The Lawkillers

by Alexander McGregor

  A month after the grim discovery in the house at 105 Aberdour Place, police took the unusual step of submitting a report to the Procurator Fiscal containing every detail of what the exhaustive police enquiries had revealed, including the possibility that the death might have been accidental. Five weeks later, equally unexpectedly, the Fiscal, who acknowledged the intensity of the police investigation, made the surprise announcement that a fatal-accident inquiry into the circumstances would be held. Although such a hearing closely resembled the common English coroner’s courts, it was an extremely rare procedure in Scotland.

  Even after the fatal-accident inquiry was held, the initial findings were inconclusive. Although not ruling out the original belief that a murder had been committed, police suggested there might also be another explanation for what had occurred. A senior detective, giving evidence at the hearing, described how he had gone to the house shortly after the discovery of the body and had at first believed there had been an accident but had initiated a murder inquiry on the advice of a police surgeon and a forensic expert. He went on to recount how Mrs Connelly’s home was in an extremely quiet residential area with a fairly low crime level and how there had not been a sneak-in theft there for ten years. Asked about the discovery of the purse with the victim’s blood on it, he replied that he would not have expected a thief who had just committed a serious assault to take money from a purse, then close it and replace it in a drawer, which he also shut. Sneak-thieves went in and out as quickly as possible and would not waste time to see if they were lucky, he told Sheriff Graham Cox: ‘They would not close any purse, then replace it in a drawer. They would examine the contents outside and then throw the purse away,’ he pointed out.

  Much of the hearing took place in Dundee Royal Infirmary, where the dead woman’s bedroom had been reconstructed in the Department of Forensic Science. The furniture from the room was positioned to match as closely as possible the layout at Aberdour Place. Even the bloodstained bedding and a blood-soaked hairnet were in the exact spots where they had been found.

  The senior detective who had gone to the house within an hour of the discovery of the body proposed that the death could have been the result of an extraordinary set of accidental circumstances. He advanced a theory supporting that view, as follows. Mrs Connelly had been ready to go to bed when she fell – as she had done in the past – between her bed and a wardrobe, striking her forehead on a chair in between. She either lay there for some time before pulling herself on to the bed, or fell back immediately and then lay on the bed, as indicated by the heavy blood-staining on the bedding. From there, the pensioner had attempted to rise but twice struck her head on the wardrobe – accounting for the curious shaped wounds on her head, caused by the doorknobs and a key.

  The detective’s suggested scenario continued with Mrs Connelly crawling round the floor at the edge of the bed towards the door and, in an attempt to rise, toppling back and striking the back of her head on the open drawer of a chest. Her bloody handprints indicated that she had crawled hand-over-hand round the bed, then held on to a chair. The unusual spread of blood on the walls and ceiling would have arrived there after the first fall, when the injured widow pulled off her hairnet, which had been blood-soaked. The fact that the hairnet was elasticised had caused the blood to spatter the way it had. Supporting his hypothesis in part was evidence from the dead woman’s GP that she had suffered from angina for twelve years and had experienced two heart attacks in that time. It was also known that Mrs Connelly had previously been found in the house after falls.

  Sheriff Cox suggested that, as an alternative to the detective’s conjectures, Mrs Connelly may have sustained her assorted injuries by being thrown about.

  ‘I could not equate the scene in the bedroom with an assault,’ responded the officer. ‘In these circumstances the woman could not have moved herself from one side of the bedroom to the other. Everything would have been happening in one corner.’

  Asked to account for the presence of the blood on the purse in the drawer, he explained that it could have come about after Mrs Connelly had attempted to seek help after her falls. Since she had no telephone in the house, she had gone to the purse to collect her house key before departing to alert a neighbour to her plight – but had been unable to do so.

  The police speculation about the events in the house that April day did not meet with any kind of agreement from the forensic scientist who had examined the body of Mrs Connelly. Dr Donald Rushton, bow-tied and peering over the top of glasses positioned on the point of his nose, was customarily categorical in his dismissal of the accident theory, saying it did not equate with the nature and severity of the wounds suffered by the victim.

