never been examined. Debbie’s ex-partner stated that he had sat on Debbie to stop her moving after an argument had turned violent and that this was when she had bitten him, trying to get him off her. He then said he slapped her and knocked her head off the ground as he got off her. Debbie, who was now 27 years old, was cleared of this charge by a jury who determined that she had in fact been acting in self-defence during an argument between her self and our ex-partner.  Leigh MacKinnon, who was given a nine-year prison sentence, was back in Aberdeen eight years and four months after being sentenced, and she had secured herself a job and changed her name to Sheryllleigh while in prison. Leigh, who was now 26, had done some hairdressing training and had been cutting other prisoners hair, and so to put these new skills to good use she had rented herself a chair at a barber shop in Aberdeen using her new name Sheryllleigh The barber shop was located about a mile away from where the horrific murder of Laura Milne had taken place. Not only were the clients she was cutting the hair off completely oblivious of who the person cutting their hair was or her background, but also the owner of the barber shop where she was renting her chair had no idea either. When he found out he was furious, not only because he had been deceived but also because he had known Laura Milne. Laura’s dad, Brian, was also angry saying in the Press and Journal newspaper on the 7th of April 2016 “I want to know why her sentence hasn’t been finished. I’m angry that she got off so easily.” And that just leaves Scott Burgess and Laura Milne’s murderers. Stephen Price will be eligible to apply for parole. after serving the punishment part of his life sentence of 15 years for the murder of Scott Burgess, in 2022. He will be 34 years old. Stuart Jack will be eligible to apply for parole, after serving the punishment part of his life sentence of 18 years for the murder of Laura Milne, in 2025. He will be 40 years old.

The Scott and the Milne families have had to try and find a way to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives after their loved ones, Scott Burgess and Laura Milne, were taken from them so brutally and pointlessly. It’s clear that neither family were satisfied with the sentences that were handed down and feel let down by the justice system. So, has justice been served?

And that’s the end. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and know just the person who’d also like it please share it with them, don’t keep it to yourself.

Cole:

Please also get in touch on social media if you have any questions, comments or suggestions and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. All social media and contact details are on our website scottishmurders.com as well as all the source material and photos related to this episode.

Dawn:

So that’s it for this week, come back next time for another episode of Scottish Murders.

Dawn and Cole:

Join us there. Bye.

Granny Robertson:

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn.

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn

Hosted by Dawn Young

Researched and Written by Dawn Young

Produced and Edited by Dawn Young and Peter Bull

Production Company Name by Granny Robertson

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Douglas Skelton – The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane – Part 1

Douglas Skelton – The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane – part 2

Betty Alexander – Unsolved Murder 1952 – Buccleuch Street, Garnethill, Glasgow – Betty Alexander Unsolved Mysteries UK

Murder in the heart of a city | HeraldScotland

Hunt for little Betty’s killer – after 60 years | Glasgow Times

The unsolved Glasgow murder which shocked a city | Glasgow Times

The Hidden Glasgow Forums • View topic – Glasgow Murder Mysteries

Garnethill – Wikipedia

No Final Solution: Great Scottish Unsolved Crimes of the Twentieth Century: Amazon.co.uk: Skelton, Douglas: 9780006384144: Books

The Book of Glasgow Murders by Donald M. Fraser | Waterstones

PressReader.com – Your favorite newspapers and magazines.

Sauchiehall Street – Wikipedia

43 Buccleuch St – Google Maps

Buccleuch St, Glasgow to The Glasgow School of Art – Google Maps

W Graham St – Google Maps

The Dispensary, West Graham Street : Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow

Tenement House (Glasgow) – Wikipedia

The Tenement House | National Trust for Scotland

The Tenement House | National Trust for Scotland

In Pictures: Historic Sauchiehall – Daily Record

Killer’s Frenzy Of Evil; Emily, 77, raped and bludgeoned. – Free Online Library

Glasgow murder charge | HeraldScotland

Murder in the heart of a city | HeraldScotland

New plea on OAP’s murder | HeraldScotland

Vandals destroy mural in honour of a Glasgow community legend | Glasgow Times

Betty Brown turned tragic early life into a success story by helping others. | HeraldScotland

DNA profiling – Wikipedia

Scottish Sentencing Council Prison sentences

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn

Hosted by Dawn and Cole

Researched and Written by Dawn Young

Produced and Edited by Dawn Young and Peter Bull

Production Company Name by Granny Robertson

Music:

Dawn of the Fairies by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

Gothic Wedding by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

Dawn:

The murders of Betty Alexander and Emily Mutch may have been separated by 44 years, but they are still linked to this day, as they both occurred on the same unassuming street in Glasgow.

Dawn and Cole:

Hi Wee Ones, I’m Dawn and I’m Cole, and this is Scottish Murders.

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Dawn:

Garnethill is situated in the north west of Glasgow City Centre on a hilly area. It is just under a mile from Sauchihall Street, one of the three main shopping streets in Glasgow.  The other two being Buchanan Street and Argyle Street, all of which Cole and I have visited over the years. Back in 1952, Garnethill was known as the bed sit and theatre land district and so there was an ever-changing parade of seasonal workers, salesmen, actors and young families. Garnethill is made up of 12 streets, one of which is Buccleuch Street, and is where four and a half year old Betty Alexander lived with her parents, Jack and Barbara Alexander, and her grandmother Isobel Alexander. For all Betty was only four and a half years old she loved nothing more than helping people, and Tuesday 7th of October 1952 was just like any other day for her. Betty had first set about the task of helping her gran to make the household beds. She then had taken herself to the local grocers where she frequently spent her time helping him in the shop. Betty then was reported to have returned home and given her gran a bunch of flowers she’d gotten as payment for helping the greengrocer. October in the west of Scotland can be pretty wet and, as expected, the rain had fallen continuously for days, until early evening on the 7th of October when there was a slight reprieve. Due to the bad weather, Betty hadn’t been allowed out much to play with her friends, so when the rain stopped she begged her parents if she could go outside to play. It was about 5pm by this time and she wouldn’t normally be allowed out this late, but on this occasion her parents relented. Betty left the flat to play with her friends wearing a smart brown coat, a kilt, grey, red and green jumper, brown shoes and fawn socks. Isobel, Betty’s gran, was reported to have said that Betty had whistled and sang as she went out to play. An hour or so later Betty’s mum, Barbara, shouted for Betty to come in and get her tea, but there was no sign of Betty. Barbara became worried and started walking from street to street in search of her daughter. An hour later back at Buccleuch Street there had been no sightings of Betty with her distinctive black curly hair and Barbara was sufficiently concerned that she contacted the police to report her daughter missing. Being a close-knit community, upon hearing about Betty’s disappearance, friends and neighbours of the family formed and started a search party, alongside the police. The search party went from street to street, lane by lane, backyard to backyard, through the night searching by torchlight. Barbara Alexander later said that about 8pm on the night her daughter went missing she thought she had heard a shout from Betty saying “mummy mummy” coming from Buccleuch Lane, which runs along the backyards of Buccleuch Street and West Graham Street. She said that she had walked up and down Buccleuch Lane, which was lit by gas light, at this time shouting Betty’s name and looking into backyards where she could, but she never heard Betty’s voice again. By early Wednesday morning, the search party came together again in the hopes someone had news of Betty’s whereabouts, only to be told that there was still no sign of her. Due to the search having turned up nothing by Wednesday morning, CID detectives were then drafted into help. Firstly, as it was daylight now, a further search was set up taking in places that had already been checked the previous night as well as places that hadn’t, including outhouses, cellars and yards. Becky’s picture was also posted across the city on police boxes and at police stations. Newspaper reporters were also now aware of Betty Alexander’s disappearance and they were on hand to help get the word out to their readers, in the hope someone might have a clue to Betty’s whereabouts. They were given Betty’s description and of the clothing she wore, and this was circulated in the evening and daily newspapers. From this exposure many readers of the newspaper contacted the police to share possible sightings of Betty, all of which had to be checked. One such sighting was of Betty apparently seen crying in a large store in Sauchiehall Street just before the store closed on Wednesday night. The manager was asked to open the store to see if Betty had been trapped inside by mistake, however this proved not to be the case. This sighting along with all the other sightings reported of Betty, after being followed up, went nowhere. Another lead that was followed up was of a sighting of a dark saloon car in Buccleuch Street on the very night that Betty disappeared, however, this also turned out to be a red herring. The police were also keen to find a man who had supposedly been seen with Betty on Tuesday night. The description of the man and what he had been wearing was circulated, but nobody came forward to say they recognised this man, and he was never identified. While some police officers were given the task of following up all leads of possible sightings of Betty, others, along with friends and family of the Alexanders as well as complete strangers from the surrounding areas and beyond, carried on selflessly with a search for Betty, neglecting their own families in the process, and the search area gradually widened, eventually taking in the entire area covered by the Northern Police Division, which was at the time 16 square miles. Betty’s headmaster at her primary school also did his bit to help find any clues to Betty’s disappearance. He held an assembly with the children of the school and asked them to come forward if they had seen Betty around the area on Tuesday evening. Apparently a couple of the children were able to give some information, all of which helped police establish the movements of Betty until approximately 6pm, although they did admit that the children’s recollection could be unreliable. There had been no sightings of Betty after 6pm by any of the school children.  Despite the searches, the newspaper appeals and the sightings, there was still no trace of Betty, and by Thursday the 9th of October Detective Chief Inspector Neil Beaton admitted that he was beginning to fear for Betty’s safety. Unfortunately, only a day later his fear became a reality. It was 2pm on Friday the 10th of October, almost three days after wee Betty Alexander first went missing, when she was found in the backyard of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children Dispensary in West Graham Street by Mrs Agnes Hunter, a 55 year old cleaner.

Cole:

As it was the 50s, I assume a dispensary has a different meaning than it does today.

Dawn:

Back then it was a place where poorer families could take their children for free medical treatment and medication.

Cole:

Yeah, that makes sense.

Dawn
Agnes had a routine when cleaning the dispensary, and on Fridays about 2pm she always went out to the backyard to beat the dispensary rugs. There was no reason for anyone else working at the dispensary to go out there, which is why it took until the Friday for anyone working there to find Betty.

Cole:

Didn’t you say that the search parties were looking in every backyard up and down Garnethill? Didn’t they see Betty in the dispensary backyard, or was she put there after people had searched it?

Dawn:

Well you’ll not believe it, but the dispensary backyard wasn’t actually checked.

Cole:

Why not?

Dawn:

Well, the site that the dispensary sat on was private property, along with the backyard. It was surrounded by a seven foot brick wall with iron railings and glass on the top of it, and the wooden gate from Buccleuch Lane into the dispensary yard was always kept locked. The backyard unfortunately was also not overlooked by anyone’s flat or house, except the caretaker’s house and him and his family had moved out six weeks prior. So, there was no one that was just going to look out and see Betty lying there. Apparently the backyard wasn’t searched as it was assumed that there was no way a small child could get into it, and it was apparently initially thought that Betty had just wandered off. Although what Betty’s grandmother said later to the papers contradicts this, something which I found a lot while researching this case actually. When doing an interview with a local newspaper, Betty’s gran said “She was a lovable, sweet wee girl who used to talk to anyone who spoke to her, but would not wander away of her own accord.” 

