Years of ill-feeling between daughter and mother culminated in cold-blooded murder

Published on Friday 31 July 2009 22:18

IT WAS said of Anne Brown and her daughter, Lisa, that their bond was like elastic.

"It would stretch and stretch," said Michael Elliot, Anne's brother, "until they bounced back together."

Unfortunately, in the dark of an autumn night, in a quiet country cottage, there was to be no bounce back. The bond was snapped forever when a daughter murdered her mother.

So badly beaten was Mrs Brown's face, assaulted 49 times with what is believed to be a heavy steel torch, that when Mr Elliot later examined the body at Glasgow's mortuary he could not identify his sister. A DNA test was required to confirm his loss.

The tensions between mother and daughter had begun at an early age when Mrs Brown left her young daughter with her own mother, Vera and, as Lisa later recalled: "ran off to Greece when I was just a baby".

After being partially raised by her grandparents, Lisa returned to live with Anne but by the time she was a teenager their fights were frequent.

Although a bright girl who secured a place to study archeology at Glasgow University, Lisa didn't last as a student and when her mother paid off a 1,500 student debt it became just another bone of brittle contention between the pair.

Mrs Brown, was a qualified nurse and health visitor, but she could be difficult at times.

However, a central part of the tension between mother and daughter was Lisa Brown's son, whom Anne Brown was looking after and to whom she had denied Lisa access.

The powerful emotions that Lisa Brown was harbouring towards her mother were revealed in a number of e-mails.

On 4 September last year she sent an e-mail to a former boyfriend, James Martin in which she wrote: "May ask police in Glasgow to help or ask a family law lawyer. Or I may just go down myself and knock my mum out and take the child, drive her car and collect a taxi. What do you think I should do? I can drive, but just not legally."

On the Bebo site she used the name Alexis McKenzie and told one man, Jonathan Dowie: "Well, let's just say if me and my mum meet again, one of us won't be leaving alive. That's how much we hate each other."

Although Lisa Brown was younger by four years, she had the whip hand in her relationship with John Wilson. In September 2008, she insisted he choose between her and his job as a security guard. He quit, even though she was by now pregnant with his child.

On evening of Saturday 18 October, Brown and Wilson set off to recover the son who was in Mrs Brown's care.

To illuminate the long walk to the cottage they had brought a heavy Maglite torch, which was almost a foot long. When they arrived Wilson claimed that he had waited outside the cottage while Brown entered with a plan to tell her that she was pregnant only to rush out 15-20 minutes later and shout: "John, I think I have killed my mum."

He said he then went in and found her battered body covered with blood. She was later found to have 49 cuts to her face and neck.

He checked her pulse. Wilson said he suggested calling the police but Brown said she would blame him and he would never see their unborn child.

Despite her wounds, Brown was reportedly still alive when she was forced into a blue sleeping-bag, but as the zip was broken, Wilson bound it with blue twine and thrust two balaclavas over the head. He then wrapped the sleeping-bag in builders' sack and weighted it down with bricks and stones.

After wrapping the body, Wilson put it in the boot of Anne Brown's car. He then drove Brown and the child to a pond near Craignaught Farm, where he dragged the body down to the water while Brown stayed in the car with child.

After climbing back into the car they drove on but the car became stuck in the mud and was abandoned.

After disposing of the body the couple returned to the cottage in Burnhouse. Lisa took off her jacket which was covered in blood and they hosed it down in the bath then left it hanging on the front door to dry. They then went to bed. While Lisa slept, Wilson lay on top of the sheets, unable to sleep.

The couple left the house the next morning with Brown taking her grandfather's ashes with her.

When they got back to Wilson's house they tried to transfer money from her mother's account over the phone. She asked if she could transfer the balance over to her own account but was told it could not be done without authorisation from her mother.

Vera Brown, Anne's mother, reported her daughter missing to the police when she failed to appear on Sunday as had been planned.

Concerned for the safety of Mrs Brown and the young child, police visited Lisa Brown only to find the child in her keeping.

The couple had agreed to cover for each other, later insisting to police that the house had been empty and the child alone when they arrived there.

It was a story that would not hold and Lisa would later give birth in prison.