Caroline Glachan: How a four-year-old boy helped solve 1996 murder

Archie Wilson was a typical four-year-old with boundless energy, but on Sunday 25 August 1996 he did not wake until lunchtime.

His younger brother Jamie was also sound asleep when their mother returned home to find their babysitter drying his wet tros on her fire.

Andrew Kelly told Betty Wilson that her eldest son had urinated on him and was also responsible for a large sodden patch on her new carpet.

Something did not add up - but it would be more than two decades before detectives finally uncovered the sinister truth, which has now led to the conviction of three people for Caroline's murder.

They established that Archie and Jamie left the flat in Renton, West Dunbartonshire, at about midnight with four teenagers.

The children returned, less than an hour later, in the company of killers.

Less than a mile away Caroline Glachan, 14, lay face down in the River Leven after suffering multiple head injuries.

The schoolgirl's body was discovered that afternoon, on what was her mother Margaret's 40th birthday.

The names of Robbie O'Brien, Donna Marie Brand, Kelly and his girlfriend, the late Sarah Jane O'Neill, were widely circulated in the village at the time but there was never enough evidence to arrest and charge them.

The main reason was that they all rigidly stuck to the same alibi and told officers they spent the night of the murder in Ms Wilson's flat at 12 Allan Crescent.

Police Scotland's Major Investigation Team started re-examining one of Scotland's most disturbing cold cases in June 2019.

Det Insp Stuart Grainger was appointed as the senior investigating officer and faced a number of challenges.

There was no digital forensic evidence, in the form of phones and computers, and next to no CCTV of value.

Officers had no DNA profile of the suspects and no murder weapon.

As a result the team focused their initial energy on devising a witness management strategy.

They would soon discover that some people who had been questioned at the time were now dead, but others proved more co-operative as they were now parents themselves.

Det Insp Grainger said: "I stripped it right back and took it into sections. One of the first things that we looked at was house-to-house."

In order to test the alibi of O'Brien, Brand and Kelly, detectives began to trace everyone who lived in Allan Crescent in August 1996 - including residents who were children at the time.

Det Insp Grainger said: "Ultimately it led us to a real key witness in this, who was the upstairs neighbour of Betty Wilson.

"When we spoke to Linda Dorrian she said she was in her house that night with her 10-year-old daughter, Emma.

"She was waiting on a film coming on Sky at midnight."

But before it started Ms Dorrian heard a downstairs door opening and looked out into the street.

Det Insp Grainger added: "She said the four of them left that house with the buggy with the two-year-old in it and four-year-old Archie holding on to the buggy."

The group walked down Allan Crescent and crossed Main Street, which connects Renton to Alexandria, and then went towards the River Leven.

Det Insp Grainger said: "That information was not known. That is the first time we have got anybody committing to paper that they were out of the house at that time.

"About half past 12 about half a dozen independent witnesses, who are scattered about, start hearing screams coming from the River Leven.

"It's a female and she is saying: 'I didnae say that. I didnae dae that'."

The next entry in the timeline is about 40 minutes to an hour later, when Ms Dorrian sees the group returning with the children.

Det Insp Grainger said: "The door gets slammed and screaming and shouting starts, along the lines of: 'That wasn't meant to happen. That went too far. How is this going to look":[]}