Cole:

Surely if she was missing for three days you would want to check the dispensary.

Dawn:

Yeah. I mean, even if you initially thought that she just wandered off, after three days I think you would be realising she hadn’t. So, yeah, you would have checked. Anyway, because of this misunderstanding, search parties would have passed by within a short distance from wee Betty’s body numerous times before she was found on the Friday afternoon.

Cole:

That’s crazy.

Dawn:

So when Agnes found Betty she was lying near the top of the few steps down into the backyard from the dispensary back door. Agnes quickly summoned the police, but later she said that it was “a terrible sight” that she wanted to forget. So, when the police arrived they firstly noted that Betty’s clothes appeared to be in disarray, and this is where the contradictions start again. Some reports say that Betty’s coat was folded and placed under her head. Others say that the coat had been placed under her body and she lay on it. Some reports say that her socks and shoes were wet. Others report that her clothes looked like they had been removed and ironed. Can’t imagine why anyone that killed her would then remove her clothes and iron them. Also the state Betty’s body was found in differs slightly too. One report says that Betty had been found badly beaten, had a scarf twisted around her neck and had been strangled. Other reports say that she had no physical marks on her neck, no scarf was found around her neck or otherwise, and that she hadn’t been strangled.  Another report says that she had suffered a serious assault and had died of shock. Another said she had been severely injured, strangled and outraged, which, according to Douglas Skelton’s book No Final Solution, means today that she was sexually assaulted. It’s not known which one of these accounts is accurate, however, all reports did agree that she’d been dead for some time, possibly since her disappearance on Tuesday night, and that she’d probably lain on the steps for the same amount of time. Word of Betty’s body being found had spread like wildfire, and within the hour of her body being found the many people who had spent the last three days away from their families looking for wee Betty, as well as reporters, began to congregate at either end of Buccleuch Lane. It was reported that the crowds grew to around about a 1,000 people over the afternoon. Betty’s dad, Jack, was seen arriving at the dispensary to carry out the horrendous task of identifying his daughter, before his daughter was removed for a post-mortem to be carried out.

Cole:

Oh, so he just identified her at the scene?

Dawn:

Yeah, from what’s been reported this is what happened. Maybe a procedure that’s just changed over time. As the day wore on, the mood of the crowds gathered changed from shock to anger that this had been done to one of their own, to a four and a half year old girl, and finally to fear that it could be one of their children next. They wanted answers. A feeling that was mirrored throughout Glasgow as the news broke of Betty’s body being found. Glasgow had not seen a murder of such a young child for over 30 years and the city as a whole was horrified. Forensic teams descended on the backyard of the dispensary to search every inch of it for clues to what had happened to Betty and who had done it.

Cole:

So, they were definitely treating it as suspicious? After all the different reports, it seems like it wasn’t an accident.

Dawn:

Yeah, straight away they’ve determined that it was a murder. I think partly because they were right, the wee girl herself couldn’t have got into the yard so she had to have been taken there. So, yeah, definitely murder straight away. So, the forensic team firstly came across a small bit of newspaper on Betty’s body, which, after an investigation, was found to have come from a Glasgow morning edition newspaper from the 2nd of October 1952, five days before she went missing. This was later examined for fingerprints but none were found and this lead went nowhere. However, a fingerprint was found on both a wrought iron gate leading from West Graham Street and a wooden door that led to Buccleuch Lane, as well as a fingerprint being found on one of the steps where Betty was found lying. The gate and door were removed from the hinges, as well as sections of the steps, and taken to the forensic lab to be fingerprinted and examined in greater detail.

Cole:

So, they removed part of the steps and took the gate and the door to fingerprint them? Why didn’t they do that at the scene?

Dawn:

Apparently back in the 1950s it was thought that by trying to secure a fingerprint at the crime scene it could result in this being destroyed, so to get the fingerprint they just took the actual source of where the fingerprint was back to the lab to be examined. Obviously things have changed now. Anyway from the items they removed and fingerprinted it would be the wooden gate that provided the only real clue, a partial fingerprint, which is pretty difficult to match, especially back then when there were no computers and everything had to be compared by eye. Betty’s clothes were also taken to the lab and examined for any traces of her killer, but what was actually found in her clothing was dog hairs. Thinking this was a vital clue the police secured hair samples from every dog in the Garnethill area. Through this process they identified the dog, and it belonged to a resident who lived close to Buccleuch Lane. However, the owner and the dog were quickly ruled out of the inquiry. It was assumed that Betty had either came into contact with the dog by patting it before she disappeared, or that the dog had somehow made its way into the backyard where Betty lay and had shed its hair on her. However the hairs got onto her body, it was a dead end. While the forensic teams worked tirelessly, the police began what would be one of the biggest murder investigations. Over the weekend, the 11th and 12th of October, the police undertook the mammoth task of interviewing everybody in the Garnethill area via door-to-door inquiries to try to find any sightings of Betty between Tuesday evening until she was found, and of any sightings of strangers in the area that could be linked to Betty’s disappearance and murder. This undertaking took 120 detectives and 2,000 uniformed policemen. They were said to have interviewed almost 4,000 people by Monday the 13th of October, this included a 69 year old man who happened to live in the closest residence to the murder scene. He said that he was aware who Betty was, but that he hadn’t heard anything on the night in question or the following two nights. He did say they had seen Betty on the Tuesday night about 5pm and that she was playing with his granddaughter. Once all of the information collected from the door-to-door inquiries was gone through and collated, the police were able to ascertain that Betty had been seen about 5.30pm on Tuesday the 7th of October in Buccleuch Street, and then again about 7pm in Rose Street, which is about a five minute walk away, still in the Garnethill area though. However, there was still the hour between 7 and 8pm that could not be accounted for. Do you remember that Betty’s mum said that she thought she had heard Betty shouting “mummy mummy” from Buccleuch Lane about 8pm?

Cole:

Yeah. And that’s where Betty was found so that would make sense. Did the police think that Betty was in the backyard being killed at that exact time?

Dawn:

Well, that could have been a possibility, but apparently the police believed that Betty had actually already been dead when she was carried into the yard, either via Buccleuch Lane over the seven foot high wall with glass on it or from West Graham Street via a short passage at the side of the dispensary and over a lower wooden gate. According to Donald M. Fraser’s book The Book of Glasgow Murders, it was actually proven that she was killed somewhere else before being placed in the yard.

Cole:

But if Betty’s mum said she heard who she thought was Betty saying “mummy mummy” from Buccleuch Lane but she was actually killed somewhere else, how would that be possible?

Dawn:

Well, I’ve actually got two thoughts about that. Either Betty was still alive and she did hear her, then Betty was killed shortly after 8pm and then placed in the yard, or she didn’t in fact hear Betty shouting “mummy mummy” at all. But we’ll come back to that later.

Cole:

Okay.

Dawn:

So, Betty’s post mortem was carried out over the weekend on Saturday the 11th of October. The cause of death was pronounced to have been shock which had been brought on by being a victim of an assault. However, again, this was contradicted later by the police who said that Betty had been suffocated and criminally assaulted. However Betty died, she was still murdered and her murderer was still out there. And while this is at the forefront of everybody’s mind and they wanted this person to be caught and brought to justice, Betty’s family had other things on their mind as Betty’s funeral was to take place on Monday the 13th of October 1952. Thanks to word of mouth, as well as the media, people, mostly women and children from Garnethill as well as across Glasgow, had come to pay their respects, regardless of the rain that poured down. The huge crowd, thought to be of around 5,000 people, lined Buccleuch Street to say goodbye to Betty, as her tiny white coffin went slowly by. It was a sad affair, with many of the women and children crying. The procession started at the Alexanders home in Buccleuch Street and came to an end at Cadder Cemetery, which was about a 20-minute drive north east of the city. Here family and a few close friends stood by the graveside and watched the tiny coffin be lowered into the ground. There was a mass of wreaths and brightly coloured flowers placed all around the grave, many from strangers from all across Glasgow. As well as a card from Betty’s parents which read “To Bunkum, our dear wee Betty, from daddy and mummy.” Now, as the funeral procession was making its way slowly along its route to the cemetery, a 15 month old boy, who was in his pram outside a shop while his mother was inside shopping, was taken by a passing woman.

Cole:

What?!

Dawn:

Thankfully the baby’s aunt saw what had happened and challenged the woman, taking the baby boy from her. However, as you can imagine, tensions were already running high and when the crowd that had gathered from the funeral got wind of this, things reached boiling point. Thankfully the police were on hand and got to the woman and arrested her before the crowds got to her first.

Cole:

So, she just tried to steal a baby off the street? She was very lucky that could have turned really nasty for her.

Dawn:

Yeah, I know, she was lucky. The woman was later charged with a child stealing, but thankfully the day didn’t turn nasty and overshadow Betty’s funeral.

Cole:

Good.

Dawn:

With Betty now laid to rest, on Tuesday the 14th of October the police announced that they had found a partial fingerprint close to where Betty had been found. Unfortunately, having gone through their records and compared the partial fingerprints with male criminals they had on file, they hadn’t been able to find a match. As this fingerprint was the only solid clue they needed to come up with a way to make it work for them. And, therefore, on the Tuesday an unprecedented request was made by Chief Constable Malcolm McCulloch. As detectives were convinced that Betty’s murderer was a local man and that Betty possibly had gone with this man willingly and she had known him, they were willing to carry out Scotland’s biggest ever fingerprinting exercise and requested that all adult males over the age of 17 in the Garnethill area be fingerprinted for comparison with the partial print that had been found at the murder scene. While it was made clear that people could refuse this request, it was strongly hoped that police would have the residence of Garnethill’s full cooperation. The police also gave assurances that the fingerprints taken would only be used for the purpose of comparison against the partial print taken from the crime scene, and would be destroyed once it had been eliminated in their inquiries. Amazingly, no one refused, and the police ended up collecting over 1,000 fingerprints, all of which were compared manually with the partial print, but again none of the prints matched. Police then decided to include in the fingerprint exercise men who worked in Garnethill but didn’t live there, including a church congregation who had been painting railings in West Graham Street. Nearly two weeks after Betty’s body had been found that exercise was complete, again with no matches been found, and so the investigation came to a standstill.

Cole:

Okay, so when the police had no luck fingerprinting the men over age 17 did they not start fingerprinting younger men or women?

Dawn:

No, they didn’t. And, yes, that would have been my thought too, that after not getting a fingerprint match with any of the males living or working in the area that they’d broaden that by fingerprinting younger men or women living and working in the area too, but they didn’t.

Cole:

Why not?

Dawn:

I wasn’t able to find a definitive reason why they didn’t do this during my research of the case. All I can think of is that the police maybe had some sort of evidence that ruled out a younger male or a woman being involved completely. Or maybe it was just due to lack of funding or resources. But, in my opinion, they missed a once in a lifetime opportunity to complete the task and know for sure. Due to the transient nature of the Garnethill area, there will never be another chance to have all the residents who worked and lived in the Garnethill area there again. I feel this was a missed opportunity.

Cole:

I agree. Also, the woman who tried to kidnap the baby during Betty’s funeral, I mean was she never fingerprinted.

