The Silent Evidence's Podcast

In November 1976, Renee and Andrew MacRae would go missing sparking one of Scotland's longest running mysteries. But now, 46 years later, in 2022, we finally have a conclusion to the case and justice has been served. This episode is about the court case that ultimately delivered that justice and ended this long running mystery.

If you have not yet listened to the episode on the disappearance of Renee and Andrew MacRae, it was covered in The Silent Evidence Episode Number 006 I would encourage you to go back and listen to it before going any further. There you will learn all about the background to the case, the timeline of events, and theories on what may have happened, some of which still stands up in light of new evidence which was presented throughout the course of the trial.

For those of you staying with me now, lets get back into the case. 

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At around 5pm on Monday the 30th June 2003, Jodi Jones a 14 year old school girl from the village of Easthouses near Edinburgh in Scotland, left her home to go and meet her 14 year old boyfriend Luke Mitchell from the nearby village of Newbattle. When she hadn’t returned back home by 10.30pm that night her mother sent a message to Luke’s phone, as Jodi’s phone was broken, telling her to get home immediately. When Luke replied that he hadn’t seen Jodi that evening at all, the alarm was raised.

A search party was put together consisting of LM and members of Jodi’s family. During their search they would come across the mutilated body of Jodi Jones lying behind a wall on a secluded woodland path that linked the 2 villages together. She had been the victim of a savage knife attack. 

Suspicion fell on the boyfriend and stories emerged of his unconventional goth lifestyle, his fascination with the occult, his alleged devil worshipping, his prolonged cannabis use and his habit of carrying a knife. He quickly became the prime suspect and pictures and stories blazed across all of the newspapers for weeks and months as the case developed. 

Ultimately LM would face a jury charged with murder, and would be convicted. But the conviction was not without controversy and in many ways would be just the beginning of a long quest for truth and justice.  New pieces of the jigsaw would be revealed over the years that followed and questions remain unanswered.

Who was the stocky man that was seen following JJ as she made her way towards the path that fateful evening? Were the riders of a moped seen propped up against a wall at the time and location of the murder really not involved? Did the prosecutions star witness really see LM and JJ together that evening, or was her sighting manipulated to fit the narrative? And what of the story of a man appearing with scratches on his face the day following Jodi’s murder – a man who had allegedly written an essay about killing a girl in the woods – was he not involved either?

How about the forensic evidence from the scene – a condom discarded nearby containing DNA that did not belong to LM. Or the DNA profile obtained from Jodi’s body, not belonging to LM either but rather to one of the other members of the search party.

In the years following his conviction LM would maintain his innocence. In 2012 he would pass a polygraph test in which he denied involvement in Jodi’s murder, a result which re-invigorated the growing miscarriage of Justice campaign gathering behind him and fronted by Dr Sandra Lean, a prominent criminologist and author.

So was this a case of prosecution of a lifestyle, or was the evidence against LM sound? Was justice done?

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At around 5pm on Monday the 30th June 2003, Jodi Jones a 14 year old school girl from the village of Easthouses near Edinburgh in Scotland, left her home to go and meet her 14 year old boyfriend Luke Mitchell from the nearby village of Newbattle. When she hadn’t returned back home by 10.30pm that night her mother sent a message to Luke’s phone, as Jodi’s phone was broken, telling her to get home immediately. When Luke replied that he hadn’t seen Jodi that evening at all, the alarm was raised.

A search party was put together consisting of Luke Mitchell and members of Jodi’s family. During their search they would come across the mutilated body of Jodi Jones lying behind a wall on a secluded woodland path that linked the 2 villages together. She had been the victim of a savage knife attack. 

Suspicion fell on the boyfriend and stories emerged of his unconventional goth lifestyle, his fascination with the occult, his alleged devil worshipping, his prolonged cannabis use and his habit of carrying a knife. He quickly became the prime suspect and pictures and stories blazed across all of the newspapers for weeks and months as the case developed. 

Ultimately Mitchell would face a jury charged with murder, and would be convicted. But the conviction was not without controversy and in many ways would be just the beginning of a long quest for truth and justice.  New pieces of the jigsaw would be revealed over the years that followed and questions remain unanswered.

