I kept dead body secret to avoid trouble, says head-in-bag accused

Published on Friday 21 May 2010 23:15

A MURDER accused told police he "panicked" after returning from a chip shop to find a mother of four dead in her bed, a court has heard.

Alan Cameron said 44-year-old Heather Stacey had been on a downward spiral with drink and suggested she may have died of heart failure.

Cameron said he panicked and failed to contact the authorities when he found her lifeless body in December 2007 because a warrant was out for his arrest over an alleged breach of the peace.

The accused told how he would check on the decomposing body over a number of months as it lay in Ms Stacey's Edinburgh flat, but disposed of it after finding out the council wanted to repossess her home.

He claimed the body "fell apart" as he tried to move it and denied using tools to chop it up.

Shop worker Cameron, 56, is charged with murdering Ms Stacey in her flat in Royston Mains Place between 29 November and 11 December, 2007.

He has admitted hiding her body for more than a year and then dumping the remains, but he denies murder. His trial at the High Court in Livingston heard how Cameron was interviewed under caution at Edinburgh's St Leonard's police station in January 2009, following the discovery of human remains at Hawthornvale Path in the Newhaven area.

He told officers he had found Ms Stacey dead at her flat after nipping out for 25 minutes to get food.

He said: "It was within the first two weeks of December 2007. She said she was hungry and I went to the chip shop to get her something to eat and when I came back, she was sitting in bed. I went in and I said to her, 'There's your food', and, well, she'd died."

Cameron added: "There was no life, nothing, and I panicked. I know any normal human being would've phoned the authorities right away."

The court heard that an arrest warrant was issued for Cameron in September 2007 after he failed to show up at court for an alleged breach of the peace and kicking a dog. He was arrested in relation to that warrant in July 2008.

Asked why he did not contact the emergency services about Ms Stacey in December 2007, he told officers: "I think I was still being selfish, protecting myself. I know I shouldn't have. I know I should've put her first and foremost."

The court heard he told police he left the body where it was but "panicked" again in November 2008 when the council said they wanted to take back Ms Stacey's house.

He told officers: "By this time, I knew it was getting close to being detected and I decided to take her head and, as you know, it was found in Hawthorn path.

"The rest of her body, by this time, with it lying for nearly a year, it was totally decomposed."

Cameron told how he also dumped the torso and legs around the Newhaven and Granton areas of Edinburgh and said the body "just fell apart". The trial continues.