WHO TOOK OFFICE WORKER SHELLEY CRAIG? Read an extract from Vile City (Volume 1 Detective in a Coma)

#VileCity #detectiveinaComa

#crimethriller #tartannoir 

*****Get the book HERE ***

DI Duncan Waddell is on the brink of a nervous breakdown – he thinks his best pal DC Stevie Campbell, who’s been in a coma since he was attacked by a suspect, is talking to him.

When office worker Shelley ruses to her boyfriend’s aid after he is attacked, she is abducted. She wakes up in a strange room with no memory of how she got there.

On the case, Waddell finds himself in a desperate race against time to uncover the truth behind the abduction.

To do this, he and his team must delve into the seedy underbelly of Scotland’s swingers’ scene and a world where women are tricked into the sex business and traded like cattle.

Vile City is out now, published by Diamond Books in paperback and eBook. 

You can buy it by clicking here

 

~ Read an extract ~

Chapter 1

Stuart was hiding something. Shelley could tell. She was always the one who’d had to wake him because he could block out the shrill of the alarm clock. Nowadays, he was up before her, grabbing the mail whilst she slept. And he’d started making breakfast – nothing much, just tea and toast, more than he’d ever made her in their near three years together.

When she’d ask him if anything was wrong, he’d shrug his shoulders, give her a wee smile and say everything was fine. She knew he was lying because his face went even paler, making his freckles stand out as if they’d been drawn in by a kid with a coloured pencil. She never pushed it, maybe because deep down she was worried that he’d tell her he’d met someone else.

The No.76 bus was empty when they clambered on board – one of the benefits of working until eleven at night in a call centre, was that there was no need to scoot past a sea of legs and become a contortionist to get on and off a bus.

Their cold breath filled the air with ghosts as they walked towards Waterstones, Shelley pausing to peek at the new crime fiction releases showcased in the illuminated windows, whilst Stuart fidgeted with his watch. He was always footering about with something since he’d given up cigarettes and it drove her mad, but at least it didn’t fill his lungs with tar and make the house smell like an overflowing ashtray.

“I need to have a pee,” he announced, as they came to the dimly lit lane off Mitchell Street that reeked of eau de Glasgow: decomposing takeaway, urine and other bodily fluids.

She groaned. “Can’t you wait until we get home, Stuart?” She knew she’d pronounced his name “Stew-art” as she always did when she was annoyed with him. She couldn’t help it.

What made men think it was okay to urinate in public?

Stuart looked pained. “Sorry, I can’t. Too much coffee tonight.”

She let him walk on ahead of her and whilst he scooted down the alley, she stood outside the amusement arcade, pretending to look in so she wouldn’t be mistaken for a prostitute. It’d happened to her once when she’d got off the bus alone. Stuart hadn’t been working that night.

Five minutes later, she was so cold she couldn’t feel her nose and Stuart still wasn’t back.

She turned the corner to look for him, fully expecting to see him ambling back towards her with that jaunty walk that always made her smile. He wasn’t there.

Where was he?

Anger welled up in her chest. Had he started smoking again? He swore he wouldn’t.

There was one way to find out.

She headed down the alley. The sole light was provided from some nearby buildings, so visibility was poor.

She’d walked a few steps when she spotted a bundle of rags on the ground. Was someone sleeping there?

She moved closer, squinting into the dim light. Stuart was lying motionless on the ground. He must have tripped and knocked himself out as he hit the concrete.

She ran to him, calling out his name, the squeezing in her chest waning slightly when she knelt and heard him groan.

She pulled her mobile phone from her bag to call for an ambulance.

She didn’t make it to the third digit. A gloved hand clamped across her mouth and nose, cutting off her airways. The phone fell from her grasp, clattering onto the cobbles. Terror gripped her and she couldn’t breathe.

As she struggled, her assailant pressed his mouth to her ear. He was so close that it occurred to her that if anyone saw them, they would think he was her boyfriend whispering sweet nothings in her ear.

“Your man’s been given a strong sedative. He’ll wake up with a sore head and nothing more. If you scream, I’ll kick him several times in the head and he’ll never get up again. Do you understand?”

The voice was cold and emotionless She didn’t recognise it and there was an accent. Not from around here.

She nodded under his hand. Then did something he didn’t expect. Backheeled him in the groin.