  ‘On my first visit to the scene I formed the opinion that the deceased had first been assaulted on her bed or at the wardrobe,’ he said emphatically. ‘Had it been accidental, none of her injuries would have spurted blood to that degree. For them to have been caused by her hairnet it would have had to have been a forcible or frantic removal.’ He thought the dead woman could have been assaulted on the bed, then she might have recovered sufficiently to have crawled round it to the place where her body was eventually found. His conclusion was that the majority of her wounds indicated that she had been severely assaulted about the head with a hard object – the sort of which he could not identify – and, in attempting to defend herself, had sustained two injuries to the backs of her hands. Dr Rushton expressed his unhappiness with the idea of the circumstances being explained away as an accident, dismissing the assumptions as implausible and insufficient on medical grounds.

  ‘The injuries were too severe and there were too many of them,’ he said. ‘There were fifteen separate impacts on the body.’ He admitted that a fitter, younger person might have survived the attack.

  Nothing was said at the inquiry, however, to provide any kind of explanation for the lack of signs of a disturbance or forced entry or exit. Nor could anyone account for the absence of unidentified fingerprints. One spot of blood had been found outside the bed-room, on the door inside the living-room leading to the hallway, but that did not produce a foreign print either.

  The conclusion of the evidence at the inquiry presented the Sheriff with a dilemma. He had two widely differing opinions of what might have happened in the pensioner’s flat, each coming from men eminent in their fields but each leaving many questions unanswered. He adjourned the hearing to seek the views of a second medical expert, saying this was the only safe way to deliver a judgement which would be fair to the police, Dr Rushton and Mrs Connelly’s family. It was acknowledged, however, that any new evidence would be based on the available written reports, photographs and interviews and not on first-hand experience of the death scene or the body.

  Two months later, Professor Arthur Harland of Glasgow University told the resumed fatal-accident inquiry that he supported the opinion of Dr Rushton, saying he believed the twelve injuries to the pensioner’s head could only have been sustained by repeated blows ‘of quite unusual violence’. He dismissed the idea of the blood trails on the ceiling having been caused by Mrs Connelly removing her hairnet, but admitted they were likely to have arrived there by someone swinging the hairnet – or a weapon.

  Sheriff Cox proceeded to find that Mrs Connelly’s sad death had been no accident, the ‘balance of probabilities’ showing that it had resulted from a sustained and violent assault upon her and that she had died around 7.15 p.m. on the evening of Sunday, 12 April.

  It was a verdict which met with the approval of Mrs Connelly’s family, who had believed from the start that the elderly woman who lived quietly in the pleasant suburb had been murdered by a chance intruder or intruders. Their supposition was that she had been assaulted and forced to hand over money and, after her attackers demanded more cash, she was hit again because they suspected she may have had additional funds secreted away.

  Her son Kenneth, who had visited the house that afternoon, told a reporter that after the finding of his mo
ther’s body, it was noted that the curtain on the toilet window had been closed, something Mrs Connelly never did because she was too small to reach. That may have been of considerable significance. The window was located next to the front door and visible to anyone passing. Did her killer or killers close the curtain so they could, undisturbed, remove any traces of blood from their person? Or was it because a mystery visitor, who may have been known to the occupant, had stayed long enough to require the use of the bathroom? The drawing of the curtain might even have been the act of a woman, through modesty or because of natural feminine instincts which demanded neatness, a word that in so many ways could have described much – such as the replacement of the blood-stained purse into the drawer – of what went on at 105 Aberdour Place that April evening.

  It was one more awkward piece to the jigsaw that, even after an extensive murder inquiry, fatal-accident inquiry and the passage of almost quarter of a century, no one is any closer to piecing together.

