The Helen Priestly Murder

It was 5am on the morning of Saturday the 21st of April 1934, when missing eight-year-old Helen Priestly’s body was found in a sack within her own tenement block, having thought to have been strangled and raped. The hunt began for the monster who had carried out this terrible act on Helen. Helen Priestly, who was tall and had fair hair, lived in a first floor flat of a tenement block at 61 Urquhart Street in Aberdeen, a city in the northeast of Scotland, with her parents, John who was 47 and Agnes who was 33.

Cole:

And for anyone that doesn’t know a tenement block is a type of build shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats, or apartments, on each floor with a shared entrance stairway access.

Dawn:

Agnes was a stay-at-home mum and John was a painter and decorator. There were seven other families living in the tenement block, including on the ground floor below the Priestly’s 38 year old Alexander and Jeannie Donald and their eight-year-old daughter also called Jeannie. Across the hall from the Donalds lived 29 year old shopkeeper William Topp and his pregnant wife 28 year old Mary Topp. The Joss family also lived in one of the top flats in the tenement. Like in many tenement blocks, not every family would get on. In this tenement it was Agnes Priestly and Jeannie Donald who had not been on very good terms, something which had gone on for about four years.

Cole:

Why was that? Do we know?

Dawn:

Well, apparently, Jeannie Donald said it was because she had not taken Agnes Priestly’s side when she had an argument with an upstairs neighbour. But Agnes felt it was because Jeannie was a busybody who became jealous if others prospered.

Cole:

Oh right, okay. In what way?

Dawn:

Well, according to the Blood and Granite book written by Norman Adams, it could have been because after Agnes Priestly had inherited a small amount of money she had bought Helen, who was very musical, a piano, as well as paying for piano lessons. As Jeannie’s daughter was also musical and she always wanted to give her daughter the very best, Agnes thought that she was jealous of the fact that she had been able to give her daughter something Jeannie couldn’t give hers. But it’s not known for sure.

Cole:

Okay. So basically they just didn’t like each other?

Dawn:

Yeah, pretty much. On Friday the 20th of April Helen had been at school in the morning, before returning to her flat for lunch. At about 1pm, Agnes had sent Helen to the local baker to buy a loaf of bread, an errand Helen would never return from. Agnes Priestly wasn’t initially worried when Helen didn’t return straight away, she thought she had maybe got talking to someone. Helen may have been a bit shy but she was very confident and well known in the area. She’d not be long. So Agnes continued with her own tasks waiting for her daughter to return. However, as the time passed and there was still no sign of Helen, Agnes became concerned. She initially went to Helen’s school thinking that Helen had maybe just gone back there and had forgotten about the bread. Apparently Helen loved school. However, Helen hadn’t returned to school after the lunch break. A pupil at the school did say that they had seen Helen just a few steps from her tenement block front door while on lunch, but that they hadn’t noticed if she had actually gone inside. Agnes then went to the local bakery shop to see if her daughter had actually made it there. When she arrived and asked after Helen she was told that Helen had indeed been in earlier to buy a loaf of bread, but had left hours ago. After finding this out, Agnes immediately contacted the police, as well as advising her husband who had been working locally. A massive search subsequently was carried out by police officers, as well as friends, family and strangers from the surrounding areas who had all volunteered to help. The search involved checking every building in the vicinity, alleys and public areas, as well as areas within Helen’s tenement building, including the coal shed and communal toilet. Agnes and her family and friends approached anyone they came across asking if they had seen Helen, and this is how the first lead was generated. A wee boy who had been friends with Helen told how he had seen Helen being dragged onto a tram car by a man, saying the man was about five foot ten inches and wore a dark coat. He also said that he had seen Helen carrying a loaf of bread and had been wearing a blue tammy hat. Spurred on with this witness statement, the police immediately made an appeal asking if anyone had seen the man in question. Teams of police and volunteers continued to search for this man, asking people in the area if they had seen this man or if they had witnessed a young girl being taken forcibly, but no one had. The search continued into the evening and on past midnight, by which time Agnes and her husband John’s worry had turned to fear. At about 2am on the Saturday, and with the heavens now opening over Aberdeen, it was decided to halt the search and proceed again at 5am. Wanting to carry on searching but knowing he needed to rest, Helen’s dad finally agreed and went to his flat to try and get some sleep, with a neighbour from across the street agreeing to come to his flat at 5am to waken him up again. And so, other than the rain pouring down on the streets, everything was quiet for a few hours while everyone got some sleep. Well, almost everyone. Just before 5am, true to his word, John’s neighbour made his way across the street to 61 Urquhart Street to awaken John up to continue the search. He would have been relieved when the rain finally began to stop as he stepped outside. He pushed open the communal door into the tenement building and made his way to the stairs to the first floor, and then stopped suddenly. At the back of the tenement block where the communal toilet was he saw lying there on the floor a large sack. He opened the sack and looked in, only to see Helen’s dead face looking back at him. That was the end of the quiet, the whole place erupted. He ran up the stairs and banged on John and Agnes’s door to get their attention. He then ran down into the street shouting, banging on the doors of the Topps and the Donalds as he passed. Everybody appeared from their flats to see what the commotion was all about. Well almost everyone. William Topp had already left for work at 4am that morning but Mary Topp was still there. When she found out that Helen had been found in the tenement block she fainted in shock. It would turn out that due to the shock she would later suffer a miscarriage.

