The Lawkillers

by Alexander McGregor

While the drenching rain continues unabated, two police officers decide to check a small, disused War Department brick building standing in isolation on the estate. The sight which greets them is so ghastly that they are moved to tears. Sharon lies sprawled on the floor. She is partially clothed and her throat has been viciously slashed.

  It is 11.15 a.m. and 18 hours since her excited laughter sounded on the stairs of her home where she said goodbye to her parents for the last time.

  Charles Hampton Shepherd continued to deny any knowledge of how eight-year-old Sharon’s short life had ended so barbarously. But even as he appeared briefly in court the next morning charged with her murder, evidence was stacking up against him. The citizens of Dundee, who had responded so spontaneously and wholeheartedly in the search for the little girl, reacted just as unstintingly to police appeals about the movements of a Lambretta scooter, registration number 69 BSR.

  Outraged at the details of her death, numerous people came forward to incriminate Shepherd by saying they had witnessed Sharon being taken on her final journey. All clearly remembered the slender figure in the green cardigan and with the bright red hair sitting on the pillion seat holding on to the young man driving. The pair had been seen all along the route, almost from the moment they had set off until turning at the crossroads in the direction of the scene of her death.

  One male witness was particularly helpful. He had previously been a neighbour of the Smiths and had no difficulty in recognising Sharon. He went further and identified the scooter as belonging positively to Shepherd because it bore the name of the accused man’s favourite pop group, The Who, in bold black and gold letters.

  Tests on the bloodstains found on the old-fashioned open razor discovered in the toolbag of the scooter establish later that the blood group is the same as Sharon’s – a different one from Shepherd’s.

  Yet, despite the overwhelming case built against him, the 24-year-old continued to persist in claiming his innocence.

  It was not until two months later, on 14 July 1971, when he appeared at the High Court in Dundee to stand trial, that he finally confessed to his fiendish behaviour. Dressed garishly in a bright yellow jerkin and brown slacks, and chewing gum throughout his short court appearance, he sullenly admitted raping and murdering the little girl who had excitedly asked to be taken for trips on his scooter.

  The judge, Lord Emslie, could barely conceal his disgust for the long-haired killer. Telling him he had pleaded guilty to charges of ‘unparalleled savagery’, he jailed him for life, adding tersely, ‘I won’t waste words in heaping on you the condemnation that society feels for you.’

  With that judgement ringing in his ears, Charles Hampton Shepherd was led from the dock and out of the public gaze, his long incarceration never to feel as endless as the eighteen hours endured by an anguished family.

  8

  COLLARED

  His name was Andrew Hunter and some who knew him thought him a ‘perfect gentleman’. He was a member of the Salvation Army, a caring father and a social worker who dealt with needy and problem children …

  His name was Andrew Hunter and he was a perverted bisexual and ruthless killer who believed he could outwit the police. Some who knew him thought him an ‘evil man of exceptional depravity’…

  Andrew Hunter was all of those things – and much more, for he had many faces and no one saw them all, not even the trio of women in his life who all met untimely deaths in unusual circumstances.

  There was little to set him apart from other young men when he moved to live in Dundee in 1977, except for his apparent devotion to God, for not many 26-year-olds would leave their wives in another city to work in a Salvation Army citadel. It was an arrangement that neither of them found unusual, however: Christine, whom he had married four years earlier, was also a Salvationist and supported him in his efforts to carve a career in social work activities. She was eleven years his senior and something of a mother figure for the young man from Paisley who had led a troubled life before their meeting. He had been abandoned by his father after his mother died when he was just three weeks old, leaving him to be brought up by a caring aunt who welcomed his interest in the Salvation Army. It was in that organisation that he met Christine and they married quietly in the Falkirk Citadel. When he moved to Dundee to take up his new post, he initially lived alone in a flat in the city while she remained at home in Elderslie in Glasgow. They resumed living together after he landed a job as an unqualified social worker attached to children’s homes in the city.