  7

  EIGHTEEN HOURS

  Eighteen hours. Not even a day. In a lifetime, a blink of an eye. A fleeting, forgotten moment in time that blurs with a million other hours … unless you are one of those unaccountably selected by fate that makes it seem like an eternity. Then you may be left with memories so indelible and so painful they accompany you to the grave.

  That was how it was for Charles Smith and his wife Sarah, when a Saturday in May 1971, that started so unexceptionally, turned into a lingering journey through the worst kind of hell. Even when the first fateful component that would change their lives forever entered into the day there was nothing to set it apart.

  Late in the afternoon, while the couple were watching an England-Scotland football match on television, a knock on the door of their tenement flat in Broughty Ferry Road interrupted the couple’s viewing. The visitor was Charles Shepherd, a 24-year-old acquaintance who lived a mile away and who had called to apologise for an earlier argument. Generously, 33-year-old Mr Smith says to forget about the incident and invites him in. Shepherd is pleased at his reception and, as a gesture of goodwill, announces that he has £4 which he will use to buy drink for the trio. As a further token of his appreciation, he takes Sharon, Mrs Smith’s eight-year-old daughter by a previous marriage, and her friend of the same age, to the off-licence with him. They return 15 minutes later, Shepherd having purchased a bottle of wine, a few tins of beer and cigarettes.

  After a few drinks, the mood has mellowed further and the visitor makes another friendly offer. If the young girls would like it, he would be happy to take them for runs round the block on the red and white Lambretta scooter he’d arrived on. The eight-year-olds are thrilled at the prospect and Mr and Mrs Smith willingly yield to their excited pleas for permission to make the trips.

  Shortly afterwards, Shepherd and his young passengers return to the flat. The girls are animated about their experience and immediately request another spin on the magical scooter. They depart once more and at around 4.45 p.m. Shepherd and Sharon come back without the other youngster, who has gone home for tea. Sharon is even more elated. Shepherd has bought her a bag of butternut sweets. Politely, she offers them to her parents. The mood in the house is jovial, even though the football international has ended with a 3–1 defeat for Scotland.

  Half an hour later, with the excitement of her previous journeys on the scooter still the main topic of the little redhead’s conversation, Shepherd volunteers to give her one more ride on the Lambretta. The pair set off from the flat once again and as Sharon disappears down the tenement stairs her bubbling laughter rings in her parents’ ears.

  It is 5.15 p.m. It is also the last time they would hear the joyous sound and the last time they would ever see her alive.

  At around 6 p.m. Shepherd returns to the house. He is alone and, in answer to the Smiths’ questions about their daughter’s whereabouts, he casually explains that he had dropped her off at nearby newsagent’s shop where she met up with a chum. He is relaxed and converses freely.

  But 34-year-old Mrs Smith is alarmed after noting that his clothing is dishevelled and his shirt is stained with what appears to be blood. Anxiously, she suggests to her husband that the police should be called.

  He, too, is apprehensive but in order not to alarm his wife further, conceals his fears and attempts to play down Sharon’s non-arrival. Mrs Smith is not appeased and her husband finally accedes to her plea. Eager to be of assistance, Shepherd offers to take Mr Smith round to the nearest police box on the Lambretta. They set off with Mr Smith on the pillion seat his stepdaughter had occupied less than an hour earlier. As events of the next 17 hours start to unfold, that seemingly natural occurrence takes on a surreal aspect.

  After he has dropped his passenger off at the police box, Shepherd says he will tour the neighbourhood for Sharon and drives off. Meanwhile, Mr Smith and the officer he’s spoken to agree to delay an official search for half an hour to allow the missing girl more time to return home.

  Back at the house, Mrs Smith is even more fearful but reluctantly accepts the proposal to defer the launch of the search. When Shepherd shows up at the flat again to say he can find no trace of Sharon, the air of despondency in the house deepens. At exactly 6.30 p.m. Mr Smith returns to the police box to ask for the search to commence.