Cole:

I can’t believe the trauma from these events caused her to have a miscarriage, that’s so unfortunate.

Dawn:

Yeah, I know it is, it’s sad. And then there were the Donalds who also lived on the ground floor, they never made an appearance.

Cole:

Alright, do you think that’s a bit weird? I mean, you hear commotion outside your front door, and presumably Agnes and John Priestly in distress, and you don’t want to know what’s going on.

Dawn:

Yeah, it is a bit strange. According to the Blood and Granite book written by Norman Adams, apparently the pair thought that it was just Agnes Priestly causing a scene because she wanted to go back out to search for Helen and she was being stopped.

Cole:

Alright, but would you still not want to check everything was okay?

Dawn:

Well, I would, but remember these two women didn’t get on, so maybe she just wanted to stay out of the way. Anyway, the police were quick on the scene as they had already arrived to continue the search again. They made sure that everyone was back inside before going to inspect the sack.

Cole:

So, does that mean that if Helen’s dad walked through the tenement block at 2am and there was no body, then his neighbour came back into the tenement block at 5am and Helen’s body was now there, does that mean it was placed there within that time?

Dawn:

Well, yeah, that’s what it seems. The first thing that was noticed by the police was that the sack and Helen were bone dry, as was the floor under the sack.

Cole:

Oh that’s really interesting, because it was raining outside. So does that mean that Helen must have been in that tenement block the whole time?

Dawn:

Well it would seem that way, because if the body had been outside of the tenement block and brought in then it would definitely have been wet and left a puddle on the floor. After Helen’s body had been examined, the doctor’s first impression was that she had been strangled and raped.

Cole:

Oh God, that’s awful.

Dawn:

So now it was believed that the killer was a male living within the tenement block.

Cole:

Didn’t a school friend of hers say that he had seen her being abducted by a man? Are the police under the assumption that this man lives in the same tenement building as Helen?

Dawn:

Well, no. Following Helen’s body being found the police again spoke to the boy hoping for more details about the man he had seen, only for the boy to admit that he had lied, he hadn’t seen Helen that day at all.

Cole:

What a waste of time.