There was a satisfying yelp as he released her.

She ran, arms pumping away like Usain Bolt, down towards the café at the end of the alley and safety.

She’d almost made it when he grabbed her arm and hauled her back. An electric shock shot from her elbow to her shoulder as she tried to pull herself free. He was too strong.

He dragged her towards him.

Before she could scream, he punched her in the face and she went down with a thud, jarring every bone in her body, momentarily stunning her.

As she fought to get up, he punched her in the back, and she fell again.

The last thing she saw was the pavement rushing towards her before she blacked out...

The real Wolf Creek murders - the one who got away

 

For some people this is more than something to watch *

If like me you do a lot of research into unexplained deaths that usually involve murderers and serial killers, there are 2 words that constantly come up - 

Hitchhiker and backpacker 

I would say those what are only second to sex worker when it comes to how often they come up. You're more likely to become a victim it seems if either of those three words or all of them can be applied to you. 

Too often hitchhiker's and backpackers are the one being targeted by evil men with murder and often rape on their mind. Of course there are a few women who feature in that mix - usually women who have committed unspeakable crimes with their male partners. 

On a few occasions these women have even been the instigators behind the violence as has been suggested in the case of Rose West. 

The movie and subsequent TV show Wolf Creek, is something we can choose to watch or not. But in the case of eight young people (and quite possibly many more) who were backpacking around Australia at different times, it became a terrifying reality that resulted in all but one of their horrific deaths at the hands of a cowardly psychopath called Ivan Milat. 

The cowardly serial killer

He would stab his victims in the back to paralyze them before raping and stabbing or shooting them brutally to death as they lay there helpless as babies. 

It's hard to think of a more cowardly way to kill people. But that's the one thing that unites all serial killers - cowardice. 

Seven young people are known to have died at his hands, most of them who were hitchhiking and backpacking in pairs because they thought it was safer. 

December 1989 - April 1992 

The lives that were stolen by a sadist

Seven backpackers who were also hitchhiking, went missing during these dates. Most were in pairs. Their bodies were all discovered at different times in Belanglo State Forest, which is south-west of Sydney. 

Best friends Deborah Everist and James Gibson (both Australian and 19), disappeared in December 1989. They had travelled from their home city of Melbourne and planned to attend a conservation festival. They never made it. 

Simone Schmidl (from Germany and aged 20), disappeared in January 1991. Apart from the one who got away who we'll find about later, Simone was the only one who was travelling alone. She was planning to meet up with her mum who was coming over from Germany. Her mum never saw her again. She was known to her friends as Simi. 

Childhood sweethearts Gabor Neugebauer, 21 and Anja Habschied 20 (both from Germany), disappeared in January 1992. Friends say that Gabor was strong and it would have taken a lot to subdue him but police believe terrified that his girlfriend would be hurt he had complied with his killer who had promised to let them go as serial killers often do to get people's compliance. 

Caroline Clarke, 21, Joanne Walters, 22 (both from the UK), disappeared in April 1992. They had met and become friends whilst they had been backpacking. The only consolation to their families was they were together when they died. 

All of these people with their whole life ahead of them, had two things in common - they had all stayed in Sydney backpacker's hostels and that had started the horrendous chain of events that would lead to their deaths In a forest far away from help. 

Escape from a killer 

The guy who got away

Someone as pathetic as this killer doesn't deserve to have his name remembered. So instead I would like to concentrate on the one who got away. A man whose testimony and ID of the killer ensured the beast was caged at last.

Paul Onions from the West Midlands in the UK should have been the 8th victim (at least that the police know of). Instead, he was the one who got away.

He was backpacking around Australia when he met a man he thought was a nice, ordinary bloke but that man was a serial killer. He accepted a lift and it almost cost him his life. 

The stranger started fidgeting about in the car and when he came out with a gun and then some rope, Mr Onions wasn't paralyzed by fear. He was jolted into action, undoing his seatbelt he leapt out of the car under gunfire. He would probably have been done for for one thing as a bullet could stop Usain Bolt -  a car just happened to be passing by and he jumped inside. 

Without the car being there and the woman inside wth her children helping him it's doubtful he would still have been alive. But Mr onions is still deserving of our respect and admiration for not losing his head and saving his own life by getting out of that car. 

Brave Mr Onions was probably not the only one who got away. Australian police also believe that the serial killer claimed more victims that they have still to find.

