by Tom Wood
Long service in the police can sour people – repeated exposure to the worst of human nature can make you cynical, negative and lose faith – but for some this never happens and they keep their early passion, their idealism and, above all, their belief. The World’s End inquiry was served by such people over the years. Any doubts officers newly assigned to the case might have would be quickly dispelled when they read files, examined the photographs and gazed at the last pictures to be taken of Helen and Christine alive – two happy, healthy young girls, barely more than children. That was always enough to stir the spirit and motivate any police officer with pride in the job.
And it wasn’t all about senior detectives – it never is. The senior detectives take the credit and the blame, their reputations are made or destroyed, but the truth is that it’s the rank and file that do the job or not. So it was with the World’s End. From top to bottom, through the generations, they never gave up and they just kept going. There were people like Athene Moir, a typist in the incident room off and on for most of the thirty-seven-year investigation. She lived and breathed the inquiry. She was there at the start and, along with Lester Knibb, she was there at the end. She carried no police rank, she didn’t make the headlines but no one was more dedicated to the task than she was.
It would be a long nine years after the case was mothballed before any substantial new information surfaced to give the investigation new impetus. During that time, the numerous leads that had found their way to the police were of insufficient quality to warrant a new squad and were dealt with by some of the experienced hands at Dalkeith CID, many of whom had served on the original inquiry.
In 1988, the force received what appeared to be the information they needed to make a major breakthrough in the dormant case. They were contacted by an inmate of Edinburgh’s Saughton Prison who told them that a cellmate had confessed to him one night that he was responsible for the killings. What made this lead so important was that the man who contacted us had been able to give details of the case that had not been made public. Especially significant was his description of how the bodies had been left.
On the face of it, this was very promising so a new team was set up and investigations begun. Members of the girls’ families were also alerted to the development. This burst of activity coincided with the first emergence of DNA technology as an investigatory tool. It was not the obvious first step it is today and significant inquiries had been made by the time the suspect was arrested and DNA swabs taken, but hopes were dashed by the scientists who were able to categorically say that the new suspect was not our man.
There were two other significant leads thrown up around the turn of the decade that are worth mentioning. One resulted from the decision to send officers to the doors of some of Edinburgh’s better known criminals. During these inquiries, a man came forward sometime about 1992 to say that he had been joyriding in a stolen car in the Aberlady area on the night of the killings and he had picked up a man called John McGrannigan who was a convicted rapist. Quite why our informant had waited for fifteen years to pass this on was of course suspicious but circumstances and loyalties change and it looked as if we had a lead and a promising lead at that. Intelligence files revealed that we suspected that McGrannigan’s brother Charlie had been murdered by a well-known city gangster to silence him. Quite what it was he was to be silenced for was not spelt out in the intelligence reports but officers concluded, not unreasonably, that it just might have been connected to the World’s End case. However, once again, after a thorough investigation, John McGrannigan was also cleared by the fledging DNA technology and we were back to square one.
It may seem odd to some that we bother with any additional inquiries when DNA profiling is available. It’s simple – to secure a conviction, we need best evidence, we need corroboration, we need more than DNA. While DNA profiling may have entered the public psyche as infallible, it is not regarded as such by the courts and is very often subjected to rigorous challenge by the defence. Often an approach to the suspect is the last phase of an investigation, done at a time when sufficient evidence has been gathered to justify the detention, questioning and even the arrest of the person concerned.
So this latest lead was concluded. Our informant, McGrannigan and the man thought complicit in his brother’s death were all interviewed and each of them had their DNA tested. The test results eliminated them once and for all from the inquiry.
However, it was also in 1992 that another tantalising lead came along and, while it was treated less urgently, it remained on file for some time before it was eventually ruled out. A woman came forward to report that her ex-husband had abandoned her and left the country shortly after the killings. To enrich the story, she added that he had owned a pair of highly distinctive trousers similar to those worn by one of the men seen with Helen and Christine and which had been the subject of considerable publicity. The old adage about hell having no fury like a women scorned did occur to the detectives given the job of following up the lead. Nonetheless, no chances could be taken. An international search was begun and, some time later, the police in Germany ran the fugitive husband to ground. The inquiry team was unsurprised when his DNA was checked and he was cleared.
In 1997, a more complete DNA profile was isolated from Helen Scott’s clothing. This prompted a new review of the entire case – a fresh look through fresh eyes with the benefit of new science. A famous murder squad detective from New York once said that ‘sometimes the difference between failure and success is a new thought’. The new science was generating some new thinking in the World’s End case.
By this time, the fastidious Superintendent John McGowan was in charge and he quickly established a base with a small hand-picked team at Dalkeith police station. The plan was simple and logical. They would progress the case through a structured and thorough review of all the old files and then, after drawing up a new list of suspects, they would begin to interview or reinterview those on the list and, where possible, obtain DNA samples to compare with the recently discovered samples from Helen’s coat. Exactly twenty years after the murders, John McGowan and his team were ready to start again but, this time, they were not relying solely on interview and alibi – now they had an evidential ace up their sleeve. If they got a sample of the man’s DNA, they could be absolutely sure he was or was not connected to the case.