Dawn:

Yeah, I don’t think the police were too impressed, but he was just a silly wee boy. So Helen’s body was taken away for a postmortem to be carried out, where it was determined that she had died from asphyxiation. Bruises on her upper thigh were also discovered, as well as signs that her sexual organs had been mutilated. However, all was not as it seemed, but I’ll come back to that. When these facts were made known to the public only one thing was on the minds of the people in the area, vengeance. Large groups of people carrying weapons began to stalk the streets in search of this murderous predator and carry out their own justice. While the police were concerned about this and they did not want any vigilante type behaviour being carried out, however, while there were such numbers of people roaming the streets then surely this monster wouldn’t strike again. They knew that the sooner they found the culprit the better. Door-to-door inquiries were carried out in the area and it was determined that a neighbour had heard a scream coming from Helen’s tenement block around about lunchtime, but that they didn’t think anything of it at the time. Following an appeal being made for information into the murder of Helen, a slater, who didn’t live in the area but who had been working at the back of Helen’s tenement block that day, also said he heard a scream coming from inside the tenement block around lunchtime, but again he didn’t think anything of it at the time, maybe just kids playing around. Other neighbours told the police how Jeannie Donald and the Priestly’s had had a falling out and that Helen and Jeannie Donald were forever having quarrels. Helen had been in the habit of calling Jeannie Donald a coconut.

Cole:

A coconut? What does that mean?

Dawn:

I don’t think it’s anything particularly derogatory, it’s just something Helen said to annoy Jeannie Donald.

Cole:

Okay.

Dawn:

They also found out that Jeannie Donald was always chasing Helen away from outside her windows when she played there. She apparently had also slapped Helen once, which obviously didn’t go down too well with Helen’s mum and dad, further fuelling the already tense relationship. Armed with this information, on the 25th of April, the police went to question the Donalds as to their whereabouts on the day of Helen’s disappearance, at this point still not having decided if they had enough evidence to arrest them yet. Alexander Donald, who was a barber, said he’d been at work all day in the barber shop and had worked late that evening, only coming home briefly for his lunch and tea. Jeannie Donald had quite a busy day, which she talked about quite openly. She said she had left the flat about 1:10pm or 1:15pm on the Friday to go to a market held weekly behind Union Street, which was about a 25 minute walk away from the tenement block. She went on to say what she had bought and the exact prices of the items. She said she then went to a material shop where she priced up material to make a dress for her daughter, before then walking back home. As she was arriving back home she said she had seen Agnes Priestly standing at the grocer’s shop, which was located across from the tenement block. Upon entering the tenement she said that Mrs Topp had come in from the back and that they’d spoken briefly, but she said that Mrs Topp never once mentioned that Helen was missing. She then said she spent the rest of the afternoon in the flat ironing five of her daughter’s dresses, as her daughter was to attend a dancing rehearsal that evening, which both Jeannie’s parents also attended. Following the interview the police asked if they could search the flat, which the Donalds agreed to. Upon looking under the sink, the police found a red stain. While further examinations were conducted in the Donalds flat to determine if the red stain was in fact blood, word began to get out of what was going on and a crowd began to congregate outside the tenement block. Finally it was decided that the red stain could in fact be blood and the Donalds were immediately arrested and charged with the murder of Helen Priestly. Upon being taken from the tenement block, the couple were jeered at and the crowd became more and more hostile. The couple were quickly taken to the police station only to be met by more crowds waiting outside, who also showed their disdain and disgust for the couple. Back at the flat, samples of the red stain were taken and analysed, and later, after examination, it was determined that it was not blood. However, they found much more evidence so it didn’t matter, the couple would not get away with Helen’s murder for lack of evidence. Firstly, there was the sack that Helen’s body had been found in. On examination a hole had been found in the top corner of it, as if it had been placed over a hook. And lo and behold, guess what they found in the Donalds flat?

Cole:

Was it a sack with a hole at the top?

Dawn:

Yes, it was, many sacks.

Cole:

Oh.