Paul Onions was in court to testify against the man who tried to kill him and was there when he was sentenced to life for the 7 other murders and for his own attempted murder. 

We will never know how many people died at the hands of the sneering killer because he died in hospital of cancer and didn't reveal anymore about the ones he killed. 

Did he have an accomplice?

There have been suggestions that Milat did not act alone and that he had an accomplice - possibly even a family member. Could ge be part of the first known serial killer family?

We'll never know as Milat is dead and surely if there's any justice at all, he will be rotting in hell. 

*NOTE - Wolf Creek is very, very loosley based on the murders and should not be treated as an reinactment. 

Making a Murderer - the Night Stalker

Are some people born evil?

The question is often asked whether the monsters who commit evil crimes are the product of nature, i.e they were born that way and nothing could have prevented their evil course, or nurture, i.e their life experiences shaped them into who they were. 

In the case of Richard Ramirez otherwise known as the Night Stalker, the subject of a gripping Netflix documentary outlining how he was caught, it would appear at first that he was born evil incarnate. 

Those who were raped, bludgeoned and stabbed and throttled by one of the most notorious serial killers to have ever scorched this earth, would probably say he was the devil. That the devil came to their homes. 

But on watching the Netflix documentary there were a few throwaway facts about Ramirez that were never fully explored, possibly because no one wanted to make any excuses for such a unapologetically sick killer. 

These facts that would point to Ramirez being the result of nurture, or in his case the lack of any decency in those who should have taken care of him.

Fact 1 - When Ramirez was just 12 years-old, his cousin Miguel (known as Mike) would show him pictures of war crimes he says he committed whilst in the US army. Those pictures are said to have included ones of a dead Vietnamese woman he raped. She'd been decapitated.

Could that be the source of Richard Ramirez's sick compulsion to rape and brutalise not just women but children? 

Could being shown such vile images at a young and impressionable age have led Ramirez to think that sex and violence were intrinsically linked snd resulted in him recreating the kind of brutality and inhumanity his uncle had shown his alleged victims? 

Fact 2 - The very same vile cousin Mike shot his wife in the face and killed her in front of the young Ramirez. 

Again, we have someone young and impressionable seeing someone he looked up to commit cold-blooded murder. A man who would smoke cannabis with the boy. 

Is there a possibility that had he not been shown any photographs or seen his cousin murder his wife, he wouldn't have gone on on to become one of them worst human beings to have ever lived? 

The answers is we will never really know. 

Lessons on breaking into homes 

Fact 3 - After his cousin killed his wife, Ramirez was sent to live with his sister and her husband. Her husband was a peeping tom and used to take Ramirez with him as he peeped on women. 

Is that how the man also known as the Walk-in Killer was able to sneak into his victims homes? Had he not been shown how to creep about undetected by his brother-in-law would he have been able to sneak up on his victims?

The making of a serial killer

If there was ever a set of circumstances that created a serial killer Ramirez's would be almost textbook. And that's before we even looked at his childhood brought up in a home with a violent father.

Whether Ramirez was made and not born a despicable human being, his being dead makes the city he held in the grips of fear, Los Angeles a much safer place. 

SOLVED: The tragic case of Renee and baby Andrew MacRae - murdered by his own father

SOLVED - ONE OF SCOTLAND'S MOST BAFFLING UNSOLVED MURDER CASES dating back to 1976 has now been solved. 

In September 2022, William MacDowell, who was the man Renee MacRae had been having an affair with and allegedly meeting on the night of her death, was convicted of her murder and the killing of her 3-year-old son Andrew who was also his son. Their bodies have never been found. 

MacDowell who tried to blame the dead woman's husband for her murder, was given a minimum sentence of 30 years. As he's 80 years old, he's expected to die in prison. 

Renee who was described as a devoted mum, left behind an older son. Rennies sister and the police I have called on the callous killer to reveal where the bodies are buried.

Read on if you want to know more about the tragic case- 

The last picture of Renee and little Andrew

Usually when a child goes missing they don't have either of their parents with them. But in the case of the longest open missing persons case In Britain's history, 3-year-old son Andrew was with his mother Renee MacRae when he disappeared along with her, way back in 1976.

