The Lawkillers

by Alexander McGregor

  Yet it had not seemed in the first days of the inquiry that the case would prove particularly baffling or find a prominent place in the record books of Dundee’s black museum of violent death. When Carol Lannen stepped into the car at the corner of Exchange Street and Commercial Street at 7.50 p.m. to be driven quickly away, her movements had been noted by a fellow prostitute. ‘Working girls’ know only too well that their chosen profession places them in the front line to become the victims of men who find pleasure in attacking women who sell their services, so the band of sisters who walk the streets look out for each other. They take casual note of the cars each of them depart in and if there is a dodgy punter on the prowl the word is put around. It isn’t much, but it’s a safety net of sorts.

  That night, one of the girls paid particular attention to the driver who anxiously pulled away from the pavement with Carol seated next to him. She was later to describe him as being aged between 25 and 30, of thin build and with a pale complexion, short dark hair, short sideburns and a moustache which needed trimming. The description led to the murder team issuing a photo-fit picture of the man, the first time police in Dundee had ever released such a picture.

  This information was better than the detectives might have hoped for. By definition, prostitutes and their customers operate in a shadowy, anonymous world of false identities and fleeting encounters, where there is a brief exchange of cash and carnal activity before the participants disappear back into the night. They seldom swap business cards and even ‘regulars’ don’t give much away.

  Unexpectedly perhaps, the witness was unable at first to offer much assistance about the type of car the man had driven. That was as frustrating as the fact that snow had fallen later that night, causing difficulties for forensic specialists hoping to take casts of footprints and tyre tracks in the wood. The evidence they sought melted away almost as fast as the fresh snow. Tracker dogs growled and sniffed but trotted in aimless circles in the sodden conditions. In addition, the victim’s clothing and handbag, which might have yielded clues, were missing.

  The random nature of how the two people who had gone together to Templeton Woods that night, had met, made it vital for police to find some kind of clue to the make and colour of car the couple had shared.

  The helpful fellow prostitute was questioned at length but little progress was made. She knew more about faces than automobiles. Finally, she agreed to submit to hypnosis by a local dentist who used the technique in the treatment of some of his patients. It produced the result that the woman believed the car was red and possibly a Ford Cortina estate.

  That formed the linchpin for almost the entire police inquiry. Scores of detectives were drafted in to track down the drivers of such vehicles. Registration records were minutely examined and in the weeks that followed more than 6,000 men all over the country, who drove that type and colour of car, were questioned. The exhaustive research drew a blank. So did the offer of confidentiality for kerb crawlers who were invited to come forward with information.

  Eleven days after the launch of the murder hunt, events took an unexpected – and in many ways – unwelcome turn. Carol’s handbag and some of her clothing were found 85 miles away on the banks of the River Don near Kintore, 17 miles north of Aberdeen. That added a new dimension to the inquiry. No longer could it be assumed that the killer was probably local. Now the investigation had to be widened, and significantly. It was never established how long the bag, which contained money and a family allowance book, had lain before being found, but some reports suggested the items had been seen there at least a week earlier. That fitted. Reasonably, police assumed the killer would have disposed of them soon after the murder since he would have been reluctant to drive around with such incriminating evidence for any length of time. The question was raised that the hunted man may have had strong links in the north, for unless it had been an elaborate red herring, he would have been unlikely to have driven 85 miles in heavy snow and on difficult roads just to dispose of the bag and clothing. Could he have been a worker in the oil industry, which linked Dundee and Aberdeen in so many other ways? Or could he have been a taxi driver, say one who had taken a fare – perhaps an oilman – north and used the distance to dispose of the incriminating items in his boot?

  Yet, despite the minor breakthrough of the riverside find, it yielded nothing of assistance to the investigation. It served only to widen and complicate the murder hunt.

  The slaying of the 18-year-old mother was not the first killing in Dundee to go undetected. But it was the first to be the subject of such a prolonged and meticulous hunt for the person responsible. Within weeks, more than 7,000 people had been interviewed and every hotel, boarding house and bed and breakfast establishment in the city had been visited by police officers. The inquiry attracted national media interest but nothing produced the breakthrough that had initially appeared to be so imminent.

  As the months passed and the leads dried up, the size of the operation was scaled down. It regained impetus twice within the space of a few weeks some 20 months after it began, first with the discovery of a woman’s blood-stained clothing in a lay-by on the outskirts of Aberdeen, seemingly deposited by the driver of a red Ford Cortina. Then, a woman reported that she had been picked up in the centre of Aberdeen and assaulted, but not injured, by someone said to be driving a red car.

  Those heading the Dundee murder hunt were alerted to both incidents. But, once more, seemingly promising developments dissolved into nothing as quickly as they had materialised. Every other unsolved murder of young women across the country brought inevitable comparisons and close scrutiny for similarities. None yielded the unmistakable fingerprints – actual or metaphorical – to confirm the killing was part of any serial spree.

