All language subtitles for Cold Case Killers S01 E03_track3_[eng]

When a murder
is left unsolved...

No weapons, no eyewitnesses,
no forensic evidence at all.

There was nothing.

..And a killer is
on the loose...

These people are still out
there. Who's going to be next?

..Britain's cold case
detectives will never give up.

The best way to solve a
cold case is to keep it warm.

No matter how long it takes...

This case dominated my life.

..They'll investigate every
angle and uncover every clue...

Searching through
thousands of people.

They think they've got
away with it. They haven't.

..Until the killer
is caught at last.

We all leave a trace.

We'd finally identified that golden
nugget. Bingo, we've got him.

Edinburgh.

On the evening of
October the 15th, 1977,

two 17-year-old girls went
missing without a trace.

It began an epic
investigation into a case

that would shock
the whole country.

Tom wood was a young
detective sergeant at the time.

When I came into the office
the place was already buzzing.

There were people in the office

that shouldn't have been
there on a Sunday afternoon,

there were senior officers all
over the place and there was a real

feeling that we were dealing with
something that was different here.

Best friends Helen
Scott and Christine eadie

had gone for a night out in the
city, but hadn't made it home.

Helen's brother, Kevin,
was 11-years-old at the time.

The household was a bit frantic.

My mother and father were
both making phone calls

to Christine's friends and
any contacts that they had

to try and find out if maybe Helen
had stayed the night somewhere

with one of her friends.

Helen would not have not
come home unless she couldn't.

Helen and Christine were
reported missing by their parents

on the morning of Sunday
the 16th of October.

And that of course
immediately raised alarm bells.

Two young girls,
17-years-old, just left school.

We didn't see them as being young
women as much as being children.

They had just started work,
just got their first wages

and of course the
first thing you do

is you go and you
buy something special.

And Helen had gone out and
bought this expensive burberry coat,

which was her pride and joy and
which she wore for evenings out.

Before police launched a search,

a call came in from a
member of the public.

Late in the morning of
Sunday the 16th of October,

a couple were walking
their dog along aberlady bay

in east lothian near gosford,
about 20 miles from Edinburgh.

And as they walked along they
saw the body of a young woman.

It turned out to be Christine.

She was lying on her back,
hands tied behind her back,

feet bound and gagged
and obviously dead.

The radio was on in the
kitchen and the news came on

and at that point we heard
a body had been found

on the beach in gosford bay.

There was a sort of silence

and I think you could
see the worry on...

..Everyone's face.

As detectives secured
the crime scene

and searched the area for evidence,
Tom's office received another call.

This one from a farm
six miles up the road.

At that time it was Autumn

and it was much, much
colder and bleaker here.

It was just here that the
farmer saw something

lying in the middle of the
field, just over to the right here.

He thought at first it was somebody
who had dumped some rubbish,

but when he got there he found
it was the body of a young woman

lying on her coat,
her outstretched coat,

still wearing her burberry
coat, bound and gagged.

So we were pretty
sure right from the start,

before we actually saw it, that
this was the body of Helen Scott.

There was a knock on the
door and it was the police.

They had a bag with them.

And in that bag was
some of Helen's belongings.

And at that point
we knew that...

..Helen had been murdered.

My mother...

..Broke down in tears.

My father very
much held it together,

but you could tell
he was struggling.

Police immediately began
a murder investigation.

One that would take almost four
decades of dogged detective work,

make history and change
Scottish criminal law.

This case I suppose, from
a personal point of view,

because I lived with it
for most of my service

and because I
ended up leading it,

I suppose was the most important
case that I've ever dealt with.

But at the end of the day, if you
ask what difference did you make?

Erm...

Well, we made a difference.

We made a difference
with this investigation.

Like any murder investigation,

it began with an examination
of the crime scene.

Both girls had been
bound and gagged,

then strangled with
items of their own clothing.

The postmortem showed
they had also been raped.

Two young girls and they
were barely more than children,

they were 17-years-old,

who had been abducted and
murdered in the most brutal fashion

right in the middle of our city.

This was something different.

This was cold and callous.