Dawn:

Apparently Jeannie Donald used these sacks to keep cinders in that she would reuse. Nobody else in the tenement did this. Cinders were also found in the sack that Helen’s body had been found in. Upon closer examination of the sack, a hair was found, which was deemed to match Jeannie Donald’s hair. Also bacteria found inside the sack that Helen had been in was found to match bacteria found in the Donalds home. Although the red stain under the sink was determined not to be blood, blood was found in the Donalds flat, specifically type O blood, which matched Helen’s blood type. Obviously that wasn’t enough on its own to prove this was Helen’s blood or that she had been murdered there, but that was okay they had all the evidence they needed. But more was still to come. In the meantime, Alexander and Jeannie Donald were being questioned over and over again to what had taken place the day Helen had gone missing, but each time their story didn’t change. So the police went back onto the streets again to try to disprove the couple’s stories, knowing that the stories couldn’t be true because the evidence now spoke for itself. What they found out though was that Alexander Donald was telling the truth, he had been at work at the time Helen went missing, and this was corroborated by both his barbershop colleagues as well as customers he had that day. After six weeks of being questioned and held in police custody, Alexander Donald was finally released without charge. Despite being found innocent and having witnesses corroborating that he couldn’t have been involved in Helen’s disappearance, the locals weren’t ready to forgive and forget what had been done to wee Helen just yet. Not feeling safe, Alexander Donald took his daughter and they both left the area. Alexander Donald died in 1944 from cancer, ten years after Helen’s murder. So, while it had been proven that Alexander Donald had been telling the truth and had been at work at the time of Helen’s disappearance, Jeannie Donald’s story was starting to unravel. Due to the exact details she had told the police of what she had bought at the market and the prices she had paid, upon investigating it was established that these prices were special prices and had only been available at the previous week’s market. So, Jeannie Donald did not set off for the market between 1:10pm and 1:15pm at all, she had been in her flat, unknowing that only 15 minutes later she would be carrying out a truly horrific deed. It was also established that she had not been in the material shop that day pricing up materials.

Cole:

She must have known she would get caught out.

Dawn:

Maybe she thought no one would check out her story as she couldn’t possibly have been involved as she was a woman and it was assumed Helen had been raped.

Cole:

That’s very naïve.

Dawn:

I agree. It would be Jeannie Donald’s own daughter who put the final nail in her coffin. Jeannie said that when she came home from school and had some bread, she noticed that it was different to the bread they usually bought. In fact upon checking with the baker where Helen had bought the bread her mother had sent her out to get, it was the exact same type of bread that Helen had bought that Jeannie had described.

Cole:

Oh God, so she killed Helen and then kept her bread and fed it to her daughter? I mean that’s a bit twisted isn’t it?

Dawn:

Yeah, it’s a bit sick. Now that Alexander Donald had been released, Helen’s body was again closely examined to try and explain away the perceived rape. It was eventually determined that a hammer or a broom handle had been used in order to replicate a rape. Whatever object had been used, it had been so roughly inserted that Helen’s intestines had been ruptured.

Cole:

God, that’s disgusting.

Dawn:

The evidence against Jeannie Donald was pretty substantial, but on the opening of her trial in Edinburgh High Court on Monday the 16th of July 1934, she pleaded not guilty. She had no witnesses, no alibi, no nothing. I think everyone was shocked by this, none more so than the crowd of men and women outside of the courthouse. The story of what had happened to Helen hadn’t just been confined to her hometown of Aberdeen it had been heard far and wide, and the people outside the courthouse made sure everyone was aware of the disgust that was felt at what had been done to wee Helen. Police were on hand to make sure there was some sort of order and proceedings inside could carry on. During the trial 164 witnesses were called including Jeannie Donald’s daughter, many forensic experts, neighbours and shopkeepers. The only defence Jeannie Donald had was to say that how could she have been involved, she was a woman and Helen had shown signs of being raped.

Cole:

Yeah, but we already know that that’s been faked.