I was an assistant chief constable working at Force Headquarters when this development was going on and the mood was optimistic – the whole force felt that this time we had a real chance to solve the case. If the culprits were in the system and if they were still alive, we would get to them eventually.
After a painstaking review of all the paperwork – literally thousands of documents from the original case – the most promising lines of inquiry were prioritised and details of them were entered on to the new HOLMES computerised database. This back record conversion from paper-based to the computerised HOLMES system was laborious and time-consuming but it was essential to modernise the original inquiry.
The first phase of the investigation was to get DNA samples from the men we knew had been in the World’s End after 10 p.m. on the night Helen and Christine disappeared. Then we would do the same with the dozens of named suspects who had been suggested over the intervening years and whose names remained on the files after they had not been fully eliminated. In addition to these priorities, about 1,200 individuals were also flagged on the Police National Computer. They were of lower priority but, if or when they were arrested anywhere in the UK, we asked that their DNA be obtained for elimination.
We seemed to be heading in the right direction but, despite our early hopes, this phase gave us no direct hits. None of our named suspects matched the DNA profile and no one we had traced from the World’s End on the night of the murders came close either. Over 200 samples had been sent for costly DNA analysis but, despite the disappointing outcome, it had still been an important exercise – not least because some long-standing inquiries had
now been cleared up and the names of some people who had not been fully eliminated in the original investigation had now been removed from the list of suspects.
The planned second phase, an extension of the DNA search, was postponed. In 1999 the Mid and East Lothian Division of Lothian and Borders was stretched to the limits by an unprecedented series of murders and serious crime, including a double assassination near Tranent, a former mining town east of Edinburgh. Some of the World’s End officers had to be redeployed in order to meet the challenges the force faced. Then the latest champion of the World’s End, John McGowan, retired and the impetus was lost for the moment, but such is the fate of historic or cold case inquiries. Urgent current demands take priority and this often means that old cases, no matter how important, have to be temporarily set aside.
The World’s End was not set aside for long, however. A chance meeting between then Detective Sergeant Allan Jones and a visiting lecturer at the Scottish Police College at Tulliallan saw to that.
Allan, a Midlothian-trained detective, was steeped in the World’s End inquiry even though the crime had been committed before he joined the police. He had played a part in the latest reinvestigation and he was convinced that the case was solvable. The lecturer visiting the Police College was Detective Sergeant Andy McKay from the newly formed National Crime and Operations Faculty (NCOF). They fell into conversation and the subject soon turned to the World’s End murders. Allan’s enthusiasm was infectious and Andy McKay soon offered a structured cold case review – a technique pioneered by NCOF.
The offer was quickly accepted. By this time, the man in charge at Dalkeith CID was Craig Dobbie. Then a detective chief inspector, he would later investigate the horrific murder of another very young woman, Jodi Jones. He saw the huge potential of NCOF and worked as quickly as he could to bring their best people north to carry out one of their first comprehensive reviews in Scotland. NCOF was as good as their word and, in January 2001, the World’s End investigation was subjected to its third thorough examination.
It was clear from the start that the ever-advancing DNA technology was to be the key. All the important non-scientific work that could have been done had been done. The real potential now lay in the forensic samples and particularly the knots of the gags and bindings, all carefully preserved and undisturbed for over twenty years. Then there was the DNA profile we had already identified. We had to be sure that, as we progressed, this continued to be compared against all databases. It was also decided to widen the search and through Interpol ten countries that had significant databases were contacted. The unique profile of the World’s End killer was now being searched for from the USA to New Zealand. If he was there, we were confident we would find him. Discussion of why we had only one DNA profile and yet we were of the firm belief that two men had been involved in the girls’ rapes and murders will follow in the next chapter.
More locally, all the suspects already cleared were checked and double-checked in case any errors had been made. We all felt we were close, very close, but still we lacked the breakthrough we so desperately needed.
4
The Breakthrough
DNA is a reduced form of the biochemical term ‘deoxyribonucleic acid’. It is a complex self-replicating material found in every single cell of the body and has been described as the building block of life. Like fingerprints, no two examples of DNA are identical. But DNA is more useful in solving crimes than fingerprints because, unlike fingerprints, it contains clues as to its ancestral source. That is why, for instance, the Duke of Edinburgh provided scientists with samples of his DNA when they were trying to identify bones found in a Russian burial pit a few miles north of Yekaterinburg. The bones were thought to be those of the imperial family murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918. The Duke is not a direct descendant of the Romanovs but, through the complicated interbreeding of the royal houses of Europe, he is related closely enough to them for a balance of probability calculation to be made. In the Russian case, that balance was sufficient to convince the Moscow authorities that the bones were those of Tsar Nicholas II and his family and, because of this, they were accorded a state funeral.