It was a real turning point,
it was a landmark case,

it was almost like the death
of innocence within Edinburgh.

The way the girls' bodies had
been dumped was, for Tom wood,

a clue to the type of killer
they were dealing with.

Just about a quarter of the way up
is where Christine's body was found

and you can see somebody
stopping there at night

would have a
very good sightline.

They would have been able
to see any car lights coming.

It appeared to us that
this was somebody

that had either
done this before,

or had thought through exactly
what they were going to do.

It was an organised crime scene.

There was nothing
chaotic about it.

Dr keri Nixon has 20 years'
experience of working with the police,

dealing with some of britain's
most disturbed criminals

and has studied
this case in detail.

What we know from research

is that offenders who are
very mentally disordered

will often have crime
scenes that mimic that.

So the crime scene will be
very disordered and chaotic.

So when we see a crime scene
like this that is quite organised,

we can see straight away
that it's not an offender

that's in some kind
of psychotic episode.

They are treating their
victim as an object,

an object to be used
for their own pleasure.

That suggests he's a sadistic
and sexually motivated predator.

And in most cases,

this type of murderer is
a stranger to their victims.

The last thing you want in a homicide
investigation is a stranger murder.

Most people are murdered
by people they know

or people they have
a connection with.

That gives you a head start.

But two random,
motiveless murders

weren't the only challenges
Tom's investigation faced.

Forensic evidence and
forensic examination

was very different then,
obviously, to what it is now.

DNA was still unknown at that
time in terms of an investigative tool.

But if these girls had
been killed by strangers

and with their bodies
being left outside,

it was always going
to be an uphill struggle.

Two bodies were
found out in east lothian,

yet there was no quick arrest.

I think that would have given
a huge sense of frustration.

Someone must know who they
are, but it's not led to anything

and that must have been very
difficult for people to take at the time,

that something as horrific
as this had happened

and they might have been
wondering, who is going to be next?

In 1977, two 17-year-old girls,
Helen Scott and Christine eadie,

had been found raped, murdered
and dumped just outside Edinburgh.

The killings were random
and sexually motivated,

meaning ds Tom wood and his
team faced an enormous challenge,

whilst the citizens of
Edinburgh lived in fear.

Obviously there had
been murders in Edinburgh,

but the fact that this
was two young women

who had gone on a night
out and never came home,

that is something that would
have been a huge shock to people.

With the city reeling,

Tom's team frantically
rounded up the usual suspects.

We instantly started
looking for people we knew

who had convictions
for serious sexual crime.

You had to what we call tie,
or trace, interview, eliminate.

Where were they? Who was
with them? Who can alibi them?

Well, it was
very, very difficult,

especially remembering
that all of this was being done

on a card index system.

Tens of thousands of cards
with information, all filed.

The error factor was enormous.

Tom and his hundred strong team

struggled under the
weight of paperwork.

And detectives at the scene
were beginning to understand

the type of killer they
were dealing with.

The crime scenes were
highly organised in that nothing

that wasn't the girls' had
been left at the crime scene.

There were no
foreign objects left.

But the way Helen and
Christine had been bound

left one significant clue.

One of the girls was
tied with reef knots

and the other tied
with granny knots.

Now that's important in
that people instinctively

tie knots in a certain way.

So this was evidence, we thought,
that two men had been involved.

And because Helen and Christine
were very fit, strong young women.

One man could not have
overcome the two girls.

Tom and his team were confident
they were looking for two men,

but needed witnesses.

So they turned to the bar
where the girls were last seen.

At about 9:30pm they
got to the world's end pub.

In the process they had
met up with various pals.

Now, both the girls had had
a drink but were not drunk.

So they were all in the
world's end pub chatting away

when their friends noticed
two strangers to the company.

Two young men who they did
not know, but who were in the pub,

were engaged in conversations
with Helen and Christine.

The descriptions of the
men were quite interesting

in that they were not locals,
they had not been seen before.

And they had short hair.

Now, 1977 was the time of long
hair and the droopy moustaches

and all the rest of it.

So these guys were strangers.

So these women were seen
leaving the pub with two men.