Renee was separated from her husband Gordon and dropped her oldest son Gordon who was 9-year-old off at her husband's in Inverness. She was meant to be going to see her sister in Kilmarnock and she was heading that way in her BMW when she was last seen.

The burning car

12 miles away that very same night, a train driver spotted a burning car in an isolated lay-by. It turned out to be Renee MacRae's car.

No trace of either her or the little boy was found. All that police found was a rug stained with blood that was tested and matched MacRae's blood type.

What happened to Renee and little Andrew?

So, how did a car carrying a mother and her child end up on fire and more importantly, where were Renee and little Andrew? Despite an intensive search no trace of either them was ever found.

The Sightings

Witnesses spotted a man dragging what looked like a dead sheep along the road where the mother and child were last spotted driving along. Renee MacRae was wearing a sheepskin coat when she was last seen.

Other witnesses saw a man with a pushchair near the quarry. Could it have been the little boy's?

The Theories

Unbeknown to her husband Renee had been having an affair with a married man called Bill MacDowell who worked for her husband. According to Renee's best friend she'd been going to see him that night and not her sister as she claimed. 

What's more she confided in her friend that wee Andrew was her lover's son. This friend claimed that Renee was planning to start a new life with her lover.

If that was true, Renee never got the chance of happiness. Her little boy never got the chance to enjoy his childhood.

Whatever happened to the pair that night it seems certain that they were murdered. Will their bodies ever be found so they can rest in peace?

Some hope

The man in charge of the search, Detective Sergeant Cathcart was convinced he'd found Renee and Andrew in a quarry after removing the topsoil and being hit with the stench of what he believed to be corpses. He hired a bulldozer, but was ordered to stop digging by a senior officer because the vehicle had to go back to the contractors due to lack of money.

Over twenty years later, the quarry was dug up again but there were no sign of any bodies. Had they been removed? We'll never know.

Could the tragic pair be buried beneath this motorway?

The prime suspect

Bill MacDowell, Renee's lover was the main person of interest. At one stage he went into a police station to make a statement, but was dragged out by his wife.

Had he been about to confess? He denied any involvement in Renee and Andrew's murder.

The prevailing theory appears to be that mother and child were killed and buried under the A9 motorway that was being upgraded. If that is this case, maybe one day future roadworks will give all unearth the tragic pair.

Update -

See "Suspect in MacRae case fled to US http://www.scotsman.com/news/suspect-in-macrae-case-fled-to-the-us-1-4383307

UPDATE - On September 2019 a 77-year-old man later named as William MacDowell was charged with the murders of Renee and little Andrew. MacDowell is allegedly the man Renee was having an affair with and who she was meant to be travelling to meet on the fateful night she went missing. There were rumours he was little Andrew's biological father.

The suspicious death of Scottish independence hero Willie McRrae - murder, cover up or suicide you decide

 

charismaticWillie McRae

I have always been fascinated by conspiracy theories even if I don't believe most of them. There is a fair few going around after former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's arrest and subsquent release in connection with alleged missing funds from the SNP an accusation which she vehemently denies. 

I can't comment on that when it's an ongoing police inquiry but many people I have spoken to don't trust the police and that's hardly new.

One of the many mysteries/conroversies that has always interested me was the death - or was it murder or execution of - Scottish independence hero Willie McRae. 

Who was Willie McRae?

Born in Falkrik, he was a razor sharp prominent lawyer and politician who had won cases against the then English based UK government (remember, this is many years before devolution). He didn't want Scotland used as a nuclear dustbin and was an advocate for Scottish independence. 

He also wasn't as cosetted as so many of today's politicians having served in WWII as a naval officer and then in the Royal Indian Navy. He was also an advocate for Indian independence.

Against nuclear power and pro- independence for both his beloved Scotland and India, these were considered dangerous views by some back then. 

The car crash?

In 1985, Mr McRae's apparently crashed car was found by two tourists who flagged down a passing car driven by Dr Dorothy Messer.  Immediately, the doctor attended to the man inside the car,  noticing that Willie McRae was still breathing but suspecting he might have brain damage, probably from the crash.

It was only in hospital when a nurse was washing Mr McRae's head that a bullet wound was found. He'd been shot. An x-ray proved this to be the case. 

What had first appeared to be a car crash now became something more sinister. Who shot Willie McRae? Or, did he really shoot himself? 