  The couple had a son and together the family moved into a house in Broadford Terrace, in a fashionable estate in Broughty Ferry. Outwardly, at least, life in suburbia seemed routine and settled for the Hunters. He continued with his work in children’s homes across the city and in his off-duty time studied for qualifications which would further his social work career. Then, in October 1984, something happened which was to have a dramatic effect on the lives of numerous other unconnected people. Hunter embarked on an affair with pretty Lynda Cairns, a 27-year-old social worker who lived in the same street, in the house directly opposite. She had been helping him out with his studies and at the time resided with Dr Ian Glover, a 42-year-old college lecturer who had been her lover. That affair had cooled and although they continued to live together in the house they had jointly purchased, they did so as friends with separate rooms. It was Dr Glover who had introduced her to Andrew Hunter.

  Lynda had led a life devoted to helping others. As a young girl she had been a Girl Guide leader and as she matured she became a Samaritan in Aberdeen, where she did teacher training. After a spell teaching mentally handicapped children, she moved to London to work with others with mental disabilities. It was only when her father’s health deteriorated that she returned to Scotland to be nearer her ailing parents in Glenrothes. In 1980 she took a job as a social worker in Dundee, continuing her voluntary duties as a Samaritan.

  This attractive young woman who had spent so much of her life living in different cities, first of all in Singapore and then throughout Britain as the daughter of a regular serviceman in the Royal Air Force, and later as a student in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, was at the stage in her life where she longed for a serious relationship and children. Her neighbour, Hunter, was a married man and not ideal, but Lynda became quickly drawn to his charming ways and their shared interest in social work and others less fortunate than themselves. And he was extremely appreciative of her assistance with his studies.

  Soon they were in the midst of a torrid affair, with a varied and adventurous sex life forming a major part of the attraction for both of them. Dr Glover accepted the end of what had become just a platonic friendship with Lynda, but Christine Hunter reacted much less calmly when, at Christmas 1984, her husband confessed to her that he was involved in a passionate affair with the woman across the street who was seventeen years her junior. She pleaded with him to terminate the relationship and Hunter grudgingly agreed. But after a few weeks the association between the two social workers resumed and that summer Lynda moved into a cottage she had bought in Carnoustie. A short time later, Hunter walked out of his home in Broughty Ferry to live with her. And that should have been the end of the story. Up to that stage, the threads of the relationships were fairly unremarkable – man gets married at a young age to an older woman, meets attractive and much younger neighbour in a bungalow estate who has tired of her former lover, and an affair begins, culminating with the two main players moving in together. It was the type of scenario played out time and again in corners of Dundee in the 1980s – unexceptional and of little interest to all but the families involved and the neighbours in the estates peeking out from behind their curtains.

  Eleven days before Christmas that same year the residents of Broadford Terrace, who had become used to seeing Andrew Hunter returning to his former home at No. 12 to take his son out, had something much more interesting than usual to observe. Father and son – returning from a visit to the cinema – stood on the doorstep of the m
odern, semi-detached villa, apparently unable to gain access. Christine’s car was in the drive, the lights were on, and music could just be heard coming from the house, so it seemed she was at home. After a few minutes Dr Glover, still living opposite, received a visit from Hunter, who asked to use his phone to call his estranged wife so that she might open the door. The call was made. No one replied. Then Hunter, seemingly becoming more agitated, departed, saying he would borrow a key to the house from another neighbour who kept one in case of emergency – which this was beginning to look like. A few moments later, Hunter used the borrowed key to enter his former home, closely followed by his 11-year-old son.

  The modern house was open plan. As he called out Christine’s name, Hunter glanced towards the loft area and saw her hanging from a rafter, a TV cable wrapped tightly round her neck. She was long past the stage where she might be revived.