They were seen
disappearing off into the night.

And what we think happened was
that the two men offered them a lift.

And that was the last
time they were seen alive.

The two male suspects made
the pub central to the investigation.

Now, the world's end pub
was an inquiry within an inquiry,

an investigation
within an investigation.

It was one of these sort
of stopping off places

where people
popped in for a pint.

So we had to try
and trace everybody

who had been in the
world's end pub that night.

For detectives back in 1977,
that was a huge challenge.

It was the dark ages.

There was no cctv.

There was no mobile
phone information.

We couldn't even
determine who had phoned,

who had used the telephone,
the pay telephone, in the pub.

We had none of that.

The pressure was on to close
the case because the fear was

if these killers weren't
stopped they would strike again.

The thing that we need to understand
about sexually motivated offenders

is that they are driven
by a need, a compulsion,

to control somebody sexually.

And when they offend that
relieves that tension, that anxiety,

for a period of time.

But then it builds again

and they need to do it
again and again and again.

Tom's team began
the painstaking work

of tracking down everyone who
was in the world's end that night,

as Helen and Christine's
horrific murders

were gaining huge
nationwide media interest.

It was certainly
covered quite extensively

on television news at
the time, newspapers,

there were billboards about it.

This was an unsolved
double murder

and there didn't appear
to the public at least

to be any significant
leads that they knew about.

It was very, very difficult at
times because there would be days

when I would just go into a shop

and just see a picture
of my sister's face

on the front page of a newspaper
and you wouldn't be aware.

The city of Edinburgh and
the nation were gripped.

It was a mystery,
a genuine mystery.

These two women had gone out,
something had happened to them

and then their bodies
had been found.

Who had done it? Was
that person still out there?

In the days following
Christine and Helen's murders,

their families had to come to
terms with the terrible reality

that they weren't coming home.

There would be
good days, bad days...

..Days to think,

days to cry, grieve.

What happened to Helen,
it changed all our lives.

I remember the first
Christmas after Helen's death.

I'm an 11-year-old and the last thing
my parents wanted was Christmas,

but do you know what, they
were going to do Christmas for me

and I was going to
do Christmas for them.

And even on that Christmas,

Helen had, with her first wages,
started her Christmas shopping,

so...

So even I had a Christmas
present from Helen

the Christmas that she wasn't
with us, the first Christmas.

Six months after the
murders of Helen and Christine

there was still a huge
amount of publicity,

generating hundreds
of leads for police.

People started
phoning up and saying,

"I think it was Freddie next door
or I think it was my ex-husband,

"I think it was
my ex-boyfriend."

But you've got to go through the
process of eliminating all these people.

So it was a massive,
massive inquiry.

Tom's team of detectives had
interviewed 500 possible suspects

and taken thousands
of witness statements.

But one year after the
murders of the two girls,

police were no closer
to making an arrest.

Witnesses gave
descriptions of those men.

Photofits were produced.

Yet, there was no quick arrest.

For the public in
Edinburgh at that time,

just that sense of these
people are still out there,

that must have
been huge for them.

The world's end murder
investigation had hit a brick wall

and police had a
difficult decision to make.

You cannot carry on with a
team, a squad of 100 detectives,

investigating nothing.

What you've got to do is
you've got to scale it back

and make sure that you are
alert and in a good position

to take advantage when new
relevant information comes.

And that's what we did.

When the decision was taken
to scale back the investigation,

we just had to accept it.

The roads and the routes
that they went down,

they were often just dead ends.

And the investigation
just tailed off.

Sadly, we thought that this
person would strike again,

or these people
would strike again.

And no-one would
wish that on anyone.

But everything was pointing
to these killers murdering again

and it wasn't
looking like the police

were going to catch
them any time soon.

The hope though was that
one day forensic science would.

Helen's coat was really the
only main piece of clothing

ever recovered and
she was found lying on it.

And shortly after we
took it back to the lab

we discovered that there
was a large stain on the coat.

Now, what we
could do at that time

was we could test positive
for semen, which we did,

and we got a positive for semen.