Dawn:

I’m not sure. I would assume so if she was arrested and charged.

Cole:

I wonder if her fingerprints were ever compared to the partial print that they had. I mean it seems like a really big coincidence that a woman tried to steal a child at the funeral of another child. Maybe there would be two perpetrators not just one soul man.

Dawn:

That is a really good point actually. I’d like to think that somebody on the investigation thought about this too. But, then, they apparently weren’t interested in women only concentrating on the men in the area. So it’s anybody’s guess.

Cole:

I wonder if there was evidence to suggest that she was sexually assaulted by a man and that’s why they weren’t looking at women?

Dawn:

Yeah that could have been the case. But, again, with all the contradicting stories of what actually happened to her, it’s just not known. But, yeah, that could actually be one of the reasons. But even if it was, there still could have been two people. There could have been a man and a woman involved. So, I don’t really think they should have just ruled out all women for that reason. Just my opinion though. Now, while the fingerprinting exercise was taking place, at the same time other leads were also being investigated, and on the 16th of October a rumour started circulating around Garnethill that a husband, his wife and their son had been taken to the police station, where it later emerged that they had been questioned for 13 hours. This was the same man that had said that he had seen Betty at about 5pm playing with his granddaughter. While they were being questioned at the police station in Maitland Street, more and more people turned up there demanding to know what was going on, assuming that they were somehow involved in the murder of Betty. They began to get more and more rowdy until detectives finally made a statement saying that the family hadn’t been arrested and were just helping police with their inquiries, with a chief superintendent saying that “There is no particular man being sought, in fact we could not even be certain at the moment that it was a man. No possibility is being overlooked.” However, they did state that they believed the killer had to be local due to their knowledge about the dispensary yard being a secure place to take Betty and not being overlooked by any residence, but that nothing was being ruled out at this point. Reporters however were convinced it was a male perpetrator they were looking for due to the fact Betty’s body had been sexually assaulted. After 13 hours of being questioned the family were taken back to their home, having been cleared of any involvement in Betty’s murder. Anyway, as the police tried to find any clues to Betty’s murder, they carried out searches of properties in Garnethill, including the empty caretakers house and a number of other houses in the vicinity of Buccleuch Lane, as well as a cellar.  Some items from these properties were apparently packaged up and taken away for forensic examination, but again nothing came off this. However, as time went on and nobody had been caught for the murder of Betty, the Garnethill community became restless and I suppose needed to feel that they were doing something, even if not productive or evidence-based, and so they hounded and abused the caretaker and the elderly man who lived closest to the dispensary, who had been questioned with his family for 13 hours. The abuse apparently became so bad that when it was reported to the police a statement was immediately released reminding the locals that neither of the men being harassed were under suspicion of anything. 

Cole:

And I can’t imagine that would help anything either.

Dawn:

No, it didn’t. It just tied up the police even more and they had enough to be getting on with, especially when they had to follow up all the leads, including potential leads from cranks. One of which came on the morning of the 16th of October when a man had phoned from a phone box in the Glasgow area confessing to the murder. The police swooped on the phone box and the man was taken to the police station for questioning, but again this was found to be a dead end. Now another line of inquiry that had to be checked out at the same time as the police were undertaking the mammoth task of fingerprinting the Garnethill residents, was following up the lead from Barbara Alexander, Betty’s mum. She told the police that when she and her friend were looking for Betty she had spotted an ambulance outside the Sick Children’s Dispensary in West Graham Street. She said she saw a man standing beside the ambulance and he appeared to be holding a child in his arms, wrapped in a blanket. She remembered saying to her friend at the time “Look, there’s another wee kiddie, and us looking for Betty.” The police contacted the ambulance service for the area in an attempt to identify who this man could have been, only to be informed that no ambulance had been recorded as being in West Graham Street on the evening of the Tuesday the 7th of October. The police also put an appeal out for this man to come forward if he was the driver of the ambulance, however nobody ever came forward. It was assumed at the time that perhaps the driver had gone to the dispensary in error or that had been there unofficially and so didn’t come forward for fear of getting into trouble. However, Mrs Alexander then changed her story and said perhaps it could have been a brown van instead of an ambulance. Again, this lead had to be followed up and an appeal for a brown van being in the area on the evening of Tuesday the 7th of October was released, but again neither the van nor the driver were ever traced.

Cole:

How could you mix up an ambulance and a brown van? Was her friend ever interviewed for her point of view?

Dawn:

I thought exactly the same, and I wasn’t able to find anything to suggest her friend had corroborated Barbara’s story. I think her changing her story after having the already overworked detective searching for an ambulance may have led to some police officers becoming a bit suspicious of Barbara, especially as she also mentioned vital information in an interview  she gave to the press, that she didn’t deem important enough to provide to police officers at the time of the search for Betty. You remember how she said that she had thought she had heard Betty’s voice calling out “mummy mummy” near Buccleuch Lane about 8pm on the Tuesday the 7th of October?

Cole:

Yes.

Dawn:

Well, apparently she didn’t disclose this to the police officers until after Betty was found.

Cole:

That’s pretty important information.

Dawn:

It is. I know. And I think it would have probably annoyed the detectives that she didn’t advise any one of this at the time of the search for Betty, as they said later that if she had they would have definitely concentrated their search more in that area and probably would have found Betty sooner. Maybe another black mark against Barbara at this point.

Cole:

Yeah, I can see why the police would be suspicious of Barbara forgetting to tell them vital Information and then sending them on a wild ghost chase for an ambulance, which in fact might actually have been a brown van.

Dawn:

Yeah. And I have a feeling these two incidents with Betty’s mum made the police very suspicious of Barbara, and they maybe wondered if she possibly had something to do with Betty’s disappearance and murder, although I don’t believe this was ever a line of investigation, even though it was hinted at later by the police.

Cole:

I think in any murder investigation blame tends to fall around the people closest to the victim. But I also think that when you’re grieving and when you’ve had such a shock like that, you are likely to miss things or not say things straight away or not think that they meant anything when they might have. It’s a weird situation to be in, and I don’t think any of us can comment on how we’d behave in that situation.

Dawn:

I absolutely agree with you. I think she probably just was in shock. It was a horrible situation and she missed things, she forgot things. But, no, I personally don’t think that she was involved. Anyway, towards the end of October police advised that they were going back through the 3,000 or so statements they had taken from the door-to-door inquiries, and then on the 31st of October 1952, nearly four weeks after Betty first went missing, there was an appeal to try to identify a male that had been seen in Buccleuch Lane on the night of Betty’s disappearance with two other young girls, but no description of this man was given.

Cole:

So, someone said that they saw him but they weren’t able to give a description? That’s strange.

Dawn:

It is strange that they didn’t give a description. It’s possibly why this man was never identified. However, towards the end of November there was another sudden flurry of activity, when two detectives made their way to Inverness to interview a man who was in custody. Apparently on being questioned by officers in Inverness, he had begun to mention Betty Alexander’s murder, and had apparently been residing in Garnethill at the time of the murder, leaving suddenly on the 8th of October, the day after Betty went missing. The Inverness police officers informed Glasgow police officers and they immediately left for Inverness to interview this man themselves. However, when they got there they quickly realised this was another red herring. The man was drunk, and after checks being made it was determined that he was not involved in Betty’s murder. This was just another dead end. As Christmas approached the crowds that had once gathered daily outside the police station and Buccleuch Street started to disperse and become less and less until one day nobody turned up, and wee Betty Alexander gradually started to fade from people’s minds. The horror and shock of what had happened not forgotten, but everyday life began to take back over. The team investigating the case went from 120 detectives and 2,000 uniform policemen carrying out door-to-door inquiries to a team of only 40, and that eventually was whittled down to only a few. Every lead had been investigated and had led to dead end after dead end. With no new evidence being uncovered, there was nowhere else to go with the case, and so it was eventually filed away under unsolved. Until 1955, three years later, when Jack and Barbara Alexander, Betty’s parents, got back in touch with the police insisting they wanted the case to be reopened as they felt they had new evidence to provide. Do you remember that Barbara had said she had firstly seen an ambulance outside of the dispensary on the day Betty went missing and then changed her story and said it was a brown van?

Cole:

Yes.

Dawn:

Well, the new evidence was she believed she had seen the same brown van, or at least a similar one, in the Garnethill area. Betty’s dad, Jack, told the Evening Times newspaper “We won’t rest until whoever murdered our little girl is caught.”

Cole:

So did the police reopen the case?

Dawn:

Well I can’t find any information about the case being reopened at this time. I imagine the police gave this the cursory glance, maybe they even tracked down the brown van and its driver and interviewed him and again came to a dead end. Sadly, Betty Alexander’s murder slipped from the minds of the residents of Glasgow and Garnethill once again, as children who lived there grew up and moved away, families came and went from Garnethill, the Sick Children’s Dispensary was relocated from Garnethill to another part of Glasgow, and the Garnethill area gradually moved on, until Betty Alexander became a distant memory. That is until 1996, 44 years after Betty Alexander first went missing, when her murder was once again thrust into the limelight, but sadly not because new evidence had been found or a suspect had been identified, but for a very different and equally as horrifying reason.

Cole:

Emily Mutch was born in 1920 and brought up in Glasgow. She lived with her parents until she was about 16 years old when she ran away from home, but she still continued to live in the Glasgow area as this was her home and she knew it like the back of her hand. Upon running away from home she started working in a munitions factory, until she met and married her husband, Teddy, in 1949 when she was 29 years old. The couple continued to live and work in Glasgow and in 1952, after three years of marriage, the pair would have been shocked as everyone else in Glasgow about the murder of Betty Alexander. No doubt this would have crossed the couple’s minds again in 1983, 31 years after Betty Alexander’s murder, when they decided to move to a sheltered housing complex in the ever changing neighbourhood of Garnethill in Glasgow, specifically a small fourth floor flat in Buccleuch Street, not far from Betty Alexander’s old home.

Dawn:

Ooh small world.

Cole:

It really is. Where Garnethill had a different reputation back in 1952, in the 80s this sheltered housing complex was considered to be quite safe and secure, which was also felt by Emily and Teddy’s extended family who visited the couple frequently. In 1988 five years after moving into the complex after being married for 39 years, Teddy sadly died. At the time of Teddy’s death, Emily would have been nearly 69. She had been ill for some time with dementia, but Teddy had successfully been covering this up so well that it wasn’t until his death that their family members became aware of just how severe her dementia was. However, Emily had now been living in the complex for five years and she had made friends there and enjoyed living there as well, and so despite her severe dementia she continued to live in Buccleuch Street. Over the years Emily’s health continued to decline; she was profoundly deaf, had Parkinson’s disease and severe and painful arthritis in her hands.  While Emily’s health may have deteriorated and she had become more frail over time, she still enjoyed life. Over the years she made many friends in the complex, some of whom would check on her regularly to see if she was okay. She would usually leave the door to her flat unlocked and slightly open as she was unable to lock the door due to the severe arthritis in her hands. On Sunday the 30th of June 1996, 77 year old Emily returned home after being released from hospital, spending the next couple of days airing out her flat and settling back in. On the 4th of July 1996, she attended a regular day hospital that helped patients with dementia, before returning back to her home the same day. Emily probably would have then had some tea and maybe had an early night or went to bed to watch TV after an exhausting day, having no idea of what horror was about to show up in her bedroom. Trigger Warning. What happened to Emily is quite disturbing so some listeners may find the following upsetting. Sometime between Thursday the 4th of July 1996 at 7pm and Friday the 5th of July 1996 before 8.30am, an unknown person had made their way into Emily’s flat and headed to her bedroom, where they proceeded to brutally attack her. Emily was dragged to the floor from her bed and sexually assaulted, before being stamped and beaten to death. The killer then proceeded to rip through the flat destroying everything in their path. It was reported that the bed frame had been turned upside down and the mattress had been dragged to the other end of the bedroom.  The bath panel had been kicked repeatedly leaving it dented. A toy dog that Emily had kept was torn apart, with bits of it strewn throughout the flat.  Before leaving the flat the killer also roughly took Emily’s wedding ring from her arthritic finger, the same ring her husband, Teddy, had given to her 47 years prior, as well as a jewellery box and an ornamental fan.