Suicide was suspected but the gun was nowhere to be seen. It wasn't until later it was found 60 feet away from the car's supposed resting place in a burn. How had it got there?

There were two theories - 

1. The car had been moved by the police and that's why the gun wasn't next to the car. Well, dead men can't throw guns away after they shoot themselves in the head can they? 

Note - later it was claimed that the police assumed the car has been in an accident and had it moved but they moved it back once they discovered McRae had been shot. 

If that was the case, it sounds like a sloppy investigation right from the start. Can we trust the findings of such sloppy police work? 

2. Someone else had shot Mr McRae. Friends believed the secret services had been following him. To give that theory credence, a former serving British police officer (at that time there was no Police Scotland) who had become a private investigator insisted he had been hired to keep tabs on Mr McRae. 

There was good reason to believe that Mr McRae had been got at.

A man of strong principles and an even stronger constitution, he was a boil on the backside of the pro-nuclear British establishment and a fervent believer in Scottish independence. Firmly anti-nuclear, he was credited with almost single-handedly having plans to dump nuclear waste in the Galloway Hills of Scotland turned down by the local authority. 

Could he have brought down the Thatcher government? 

There were rumours McRae had evidence of a paedophile ring at the heart of the Thatcher government which would be bad enough to bring down the whole English government. 

He was also currently working on stopping even more nuclear waste being dumped in Scotland. He was so paranoid about what he was working on that he carried a copy of his files around with him at all times. No such paperwork was found in the car. 

Had it been removed by someone else? Or had he suspected he'd been followed and hidden it somewhere?

Stolen files before his death

To make it even more suspicious, it was claimed the only other copy of his files had been stolen in a break-in at his home before his death. Nothing else had been stolen. Coincidence or something more sinister? Will we ever know? 

Yet more questions that still haven't been answered. 

Questions still abound and it doesn't kill off the conspiracy theories when those seen as part of the establishment have refused to - 

1. hold a FAI (Fatal Account Inquiry)

2. give them investigator Winnie Ewing who was a qualified lawyer and SNP President a copy of the police files.

3. meet with Fergus Ewing the son of Winnie. He requested a meeting with the Solicitor General for Scotland and was rebuffed. The Official Secrets Act may have been quoted. 

What do they have to fear from the truth? 

Then there was the investigation into his death conducted by 'A Justice for Willie' group. In the report in 2016 they said there was nothing to suggest that his death had been anything other than a suicide. 

Did that investigation put the tin lid on it? Well, sadly not.

The nurse who says someone shot McRae

In 2018, one of the nurses who treated the dying man, insisted that the bullet wound had been to the back of his head and not his temple. It's not completely impossible that someone could shoot themselves in the back of the head or neck but less likely than putting a gun to the temple of their head or the gun in their mouth and then pulling the trigger. 

Also, why would a man who respected the rights of other people to live their lives shoot himself whilst driving his own car, something that risked injuring or killing someone? 

With time marching on, maybe we will never find out the full truth of what happened to Willie McRae on that lonely road.  The one thing that is certain is that he was a great loss to the Scottish independence movement of which he was a strong advocate. 

Who was Peg Entwistle the Hollywood sign (jump) girl?

I'd heard the story of the actress who's said to have jumped from the H of the Hollywood sign to her death. But until I watched the Netflix miniseries Hollywood, I hadn't delved into what happened. 

Why would a beautiful, young, rising star in Hollywood who starred in a stage play with one of the greatest actors ever Humphrey Bogart throw herself from the very same Hollywood sign that had so first entranced her when she'd arrived in town as a teenager brimming with dreams?

The full story of what I discovered both fascinated and saddened me because I felt as if I was reading the story of an actor who died too soon. 

Peg's parents, both actors, had a very acrimonious divorce where - according to the BBC - her mother stated that she'd never loved her husband or her five-year-old daughter.

The psychological impact that might have had on such a young child can only be guessed at but can't have helped her mental state. But that wasn't tragic Peg's only heartbreak. 

Triple heartbreak for Peg 

In 1921 her stepmother actress Lauretta Ross died from meningitis. Peg adored her.

In 1922, 6 years after they'd immigrated to New York from the UK, Peg's beloved father Robert was killed in a hit and run. Peg was 13 at the time. Her uncle, an agent to an established Hollywood star took her and her two step-brothers who were now orphans into his home.

