Cold case: Forensic advances bring fresh hope in catching prostitute's murder

Published on Monday 9 March 2009 08:51

IT was two police officers walking their regular beat who last saw Sheila Anderson alive.

Only 5ft tall and wearing a dark blue donkey jacket, they watched the 27-year-old shuffle down a footway in Commercial Street in her heeled sandals.

&#149 DNA tests on 300 to catch Sheila's killer

The officers saw nothing amiss as the mother-of-two was a well-known face among vice girls working the Capital streets.

But just 30 minutes later, at 11.55pm on April, 7, 1983, her battered body would be found on a rubble-strewn track, off West Shore Road in Granton.

Now almost 26 years on, the mother-of-two is back in the forefront of police minds as the re-opened investigation into her murder continues.

DNA swabs have been taken from 300 men, many of them kerb-crawlers who frequented the area at the time of her death, after the killer's DNA was identified from a sample recovered from her body.

Work is also continuing to identify the make and model of the red car which repeatedly ran over Sheila, using a fragment of paintwork left stuck to her body.

The night of her death, complete with period vehicles and clothes, was reconstructed last month for the BBC's Crimewatch. Her last movements are largely well known to police, pieced together by detectives in the original inquiry. Picked up by her last client, she accompanied him down to the sea wall at the Firth of Forth, at Gypsy Brae, Granton, before he killed her there.

The evening before she died, Sheila stayed with a friend in Drylaw until noon the next day.

By 7.30pm that night she was in the Wullie Muir pub in West Granton Road, where she stayed for only 15 minutes.

Although police are sure that she was in the West Granton/Drylaw area from 6pm to 9pm, little is known about her movements for those three hours, although later in the evening she was seen in Leith between 10.30pm and 11pm.

That last positive sighting came at 11.25pm outside Lindean House in Commercial Street, where the officers who saw her assumed she was touting for business to fund her heroin addiction.

Sometime within the next few minutes Sheila was picked up by her killer.

It was two CB radio enthusiasts who found her broken body and called the police. A huge murder hunt was launched, led by Detective Chief Inspector Jim Wilson.

Sheila had suffered horrific multiple injuries that appeared to have been caused by a car being run backwards and forwards over her.

It may have been that she started arguing with the man. On at least one previous occasion Sheila had stood in front of a car to stop a client driving off.

This time, she was either thrown out of the car, or had got out herself, and was in front of it, probably trying to stop it leaving.

With her handbag and shoes missing, it took police more than 12 hours to identifyher badly battered body.

Her bag and shoes were only discovered a week later, scattered across a car park at Longniddry Bents in East Lothian, dumped by the killer after he drove away with them in his car.

As the car park was right beside the busy A1, police believe the killer could have been heading home to England. In 1983, Edinburgh had a large transient workforce, employed in the oil and construction industries. This theory has formed a key branch of the fresh inquiry.

Police forensics were unable to determine whether her killer hit her before driving over her, because her injuries masked any evidence of a possible beating.

Several days after the vice girl's murder, a distressed woman, who refused to give her name, twice called police and claimed to have vital information about the murder. Each time she spoke to DCI Wilson and agreed to meet him.

She may have been a girlfriend of the killer or a street girl who worked alongside Sheila. The police were not to find out, though, as she never turned up.

One theory investigated by detectives was that a high-profile policeman or civil servant may have been the killer. The suggestion was that with so much potentially to lose, such a man may have been panicked into killing the vice girl, perhaps after being recognised by her. No definite suspect was ever identified, though.

Police were convinced the killing was a "violent act that happened on the spur of the moment", perhaps a product of rage or panic, but not premeditated.

But despite hundreds of kerb-crawlers being traced by police and questioned, the investigation ran its course without success.

It was advancements in forensic technology which offered detectives the chance to revisit the case.

Men interviewed at the time have been asked to give DNA swabs to eliminate them, while new suspects put into the frame over the course of the inquiry have also provided samples. So far none of those which have been processed have matched the killer's.

Officers have also appealed for information from anyone who knew a worker in the oil and construction industries who may have had a damaged car following the murder.

The Crimewatch programme led to 20 calls, e-mails and text messages from the public.

They have also revealed the killer may have sought treatment for a sexually transmitted disease following the crime.

Detective Chief Inspector Steven Reed, who is leading the inquiry, said: "Inquiries continue to trace the make and model of motor vehicle that was involved in Sheila's murder. This involves analysis of paint fragments recovered from the crime scene.

"From the commencement of the re-investigation voluntary DNA swabs have been obtained from numerous individuals. This has included individuals questioned during the original investigation and those who have been identified during the course of the re-investigation.

"The collection of DNA samples is an ongoing process and continues to ensure that all evidential and intelligence opportunities are completed in identifying who murdered Sheila Anderson."