Dawn:

Oh my God, it’s just awful to hear.

Cole:

Yeah, especially to such an old woman. It seems savage.

Dawn:

It is. It’s just disgusting.

Cole:

Especially since, according to Emily’s niece Elizabeth, Emily had lost a lot of weight and was very frail, that amount of violence would have not been necessary to kill her.

Dawn:

So sad.

Cole:

Emily was found on Friday the 5th of July just after 8.30am by one of her neighbours that had come to check on her. She was lying on her bedroom floor, her nightie pulled up and her face was covered in blood.

Dawn:

Oh I just can’t imagine what they must have felt finding Emily like that.

Cole:

It must have been so upsetting. So the police were called and it was reported that what they found when they got there had even the most hardened detectives traumatised. Before the forensic team could arrive to process the scene, Elizabeth, her husband William and their daughter Lauren, who was six at the time, arrived outside Emily’s flat, to be met by a large police presence.  They had come to visit Emily as they often did. They were heartbroken when they were told what had happened and what had been done to Emily. William revealed that had they visited Emily earlier in the morning his daughter Lauren would have been the one to discover her body and the horrific scene. For all the family were in shock and were profoundly affected by what had happened, they were extremely thankful that six-year-old Lauren was not the one to have found Emily battered to death. It is reported that the police straight away thought that the killer had been a local man, Emily may even have known the man and his agenda was more than likely robbery. Although there had been an appeal for anybody to come forward with information into the murder of Emily Mutch, there apparently had not been a great public response. And so on the 9th of July the lead detective in the murder inquiry, Detective Superintendent Bob Lauder, appealed yet again for anybody with any information surrounding Emily’s death to come forward. He urged anyone in the vicinity of the Buccleuch Street area, Rose Street or Cambridge Street between 7pm on Thursday the 4th and 8am on Friday the 5th of July to please come forward if they saw anything at all suspicious. Despite the many appeals that were made for information, nothing of any significance arose. However, following the forensic team combing the flat for evidence of Emily’s killer, they revealed that they had discovered a fingerprint and a palm print on various items throughout Emily’s flat, as well as obtaining DNA from the potential suspect, describing it as an “anonymous profile of the killer”. Basically they just had to find the right person to match the DNA profile that they had and they would have their killer. The police reported they would be undertaking the largest DNA profile exercise, to include swabs of every male over the age of 12 in the Garnethill area. This amounted to well over 2,500 swabs being taken, which were then compared to their anonymous profile. However, after seven months and every sample having been logged and checked against the DNA sample found at the scene, the exercise had failed and there were no matches. The case grounded to a halt. Emily’s niece, Elizabeth, was determined not to give up and she reported in The Herald newspaper on the 3rd of February 1997 that she felt positive that her aunt’s killer would be found. She hoped that it wasn’t just wishful thinking on her part as her and her family would not have any peace until they caught her aunt’s murderer. This sentiment was backed up in the same article in The Herald newspaper by Detective Superintendent Bob Lauder when he said “We are not going to give up and hopefully we’ll be able to produce enough evidence to identify that person and put him before the courts.” Despite the failed DNA exercise, it was confirmed that a team of 20 officers were still working hard on Emily Mutch’s murder, and that neither course nor time would affect the investigation.

Dawn:

That is really good that he said that actually, ’cause I feel in the Betty Alexander case that might have been the reasons that they didn’t fingerprint the younger men or the women of Garnethill when they had the chance.

Cole:

Yeah, lack of resources.

Dawn:

Yep.

Cole:

Despite the best efforts of the 20 strong team and the many appeals made by both the police and Emily’s niece Elizabeth, Emily’s murderer continued to elude the police. It wouldn’t be until a chance encountered 16 months after Emily’s murder that the police would catch their next break. In November 1997, Police Constable Kevin Pike, who was 34, and Police Constable Colin Montgomery, who was 28, were just working another ordinary night shift when they got a call to attend to disturbance at a petrol station located in the West End of Glasgow. When they arrived at the petrol station they found the man who had been causing the bother hiding in a bush. (laughs)They retrieved him from the bush and tried to ask him what he was doing at the petrol station, but he was just being evasive. Call it instinct or call it experience but the two police officers were just a bit suspicious of this man, so they decided to arrest him and take him to the local police station to question him further. Once at the police station the man started to calm down and become more cooperative. He told them his name was Thomas Galloway and that he lived in Murano Street in the Maryhill area of Glasgow, which is about a 13-minute drive north of Glasgow City Centre.  The police did a check on their database to find out more about Galloway, and it revealed that he had previous convictions for assault, robbery and carrying knives.

Dawn:

Ooh what a nice bloke. Good instincts by the two PCS though.

Cole:

Definitely. Due to these previous convictions and just not having a good feeling about Galloway, the two officers decided to take a DNA sample from Galloway, and they sent the sample off requesting a DNA profile. As Galloway had calmed down and had been cooperative, there was nothing to actually hold him on, he was released that night and the two PCS carried on with their night shift. It wouldn’t be until late February 1998 when PC Pike and PC Montgomery were called into Detective Superintendent Bob Lauder’s office that they even gave Galloway a second thought. Detective Superintendent Lauder, who was in charge of the murder inquiry, told the pair that the sample that they had taken from Galloway three months earlier and sent away for DNA profiling had come back and it matched the DNA profile of Emily Mutch’s killer.

Dawn:

Oh that must have been such a relief for them to finally have some answers.

Cole:

I bet.  So, on the 23rd of February 1998 Thomas Galloway, who was 41, was arrested at his home in Murano Street and charged with committing indecent sex acts on Emily, of robbery and of kicking and punching Emily to death.  He appeared at Glasgow Sheriff Office on the 24th of February for these charges. He made no plea and he was remanded in custody for further investigations to be carried out and to await further trial. Galloway’s home was searched and the jewellery box and the ornamental fan that had been stolen from Emily’s flat was found. Before Galloway’s trial, he not only tried to persuade doctors that he was insane to use as his defence, which failed.

Dawn:

Good.

Cole:

But he also sacked two separate legal teams before finally settling on defending himself.

Dawn:

And that’s always a good choice.

Cole:

Always. He clearly didn’t like what everyone was telling him. However, in late January 1999 Galloway’s trial began, where the jury were told about and shown photos of the horrendous attack carried out on Emily. They were told of Galloway’s DNA sample matching the DNA profile that had been compiled from samples taken from Emily’s flat. They were told there was a 500 million to one chance that this DNA profile belonged to anyone other than Galloway.

Dawn:

Yeah, he’s not getting out of this is he?

Cole:

I wouldn’t have thought so. They also heard that apparently Galloway had confessed while on remand to the killing of Emily. But even without the supposed confession it really was the slam dunk, and how he thought by defending himself he could possibly get any other outcome. Clearly the jury felt exactly the same, as after only one hour of deliberation they convicted Galloway. Before handing down his sentence, Lloyd McCluskey said to the now 42 year old Galloway that he had “carried out an appalling and outrageous murder”, stating that the act of attacking and murdering Emily had been “brutal, disgusting and horrifying.” He then sentenced Galloway to life in prison, to serve a minimum of 20 years.

Dawn:

A life sentence means different things in different countries, but in Scotland life sentences are always given for murders and the judge will hand down a minimum term sentence known as the punishment part of the sentence. This means that the person will have to spend the punishment term in prison before even being considered for release into the community. If the person is eligible for parole and released from prison, they continue to be on a lifetime license, and if the terms of this are breached in any way they can be recalled to prison.

Cole:

Galloway might have eluded the police for 19 months, but finally one of Scotland’s most wanted men was brought to justice. Emily’s niece, who was 42 at the time, while obviously still devastated, was happy to get a bit of peace saying that she hopes he “rots in jail”. Before going on to say that her auntie Emily was “a wonderful and loving person who would never harm a fly.”

Dawn:

I’m glad they finally got justice.

Cole:

I know. It’s a tough story.

Dawn:

So while I’m really pleased that Emily and her finally got justice for what happened to her, the same thing can’t be said for Betty Alexander and her family because her killer has never been found. However, in 2011 a Cold Case Unit was set up in Scotland and on the 16th of April 2012 it was announced that Betty Alexander’s case had been sent to the Cold Case Unit. They have advised that they will be focusing on five priority cases initially. It’s not known which five cases these are, but the fact that Betty’s case has been handed to them could hopefully mean a fresh pair of eyes will be looking at her case in the hope of finally solving it.

Cole:

It would be great if Betty’s murder was finally solved and whoever committed that crime was brought to justice.

Dawn:

Exactly, I agree. And of course we’ll keep you all updated if there are any new developments. So, while Garnethill has certainly had its fair share of heartache and back in 1952 was well known for its ever-changing population and some unsavoury characters and dealings, in recent years the area has had a new lease of life, according to an interview in The Herald Newspaper in 1997 by Betty Brown, who was not only a community activist but won the Evening Times Scots Women of the Year Award in 1995, where her huge efforts in turning the Garnethill area into multicultural, close-knit community where people felt safe and wanted to live. The National Trust for Scotland even acquired a flat at 145 Buccleuch Street to preserve it in its early 20th century condition, now called The Tenement House, which is open to the public and gives a glimpse into times gone by. Now, the activist, Betty Brown, that I mentioned above was from the Glasgow area and loving the city so much she never left, which was good news for the Garnethill residents, as she campaigned relentlessly to improve the area and its reputation. She was 22 at the time of Betty Alexander’s murder and she remembers the Garnethill residents being shattered at the time by the murder. She went on to say that because the murderer was never caught it had left the community suspicious of each other for a long time. Over time though the community did get its soul back and neighbours began to trust each other again, and the area began to prosper. Until that is Emily Mutch’s murder in 1996 which rocked the community once again. This time however while the community was shocked and scared that a murder had been carried out so close to their homes once again, it certainly helped that the evil man that carried out this horrific attack on Emily was found and put behind bars. Sadly, Betty Brown passed away in 2006 at the age of 76, but her hard work and dedication to the Garnethill area had not been forgotten. A mural to honour Betty Brown was completed in 2015 called “Betty Brown’s Eyes”, suggesting she will always be casting her eyes over the Garnethill area that she loved so dearly, an area that has suffered so much but still came out stronger than ever.