DNA profiling, also known as genetic fingerprinting, did not appear on the police radar until the late 1980s when the importance of the technique became apparent and detectives started turning to scientists for help in this new miracle aid to detection.
Lothian and Borders Police were at the forefront of forces seeking help in investigations. Like most forces, we had a number of unsolved high-profile murder cases and officers were keen to explore any avenue that might lead to a resolution.
The first time DNA profiling was considered in the World’s End case was in 1988 when the force was exploring a new lead that had been provided to us by a member of the public. That person had supplied specific information involving two identified potential suspects for the murders and the quality of the lead was such that a substantial inquiry was commenced.
Lester Knibb, the Lothian and Borders forensic scientist who had been at the crime scenes in 1977, took Helen Scott’s coat to a company called Cellmark in Cambridge. At the time, Cellmark was blazing a trail in this fast-developing area of technology. The Cambridge scientists managed to isolate and then partially identify a DNA profile contained in semen staining on the garment. Cellmark were not able to give us complete genetic fingerprinting for the source of the staining but what they were able to tell us was enough to allow the two new suspects to be eliminated. Like all high-profile cases, the vast number of false leads was a feature of the World’s End inquiry over the years and, being able to close this one down, through the benefit of this new technology, was a big advantage.
A fact seldom recognised is that the new science of DNA testing serves just as effectively to protect the innocent as it does to convict the guilty. In the last ten years, numerous ‘good suspects’ for serious crimes across the country have been quickly eliminated from suspicion by providing a DNA sample. One can only speculate but, in another time, without the assistance of this new science, the end result may have been different for some of those suspects.
Returning to the case, it was clear to senior officers as the 80s were turning into the 90s that DNA technology was advancing at a rapid rate. Its great problem, in those days, was that testing was a fairly destructive process that rendered the sample useless for further analysis. A decision was taken then not to subject the coat to more testing, as it would leave us without further samples if or when the technology improved to the extent that it might in the future be able to provide a complete profile of the suspect. This was a prudent decision for, in the early days of DNA profiling, many valuable forensic samples were tested to destruction with no result. Had they been preserved until more sensitive testing systems were developed things may have been different.
Next it was the turn of scientists employed by our neighbouring force Strathclyde Police. They had committed substantial resources to their forensic science service developing less destructive analytical processes. They worked on the samples for some months before the painstaking examination by scientists Ian Hamilton and Martin Fairly paid off and they were able to identify a DNA match between the semen samples taken from Helen and Christine. That is to say Hamilton and Fairly were able to conclude that both girls had had sex with the same man.
As this work was going on in Glasgow, a database of DNA profiles was being established for the whole of the UK. Such was the quality of the latest results that officers overseeing the World’s End case felt they had enough to go a stage further and have these DNA samples placed on this rapidly evolving database and compared for possible matches.
The procedures set up to protect the credibility of the database were such that only profiles achieved from a small number of accredited laboratories were able to be included. So it was that the Forensic Science Service in Wetherby had its initial involvement in the case. This was the move that allowed a full male DNA profile of the girls’ attacker to be compl
eted for the first time.
These breakthroughs were remarkable, of that there is no doubt. What was to follow in their wake was breathtaking.
By the first year of the new millennium, the science had evolved to the state that it was felt worthwhile to begin to examine other articles and samples gathered from the 1977 crime scene to see what secrets they held.
In 1977 the care taken of productions was of a lower standard than it is today. Nowadays, as scenes of crime are investigated, the possible presence of what is known as low-copy number DNA is very much to the front the officers’ minds. If DNA was a major breakthrough, the discovery of low-copy DNA is, to employ a rather overused phrase these days, quite awesome. The essence of low-copy DNA technology is that microscopic particles of skin, hair or body fluids may not yield a full profile or be enough for an exact match but they could be sufficient to eliminate large sections of the community or point to the probability of a familial link with profiles on the database. In other words, it is not the cast-iron certainty of a full match but is rather a pointer, a lead to take investigators and scientists in a particular direction. Low-copy DNA has its risks – in particular, there is the possibility of cross-contamination – but, in the hands of the skilled investigator, its potential is enormous.
The discovery of only one DNA profile in the case had long baffled officers. Initially science suggested one man abducted, assaulted and murdered the two girls. That seemed unlikely because of the difficulty one man would have controlling two young women. On the other hand, sex offenders tend to work alone. It was with this in mind that Lester Knibb and his scientist colleague Derek Scrimger began considering if the new technology involving low-copy DNA would be able to help us. It was possible only one man was involved in the sexual assault part of these crimes but that a second man may have been an accessory and left his mark elsewhere in the crime scene.