But that's about all we
could do at that time.

Very fortunately
for us at that time,

we had a very good crime
scene management set-up.

Forensic scientists actually
attended the scene of crime.

Now, that's standard now
but it wasn't standard then.

A very young biologist, he was
only 23 at the time, Lester knibb,

took ownership
of this crime scene.

Lester knibb and his
colleagues had a belief

that as forensic
science marched on,

eventually this coat
would give up its secrets.

So I've always described it

as being like in possession
of a rosetta stone

where there is a coded language
which you cannot understand,

but one day you'll
be able to decipher it

and it will give up its secrets.

The investigation may
have been cut back,

but Christine and Helen were
never far from Tom's mind.

Many police officers
have full careers

and are never involved in
cases as important as this.

This wasn't only the most
important case for me,

it was the most important case
for many officers who investigated it.

Allan Jones joined the police
straight out of school in 1979

and was drawn into the
investigation immediately.

The world's end was
really significant for me.

I was more or less a
contemporary of the girls as well.

I was born in '62,
they were born in '60.

So I was aware of the
press and media attention

that related to the
murders and the aftermath.

And I had the privilege,
because I was a cadet

and you were going to get
experience in different departments,

one of the departments
I visited was the cid.

And officers were still
working on the case.

So as a 16-year-old,

you are mesmerised by
the complexity of something.

There were thousands of cards for
every person that was interviewed.

Walls of statements.

And still some
ongoing enquiries.

It was a massive
part of my career.

Some of the greatest
highs and lowest lows

happened during
the course of it.

In 1998, over 20 years after
Helen and Christine's murders,

the scientific breakthrough Tom
wood had hoped for finally happened.

And it looked like the secrets
of the stain on Helen's coat

might be unlocked at last.

They came and told me,
"we've got a DNA profile.

"We've nothing better to do now

"than match it against
the DNA database,

"which was growing at that
time, and we'll find a match

"because this person
whose profile we've got,

"we must know who he is

"because he must have
offended before or offended since."

That was our belief. And I
remember thinking, we've done it.

In 1998, 21 years after
the murders of Helen Scott

and Christine eadie, forensic
scientists made a breakthrough

when they managed
to retrieve a DNA profile

from the stain on Helen's coat.

The national DNA
database held samples

from every criminal arrested
since it was set up in 1996.

Tom was certain it would deliver a
name and the case would be solved.

We took this profile and we
checked it against databases

and got nothing.

It was a huge disappointment

because we were so convinced
we had the answers here.

So we checked it
against the database here,

we checked it against the
growing databases in Europe

and Australia and the United
States, the FBI database.

Nothing.

It was a bitter blow, but Tom
refused to give up on his quest

to get justice for
Helen and Christine.

He sent a team,
including Allan Jones,

to get samples from
every known suspect

from the original
1977 investigation.

273 people were
in the pub that night.

And we had the names
of every one of those.

Some had passed since then.

But there was still a fair
proportion in and around

and we tracked
down all of the males.

And everyone of them, we went
internationally, we went abroad,

we got offices abroad to
take swabs to eliminate people.

After collecting a mass of samples,
none matched the DNA from the coat.

Once again, the case
looked like it had run cold.

It was a devastating
blow to all of us.

Despite another setback
detectives kept the case warm,

even making an appeal on
the BBC's crimewatch in 2003.

Tonight, there's a chance
of cracking one of Scotland's

most notorious double
murders in modern history.

The killing of two teenage
girls in Edinburgh back in 1977.

130 new witnesses came forward
but still there was no progress.

Forensic science was
developing faster than ever though.

Allan Jones' new job was
finding advances to help catch

Helen and Christine's
brutal killers.

I spoke with Tom wood about
the way to take that forward.

We got all the experts
in, behavioural advisers,

forensic experts from the
forensic science service.

Everybody at the
top of their game.

So they were able to feed in
to me what's the best option

of getting a more
definitive DNA result

or point us in the direction
of whoever the suspect

or suspects were at that time.

Then in 2004, Tom and
Allan had a breakthrough.