And that’s the end. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and know just the person who’d also like it, please share it with them, don’t keep it to yourself.

Cole:

Please also get in touch on social media if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. All social media and contact details are on our website scottishmurders.com, as well as all the source material and photos related to this episode.

Dawn:

So that’s it for this week, come back next time for another episode of Scottish Murders.

Dawn and Cole:

Join us there. Bye.

Granny Robertson:

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn.

https://youtu.be/yWoaYwPUg0U

Bradley Welsh starred as ‘Mr Doyle’ in Trainspotting 2 – YouTube

Bradley Welsh was murdered for branding mob figures ‘grasses’, T2 Trainspotting star’s pal claims (thescottishsun.co.uk)

Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Men Season 1 Episode 8 – Bradley Welsh

Bradley Welsh 24 hour pads record attempt www justgiving com pads4charity – Bing video

The best ever renditionof Sunshine on Leith. – Bing video

The Proclaimers – Sunshine On Leith (Official Music Video) – Bing video

Bradley Welsh shooting: Man arrested over ‘murder’ of Trainspotting star in Edinburgh

T2 Trainspotting star blasts ‘absolute clowns’ who left note on his van because it ‘lowers the tone’ of wealthy Edinburgh street

Bradley Welsh murder cops probed by watchdog over ‘events leading up to shooting of Trainspotting star’

Bradley Welsh cops probed over actions before Trainspotting star’s murder – Daily Record

Bradley Welsh murder cops release CCTV of car as probe into Trainspotting star’s death continues – Daily Record

Cops issue chilling death warnings to five gangsters after Trainspotting 2 star Bradley Welsh shot dead – Daily Record

Bradley Welsh: Police “warned of murder plot” against T2 Trainspotting actor | HeraldScotland

Bradley Welsh murder: Gangsters receive death threat warnings after film star’s slaying | UK | News | Express.co.uk

Bradley Welsh murder trial: Neighbour had shotgun pointed at him – BBC News

Bradley Welsh accused ‘not my attacker’, claims friend – BBC News

Thugs carried out axe attack on brother of T2 murder witness days after Bradley Welsh shooting – Daily Record

Bradley Welsh was murdered for branding mob figures ‘grasses’, T2 Trainspotting star’s pal claims

Murder victim Bradley Welsh ‘was put on death list’ in feud between notorious Scots criminals – Daily Record

Bradley Welsh murder: Gangland figure named as being behind £10k plot to kill Trainspotting star goes into hiding

Bradley Welsh murder: Chilling CCTV shows gangland hitman Sean Orman fleeing scene with shotgun

Bradley Welsh was ‘put on death list’ after getting caught in gangland feud – Edinburgh Live

Bradley Welsh murderer set to appeal conviction for ‘premeditated assassination’ – Edinburgh Live

Bradley Welsh was murdered for branding mob figures ‘grasses’, T2 Trainspotting star’s pal claims

Bradley Welsh murder: Gangland figure named as being behind £10k plot to kill Trainspotting star goes into hiding

Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh set to return to roots for novel launch party – The Sunday Post

CCTV shows Bradley Welsh killer fleeing murder scene with shotgun | Edinburgh News

Bradley Welsh chillingly revealed he was haunted by ‘ghetto’ past before death – Mirror Online

Bradley Welsh murder: Actor Danny Dyer joins list of famous names to pay tribute | Edinburgh News

Bradley Welsh shooting: Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh pays emotional tribute after West End shooting | Edinburgh News

Danny Dyer pays tribute to ‘good soul’ Bradley Welsh after Trainspotting 2 star was shot dead

Bradley Welsh funeral – Trainspotting star taken to Edinburgh service in ‘Hibs’ coffin as Irvine Welsh among 1,000 mourners

Hunt for ‘baseball cap-wearing hitman’ who shot dead Trainspotting star over ‘£130,000 of drugs’ | Daily Mail Online

Moredun – Wikipedia

Gangs of Edinburgh: Feared Hibs casuals who moved up to the big league – Daily Record

Record attempt to raise funds for children’s charity | The Edinburgh Reporter

6 years ago tonight, Brad Welsh set the… – Holyrood Boxing Gym | Facebook

Trainspotting 2 star Bradley Welsh was ‘reformed character’ but it was sinister past that cost him his life

Bradley Welsh – Biography – IMDb

‘Your legacy continues’ – Bradley Welsh tribute shared by Holyrood Boxing Gym one year after death – Edinburgh Live

Edinburgh gangster Mark Richardson moved from Saughton prison after ‘taking over’ jail – Edinburgh Live

mark richardson gangster in prison – Bing images

Gangster jailed over high-speed chase through Glasgow – BBC News

Chester St, Edinburgh to Duddingston Road West, Edinburgh EH16 4AP – Google Maps

Man goes on trial accused of shotgun murder of T2 Trainspotting star Bradley Welsh – Daily Record

Sean Orman jailed for 28 years for ‘cowardly and wicked’ murder of Bradley Welsh – Edinburgh Live

Man accused of Trainspotting actor’s murder acquitted of 13 other charges | Evening Standard

Bradley Welsh trial: Gangland hitman found guilty of murdering T2 Trainspotting star – Edinburgh Live

Edinburgh – Wikipedia

Bradley Welsh funeral – Cryptic poem penned by slain Trainspotting star read to his mourners

Bradley Welsh ‘ordered man to remove mobile phone chip’ hours after machete attack, court hears | Edinburgh News

Bradley Welsh: The self-proclaimed ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’ known for his boxing talents, football hooligan days and inspiring community work | Edinburgh News

Russell Findlay MSP tells of chilling threat from Bradley Welsh while investigating organised crime as journalist

Firearms discharge residue found on alleged gunman’s trackies ‘similar’ to substance found on Bradley Welsh | Edinburgh News

Bradley Welsh murder: Trainspotting 2 star ‘caught in crossfire’ of brutal gangland turf war

Interview: Bradley Welsh – his mother’s son | Edinburgh News

Trainspotting 2 star Bradley Welsh was ‘reformed character’ but it was sinister past that cost him his life

Bradley Welsh funeral – Daughter, 8, of slain Trainspotting star pays tribute to ‘hero daddy’ in emotional letter

Hitman convicted of murdering T2 Trainspotting actor Bradley Welsh – BBC News

‘I’ve done some horrible, horrible things’: Bradley Welsh tells of regret | Daily Mail Online

Notorious Edinburgh gangster hit with ‘super-Asbo’ crackdown – Edinburgh Live

Dawn:

Bradley, boxing gym owner and charity organiser, returned home from his gym. He had a brief chat with a neighbour before walking towards his flat. Just then a man appeared from nowhere, and before Bradley could do anything he shot him in the head. But who would want to harm Bradley? Could the reason be rooted in his past?

Dawn and Cole:

Hi Wee Ones, I’m Dawn and I’m Cole, and this is Scottish Murders.

[THEME TUNE]

TRUE CRIME FILES PODCAST PROMOTION

Dawn:

Mark and Simon sat on a wall just minding their own business, when a black car with heavily tinted windows slowed in front of them, and they were told to get in. Once inside they came face to face with a man who asked them “Do you know who I am?” Simon certainly did and nodded his head rigorously. This was Mr Doyle, sauna owner and gangland kingpin. Then Danny Boyle, the director of Trainspotting 2, shouted cut. Ewan McGregor and Johnny Lee Miller climbed out of the car, along with the man who had been playing the part of Mr Doyle, Bradley Welsh, whose background in real life had certain similarities to the gangster character he was playing.

Cole:

Oh I’ve seen both of the Trainspotting films.

Dawn:

Yeah, me too. I wondered if you would have recognised it.

Cole:

Well, seeing as I wrote my dissertation on it then I think I should have recognised it.

Dawn:

Did you?

Cole:

I did.

Dawn:

Oh I’m impressed. Oh so you must know all about Mr Doyle then?

Cole:

I know of him. (laughing)

Dawn:

Bradley John Welsh was born on the 4th of November 1970. He grew up in a council estate in Moredun with his mum Patricia and elder brother Sean, living on the eighth floor of a tower block. Moredun is about a 20-minute Drive south east of Edinburgh. Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and is located on the southern shore of the Fifth of Forth. According to Wikipedia, Edinburgh’s historical and cultural attractions has made it the UK’s second most visited tourist destination. His mum had thrown his dad out when Bradley was still a young boy. Moredun was a bad area back in Bradley’s day, rife with drugs and fighting, an area where you had to be able to look after yourself or you were in trouble . From a young age, Bradley’s mum noticed that he had a lot of energy, and according to Bradley himself he was a bit of a wayward child. So to try and keep him out of trouble his mum suggested he started boxing, which he did when he was about seven years old. He loved this sport and found that he excelled at it, winning title after title from a young age, having had 200 fights in the ring by the age of 12 winning most of them, and by 15 he was a champion boxer. However, Bradley wasn’t able to just contain his fighting to the ring, he had another passion, fighting on the streets at football matches. So much so that by the time he was 14 years old he had already been arrested numerous times for hooliganism at football matches.

Cole:

He was a football hooligan.

Dawn:

His football hooliganism days started when Bradley was taken to a football match when he was 12 years old and saw that the streets of Edinburgh were taken over by other football team supporters, so much so that his friends and family who supported Hibernian Football Club or Hibs, and had been at the matches were so scared of being attacked by supporters from other football teams that they hid their football scarves. Bradley couldn’t understand that, this was his City, he was a fearless wee boxer and he wasn’t having this, he wasn’t hiding anything. In 1982 football hooliganism was a massive thing in Scotland, supporters would just come to each game and absolutely take over the streets, and fighting and violence would ensue. It was horrendous. Bradley’s older brother was part of football hooliganisms major firm calling themselves the Capital City Service, also known as Hibs casuals, and they would defend their City from the invading football supporters. However. it didn’t stop there, the Capital City Service would also travel around the United Kingdom to football matches where there would inevitably be violent clashes with other such firms that had been set up. When Bradley was 14, and not yet having been initiated into the Capital City Service but not being one to sit on the side lines, decided in about 1985 to form his own group called The Blackley’s Baby Crew with his friends. Eventually there were a couple of hundred lads in this crew. You had to be a member to get into this elite crew though, and Bradley and many other guys in the crew made sure everything was organised and everybody was working together to ensure that when a football match was due to be played in Edinburgh, Blackley’s Baby Crew would be on the streets dealing with the descending football supporters who stepped out of line and wanted a wee fight. Bradley even got on the front page of a newspaper once standing right in the middle of a fight between Scotland and England football hooligans holding a big stick, which was unlucky for Bradley as that night he had gotten grounded by his mum and stepdad but Bradley has snuck out of the house in order to attend the match and subsequent fighting. He thought he’d gotten away with it and had snuck back into his house with no bother, however, the following morning the picture appeared on the front cover. This was the first time his mum had known about his football hooliganism and she was not amused. The Blackley’s Baby Crew eventually disbanded when most of the crew were initiated into the Capital City Service. Bradley and his crew were making a name for themselves by this time and just the mention of his name was starting to instil fear in people, and Bradley began thinking it might be time to step things up. So, as well as the football hooliganism, Bradley and his crew of friends started to steal clothes in bulk and sell them on, making them a tidy wee sum. Having a wee bit money in his back pocket for the first time coming from the background Bradley did, was probably what got him thinking just how he could make a whole lot more. So, with Bradley’s reputation as a fighter not to be messed with, his hooliganism reputation and his head for constantly thinking bigger and bigger and more and more, in early 1988 at the age of 17, he came up with a plan that would combine his love for fighting, violence and money. Security. But not just any security. In the late 80s and early 90s the club scene started to happen, ecstasy started to become a big thing, and more and more people than before started attending clubs to enjoy themselves, which obviously necessitated the need for more security on the doors to prevent trouble, especially when the Hibs casuals were notorious for causing trouble. Bradley jumped on this idea. With his obvious involvement with the Hibs casuals and his fighter background, he was the perfect choice of security to ensure there would be no trouble in the clubs. Bradley started working for a security company called Westlands, who at the time provided a lot of doorman at Edinburgh clubs and pubs, but on hiring Bradley they wanted him to get them even more. Bradley found that again he was very successful in this area, soon stamping out any competition in this area, and almost overnight he managed to secure Westlands Security, and himself, the doors of hundreds of the pubs and clubs in Edinburgh, where they would provide their own doormen to keep out any troublemakers, obviously at a price. This was a great wee earner for Bradley, and at the age of 18 years old he not only saw himself as invincible but as a gangster kingpin. Again, Bradley, never one for standing still, just had too much energy, he didn’t just stop at security, he also started to set up his own nights at the clubs where he could rake it in. However, this was bad news for any competing nightclubs, Bradley wasn’t having any competition. And, so, any club that decided to go up against his planned club nights quickly found themselves in trouble. Bradley’s objective being to ensure that any competition was quickly shut down. And this is where things started to go wrong for Bradley. Even though Bradley had a reputation for fighting and violence, he much preferred for people to see things his way by threats of violence rather than actual violence, however, that was to change, which would be his downfall. Bradley started carrying guns. No longer did competing clubs just fear the threat of violence, there actually now was violence. Unfortunately, this new tactic caught the attention of the police, who started to take a closer look at Bradley’s growing empire, including bugging his phone and his house. After six months of surveillance the police believed they had enough evidence against Bradley and he was arrested on three main charges, including extortion and demanding money at gunpoint.

Cole:

He must have been quite young still.

Dawn:

Yeah, he was only 18.

Cole:

Wow.

Dawn:

I know, he’s done a lot.

Cole:

He has done a lot.

Dawn:

That’s what I mean, he saw himself as this big kingpin. At the trial though, he was cleared of these charges and he thought he was free and clear, would be heading home, but nope. He was sentenced to four years for possessing ammunition and menacing an estate agent.

Cole:

Menacing an estate agent? (laughs) You know, you shouldn’t go to jail for that because they menace us enough when they want to.

Dawn:

[Laughter] As soon as Bradley was in prison, he realised that he didn’t want to go back and that he needed to change his lifestyle. This lifestyle change actually began in prison. After the initial shock and despair of being sentenced to four years in prison, with his control taken away, he managed to pick himself back up and turned to his passion. Boxing. Despite Bradley’s foray into hooliganism, security, firearms and extortion, he had still kept up his boxing. At the time of his arrest and incarceration, he was the Scottish Eastern District boxing champion and was due to represent Britain in the 1992 Olympic Games taking place in Barcelona. This was one fight he wouldn’t be taking part in. However, with the support of the prison service, Bradley was allowed to train again in the prison’s gym. And train he did. He also was allowed out on day release to compete in boxing championships, the first being the Scottish Western District Championships, which he won. But this wouldn’t be the last championship he competed in and won whilst in prison. This is what got Bradley through his time in prison and out the other side, better and stronger than ever, and he showed no signs of slowing down or stopping on his release. Feeling at the top of his game in amateur boxing Bradley decided it was time to become a professional boxer, and so he went to America to follow his dream. However, it turned out that his dream wasn’t quite what he thought. While Bradley did become a professional boxer in America having ten fights, winning nine of them, he soon turned his back on professional boxing, as he found it not too dissimilar to the world he was trying to leave behind. He found that it was all about getting as much money out of the professional as you could, about greed. So Bradley made his way back to Edinburgh. On his return to Edinburgh, Bradley found himself in a situation he hadn’t found himself in before, he didn’t have a plan, he was a wee bit lost. The one thing that Bradley never deviated from though was his love for his family. He was a big family man, absolutely adoring his mum, brother and two wee nephews, and so when his mum became ill Bradley became her main carer, throwing himself into this new role. He withdrew into himself, spending his time reading, learning and staying at home with his family. He enjoyed this time to reflect on his life. As always though, Bradley continued with his boxing, the other love of his life. Bradley’s mum’s health started to improve and she didn’t need a carer as much, so, once again, Bradley was lost. What was next for him? And then an idea came to him. What had been the one constant thing in his life? The one thing that had helped channel his energy? The one thing that had got him through tough times? Amateur boxing. He decided he wanted to share his love and obvious skills of boxing with others. And so around 2005, when Bradley would have been about 35 years old, he opened his own boxing gym from the proceeds of a short-lived professional boxing career. He specifically opened his gym in a rougher more deprived area of Edinburgh as he wanted to help underprivileged kids, channel their energy and give them some sort of direction. Bradley did make it clear though that this would only be amateur boxing, he would not be venturing into the professional boxing world again. The gym became a huge success, helping support many a wayward youngster stay off the streets. Bradley was in his element. He was really passionate about helping people that didn’t have a lot as this was his roots, where he had come from. Over the years Bradley threw himself into his new role, which saw him working with the various volunteer-based organisations to help underprivileged kids all across Edinburgh, such as the Helping Hands bike initiative which donated 150 bikes to city schools across Edinburgh. Bradley also carried out a food bank appeal which raised 22 tons of food, and he also began to offer free boxing lessons at his gym to underprivileged kids. He went on to work on a collaboration with Edinburgh Helping Hands charity which fights inequality in the city, Social Bite which is a movement to end homelessness, and author and friend Irvine Welsh, where they challenged social and economic inequality in Edinburgh. It looked like Bradley really had turned his life around and was determined to give back to his beloved Edinburgh, and to try and deter other children going down the same route he had. However, he couldn’t escape his past life completely. People were fascinated by him and his exploits and wanted to know more. In 2008 he appeared on a Bravo television show called Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Men. I’ve watched this program and found it enjoyable.

Cole:

I don’t think that’s the right word. Enjoyable. Hilarious maybe. Danny Dyer’s hilarious. He’s, he’s… Every time he talks it’s funny. 

Dawn:

(laughter) But, no, it was it was informative, and it did give an insight into Bradley’s life. He came across as having a huge amount of energy and drive, as well as a massive personality. He also said that he felt he was a born leader, which he had certainly demonstrated from a very young age. He did say in an interview in 2006 that he felt that his past exploits as a kid and teenager had been stupid, but that he wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed by it, and felt that it’s life’s experiences that make you who you are.

Cole:

Very true Bradley.

Dawn:

Mhh hmm. Over the next couple of years, Bradley’s life consisted of his charity work, his boxing gym, but also extended to include the birth of a baby girl called Eva Tiger in 2011, with his then girlfriend Emma.

Cole:

Okay, interesting name.

Dawn:

As previously stated, Bradley loved his family, so would have been over the moon to be a father. Life was good for Bradley. Sadly though this happiness was soon to be shattered. In 2012 his beloved mother died. Bradley would have been just distraught, he was a self-confessed mummy’s boy and his mum was now gone. However, by now we begin to understand that Bradley doesn’t stay down for long, and so two years later in 2014 he was back in the ring again with yet another challenge he had set himself, but this time in honour of his mother. He wanted to get himself into the Guinness Book of World Records by spending 24 hours in the ring sparring with 360 people, which he succeeded in and raised over £42,500 or about $58,600 for charity in the process. Rather him than me. It sounded brutal. He did say that the challenge had almost killed him, but that he’d been determined to make the world record in his mum’s name. Now, at this record-breaking attempt, and who also sparred with Bradley, was his friend Irvine Welsh, who was the author of The Trainspotting books, but also Danny Boyle, who just so happened to be the director working on the Trainspotting 2 film. Danny was impressed by Bradley and asked him if he would audition for a specific part he had in mind in the film, which Bradley agreed to. It just so happened that this part was for a gangland kingpin who intimidated the main characters Simon and Mark. Perfect part for Bradley, right?

Cole:

Renton and Sick Boy.

Dawn:

Yes, well, that’s… Simon and Mark’s their grown-up names. They were Renton and Sick Boy in the first one. (laughter) Anyway, so Bradley messed it up by being too aggressive and he didn’t get the part. However, he knew this part was perfect for him so he asked Danny Boyle for another chance, and this time he nailed it. Trainspotting 2 was released in 2017 and I loved it.

Cole:

Oh did you.

Dawn:

I did. Bradley is really good as the part of Mr Doyle. However, this would be Bradley’s last foray into acting. He had a feeling that he might be typecast. Bradley was pretty content with his life, he was now engaged to Emma, his boxing gym was thriving, and he excelled in charity work. Bradley had come a long way from that violent 12 year old boy. So it looked like Bradley had well and truly left his past behind. And he had for the main part. All he wanted to do was help the youngsters and underprivileged in his community. However, Bradley was a friendly guy and he’d made good friends along the way, including various people from Edinburgh’s underbelly who he continued to be in touch with, despite not being part of the lifestyle anymore. One such friend was Mark Richardson who he was very close to. I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of Mark Richardson but he was heavily involved in major crime networks, which included drugs, firearms and violence, and he was a cocaine kingpin.

Cole:

Sounds like a dangerous guy.