Dawn:

Yes, we do, but I don’t think she or her defence solicitor did, but they were about to be given both barrels. In fact three separate pathologists who had independently examined Helen’s body had come up with the same conclusion. Jeannie Donald had been defeated. The jury retired and after 18 minutes of deliberation they found Mrs Jeannie Donald guilty of murder.

Cole:

Yeah, I don’t know how she thought she was going to go away with that one.

Dawn:

Yeah, I know. But for back in 1934 the forensics had been instrumental in convicting her. In fact, according to the Daily Record…,

Cole:

Which is a Scottish newspaper.

Dawn:

…in an article from the 19th of October 2007, Jeannie Donald was one of the first people in the world to be convicted on forensic evidence.

Cole:

Oh wow, really? That’s pretty impressive.

Yeah, I think so too. Upon hearing the verdict there was loud cheering heard from outside. Justice had been served. Jeannie was sentenced to death by Judge Lord Aitchison, who actually started crying at having to wear the black cap and be passing down a death sentence penalty to a woman. Jeannie Donald was then taken to Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen to wait for her sentence to be carried out. However, just over two weeks later on the 3rd of August Jeannie Donald’s solicitor lodged an appeal. Amazingly she won the appeal and her sentence was changed from a death sentence to a life sentence, and she was transferred to a women’s prison in Glasgow to serve her new sentence.

Cole:

Alright, was there any reason for that?

Dawn:

Well I believe higher up people got involved to try and get this reduced to a life sentence. I mean you heard what state the judge presiding over the trial got into at having to sentence a woman to death, maybe it didn’t sit too well.

Cole:

Well, if that’s the reason it’s kind of ridiculous. I mean, personal feelings shouldn’t have to come into that, she had carried out a horrendous murder on a wee girl. I’d be pretty angry if I was Helen’s parents.

Dawn:

There’s actually no report on what their thoughts were, but yeah, they must have been devastated, for a second time. There also was nothing reported about how they felt when Mrs Jeannie Donald was released from prison to continue her life just ten years later.

Cole:

What? Why?

Dawn:

Well, remember that I said her husband, Alexander, had died from cancer in 1944?

Cole:

Yes.

Dawn:

Well when it was found out he only had a few days left to live, Jeannie was released from prison and actually looked after him in his last few days. It was then decided, for whatever inexplicable reason, that she should just be set free.

Cole:

Wow, that’s crazy.

Dawn:

Upon being released from prison, Jeannie Donald changed her name and carried on with her life, before finally dying at the age of 81 in 1976. At no point did Jeannie Donald ever tell what had possessed her, a hard-working woman who had no criminal history, to carry out such an atrocious act of violence. No one will ever know exactly what happened that fateful day, but one theory is by Sir Sydney Smith, who was a professor of forensic medicine at Edinburgh University and was a witness at the trial. He thought that Helen had returned to the tenement with the loaf of bread, opened the front communal door and there she found herself in front of Jeannie Donald. It is then thought that an exchange of some kind took place, maybe Helen called Jeannie a coconut again, but whatever was said Jeannie Donald snapped. It is then thought she grabbed Helen and shook her violently enough that Helen passed out. Thinking that she may have killed Helen she carried Helen into her flat and proceeded to violently insert an object into her sexual organ.

Cole:

That’s some really dark thinking, from oh God I think I might have accidentally killed Helen to I know what I’ll do to misdirect people. It’s just strange.

Dawn:

Well what’s even stranger is at this point Helen wasn’t actually dead.

Cole:

Oh God. What?

Dawn:

Upon having something inserted roughly into her she came round and screamed.

Cole:

Oh God, that’s horrible. And that must have been what the neighbours and workmen must have heard.

Dawn:

Yes, it was. And at this point Jeannie Donald then proceeded to strangle Helen.

Cole:

Why would she not check for a pulse first instead of just assuming she was dead?

