BBC Crimewatch appeal over Suzanne Pilley body

THE parents of murdered book-keeper Suzanne Pilley have told a BBC Crimewatch appeal about their anguish that their daughter’s body has not been found.

Suzanne Pilley's body has never been recovered. Picture: Contributed

Work colleague David Gilroy was jailed for the 38-year-old’s murder in 2012. Detectives believe Gilroy killed Pilley in the basement of their Edinburgh office before dumping her body in the forests of Argyll.

Speaking as part of the Crimewatch appeal, which will be broadcast tomorrow night, Pilley’s parents, Rob and Sylvia, said they would struggle to find “closure” until their daughter’s body is found.

“The door is just ajar,” Rob Pilley said. “It’s not fully closed yet and that’s what I would really like – to put closure on it for myself and the rest of my family.”

Speaking about her emotions at the end of the trial, Sylvia Pilley said: “Justice had been done, but we felt so sad after it because we were never going to get her back.

“She’s lying somewhere and nobody knows [where]; as if nobody loved her.”

The programme features a reconstruction, showing Pilley getting off a bus in Edinburgh city centre and heading to the office she shared with Gilroy in Thistle Street.

Detectives who investigated the case believe Gilroy killed Pilley in the basement of the Edinburgh building where she was working, before taking her body in the boot of his car and burying it in a secret grave.

Gilroy, who was the first convicted killer to have his sentencing filmed for British television, was ordered to spend at least 18 years in jail for murdering his former lover and disposing of her body.Passing sentence in April 2012, judge Lord Bracadale said he hoped the killer would reveal where he left the murdered woman’s remains.

He told Gilroy: “It seems that you are the only person who knows where her body is. I hope that a day will come when you will feel able to disclose that information and that might bring some comfort to her bereft family.”

During the trial, it was heard that Gilroy and Pilley had endured a turbulent relationship.

Pilley had been seeing someone else before her 2010 disappearance, and Gilroy, who was married with children, was described in court as possessive.

He had sent her more than 400 text messages in the month before she went missing, but these stopped when she vanished.

The day after Pilley went missing, Gilroy drove to Lochgilphead, taking two hours longer than the average journey time. His return journey took even longer.