  No one knows for certain precisely what happened that winter’s day in the once-happy home of the two Salvationists. According to Hunter, Christine had earlier dropped their son off at the children’s home where he worked and when Hunter had finished his shift, father and son went off to the cinema. Afterwards they travelled to Carnoustie for tea with Lynda, staying for a few hours before he took the youngster back home to Broughty Ferry. It appeared that in the interval the distraught Christine, unable to come to terms with her husband’s betrayal and abandonment of their marriage, had finally succumbed to depression and had taken her own life. This was a credible explanation for the sad end to her existence and no one questioned it, least of all those who had intimate knowledge of the events of the previous ten months. For nearly two years they did not doubt the account of that pre-Christmas tragedy. Then, as other dramas began to unfold, the curtain-twitchers started to whisper their doubts to each other. But that lay ahead. New horrors were soon to consume the life of Andrew Hunter.

  For whatever reason, Christine’s disturbing death signalled a change in the relationship he had with Lynda. It had never been as close, anyway, as she might have imagined, for while he was seeing her – and at the time he was living apart from his wife – Hunter had also embarked on a second affair. It was with another social worker, a 26-year-old colleague with whom he worked, and their sexual relationship lasted for at least a month. Instead of Christine’s demise bringing him closer to Lynda, it seemed to drive a wedge between them. They intermittently lived apart, Hunter moving for spells back into the former family home in Broadford Terrace. Their liaison, always volatile and highly dependent on sex, became marked by increasing acts of violence by Hunter – starting just two days after the discovery of Christine’s body hanging in the loft, when he assaulted Lynda in a busy and very public car park. That attack was sparked during an argument when Lynda had apparently remarked that there was no need for Hunter to attend Christine’s funeral. On another occasion, in her house in Carnoustie, Hunter struck Lynda in the face with an umbrella. Then, after an incident in his house at Broadford Terrace, Lynda was forced to attend hospital to be examined after Hunter had severely twisted her arm and pushed her out of the house, throwing her handbag after her. The worst assault occurred some seven weeks after Christine’s death, resulting in Lynda notifying the police, though no charges were brought against her explosive husband.

  It seemed that Hunter blamed Lynda for the death of his wife and he would shout at her, ‘It should be you that’s dead, not Christine.’ Both of them became visitors to hospital at various times, Hunter requiring psychiatric treatment for some four months after confessing to suicidal tendencies, and Lynda being detained for a week, apparently after accidentally taking an over-dose of sleeping tablets while depressed over the state of the floundering romance and the postponement of their wedding plans. Yet, despite their differences, the couple could not keep away from each other for long. One night, while they were apart, Hunter telephoned Lynda seventeen times. During another estrangement, he called three times within hours of her arriving back home from a holiday with her sister in Corfu.

  For better or worse, they decided to wed and on 1 November 1986, they walked down the aisle in picturesque Barry Church, near their home. They rode in a horse-drawn carriage and Hunter, complete with Bible in hand, wore full Highland regalia. The first night of the honeymoon was spent in a four-poster bed in romantic Fernie Castle, in Fife, followed by a holiday in Israel. It seemed their feuding was finally behind them and for a time the marriage, outwardly at least, was a happy one, Hunter boasting that they made love on a daily basis. It was later to emerge that that side of the partnership was extremely adventurous and unconventional, particularly between a Salvationist and a Samaritan. But those closest to Lynda were happy that her new husband’s aggression towards her seemed to have subsided, though some had anxieties he had taken Lynda for his wife more to provide a mother for his son than for any deep desire to share a life with her in the cottage at Carnoustie which had become their home.

  Hunter gradually began to tire of the marriage, however, and his extravagant sexual appetite took him once more in unusual directions. He secretly resumed a relationship with a gay lover he had met more than a decade earlier in a Paisley sauna, at the same time forming liaisons with a string of prostitutes and paying them for their varied services. Soon he was spending more time apart from Lynda than with her and some believed his old hostility was starting to reappear in the marriage.

  Nine months after their high-profile wedding, the couple received the news that Lynda had been desperate to hear – she was pregnant. The prospect of becoming a mother delighted her. Hunter was less pleased, considering an addition to the family as an obstruction to his ever-more bizarre lifestyle.

