True Crime Scotland: The axe, the wood merchant and a love affair gone wrong

The chilling weapon takes us back to woods near Aberdeen where a lovers’ tryst ended in cold-blooded murder.

A giant axe used in the horrific murder of a Scots woman by her lover 160 years ago has gone on show in Aberdeen after a collection of historic police evidence is opened up for the first time.

The heavy weapon was used to kill Ann Forbes in woods near Thainstone in 1864, with her lover George Stephen, a woodcutter from Port Elphinstone, later found guilty of her murder.

Close up of the axe used to kill Ann Forbes in woods near Thainstone, Aberdeenshire, in | Contributed

The axe is one of the oldest objects held by the North East Police Museum, which has opened up its collection for public display for the Cold Blooded Killers exhibition at the Granite Noir crime writing festival this month. Also on show will be a wax model of Mrs Forbes’s skull, complete with wound.

READ MORE: Major lunar event to be marked at Calanais Standing Stones

Inspector Claire Smith, of the North East Police Museum, said: “The Cold Blooded Killers Exhibition with Granite Noir is the first time these objects have been displayed in public, allowing us to tell the rich and varied history of policing in the North East.”

The axe takes us back to the final, fatal journey of Mrs Forbes, the wife of a shoemaker, who regularly walked 15 miles from her city home to the woods to meet Stephen.

But on Sunday, December 3, 1864, their usual tryst turned to tragedy. On her way, Mrs Forbes stopped for a drink at the Kintore Arms around 1pm, ordering half a gill of whisky, before continuing her journey to the woods. A witness saw her continue on her way - and the same woman also saw Stephen carrying an axe shortly thereafter.

By 2pm, her body was found in the plantation by a young grouse beater. She died shortly afterwards and a letter found with her body directed police to Stephen. Other letters found at his home suggested his lover was pressing him for money. He denied all knowledge of knowing here.

Stephen was sentenced to be hanged on May 17, 1865. But his punishment was reduced to life imprisonment at the Perth Penitentiary asylum on the grounds he was not of sound mind.

The shooting of merchant seaman Thomas Guyan in Aberdeen in 1963 is also spotlighted in the exhibition. His murderer, Henry John Burnett, aged 21, was the last man hanged in Scotland.

Burnett had fallen in love with Mr Guyan’s wife, Margaret, and the two moved into a rented room together while the sailor was at sea. As she tried to leave the house one night to meet her husband on his return, Mrs Guyan was locked in the property by her lover with a knife held to her throat. On her escape, she reached her husband - but Burnett found them, approached the front door and shot him in the face before the doomed couple fled in a stolen car.

He was found guilty of murder by a jury after 25 minutes of deliberation and became the first person hanged at Craiginches Prison in the city - and the last person executed in Scotland, on August 15, 1963.

The Cold Blooded Killers Exhibition will run at the city’s Music Hall until March 29.

Other highlights of Granite Noir include an author’s event with Katalina Watt, Alex Clark, CJ Cooke and Alan Warner, one of Scotland’s best loved literary figures. Authors Kirsty Logan, James Oswald, Harriet Tyce and James Yorkston will also discuss their latest works.

The film adaptation of The Girl on the Train, introduced by best-selling author Paula Hawkins, will also be screened in partnership with Belmont Community Cinema.

Writer and broadcaster Nicola Meighan hosts a live recording of her Kick Up the Arts podcast joined by guest actor Dawn Steele, star of Aberdeen-set TV crime drama Granite Harbour. Granite Noir’s main festival programme will run until Sunday, February 23.