At the age of just 19, Peg married actor Robert Keith, a man who she later divorced for cruelty and failing to tell her he'd been married before and had a little boy who was 6*.

Behind the Hollywood glamour
there's heartbreak

In a career path full of disappointment and backstabbing, Peg might not have had the tools necessary to deal with disappointment even although she was used to it in her turbulent personal life.

But what led her to leap to her death (no foul play was ever suspected far less proved) at the point where she was starting to make it in Hollywood?

Peg was cast in her first and only movie Thirteen Women but after test audiences watched it her role was cut back. Even worse, her contract with film studio RKO was cut leaving her demoralised and penniless. The die had been cast.

Leaving a note saying she was off to visit friends, Peg made her last, tragic climb. She wasn't found for two days and only after another woman found her shoes and bag near the famous Hollywood sign along with a jacket that contained a goodbye note.

One thing they can't take away from Peg Entwistle is her influence on Bette Davis, one of the biggest Hollywood stars of all time.  She credits seeing Peg acting in the theatre play The Wild Duck as her inspiration for becoming an actress herself.

Without Peg Entwistle, we might never have got to see Bette Davis's eyes light up the screen. But the main reason Peg Entwistle will never be forgotten is that maybe in her crushed dreams we see our own. 

*Tragically his son, Brian Keith, later ended his own life using a shotgun at the age of 75. He had lung cancer and had lost his daughter Daisy to suicide. He has a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. 

She was wearing a violent jumpsuit - 5 Lessons I've learnt writing a novel (so you don't have to)

Writing a novel can seem like an arduous task.But there are ways to make it easier, especially with a bit of pre-planning and organisation.

This is what I learnt writing Vile City, the first book in my Detective in a Coma series.

Plan or you'll fail.

1. You need to be able to tell at a glance what's in every chapter. That includes plot and character development.

Unless you're blessed with a photographic memory (if you are, I envy you) there are a few ways to do this. You can have a timeline on paper or a spreadsheet on your computer.

I prefer to have a summary to go with each chapter on a Word document. I constantly update this and when I’m editing I print it out and constantly refer to it.

Get those character details right, or they'll be trouble.

2. If your characters are going to be in a series do a character profile for each character.

This should cover character, background and appearance. I reserve several pages in a notebook I keep for DI Waddell, his coma stricken pal DC Stevie Campbell (who talks to Waddell even although nobody else can hear) & Co for each character in my Detective in a Coma books. I add details as I write each book. I've just finished book three.

You need to have pertinent details of your characters quickly to hand so you can access them without slowing down your writing by having to search through text for that one detail that you need.

How many times have they been married? Do they have kids and if so what are their names? If they were in an accident who'd be their next of kin? What colour is their hair?

You need to know these things so you won't suddenly change your balding, thrice divorced, childless bachelor into someone with enviable hair, two kids and a first wife.

3. Keep a firm grip on the continuity.

You need to be consistent. No changing characters names halfway through your book. Keep an eye on the details - is your character sitting down when they've recently complained of a back injury and said they couldn't sit down?

In one of my earlier versions of Vile City, I had Shelley Craig who gets kidnapped in the book, deliberately leaving behind a necklace with a charm based on a Monopoly playing piece in one of the places she'd been kept. When my main character DI Waddell finds it the charm on the necklace had changed.

4. Save your first draft and subsequent drafts to at least three places (or four or five...).

We've all done it haven't we - toiled over our writing only to forget to save the new changes we've made or lost it all when our computer went nuts/was hit with a virus/decided that it hated us.

There is nothing worse than losing hours, days and even weeks of hard graft and somebody saying: "Hey didn’t you back it up?" when you sit there looking sheepish because you haven't.

That's why it's important to save your work at least once a day to at least three places - I send my work to two different emails, save it to Dropbox and save it on my laptop and tablet. That way if something goes wrong I won't lose work. I also save my WIP to all these places every time I do any revamping or substantial writing. 

5. Always edit on paper.

Trust me on this, when you read on a laptop or tablet screen you miss mistakes and because it's your writing your brain can trick you into thinking you've written something different to what you have.

For example - I once wrote that a character was wearing a violent jumpsuit rather than a violet one. Major difference. Don’t let your jumpsuit get violent:)

Butcher City (Detective in a Coma Book 2) - the follow up to Vile City - is available now

"Sometimes the monsters are real."