  On 13 August 1987, Lynda travelled to Glenrothes to break the good news of her condition to her younger sister Sandra, who had been bridesmaid at the wedding. Yet, despite her obvious pleasure of impending motherhood, Lynda was troubled. She revealed that although she and her husband both had the day and night off the following Friday, and despite her frequently feeling sick because of the pregnancy, Hunter had chosen not to spend that forthcoming evening with her, preferring instead to go to a works night out. They agreed that Sandra would keep Lynda company in Carnoustie while Hunter shared the evening with his colleagues. It was, however, a meeting that never took place. Indeed, the sisters never saw each other again.

  On the bright, sunny morning of 21 August, Lynda and Andrew Hunter – the two social workers who on occasions could not get enough of each other but who also shared a troubled and stormy past – argued for the last time. Lynda, who had been unwell the previous day, was still off-colour with morning sickness and they rowed about Hunter’s determination to attend the night out regardless of her feelings. At 10.15 a.m. they went together to the local health centre and a nearby chemist shop for assistance for Lynda, before returning home. Half an hour later, they drove away from the cottage in Lynda’s Vauxhall Cavalier Antibes. With them in the vehicle was Shep, the ailing 14-year-old cross-bred terrier Lynda had bought seven years earlier from the city pound to save it from being put down. There were no witnesses, apart from Shep, to precisely what had happened during the previous thirty minutes in the house, but it seemed that yet another dispute erupted between husband and wife and Lynda said she wanted to go to her parents’ home in Glenrothes in Fife, some thirty miles away. Hunter insisted on taking her but, before departing, phoned his social work supervisor to say he would be late to keep an appointment, explaining that his wife required the car and he would be forced to use the bus.

  It is unclear when murder first entered Andrew Hunter’s mind. It may already have done so. But within an hour of leaving Carnoustie that is the exact act he committed. On a quiet road in Fife, he pulled the white Vauxhall hatchback off the highway, parked in a quiet spot near a wood and turned to face his pregnant and unhappy wife. Then, after another brief angry exchange with her, he reached for the lead of the mongrel terrier lying across the back seat and wound it round both hands – then round the throat of th
e terrified Lynda. She lost consciousness within seconds and died almost immediately afterwards. Less than two miles from the scene lay Fernie Castle, the smart hotel where months earlier the two had shared such a joyous first night of marriage.

  A sudden urgency overtook the wife-killer. If he was to avoid detection, he knew he had to dispose of the body which lay slumped in the seat beside him, and quickly, for anyone might pass without warning. He left the car, hurried to the passenger side, then lifted the body of his dead wife from the vehicle. With the kind of unexpected strength found only in moments of desperate need, Hunter surprised himself at the comparative ease with which he picked the corpse of poor Lynda up into his arms. He walked with her off the rough track where the car lay, then picked his way awkwardly through the forest for thirty metres. At a concealed thicket, he lowered Lynda to the ground at what he hoped would be her last resting place. Then he drove quickly back in the direction of Dundee. A few miles further along the road Hunter stopped the white Vauxhall, removed the collar from around Shep’s neck, then put the devoted pet out of the car. As the man who had just committed murder resumed his journey to Dundee, Shep gazed at the back of the disappearing vehicle, as bewildered as it is possible for a dog to be.

  What took place the rest of that day demonstrated with absolute clarity that ‘cool, calculating killers’ do indeed exist. Hunter’s actions spoke eloquently of that species. Shortly after noon he walked calmly into Strathmore House residential home to drop off with his supervising social work officer an essay that was required as part of his studies to become qualified. He explained his warm and sweaty appearance as being a result of having walked up from the centre of Dundee after getting off a bus from Carnoustie. A short time later he briefly visited his own place of work at Ann Street children’s home, then left after after a few minutes, saying he would spend the rest of his day off in the garden but promising to meet up with his colleagues later that evening at the works night out. Back in the city centre, he withdrew £150 from his building society account before returning to the family home at Carnoustie.