Who was the stocky man that was seen following Jodi as she made her way towards the path that fateful evening? Were the riders of a moped seen propped up against a wall at the time and location of the murder really not involved? Did the prosecutions star witness really see Luke and Jodi together that evening, or was her sighting manipulated to fit the narrative? And what of the story of a man appearing with scratches on his face the day following Jodi’s murder – a man who had allegedly written an essay about killing a girl in the woods – was he not involved either?

How about the forensic evidence from the scene – a condom discarded nearby containing DNA that did not belong to Mitchell. Or the DNA profile obtained from Jodi’s body, not belonging to him either but rather to one of the other members of the search party.

In the years following his conviction Luke Mitchell would maintain his innocence. In 2012 he would pass a polygraph test in which he denied involvement in Jodi’s murder, a result which re-invigorated the growing miscarriage of Justice campaign gathering behind him and fronted by Dr Sandra Lean, a prominent criminologist and author.

So was this a case of prosecution of a lifestyle, or was the evidence against Luke Mitchell sound? Was justice done?

This is episode 8 the murder of Jodi Jones.

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On Saturday the 18th of September 1999, 17 year old Victoria Hall and her best friend Gemma Algar went out dancing in the town of Felixstowe in the south east of England. They left the bandbox nightclub at approximately 2am and began the 2 mile walk home to nearby Trimely St Mary, talking and laughing as they strolled along. 

They went their separate ways just a few hundred meters from Victoria’s home, but Victoria would not be seen alive again. A week later her naked body would be found by a dog walker along a secluded farm track some 25 miles from her home.

The police would receive over 2,000 calls from the public in the week following the discovery of Victoria’s body, and followed up dozens of leads. They would ultimately arrest a suspect – a man who had been in the bandbox nightclub at the same time as Victoria on the night she went missing, and who lived only a few hundred meters from her family home in Trimely St Mary. 

But despite the police officers insistence that they had the right man, the jury at his trial seen it differently and he was acquitted of the murder.

In the years that followed, a new team re-investigated the case, and new evidence would come to light that perhaps pointed at a new suspect – a man who was convicted of several other murders in the local area, and who was sentenced to life in prison in 2008 some 9 years after Victoria’s murder. 

But was this responsible for Victoria’s murder? Did it fit his Modus Operandi? Or did the police have the right man at the start? Or could it be that someone else entirely was responsible?

This is the officially unsolved murder of Victoria Hall.

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On Friday 12th November 1976 Renee MacRae, from Inverness in the north of Scotland, dropped off her eldest son, Gordon jr aged 9, with her estranged husband Gordon Sr at the offices of his building company in the city, so that the child could spend the weekend with his father. She arranged to pick him up again on the following Monday morning in order to take him to school, and left the building shortly after 5pm, taking her youngest son, Andrew aged 3, with her. Neither she nor Andrew have ever been seen since.

Renee was planning to drive to Kilmarnock in the south of the country, some 300 miles away, to visit her sister for the weekend, taking Andrew with her. But just over 4 hours after leaving Gordon Sr’s office, at around 9pm on that Friday night, Renee’s BMW would be found ablaze in a layby some 12 miles south of Inverness. The car was empty, but a bloody rag found it the boot alerted the police to potential foul play. 

When they discovered that that not only had Renee not made it to her sister’s house in Kilmarnock that weekend, but that her sister knew nothing of her intended visit at all, their concerns intensified. And they intensified further when Renee did not return to Inverness on the Monday morning to take Gordon jr to school as she had promised to do.

A complex investigation followed, which ultimately revealed that Renee had been living a secret life; a life in which she had been having an affair with a married man, and had told a friend of her plans to leave Inverness with him for a fresh start elsewhere.

But the investigation failed to turn up any conclusive evidence that Renee had run-away; the married man in question was discovered and denied having any such plan to start a new life with Renee. All of her possessions were still at home, and her bank account remained undisturbed. 

But nor did the investigation uncover any conclusive evidence that the pair had been the victims of foul play. The bloody rag found in the car did not contain enough blood on it to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person had sustained a life threatening injury. 