Out now Detective In a Coma book 2 

"A tough case and your partner is sleeping on the job."

A killer is stalking victims on Glasgow’s streets. Men are being abducted, tied up, force-fed, then strangled and their livers removed.

DI Duncan Waddell is facing his most bizarre case yet. Meanwhile, his best friend and colleague Stevie, is comatose in Intensive Care. But talking to him, and only him.

A career criminal comes forward claiming he was targeted by the killer but managed to get away.

Is this the breakthrough the team needs? Is this witness a genuine link to the disturbing madness of the case?

~Out now from Jennifer Lee Thomson @jenthom72 and Diamond Crime~ 
#ButcherCity the follow up to VILE CITY

Amazon UK Kindle 

Amazon UK Paperback

#Kindle #paperback

Unsolved: The mysterious disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh and Mr Kipper (man in a kipper tie)

By Family members of Lamplugh or friends, distributed nationwide in the media by the Metropolitan Police*

The disappearance of estate agent Suzy Lamplugh in July 1986, is a case that continues to be talked about. How could a bright young woman in the prime of her life go to meet a client in broad daylight and never be seen again? No trace of the 25-year-old has ever been found.

At the start it seemed as if the police had a good, solid starting point. Written down in the estate agent's diary was the name Mr Kipper. Next to his name was the address of a property she was going to be showing him.

It seemed a simple task for the police to trace this Mr Kipper and find out what he knew about her disappearance. Despite their efforts they couldn't find the man named.

I remember the 80s well. Women were more liberated then than they had been in the 70's. Jobs for women didn't mean just traditional job roles seen as women's like secretarial and nursing. Not to say that there is anything wrong with those jobs. 

Despite the progressiveness, I remember one of my teachers - a technical education teacher - who used to smack all the girl pupils on the bottom. These days you would be charged with sexual assault but in days gone by behavior like that was ignored. 

In the 1980s there was one other thing other thing from 70s that remained. Men often wore kipper ties.

What is a kipper tie?

Kipper ties are broad ties known for having horrendously garish patterns and colours. When I think of used car salesmen I think of kipper ties. 

The police at the time did consider the possibility that Mr Kipper wasn't the man's name at all - or even an alias - but did her killer definitely use that name? Or was it that he told Suzy he would be wearing a kipper tie so she would recognise him when they met? Hence, she wrote down Mr Kipper not bacuse it was his name but because he told her that's how she could recognise him? 

Shirley Banks - murdered by a psychopath

Convicted killer John Cannan, the coward who abducted and murdered newlywed Shirley Banks has been constantly linked to the Suzy Lamplugh case. In prison, he'd gained the name Mr Kipper because of the big ties he wore but what if he wasn't the Mr Kipper Suzy wrote about at all, which is possible? 

Cannan's MO doesn't match the Lamplugh crime 

Arrogant Cannan is hardly a criminal mastermind. He doesn't come across as a planner. Instead, his attacks were more opportunistic. He seems to have crossed paths with his victims rather than have planned his vile crimes and arranging to meet the estate agent at a house would have taken some planning. 

Consider his previous known crimes. 

1. He used a knife on a shop assistant at a dress shop. Thankfully, passers-by intervened. 

2. He tried to abduct a woman at gunpoint in a car park the night before he targeted tragic Shirley. 

3. When he abducted Shirley Banks, she was out shopping. He took her back to his own flat and held her hostage before he killed her. Then, he stupidly put the tax disc from her car in his glove compartment where it was later found. 

Dumb criminal 

It seems inconceivable that he could have abducted and killed Suzy without leaving any trace. He just doesn't come across as smart enough. 

In short, he's too stupid to have killed Suzy and gotten away with it without leaving a trace. 

I pray that I'm wrong because if he didn't kill Suzy that means someone else did and unlike Cannan they're still out there. Have they killed again? Once killer's escalate they don't tend to de-escalate to lesser crimes. 

Hopefully, one day Suzy's body will be found, and she can finally be laid to rest. 

Attributions 
- Lamplugh with her hair tinted blonde, as it was on the day she disappeared

Original publication: Distributed nationwide in the media, July 1986 onwardsImmediate source: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/suzy-lamplugh-suspect-john-cannan-7178859, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71314872