Finally, a small private company

said that the would deploy
a completely new technique

to try and separate the
different alleles of DNA.

It was like having
a pot of broth

and picking out individual
ingredients from the soup.

I mean, it was incredibly
complicated, but they did it.

Allan was the first
to hear the news.

The lead scientist at the time
phoned me one Friday afternoon

and said, "I've got
some news for you.

"We've examined that sample
and there's two DNA profiles on it."

The discovery confirmed Tom's
hunch that there had been two killers.

But was this newly discovered
profile in the system?

We had two men's DNA there,

plus the DNA of Helen,

and of course it was her coat.

It had another complete profile,

and when we checked
that against the database,

bingo, we got a hit.

It was Angus robertson sinclair.

Just as Tom had suspected,

Christine and Helen's
murders weren't a one-off.

Glaswegian Angus sinclair
was serving two life sentences

for his second murder and
raping 11 underage girls.

The penny drops.

He's never been involved
in the world's end enquiry,

not even on any
of the suspects lists.

We had one of the
two men identified.

Well, at that time, we'd
been looking for him

for eight years, searching
through hundreds,

if not thousands, of people,
and then it was there.

The answer was
there in front of us.

So, this is a guy who was
considered so dangerous

that when he was
jailed for life in 1982,

it was one of the few
instances in Scotland where,

at the point he
was sent to prison,

it was acknowledged that
he'll probably never be released.

The profile was a
billion to one match.

And after 27 years,

Tom and Allan finally felt
they had one of the killers.

It was just a celebration.

Everything had come
together and we'd got it.

We'd got... finally got one of
the people who'd been involved

in these horrendous murders.

We were ecstatic.

Ecstatic.

But it was the start.

It was start of a long,

long journey to get to the place
where we could finally convict him.

Tom and Allan wasted
no time visiting sinclair.

We interviewed him in prison...

Are you able to recollect at
all where you might have been

at that period in October 1977?

..And he gave
absolutely nothing away.

Nothing.

I take it by that you're not
wanting to respond to that question

asking you where you might
have been in October 1977.

You can apply techniques
to try and get them to break,

but in terms of
someone like sinclair,

he was a hardened criminal,
he would be set in his mind that,

during that interview, he wasn't
going to be saying anything.

You're not wanting to
respond to that question.

Is that correct?

Allan now turned to the
other unknown DNA profile.

He looked at known associates
of sinclair's from the 1970s...

..And quickly identified
his brother-in-law,

former decorator Gordon
Hamilton, as the most likely suspect.

Gordon was born in '55,

so he was Angus
sinclair's junior by ten years,

but he'd died in 1996.

The reason he wasn't on the DNA
database is he has no convictions

at all and was unknown
whatsoever to the police.

He was an alcoholic.

He'd died destitute.

He had been cremated.

He had no histological samples,
no hospital samples, no...

All of his possessions had been
lost over the passage of time.

He had no kids.

So we could never... We
could never get his DNA.

After coming so far,
Allan was determined

no-one was going to get
away with the girls' murders.

There was one option
that we had to pursue,

and that was to try and find
out residues that he'd maybe left

either on photographs or in
buildings that he had been in.

It was a long shot, but Allan's
team discovered a house in Glasgow

that Hamilton had decorated
just before his death.

We went in 2005, myself
and some other colleagues,

our forensic scientist
took samples of the paper

and also some cornicing,
some polystyrene cornicing,

and sent the materials down to
the forensic science service again.

And lo and behold, on
the inside of the cornicing,

where you would place
the two corners together,

there was fingerprints
and DNA left within there,

and that DNA was
Gordon Hamilton's,

and that DNA was the exact
same DNA that we'd been looking for

for all the years since 1996.

The police were confident
they had finally found

both Christine
and Helen's killers.

They then spent
a year and a half

building the case
against Angus sinclair.

There was a whole lot of supporting
evidence that went with this case.

Think of it...

The DNA on the... On the
coat was the strong central pillar.

Like the main
tent pole of a tent.

And the other supporting
evidence was all the strings

that went round to
support that pole.

That was how the case was.