So what happened to Renee and Andrew? Did they run away? Did they set off to start a new life? Or were they murdered and disposed of? And if so, by whom? This is the case of the disappearance of Renee and Andrew MacRae, the UK’s longest missing persons inquiry.

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In Feb 1968, Patricia Docker, an attractive 25 year old nurse from Glasgow, Scotland, went out for a night of dancing at the city's Barrowlands ballroom, but didn’t return home to the house she shared with her parents and young son. The following morning her body was found just yards from her home, having been beaten and strangled to death.

18 months later, 32 year old Jemima MacDonald enlisted her sister Margaret as a babysitter to look after her 3 young children and got herself ready for a night of dancing at the Barrowlands. 3 days later Margaret found Jemima’s body in an abandoned building close to her home. She had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death with her own stockings.

Just 3 months later, Helen Puttock and her sister Jean visited the Barrowlands, where they met 2 men, both named John. At the end of the evening, one of the John’s took a bus home while the other shared a taxi with the 2 sisters. The taxi dropped of Jean first and Helen and John continued onwards towards Helen’s house. The following morning, Helen’s body was found in a courtyard close to her home. She had been beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled with her own stockings. 

The similarities in all 3 murders were not lost on the police. All 3 women had been beaten, strangled, had their purses stolen, and were murdered close to their homes. Strangely, all 3 had been menstruating at the time of their murders too. And all 3 had last been seen at the Barrowlands ballroom.

The John that Helen and Jean had shared a taxi with became the prime suspect, and a portrait of him was drawn up and was widely circulated around the country. Jean recalled that he had quoted what she thought were passages of scripture, having described the dancehalls of the city as ‘dens of iniquity’ and stating that he preferred to pray than to party at new year. As a result the mysterious killer was dubbed Bible John in the press. 

The police launched what was to be Scotland’s largest manhunt at the time, conducting door to door enquiries, flooding the dancehalls with undercover cops, sending officers to chase leads overseas, and even exhuming the body of a deceased potential suspect.

However none of this brought them any closer to identifying the mysterious Bible John, though the search narrowed in to just a few credible suspects. Was he a police officer, upholding the law during the day, and stalking the dancehalls by night? Was he a heavy-drinking ex-soldier who committed suicide a few years later? Or were these the early crimes of one of 2 Scottish serial killers who would both go on to be convicted of several murders many years later? Or perhaps there was no Bible John at all, but 3 separate unrelated murders?

This is episode number 5, who is Bible John?

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Billie-Jo Jenkins was born in London in 1983. She had a difficult childhood, as her parents struggled with alcohol addiction, and each spent time in prison during her childhood. Billie-Jo spent much of her childhood raising herself and her 2 younger siblings, resulting in her growing up fast and taking on many of the responsibilities that would normally fall upon the adults in a household, such as doing the laundry, cooking the meals, and making sure she and her siblings got off to school. During her parents bad spells, she and her siblings were passed around various family members, and as a result, they never developed any real sense of belonging. Social services decided to intervene, and by 1992 all 3 kids were placed into foster care.

Sion Jenkins was the deputy head teacher at Billie Joe’s school in the town of Hastings in southern England, a school at which all 4 of his biological daughters, Maya 7, Esther 9, Lottie 10 and Annie 12, also attended. Billie-Jo and Annie were friends, and Sion knew her as a feisty, sometimes aggressive girl, but a girl who was also intelligent and thoughtful, and who would thrive in the right environment. He and his wife Lois, a social worker, decided to put themselves forward as foster carers for Billie Joe. Their coincidentally shared surname suggested a union that was meant to be.

Although it took a little bit of time for her to settle into her new environment, she eventually became as much a part of the family as the other 4 children. The family were described as being a good church going family, with solid Christian values, and Billie-Jo mellowed in her new environment, in which love and affection replaced the neglect she had experienced throughout her young life.

But The Jenkin’s idyllic family life came crashing down one February afternoon in 1997 when Sion and the girls returned home to find Billie-Jo lying dead in a pool of blood in the back garden having been repeatedly battered around the head with a blunt object.

Suspects emerged and the finger would be pointed at a local mentally ill man with a plastic bag fetish, a notorious serial rapist operating in the area, an unidentified neighbourhood prowler, and at Sion Jenkins himself.