  After several years passed without a breakthrough, some began to question the wisdom of allowing almost the entire focus of the Carol Lannen inquiry to be devoted to finding the driver of the red Ford Cortina estate car, who was widely assumed to have been the killer. Since there was little else for police to go on, such a concentration on the ownership of the vehicle was understandable. But what if the categoric description of the car by a fellow prostitute, probably no expert in car identification, under hypnosis, had been wrong, perhaps drawn from her by well-meaning but untrained interrogators? It meant that the drivers of anything but that model and colour of vehicle were unlikely to have a policeman knocking at their door.

  Despite the passage of time, the mystery continued to attract headlines and every newspaper article or TV broadcast surprisingly brought forth fresh scraps of information and new witnesses with tales to tell or fingers to point in particular directions.

  A television documentary featuring the case 25 years after Carol’s naked body was found lying in the forest snow produced a flood of more than 100 phone calls to the hastily reconstituted incident room. Astonishingly, 17 people provided possible identities for the photo-fit picture of the driver who had taken the young mother on her final journey.

  The new murder squad pursued every lead – and met with the same lack of success as their dogged predecessors.

  Unusually in such a sustained and intensive inquiry, not a single serious suspect emerged. Given the detailed description of the pale-faced man who prowled the red light district that night, the vast number of car drivers interviewed, and the finding of the victim’s belongings 85 miles from the murder scene, these things by themselves make the case particularly remarkable.

  It didn’t help that there was no obvious motive. Prostitutes are easy prey and a distressing number meet their end at the hands of a certain type of man who simply finds gratification in killing women. Those driven to murder on these occasions frequently cannot stop at a single victim – in which case the man who drove into Templeton Woods that cold winter night, may have succumbed to the same irresistible urges before or since. If he wasn’t one of these unfathomable people, what other reason could he have had for so brutally ending the life of a young woman? Did his victim
recognise him and threaten to expose him, or was there an accompanying blackmail demand that required a violent response? Police considered these possibilities but there was no one, at least then, who fitted the profile.

  ELIZABETH

  When Elizabeth McCabe stepped out into Union Street from Teazers nightclub around 12.30 a.m. that freezing February morning in 1980, an air of despondency hung over her. A weekend that had promised so much had ended with her having a tiff with her best friend and in a few hours time she would be back on duty at Law Nursery where she was an assistant. It was another Monday and nearly a week would pass before her next night out. She pulled up the collar of the short jacket that covered the blue V-neck jumper she had bought on the Saturday afternoon, smoothed her matching denim jeans and walked slowly away, the bright lights and dull beat of the discotheque fading behind her as she threaded her way through the knots of other late night stragglers. Within seconds she was lost to the sight of other revellers filtering out of Teazers.

  From that moment on, she simply vanished. Not a person on earth has ever come forward to positively say they saw her again, though, for one person at least, her final movements will be the most indelible memory of their life.

  Despite the 20-year-old disappearing into the night, her non-arrival at home did not immediately sound alarm bells. When her mother Anne went to rouse her for work at 6.30 that morning and found her bed still freshly made, she was concerned but not overly worried, believing she had probably stayed the night with Sandra Niven, the friend she had gone clubbing with the previous evening. But by teatime, having phoned the nursery to be told Elizabeth had not turned up for work and that none of her pals, including Sandra, had any idea of her whereabouts, she was filled with apprehension. With growing anxiety, she went with her husband Jim to their nearest police station to report their daughter missing. The details of Elizabeth’s last movements were noted, mild assurances were given that she would likely re-appear soon and officers promised to be in touch if there were any developments. Beyond that, not much happened. Young women not turning up for a day or two after a night out was not particularly unique. Besides, there was nothing to suggest she might have come to harm. It was an understandable reaction from the police, even if her parents were convinced their daughter’s failure to return home was far from ordinary.

  Two weeks passed without any hint about what might have happened to the attractive student nursery nurse. Family and friends were recruited to tour the pubs Elizabeth was known to visit and customers were asked if they had seen her and requested to look out for her. Nightly, her distraught father trailed the city streets in search of his vanished daughter while her mother sat fearfully by the phone awaiting the call which would end their misery. She prayed it would come from Elizabeth, but as the days passed she knew in her heart that was unlikely. Her missing girl was the first-born of her four children and was a responsible, considerate daughter who had never caused her any trouble. There did not seem the least likelihood that she would stay away from home without any kind of explanation or contact. Nor was there any possibility that she might have taken her own life. Elizabeth enjoyed her work and the Dundee social scene and had been excitedly looking forward to her 21st birthday in a few days time. Her disappearance made no sense at all.

  Frustrated by the apparent inaction of the police, who in fairness had nothing but a missing person report to go on, Mrs McCabe called the offices of The Courier newspaper to enlist their aid in running appeals for anyone with information to come forward. Seasoned journalists instinctively knew this wasn’t just the usual anxious mother whose wayward daughter had decided to stay away from home for a few days. None of the customary pieces fitted. Elizabeth, almost 21, had never gone absent before, always kept the family informed of her movements and had no obvious reason for disappearing. They ran the story of the troubled family and their growing fears that something terrible had happened. Despite several articles highlighting the mystery, no one came forward to offer the slightest clue about what might have occurred in the early hours of 11 February, or any time afterwards. It was as though the nursery assistant had never existed.

