Solved at last - The World's End Murders

Christine Eadie and Helen Scott 

It sounds like something out of a horror movie. Two best pals go out for a drink together. The 17-year-olds are having such a great time they didn't leave until closing time.

It was October 1977 and the two best pals were called Christine Eadie and Helen Scott.

That pub was called The World's End pub in Edinburgh's Old Town and for two teenage friends it would be the last time they were seen alive. After they left, Helen and Christine were never seen alive again.

This case has haunted me ever since I first heard about it. I just couldn't understand why two young women with their whole lives ahead of them who did the safe thing that all girls are told to do by their parents and stick together, in a busy, public place could still come to such harm.

What made it worse was that years went by and their killer/killers weren't found. How could that happen in any decent society?

The next day, Christine's naked body was discovered in Gosford Bay, East Lothian, by people out walking. Helen's naked body was found in a field.

Both girls had suffered horrendously before they died. They'd been brutally beaten, gagged, tied up, raped and strangled. Their bodies were just left out in the open and they were naked, showing the callous disregard their killer had for them. Covering up bodies normally suggests remorse.

Heartbreakingly, the two dead best friends were found six miles apart.

The police even staged a reconstruction

The police diligently came up with a list of 500 suspects and took over 13,000 statements from the public. But despite their efforts, the killer or killers were never apprehended. Witnesses said they'd seen the girls with two men, but despite appeals from the police the men were never traced.

Police knew they were looking for two men as different type of knots were used to tie up Christine and Helen.

A breakthrough came in 1997 when the police's cold case unit decided that further forensic work needed to be undertaken in the case and they found the DNA profile of a man, discovered on both girls. Unfortunately all 500 suspects were eliminated.

It wasn't until 2004 after the DNA was retested that they got a match to Edinburgh man Angus Sinclair.

He stood trial in 2007 for the World's End murders but the case collapsed due to insufficient evidence. 

It wasn't until he was convicted after a trial in 2014 that tragic Christine and Helen got justice at last. And it finally came out what a truly loathsome individual Sinclair was and he was dubbed Scotland's Worst Serial Killer.

He carried out the crimes with accomplice Gordon Hamilton, his late brother-in-law, who died in 1996 without facing justice. Both men's DNA was found on one of the young women.

Tragically, Christine and Helen might not have died if Sinclair had been arrested a few weeks before their murder after Patricia Wallace told police he tried to abduct her by dragging her into a caravan. It was the same one tragic Helen and Christine had been taken to.

Read her story here

Vile Angus Sinclair

Evil Sinclair's record -

1961 - aged 16,  convicted of raping and strangling neighbour Catherine Reehill, 8. He phoned for an ambulance himself saying, "A wee girl fell down the stairs."

1977 - Believed to have murdered six women in 7 months, including Helen and Christine.

1978 - murdered 17-year-old Mary Gallacher.

1978 - guilty of raping and sexually assaulting eleven children aged 6-14

2001 - Convicted of murdering Mary Gallacher, 17.

2014 - Justice at last for Helen and Christine as despicable Sinclair gets given 37 years, the longest sentence ever handed down by a Scottish court.