Tragic picture emerges of head-in-bag mother's life

Published on Tuesday 13 January 2009 22:02

POLICE were yesterday interviewing relatives of Heather Stacey, whose head was found in a shopping bag, as they tried to piece together the last few months of her tragic life.

The 44-year-old, whose head was found next to a footpath on Hogmanay, is thought to have died towards the end of 2007, when she was living in Granton, Edinburgh.

Detectives have yet to establish the cause of her death but suspect foul play and are treating it as "suspicious".

A dog walker found her head in an Ikea bag next to the Hawthornvale path in Newhaven. Police later discovered other body parts believed to belong to Ms Stacey at two locations about a mile away.

DNA tests last week established the identity of the body, and details about her life – described by one senior officer as "pretty torrid" – have emerged.

But detectives have gaps to fill in relation to the few months before her death, when she lived at a flat with her boyfriend in Royston Mains Place.

"We are speaking to her relatives to try and piece together what was happening in her life before she died. There's still quite a few blanks to fill," one police source said.

It emerged yesterday that Ms Stacey, a former model, was left badly scarred when she was slashed in the face by her jealous husband.

Michael Williamson, a former soldier, was jailed for 18 months following the incident in 1995.

Other details of her past emerged as police continued investigating her death.

Alan Cameron, 54, appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Friday charged with attempting to defeat the ends of justice and breach of the peace.

Ms Stacey, who was born in Essex, moved to East Calder in West Lothian when she was a child and reportedly married Michael Williamson, from Dingwall, when she was 18. The couple met at a disco at an army base where Ms Stacey's mother worked in the catering unit.

At the time, Ms Stacey described herself as a model, but she later worked as a school cleaner. Her first son, Mark, was born in 1983 and daughter Danielle followed in 1986.

But the marriage fell apart, culminating in the knife attack after Williamson reportedly discovered his wife was having an affair. They were living in Dingwall at the time. The town's sheriff court heard Williamson, a former private in the Queen's Own Highlanders, had slashed his wife on her neck, hands and legs, leaving her disfigured.

He told the court he had snapped when she taunted him about his sexual inadequacies.

By the time Williamson was jailed, Ms Stacey had moved to Loanhead. The couple divorced in 1999 and Ms Stacey went on to have two more children – a son and a daughter – with new partner Dougie Woolard, with whom she lived in Lasswade.

Her relationship with Mr Woolard is understood to have broken up a few years later and Ms Stacey moved to Edinburgh.

Her mother, Elizabeth, died from cancer in August, aged 83.

Ms Stacey's aunt, Anna Michie, 72, of Dunfermline, said she had been reading about the case without realising the victim was her relative.

She had lost contact with her sister, Ms Stacey's mother. She said: "I hadn't spoken to Heather or her mum for over 20 years and had no idea she was the victim in this terrible case.

"I remember her as a happy-go-lucky woman the same age as my own daughter. I'm just so sorry I didn't stay in touch with her and her mum more."