The trial of Angus sinclair
began on the 27th of August, 2007.

30 years after Helen
and Christine's murders.

This was a huge prosecution.

This crime that had gone unsolved
so long was finally going to trial,

and there was finally the
chance to convict someone for it.

Kevin was present in court.

The first time I
saw Angus sinclair...

..I think I was quite surprised.

He was quite a small...

Quite a small
man. He wasn't tall.

I think at the time you could tell
he was probably quite a strong man.

Sort of stocky.

But...

..He just didn't look
anything... Anything special.

People saw it as a piece of
business that was finished.

People saw it as very
important because, as I say,

the world's end case had sort
of gone into the fabric of the area.

To the people of Edinburgh, a guilty
verdict was a foregone conclusion.

But in a surprise move,
the prosecution decided

to base their case on only
one key piece of evidence.

The crown decided
that they were...

..Going to go exclusively
for the DNA evidence

on the intimate samples.

You know, the rape aspect of it

and the... The semen
on the clothing etc.

The prosecution were
confident it was enough to win.

But sinclair's defence
destroyed their case.

He claimed he'd had
consensual sex with Helen,

and his dead brother-in-law
Gordon Hamilton

must have murdered
both 17-year-olds.

Watching the case being
badly managed in 2007

was like watching a
train crash in slow motion.

There was nothing
you could do about it,

but you knew what
was going to happen.

On the 10th of September, 2007,

the judge acquitted sinclair of all
charges due to a lack of evidence.

The prosecution's decision
had been disastrous.

The case was abandoned at
that time, and there was a furore.

Because it had been appearing
in the press, it was an iconic case.

The fact that the
case failed in court

was something that was felt
by the whole of the community,

government, police, the
law authorities themselves.

It was a shock.

And that shock, you know,

continued to go
throughout society.

Everyone knew a guilty
man had been let off the hook.

And despite the fact sinclair
was just going back to prison for

the rest of his life anyway, he was
incapable of showing any compassion.

It's a true
narcissist's behaviour.

There's no reason whatsoever
why this man couldn't have just said,

"yes, I did it,"

to save the families
all that heartache.

He was enjoying it.

It was him being
in control again.

In his offending,
he liked to control.

And even when he was in
prison, he still liked to control.

The result was devastating
for everyone involved.

For me, we'd built up, then
just dropped like stones.

And, erm...

..It was difficult. It was
really, really difficult.

The double jeopardy law
in Scotland meant sinclair

could never be tried for Helen
and Christine's murders again.

Even if he confessed.

But many refused to accept
that this was the end of the road.

It created a groundswell
of feeling at that time

that this was a wrong
that had to be righted.

It was just something that, you
know, couldn't be allowed to happen.

It was a devastating blow.

We tend to think of
miscarriages of justice

only in terms of people who
have been convicted wrongly,

but miscarriages of
justice can work both ways.

But this was wrong.

30 years after the tragic murders
of Helen Scott and Christine eadie,

the trial of the man detectives
were convinced was guilty,

Angus sinclair,
dramatically collapsed.

And to make matters worse,

the double jeopardy law meant
he could never be tried again.

You think, "it can't be.

"We've come this far, it
cannot be the end of the road."

We firmly believed that Angus
sinclair was guilty of this crime.

Public outcry over the case
prompted the Scottish judiciary system

to review the law.

What it ignored was the
fact that forensic science

was developing so quickly

that in serious cases, erm,

I may be found not guilty or
no case to answer this... Today,

but in six months' time, there might
be compelling forensic evidence

emerge to point me
as absolutely guilty.

And this was
particularly true of DNA.

Then, in 2011, the world's end
murders literally changed the law.

Double jeopardy was
repealed in Scotland.

Now anyone acquitted
of a crime could be retried,

as long as there was new
and compelling evidence.

That just absolutely
meant the world to us.

It gave us the
potential opportunity

to then get back in court...

..And...

..See justice done for
Helen and Christine.

But before that could happen,

yet another advance in forensic
science was going to be needed.

Allan Jones was the
obvious choice to hunt it down.

I believe in chance, but
this was really unusual.