Dawn:

Well, to be honest, she was probably hoping she was dead because if she hadn’t killed her she had at least shaken her hard enough for her to pass out and that’s assault, she would have known she was in serious trouble by this point anyway.

Cole:

Yeah, she was in serious trouble but she wasn’t in rape and murder a little girl kind of trouble.

Dawn:

Yeah, I know. I can’t believe that’s where her mind went either. It’s just awful. After she had actually killed Helen she then put her under the sink in one of her cinder bags. It is then thought that she spent the rest of the afternoon in the flat washing and ironing her daughter’s dresses for the upcoming play. She had presumably looked out of the window and saw Helen Priestly talking to the grocer across the street from her flat, not as she was coming back from the market.

Cole:

Oh. And what about Mrs Topp having seen her coming in the front door as she came in the back?

Dawn:

Well, it’s thought that she’d stood just inside the door waiting for Mrs Topp to appear so she could pretend she was just back from the market.

Cole:

Oh right, I see, that’s very calculating and kind of clever.

Dawn:

All the while Helen is lying dead under her sink in the same room as her. Her husband, Alexander, and her daughter, Jeannie, would then have come home for tea, before Alexander went back to work. Jeannie and her daughter would have left the flat shortly before 6:30pm to attend the dancing rehearsal, before finally returning back to the flat about 11pm after the rehearsal had finished. By this time the search for Helen would have been in full swing.

Cole:

So did they help with the search?

Dawn:

I can’t find that they did for definite, but it would have looked a bit strange if they hadn’t, at least if the husband hadn’t. Now there’s a picture on our website of the actual room where this took place, but it’s basically a living room, kitchen, bedroom room.

Cole:

All in one room.

Dawn:

Yes, that’s an absolutely better way to say that. Yeah. Anyway, it’s very small. Have a look. The family all shared a bed in this room; her husband Alexander slept at the wall side, her daughter Jeannie in the middle and Jeannie Donald on the outside. Jeannie would have waited for them both to fall asleep that evening, waited until 2am for everything to go silent, then leave the bed, go to the sink cupboard, take out the sack with Helen in it, carry it to the door, go outside, place it in the communal hall, come back in and back to bed, without either her daughter or her husband waking up.

Cole:

Well I’ve had a look at the picture and it is a very small room so I can’t imagine that no one woke up, but she could have just said that she was going to the toilet.

Dawn:

Yeah, going to the toilet with a big sack over her back.

Cole:

They could have slept through her going to the toilet and just been awake when she came back from the toilet, and she wouldn’t have had a sack.

Cole:

Yeah, I guess that’s a theory too.

Dawn:

However, in an article in the Scotsman Newspaper on the 22nd of February 2018, writer Dermot Mogg said “It is inconceivable when you look at the room that the husband and child could have slept through this.” He went on to say that he felt Alexander Donald “could have been prosecuted for trying to cover up the crime.” His feeling is that Alexander Donald wasn’t charged along with his wife so that their daughter was left with at least one parent.

Cole:

And they couldn’t charge Alexander Donald with Helen’s actual disappearance because he had an alibi.

Dawn:

Exactly. We’ll never know for sure though if he was involved, even if only in getting rid of Helen’s body. Although, why on earth would they have left Helen’s body so close to their own home?

Cole:

Yeah, that is a mystery.

Dawn:

Helen was buried in Aberdeen’s Allenvale Cemetery and her headstone read ‘Grant that her little life, so short here, may unfold itself in thy sight.’

Cole:

Oh that’s quite nice.

Dawn:

It is.

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 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.

Credits

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

The Helen Priestly Murder

The Helen Priestly Murder

Episode Summary

Please Be Advised – This episode may contain content that some may find distressing. As always, we advise listener discretion. This episode it not suitable for anyone under the age of 13.

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Scottish Murders is an award short listed, fortnightly true crime podcast that focuses entirely on murders carried out in Scotland or involving Scottish people, hosted by Dawn, and occasionally her sister Cole.

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