  Bizarrely, almost immediately it becomes a double hunt. As the last known person to have seen Sharon, police are anxious to speak to Shepherd. But he, too, has vanished. A general alert goes out to every officer on duty in the city to look out for him and his red and white Lambretta, registration number 69 BSR.

  Two hours after the launch of the search, a constable radios in to headquarters to say he has located the scooter in Robertson Street, less than half a mile from Sharon’s home. Detectives hurry to the scene and examine the Lambretta. They lift the saddle and check the toolbox stored underneath. What they discover is as unexpected as it is grim. The first thing they see is an old-fashioned open razor – and it is blood-stained.

  The inferences are obvious and efforts to locate Shepherd and little Sharon are intensified. While other officers scour the area, a special plain-clothes team lie in wait near the scooter which has been left in place. Some two hours later, their patience is rewarded when Shepherd arrives and prepares to drive off. He is immediately detained and when detectives note he smells strongly of alcohol the 24-year-old confesses to have been drinking most of the evening. It is the only admission he makes. Held at head-quarters, he is questioned at length but says he has no knowledge of the whereabouts of the pretty child he’d taken for scooter rides that late afternoon.

  At midnight, the head of CID, Superintendent William Melville, contacts the media to issue an appeal for the public to report any sightings they may have had of either Sharon or the scooter. One of those who takes his call is a late duty Sunday Post reporter who departs at once to interview Mrs Smith. She is distressed but anxious to plead for any assistance people can offer to help find her daughter. Then, through her tears, she makes a stunning admission. She says she fears she will never see her little girl alive again and names Shepherd as the person responsible. She even furnishes the astonished young reporter with his address.

  Down at police HQ in Bell Street, the man she accuses continues to be unhelpful and protests his innocence, claiming that the last time he saw Sharon was when he dropped her off at the shop close to her home.

  The search for the missing child continues through the night and when daylight breaks at 4 a.m. reinforcements arrive to bolster numbers. Police and special constables from Angus and Perth join volunteers from the Territorial Army, Royal Navy Reserve and youth organisations. As Dundee stirs into wakefulness, more and more people join in the hunt for Sharon. Soon, 400 people are checking outhouses and back gardens all over the city. With nothing to go on, the search area extends in every direction. It is the biggest hunt ever undertaken in the region. Police dogs are brought in and a helicopter is put on stand-by in the hope that the damp, misty weather lifts.
Members of the WRVS and other groups arrive early to provide tea and hot soup for the searchers, many of whom have toiled all night. Their task is made worse when heavy rain starts to fall. Among those in the search parties is a jacketless Mr Smith who is advised by police to return home to await news.

  At the same time as the city was being systematically scoured overnight, other police staff prepared special posters and pamphlets bearing Sharon’s photograph and details of the Lambretta and the time she was last seen. They are distributed at daybreak to those who have been asleep and unaware of the Saturday-night-Sunday-morning drama being played out. At the same time, loud-speaker vehicles tour Dundee broadcasting appeals for help. Radio news bulletins carry items about the missing girl and others learn of her disappearance when they read the heartbreaking plea of her mother in the Sunday Post.

  Altogether, it is an unprecedented plea for public assistance – and it pays off. Shortly after 8 a.m., a woman living in Baxter Park Terrace, about quarter of a mile from the Smiths’ home, hears a radio appeal which jolts her memory. She recalls seeing a scooter pass her house as she sat at a window the evening before. The more she thinks about it, the more she is convinced that the ‘pretty girl with the bonnie red hair’ was Sharon. She visualises the scene as the scooter passed by, heading north, and recollects smiling because the little girl’s legs were too short for her feet to reach the footrests.

  It is enough for the main thrust of the search to be concentrated on the north and east ends of town and the deputy head of CID, Chief Inspector John Bell, then decides to play a hunch. He remembers that as a youth Shepherd had lived close to Linlathen Estate, a large open area between Baldovie and Claypots, and he directs large detachments of the search teams there. It is a rewarding tactic.