Dawn:

Yeah, he’s currently in prison and he’s causing no end of problems in there too. So Bradley was friends with him but he was no longer involved in that lifestyle. It was reported in the Daily Record newspaper on the 8th of May 2021 Bradley might give advice or clear something up to try to make peace, but he wasn’t part of that world. In the end he wasn’t able to shake off these people he’d known for many years. And sadly it looks like what happened next was due to his friendship with Richardson, as well as his inability to turn his back on his longtime friends. Wednesday the 17th of April 2019 was just another ordinary day for Bradley. After saying bye to his fiancée Emma and his eight-year-old daughter Ava in the morning, he would have left his flat at Chester Street, about 1.6 miles or 2.5 kilometres west of Edinburgh City Centre, and gone to his Holyrood boxing gym, about an 18-minute drive east of his flat, where he would have spent the day taking boxing lessons with adults and kids alike. Once his work was done for the day, Bradley would have got into the ring and sparred with another trainer just to keep his hand in, before about 7:30pm driving the 18 minutes back to his flat, where his fiancée and daughter were waiting for him. Upon parking his car outside his flat about 8pm, Bradley got out and happened to see his upstairs neighbour, Edward Rennie, across the street having a cigarette and so he walked over to have a brief chat with him. After a few minutes Bradley said bye and walked across the street towards the stairs leading down to his basement flat. Just as he was about to take the first step down, a man wearing a baseball cup appeared out of nowhere and shot him a point-blank range in the head, before Bradley could even register what was happening. Bradley then tumbled down a few of the stairs to his flat and lay there, unmoving. His neighbour, Edward, hadn’t seen the man approaching Bradley either, but he sure heard the bang. He turned around immediately and saw a man pointing a shotgun at Bradley, just as the man saw Edward. The shooter turned the gun on Edward and told him not to look at him. Edward dived behind a parked car in response, and peered through the glass in time to see the shooter run away. Edward then made his way to Bradley’s lifeless body and realised immediately that he had been shot. He called the emergency services and stayed with Bradley until they arrived. Another of Bradley’s neighbours, Lucy, had been walking to her flat after finishing work for the day and had seen a man with his back to her on the street outside Bradley’s flat. She didn’t think anything off this until he turned round and she spotted the gun in his hand. She said she panicked and turned and started running in the opposite direction. The ambulance crew arrived and did their best to keep Bradley alive, however, sadly Bradley died in the street outside of his flat, due to suffering life-threatening wounds to his head. By this time Bradley’s fiancée Emma and his daughter Eva would have been made aware of the situation and would have been absolutely distraught. They apparently hadn’t heard the shot or the commotion outside their flat, but word of what had happened had quickly gotten around Bradley’s family and they raced to the scene, but it would be to no avail. The police now were also present and, upon Bradley being pronounced dead at the scene, they began to cordon the area off and begin a murder investigation. The police then gave a statement saying that they believed this was a targeted attack and that nobody else in the community was at threat, but they would be providing a presence in the area to help reassure the public, and also to gather as much information as they could to help with their inquiries. The police also appealed for any information on who could have carried out this horrendous attack and left a family grieving for the loss of their son, brother, partner and father, asking them to search their conscience and do the right thing. Dozens of forensic officers carried out a massive search of Chester Street and the neighbouring streets in the hope that the killer may have dropped something, such as a cigarette or chewing gum. They also carried out a fingerprint examination of the railings that surrounded the properties in the street, as well as carrying out a forensic examination of Bradley’s flat to see if that gave them a clue as to why he had been targeted. While the forensic teams were busy, the police had started the arduous task of searching CCTV cameras in the area, as well as from residential and business properties in the area, and also requesting dash cam footage from motorists to try and capture the murderer and his getaway route. As this would take time to collate and go through, the police began interviewing witnesses, starting with Edward and Lucy. Edward told the police that he thought the man was mid-20s to early 30s and that he was wearing a puffer jacket, and also that it looked like he had a fake tan. Lucy said that she hadn’t seen the man’s face as she was focusing on the gun, but that he wore a baseball cap. Not much to go on to help catch the shooter, but it wouldn’t be long before the police had all the evidence they needed. Once all of the CCTV footage available had been gone through a picture started to emerge, and it pointed straight to one man. The police had found footage of the killer wearing a baseball cap, a puffa jacket, dark jogging trousers and distinctive Nike Air Max 95 trainers, walking towards Bradley’s flat just before 8pm on the 17th of April. And then footage of him running away from the scene at 8:06pm carrying what looked like a shotgun. He was then seen driving off in a hurry in a stolen dark grey Ford Kuga. The footage was shown to the witnesses and they confirmed that this man was the shooter. Now the police just had to identify who this man was, which was going to prove easier than police had initially thought. The shooter had stolen the Ford Kuga about a week before the murder, but he’d made a mistake. The car he had stolen had a built-in tracker. The police requested the tracker information and they used CCTV footage from across the city to track the movements of the car and the shooter on the run-up to the murder, which helped build a very interesting picture. The Ford Kuga was found abandoned three days after the murder, which again via CCTV footage brought the police directly to the shooter. So from the tracker information and CCTV footage, chillingly, it showed that eight days before the shooting the Ford Kuga was seen driving slowly past Bradley’s gym, stopping outside for six minutes, before driving off again. It also showed that the car had been past Bradley’s flat four times in the days before the shooting, and also there was CCTV footage of the shooter walking up and down the streets near Bradley’s flat an hour before the shooting. Presumably the shooter was trying to work out Bradley’s schedule and figure out the best day and time to attack. The police then tracked the car’s movements from leaving the scene of the crime to where it was dumped, using CCTV cameras from along the route, and this is where the shooter was nailed. Obviously, unaware of the car’s tracking device, after shooting Bradley, the killer then drove the stolen car to a small village, which is where the car was found abandoned, about ten miles or 16 kilometres south west of Bradley’s flat, arriving there about 8:43pm. Shortly after that, a man wearing slightly different clothes, but still the distinctive white Nike Air Max 95 trainers, was caught on CCTV outside of a pub. He then called his friend who came and picked him up and took him back to Edinburgh. With the police being satisfied that the shooter had been identified, 28 year old Sean Orman was arrested on the 22nd of April 2019, five days after Bradley’s murder and was subsequently charged. Ormond denied this of course and insisted that he’d been cycling at the time of Bradley’s murder. The police would have liked to have organised an identity parade so the witnesses could confirm that they had their man, however, on this occasion it wouldn’t be able to be held, as Sean Orman had tried so hard to hide his appearance that in the weeks running up to the shooting he had visited nine different tanning salons in the hope no one would recognise him. He was deemed too tanned. Despite the lack of an identity parade the police had more than enough evidence, due to the tracker in the car and all the CCTV footage, private cameras and dash cams that had been sought and provided by Edinburgh citizens who wanted to help get this man off the streets. As word of Bradley’s murder got out, more and more tributes came, including from Danny Dyer who had met Bradley while filming Britain’s Deadliest Men who said “So sad to hear the news about Bradley. A good soul with a massive heart. A massive loss. Rest in peace my old son.”, and also from Bradley’s long-time friend Irvine Welsh who said “My heart is broken. Goodbye my amazing and beautiful friend. Thanks for making me a better person and helping me to see the world in a kinder and wiser way.” Also flowers, Hibs scarves and boxing gloves, were left by well wishers outside Bradley’s home, as well as outside his gym. A spokesperson for Boxing Scotland said “The Boxing Scotland family is extremely shocked and saddened by the sudden and tragic passing of Bradley. He was one of a kind and will be sadly missed.” One local man who knew Bradley and his family said in a newspaper that he was also heartbroken and that Bradley did a lot for Edinburgh and for the community. Another said that he was a huge character.

Cole:

Oh that was really nice of them.

Dawn:

Yeah it was, wasn’t it.

Cole:

Yeah. You don’t expect famous people to come out and wish condolences, especially to someone like Bradley who, you know, was on Deadliest Men.

Dawn:

Yeah, he was. I mean, I know he was friends with Irvine Welsh anyway, but um I don’t think he’d kept in touch with Danny Dyer, so that was nice.

Cole:

Yeah. Obviously well thought of by many.

Dawn:

Yeah, he certainly seemed to be. Bradley’s funeral took place on the 7th of June 2019 at Edinburgh’s Mortonhall Crematorium. Bradley’s coffin was green in honour of the Hibs football team he loved so much. Around a thousand of his loved ones and close friends gathered to pay their last respects, with Sunshine on Leith by The Proclaimers being played, which also is the adopted anthem for the Hibs Football Team. Bradley’s ten-year-old daughter Eva also spoke at the funeral saying “My daddy made me feel brave when I was with him. He only wanted the best for me. I know he’s looking out for us like he always did. I will miss him more than words can say.”

Cole:

Wow, that’s so sweet. You wouldn’t expect that from a ten year old but that’s really eloquent.

Dawn:

Yeah, it must have been really hard for her to get up there in front of everybody as well and say that. It’s dead brave.

Cole:

Yeah, that would have been so scary.

Dawn:

Also, Bradley’s brother, Sean, had found a poem written by Bradley himself titled ”For my funeral should I die young’. It read “No matter what, right or wrong, I’m free, hee hee hee. Ye see? Now try to be me.”

Cole:

Okay, is it not a bit weird to have a poem written out just in case you die?

Dawn:

I thought it was cool. I liked the hee hee hee bit. (laughs)

Cole:

I do like that he’s showing his personality. I like when you know someone who’s passed away tries to make light of the situation, cause they know how horrible it must be for everyone.

Dawn:

Yeah, that must have um given the family maybe a smile just reading that.

Cole:

Yeah.

Dawn:

It wouldn’t be until the 21st of April 2021, just over two years since Bradley had been murdered, at the High Court in Edinburgh that the trial of Sean Orman started, where he pleaded not guilty to all 15 charges, which included murder, attempted murder, firearms and drug offenses, assault, driving at speed and drug and driving offenses.

Cole:

Wow, they were really just throwing everything at him at this point weren’t they? But why is he only being charged with attempted murder and not just murder, because Bradley was murdered?

Dawn:

Well, the attempted murder charge was in relation to David McMillan.

Cole:

Oh okay. Who’s David McMillan?

Dawn:

Well let me tell you. Do you remember how I mentioned Mark Richardson briefly, saying how he was involved in crime and drugs and that he was friends with Bradley?

Cole:

Yes, I do remember that.

Dawn:

Okay. Well, David McMillan, who was 50, was friends with Mark and Bradley too. And what was revealed through the trial was that it appeared that the whole situation stemmed from Mark Richardson and his criminal fraternity.

Cole:

Oh. What do you mean?

Dawn:

So, it looks like it all started back around 2011 when Mark Richardson and a man called George ‘Dode’ Baigrie were in prison together. Baigrie had been sentenced to 12 years over a samurai sword attack, and Richardson for ten years for dealing in cocaine, heroin, guns, and his role in a £200million or $276million crime super gang.

Cole:

Ooh a super gang. I’d like to be part of a super gang.

Dawn:

Both men were involved in the Edinburgh criminal underbelly, their personalities clashed and they were also affiliated with rival gangs, Baigrie with the Lyons gang and Richardson with the Daniels gang. So, being locked up in close quarters was never going to be a winning combination.

Cole:

I know that feeling, I’ve had to live with you before unfortunately.

Dawn:

Yeah, that wasn’t a winning combination.

Cole:

It was not.

Dawn:

The pair had continuous run-ins, but Baigrie was known as “the top man” in jail and was always on Richardson’s case. However, Richardson also viewed himself as top dog, which Baigrie did not appreciate. In 2012 Richardson had his face slashed and it was rumoured that Baigrie had backed this attack. Anyway, Baigrie was released in 2018 and came to live in Edinburgh, but apparently he put the word out that anyone involved with Richardson would find themselves on the wrong side of Baigrie, and therefore on his hit list. And obviously as Bradley and David McMillan were friends with Richardson and weren’t going to turn their backs on him, then this could be an issue. And it wouldn’t be long before Baigrie was flexing his muscles. On the 13th of March 2019 three masked men broke into the Edinburgh home of David McMillan and seriously assaulted him and his son, also called David, in front of his wife and other children, leaving David senior with a fractured skull. Days after this attack, Sean Orman and a man called Peem were at an acquaintance’s house, Dean White, where Dean’s brother, Robert, was also present. Orman and Peem talked about the attack they had carried out on David McMillan and his son, and that they’d been paid by Baigrie to do it. Orman then went on to say that he was going to be paid £10,000 or $13,800 to murder Bradley Welsh. Robert White also said that Orman had a shotgun, and while he was showing off it accidentally fired into the floor of the property. He said in court, via a video link, that he was extremely nervous about what had happened at his brother’s house. He told the court how he had got in touch with the police straight away to tell them about the conversation and the threat to Bradley’s life, and also about the shotgun bullet being embedded in the floor. However, when under cross-examination, it emerged that he hadn’t actually told the police about the shotgun incident at all, saying that he was in fear for his life. He said he’d been unable to return to Edinburgh or see his family due to agreeing to be a witness at the trial. Robert’s brother, Dean, didn’t give evidence in court, he too was in fear for his life, as 13 days after Bradley’s murder he was attacked in his own home by two men with an axe. David McMillan Jr did give evidence in court though, but it did nothing to back up Robert’s statement. He said that when the men first came into his home they weren’t wearing masks, but that they later put balaclavas on.