  Around noon on Tuesday 26 February, the day before Elizabeth would have celebrated her special birthday, the situation dramatically changed – and a never-ending nightmare began for the McCabes.

  Two rabbit hunters exercising their dogs in Templeton Woods pushed their way through a dense crop of small fir trees and emerged into a clearing where one of the dogs was sniffing at a pile of branches. When they investigated and pulled the tree cutting away, they were faced with something they had never expected to see. Before them lay the body of a young woman. She was naked and clearly very dead. In addition to the branches covering the lower part of her torso, a blue V-necked pullover had been placed across her shoulders,

  It was a sight the pair would be unlikely ever to forget. It was also one which the first police officer on the scene, Sergeant David Gibson, knew would remain with him forever. As he took in the horror of what confronted him, the sergeant reflected that whoever had disposed of the body might, unusually, have experienced pangs of conscience at what he or she had just done. It seemed to him that the laying on of the jumper on the naked corpse might not have been so much an act of attempted concealment as one of concern, the jersey having been placed where it was to afford a degree of dignity, perhaps even warmth, to the violated woman underneath. On the other hand, perhaps it was the officer’s own compassion which prompted such thoughts. Seeing a murder victim at close quarters can stir unexpected emotions.

  Within an hour of the grim find being announced, the same journalists in the newsroom of The Courier, who days before had intuitively suspected a distressing outcome, began writing the first of the hundreds of thousands of words that would ultimately follow. The files on the other Templeton Woods victim were hurriedly retrieved and the 11-month unsuccessful hunt for Carol Lannen’s murderer was back on the front pages, alongside the account of where and how Elizabeth had finally been found.

  For the first time, the city was alerted to the chilling possibility that a serial killer might be loose in the city. The link has been made ever since.

  On the evening leading to her disappearance, a Sunday, Elizabeth and her friend Sandra Niven, a nursery workmate, had visited a few pubs before ending up in Teazers discotheque. But, as the night wore on, the pair, who were considering sharing a flat together, had a minor disagreement. They seemed to have resolved it, but later, as closing time approached, Elizabeth was nowhere to be seen. Sandra went in search of her chum and found her with her jacket on and about to descend the exit stairs. The two exchanged a few friendly words then Elizabeth departed, apparently alone and presumably to find her own way home.

  It was around 12.30 a.m. and it was the last time the two friends ever spoke to each other.

  No one – except her killer – knows what happened to the reserved 20-year-old after that. Despite extensive inquiries and appeals, not a soul came forward to say they had seen the petite figure her making her way home along the two-and-a-half mile route to her home in Lyndhurst Avenue in Lochee. Some believe she may have travelled in a taxi, or what she took for one, or that she had accepted a lift from someone she knew. Family and friends said that Elizabeth, a quiet but intelligent girl, would never willingly have entered the car of a stranger, especially after an incident on a previous night out in town when she had allowed herself to be driven away from the city centre by someone she had mistakenly believed to be a taxi driver. Describing the incident to Sandra Niven afterwards, she said simply that she had been taken ‘to the back of beyond’ but gave no details of anything that may have occurred. She had, however, been upset by the experience. Whatever had taken place, it had been enough to make her wary and after that she would only travel in taxis with official roof lights. It was a practice that was to have considerable future significance.

  Practically all of Dundee’s 700 taxi drivers were questioned, some at length, along with
kerb crawlers and other late night drivers who operated in the city. By the end of the first week, statements had been taken from more than 1000 people, among them regulars from the nightclub and bar scene in the central area.

  As the hunt intensified, the head of the CID in the city advised women not to make their way home alone at night. It was a natural but needless warning. With the bodies of two women who had vanished from the city centre having being found inside a year, and their killer or killers still on the loose, a climate of fear descended every time darkness fell. Overnight, the relatively common custom of unaccompanied women accepting lifts from strangers to save a taxi fare came to an end.

  A female town councillor, worried about the safety of lone women, and concerned for the reputation of her city, launched a reward scheme. Others contributed and within days £5,000 was on offer to anyone who could help trace and convict the person who had ended Elizabeth’s life. It was never claimed.

  Within days of the body being discovered, much of the victim’s clothing was found at three different locations in the city, all within a short distance of Camperdown Park, which is close to Templeton Woods, but it did little to assist the investigation.

  Because of the condition of her body, there was a feeling among some experienced police officers that Elizabeth – unlike Carol – might not have met her end in the forest but that her corpse had been taken there some time after her death because it could be easily disposed of in the woods.

  Like every police inquiry, those involved in the two murder hunts approached their investigations with open minds, though it was easy to recognise the similarities between the two killings. The most marked was the location of the bodies – 150 yards apart in the same woodland on the outskirts of town. The victims were practically the same age and both had last been seen in the city centre, also at spots only a few hundred yards apart. They had simply disappeared after apparently being willingly driven off. Each had been stripped and strangled and had their clothing removed from the scene. Even the time of year was similar.