What would follow would be a series of twists and turns, disputed evidence, and collapsed trials. This is the case of the officially unsolved murder of Billie-Jo Jenkins.

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Suzanne Pilley was a 38 year old woman from Edinburgh, Scotland. She was described by her parents as a very proud Scot, someone who loved the outdoors and enjoyed cycling, walking and keeping fit. She enjoyed fundraising, having abseiled off the Forth Rail Bridge for charity, and had run in her office team in the Edinburgh Marathon Relay. 

She worked as a bookkeeper for Infrastructure Managers Ltd (IML), based on Thistle Street in central Edinburgh and was as a popular member of the team, described by her employer as being extremely dependable, and not someone who ever arrived late or took unexplained sick days. She enjoyed the social side of the office too often having a chat and laugh with her colleagues in the office kitchen at lunchtimes.

She became romantically involved with one of these colleagues, a married man named David Gilroy. While the two enjoyed good times initially, as time went on the relationship became more and more destructive and toxic, until such a time as Suzanne decided to break free and end it.

Just days afterwards, Suzanne wouldn’t turn up for work one Tuesday morning, setting off a chain of events that would see the police launch what would turn out to be one of the largest missing persons enquiries in Scottish history, and ultimately a see conviction of murder for David Gilroy. But Suzanne's body has never been found, and Gilroy maintains his innocence. So what happened to Suzanne? Is Gilroy responsible for her murder? And if so, where did he dispose of her remains? Is Suzanne even definitely dead?

This is the case of the disappearance of Suzanne Pilley.

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Arlene Fraser was a 33 year old woman from Elgin, a small town in the north of Scotland. She had finally managed to break free from an abusive relationship, and was looking forward to starting a new life with her 2 young children, aged 5 and 10. She had enrolled in a business studies course at the local college and had re-connected with old friends that she had lost touch with over the years. Life finally seemed to be looking up for the young mother.

That all changed though when Arlene’s friend popped round on the morning of Tuesday 28th April 1998, to find Arlene missing from her home. When she hadn’t returned by the time the kids got home from school alarm bells were ringing.

What would follow would be the largest missing persons enquiry in Scottish police history and only the 4th time in Scottish judicial history that a murder conviction was achieved in the absence of a body. 

But many questions remain. Was Arlene murdered by her jealous estranged husband? Was a hitman from down south involved? Could a perjured local farmer hold the key to the whereabouts of Arlene’e remains? Or indeed is Arlene even dead at all?

This is the case of the disappearance of Arlene Fraser.

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Sunday the 28th of November 2004 was a normal day for the Wilson family from Nairn, Scotland. Father Alastair and mother Veronica had spent much of the day entertaining their 2 children, Andrew and Graham with walks on the beach as well as socialising with friends.

When the doorbell of their proud Victorian villa at 10 Crescent Road rang at around 7pm, Veronica assumed it would be the parents of a young child they were looking after coming to collect him. She put down the laundry she was sorting out and went downstairs to answer the door. To her surprise she found a stranger on the doorstep, who simply said: ‘Alastair Wilson’. 

Veronica didn’t recognise the man, but didn’t think much of it, assuming he had something to do with her husband’s job as a banker. She left the man on the doorstep and returned upstairs to get Alastair, who had just settled down to read his boys a story. Veronica took over reading the story, and Alastair went to the front door.

After a few minutes Alastair reappeared upstairs seeming confused by the conversation he had just had with the visitor. He was clutching a blue envelope with the name ‘Paul’ written on the front of it which he showed to Veronica. He decided to go back downstairs to talk to the man further. A few minutes later Alastair would be left dying on his own doorstep having been shot 3 times. 

What would follow would be the most expensive police investigation in Scottish history, but despite this, no arrests would be made, and many questions remain unresolved. What was the motive for the murder? Who was the unidentified killer that arrived on the Wilson’s doorstep? Was he a disgruntled customer of the bank? A jealous husband? A hitman sent by a 3rd party? What did he and Alastair discuss that evening? What were the contents of the blue envelope? Who is Paul? This is the confusing story of the murder of Alastair Wilson.

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