Cole:

Oh right, but didn’t you say they were masked men?

Dawn:

Well yes, that’s what David initially said, but when he got to court he then said that they weren’t wearing masks to begin with but then put the balaclavas on.

Cole:

That doesn’t make much sense. David Jr is a liar.

Dawn:

God everybody’s a bloody liar as far as you’re concerned aren’t they?

Cole:

They are liars though aren’t they, so I’m not wrong.

Dawn:

No, it doesn’t make much sense. When he was asked if Orman was one of the men that broke into his home and attacked him he said a hundred percent not. The prosecutor put it to him that he had come to court to tell a false story about men coming in with their faces showing and then covering them up later. All so that he could say that the man in the dock was not the man that attacked him.

Cole:

So he was a liar?

Dawn:

That’s what the prosecutor was saying, yes. But of course he denied this.

Cole:

Do you think he was just lying because he was scared or why do you think he would have made up that story?

Dawn:

Yeah, I think he probably was scared. I mean, he had been attacked already so he wasn’t really going to want to point the finger at Orman.

Cole:

All right. Okay. So you said that the police had been told that Bradley’s life was in danger, did they do anything?

Dawn:

Well it appears that they did issue Bradley with a threat to life notice called an Osman. This is a notice that the police issue to individuals if they are aware of a real or immediate threat to their life.

Cole:

Oh right, I didn’t know that. So, if you ever get an Osman in the post you’re into some serious trouble.

Dawn:

Well you’re in serious trouble because there’s a threat to your life.

Cole:

Well was anything done about that or what was the outcome? Bradley apparently refused any help or advice from the police.

Cole:

Oh right, okay. So, he just accepted that it might be his time to go? Do we know why he was just so accepting of that?

Dawn:

It’s not known for sure, but it is speculated that Bradley didn’t take the threat seriously, thought he could handle it.

Cole:

Oh, I mean, I do understand that, especially with his background.

Dawn:

Yeah, definitely. However, an investigation by the police watchdog, PIRC, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner, was launched to look into the actions of the police prior to Bradley’s murder and the handling of the threat to his life. The investigation was completed and a report has been submitted to the Crown for consideration. It was reported in the Daily Record newspaper on the 27th of April 2019 that a further five gangland figures had been handed an Osman notice following Bradley’s murder.

Cole:

Oh, so it was all kicking off.

Dawn:

It did say in a report in the Daily Record newspaper on the 8th of May 2021 that Bradley had reportedly been stressed and worried after David had been attacked at home by Orman.

Cole:

Oh so David did know who had attacked him then?

Dawn:

Well it implies that, yes. Apparently Bradley called Peem the day after the attack on David to try and make sure there wasn’t further trouble. He was worried that due to his friendship with David and Richardson that he could also be on the list.

Cole:

So Bradley was murdered just because he was friends with David and Richardson, is that right?

Dawn:

Well, it does seem that way doesn’t it? But there are other theories too. There have been a couple of underworld sources come out with a couple of different theories. One reported in the Daily Record on the 19th of April 2019 that it was because Bradley had been hired as security to protect three kilograms of heroin and two kilograms of cocaine, worth around £130,000 or $180,000, and this had disappeared and Bradley had to answer for it as it was his responsibility.

Cole:

I thought he’d got out of all of that and was more into charity work and his boxing gym?

Dawn:

Well, yeah, that was my thinking too, and from what I’ve read it was the case. Bradley also did an interview in the Edinburgh Evening News published on the 13th of April 2019, four days before he was murdered, where he said “The things I did, they were wrong, but I understand why I did them, because I had [ f__k ] all. Of course I regret them, I have a daughter and a wee boy who is like a son to me, I want a better society.”

Cole:

Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a guy that’s still heavily involved in the criminal underworld.

Dawn:

It doesn’t, but I guess we’ll never know for sure. But I’m swaying towards what another source has said who had known Bradley for decades and spoke to Bradley about three weeks before his murder. He said in the Sun newspaper on the 14th of May 2021 that he felt he had to break his silence as he wanted to get the truth out. He said that apparently Bradley was murdered for calling Baigrie “a grass”.

Cole:

Oh okay.

Dawn:

So, the story goes like this. When Bradley’s friend Richardson was on remand…

Cole:

Okay, back to Richardson again.

Dawn:

Oh yeah, cause all roads lead to him. So, when he was on remand a wannabe gangster started publicly speaking about Richardson’s case, which was going to jeopardise it. Now, this next bit’s not clear but appears the same wannabe gangster could have actually helped Richardson out by going to court and testifying for him but he refused, which is apparently going against the code of criminals. It was Baigrie who called Bradley and told him that this wannabe criminal wouldn’t be helping Richardson out, and apparently Bradley told them that the pair of them were as good as grasses, telling them that he thought they were just scared of Richardson getting out of jail. This obviously went down like a lead balloon, with Baigrie instantly starting a kill list.

Cole:

Oh wow. I’ve got one of those.

Dawn:

Am I on it on a bad day?

Cole:

You’re always on it.

Dawn:

(laughing) Anyway, from all the programs I’ve watched of Bradley and what I’ve read about him, he wasn’t one for keeping his mouth shut. He just said what he thought. And it didn’t help that he was still involved, if only slightly, in the underworld. They are ruthless.

Cole:

I also say what I think so I can totally understand that. I just don’t come with you know criminal ties. He still didn’t deserve that though did he?

Dawn:

No, he absolutely didn’t deserve it. A source summed it pretty much up in an article in The Daily Record on the 8th of May 2021 when they said that Bradley was collateral damage, an easy target. Everything went back to the hatred between Baigrie and Richardson. Bradley got murdered for no other reason than because of his friendship with Richardson and trying to help him stay out of prison. Well that and calling Baigrie a grass. But, again, that just stemmed back to his friendship with Richardson and trying to help him out. The source went on to say that Bradley wasn’t involved in organised crime, he might try and make peace, but wasn’t part of that world. Anyway, so, back to the trial. Another witness at the trial was a forensic scientist. She confirmed that when the jogging trousers that Orman had been wearing at the time of the shooting, as well as on the day he was arrested, were tested, and firearms residue discharge that had been found on Bradley were compared with the firearms discharge residue that been found in the pockets of Orman’s jogging bottoms, she said the samples were “similar in composition to each other.”

Cole:

Not conclusive, but with all the other witness statements and evidence it’d be good enough for me to convict him.

Dawn:

Yeah. And, so, on Friday the 7th of May 2021, after a 12-day trial, the jury took four hours to find 30 year old Sean Orman guilty of the murder of Bradley Welsh, and the attempted murder of David McMillan. Before being sentenced Judge Lord Beckett said the shooting of Bradley had been a “premeditated and meticulously planned assassination.” He went on to say that “to shoot an unarmed man as he approached his own house was a cowardly and wicked thing to do. His fiancée and young child were inside and you ended his life apparently in the expectation of payment. The court must do all it can to deter contract killings by imposing severe punishment.” Lord Beckett went on to say that Bradley’s fiancée Emma and ten-year-old daughter Eva had suffered following Bradley’s brutal murder. They had lost their home and no longer feel safe. Orman was given a life sentence, and ordered to serve 28 years for Bradley’s murder before he would be eligible for parole, and 10 years for the attempted murder of David. It was reported on the 21st of May 2021 in the Edinburgh Live newspaper that Orman would be appealing his life sentence.

Cole:

What a surprise.

Dawn:

Yeah. He still claims that he was riding his bike alone at the time of Bradley’s murder.

Cole:

Of course he was.

Dawn:

Despite George Baigrie being named during the trial as being the man behind Bradley’s murder, no charges have been brought. However, it was reported in the Sun newspaper that Baigrie, 38, is living in fear and knows he is a marked man. He hasn’t been seen for weeks and has instructed his family not to post any pictures of him on social media. He’s also apparently really paranoid now. So, anyway, the general consensus seemed to be that Bradley was a good guy, a guy with a heart and he loved nothing more than his family, his boxing and his charity work. Yes, he was still friends with gang members from his past, but he wasn’t one to turn his back on anyone. And, so, despite building a new life, his past life still caught up with him. Can you really ever escape the gangster lifestyle once you’ve been part of it? Regardless of which story you’re leaning towards or Bradley’s level of involvement in Edinburgh’s underbelly, he did not deserve to die on the street outside his flat from a shotgun wound to his head. He was 48 years old.

And that’s the end. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and know just the person who’d also like it, please share it with them, don’t keep it to yourself.

Cole:

Please also get in touch on social media if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. All social media and contact details are on our website scottishmurders.com, as well as all the source material and photos related to this episode.

Dawn:

So that’s it for this week, come back next time for another episode of Scottish Murders.

Dawn and Cole:

Join us there. Bye.

Granny Robertson:

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn.

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn

Hosted by Dawn and Cole

Researched and Written by Dawn Young

Produced and Edited by Dawn Young and Peter Bull

Production Company Name by Granny Robertson

Music:

Dawn of the Fairies by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

Gothic Wedding by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

13 of the most chilling witch trials in Scottish history | The Scotsman

Five of Scotland’s infamous witchcraft trials | The Scotsman

The Life and Death of Bessie Dunlop, The Witch of Lynn – Wee White Hoose

Bessie Dunlop, The Witch of Dalry – Mysterious Britain & Ireland

Everything You Need to Know About Scotland’s Historic Witch Hunts

Scottish Witchcraft trials | Green Witch

Heresy, they say? James VI and the witch trials – Scotland Magazine

The Life and Death of Bessie Dunlop, The Witch of Lynn – Wee White Hoose

North Berwick Visitor Guide – Accommodation, Things To Do & More | VisitScotland

Witchcraft Acts – Wikipedia

North Berwick Witch Trials

Witch trials in early modern Scotland – Wikipedia

Great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50 – Wikipedia

Survey of Scottish Witchcraft – Introduction to Scottish Witchcraft

Escape of Charles II – Wikipedia

Witchcraft Acts – Wikipedia

North Berwick witch trials – Wikipedia

North Berwick Witch Trials

Protestantism – Wikipedia

The Scottish Witchcraft Act – University of Edinburgh

The Scottish Witchcraft Act on JSTOR

Witch Pricking Needle – Wikimedia Commons

Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn

Hosted by Dawn.

Guest: Kathryn Herron

Researched and Written by Peter Bull and Dawn Young

Produced and Edited by Dawn Young and Peter Bull

Production Company Name by Granny Robertson

Music:

Dawn of the Fairies by Derek & Brandon Fiechter

Gothic Wedding by Derek & Brandon Fiechter