After it had been repealed,

I was at a sio - a senior
investigating officer's - conference

down in england,

and happened to come
across the cellmark stand.

Where they were talking
about new technology

they had introduced
called sperm elution.

It's a more defined process to pick
out organic elements within DNA.

It's much, much more
precise and refined

than existing
technologies had been.

And they were using
that in combination

with a technique
called crime light.

Allan took all the evidence to
one of cellmark's senior scientists,

Geraldine Davidson.

This time, it was the carefully
stored ligatures used to tie

the victims that
proved to be crucial.

One of the really key things
was that we had been able to see

photographs of how
the ligatures were

for us to examine them.

And there were clearly
still knots present

that had never been undone
or examined previously.

So once you start thinking
about the contact involved

in repeatedly tying ligatures,

you start having a
reasonably high expectation

that whoever did
that will have left DNA.

Crime light allowed
Geraldine and her team

to use narrow
wavelengths of light

to identify tiny particles of
DNA deep inside the knots

that had previously
been invisible.

So we were able to identify DNA
that was matching Angus sinclair

and Gordon Hamilton.

It was exactly what Allen
had been hoping to hear.

We knew it was there, we just
needed time for technology to catch up

and provide the evidence.

And it did.

This new evidence proved that
nothing had been consensual

about what happened
that night in 1977.

It wasn't simply DNA
by being touched...

..It was such that it could
only have been caused

by him tying the knots tightly.

In other words, you know, it
was not something accidental.

On the 13th of October, 2014,

37 years after the murders
of Helen and Christine,

the second trial of
Angus sinclair began.

I attended the trial.

He had a huge, long beard,

and he looked like a
decrepit old individual.

And I don't know whether
that was part of the plan.

There was a feeling that the acts of
his past were catching up with him.

This time the prosecution's
case went to plan.

I think, in contrast to the
ultimate failure of the first trial,

the prosecution carefully led
the jury through every point

of forensic DNA evidence.

They spelled it out very clearly,
they had the scientists expressing

the possibility of things to, you
know, being a billion in one chance.

It was really presenting a
compelling picture for the jury

that there could be no other
explanation for what happened

than sinclair being responsible.

On the 14th of November,
2014, the jury found sinclair guilty

of Christine eadie and Helen
Scott's kidnap, rape, and murder.

When the guilty
announcement was made,

I just put my head in my hands.

And it really felt like a...

Just there was a
weight off my shoulders.

It felt like I'd taken a
big heavy overcoat off.

Something that had been there
for 37 years had just been lifted.

People have often said, "oh,
you know, you must've been

"really delirious about it."

No, it was just
an immense relief

that we had... the
job had been done.

Yeah, that was an emotional day.

To be part of, you know,
a historic change in the law

is just really satisfying.

A few days later, sinclair
was sentenced to life

with the longest ever minimum
term handed out by a Scottish court.

And one that was very symbolic.

So, the investigation
had lasted 37 years,

and Angus sinclair was
given 37 years imprisonment.

Having fought for
justice for so long,

sadly Helen's father,
morain Scott, passed away

just a year after the trial.

In a strange twist, he, erm...

..He died on October the 16th.

The same day as Helen.

Despite being
convicted of four murders

and spending almost
50 years in prison,

police are still looking
to connect sinclair

to other unsolved homicides.

Sinclair is known as Scotland's
most prolific sexual serial killer.

But I think this is a man
that is an absolute predator,

that there will be numerous
victims that we know nothing about.

What I'm sure of is
that Angus sinclair

was one of the
most dangerous men

ever to walk the face of this
country in the 20th century.

A cold case that
was never closed,

the world's end murders
have left a lasting legacy.

I was very proud of the way
that the force I was part of

had at last delivered justice.

It had never given up,
never stepped aside.

And that, because of
the change of the law,

hopefully at some time some
other victim will get justice

because of the legacy
of Helen and Christine.

It's small comfort,
but it's something.

A devoted mother disappears
off the face of the earth...

I believed that she was
never going to be seen again.

..And a technological breakthrough
finally identifies her killer.

You will never get him.