Murder of Robert Allan

 On December 1, 1904, 34-year-old Robert Allan was at his home at Drumshangie Farm between Greengairs and Airdrie, Scotland with his wife and 3-week-old child. This was the first night that they did not have any servants at the farm. 

Just after they went to bed some people came up to the window and disturbed them. This irritated  Robert and he opened the door holding his double-barrelled fowling piece. He fired into the sky to scare them away. This however did not happen as the people became more roudy. He went back in put on his trousers and went back out with his gun. He would fire another shot and never be seen alive again. It's believed he had followed the men down the roadway to where the trolley had been drawn.

He would be found dead on an old pit road leading from the farm to Watstown. He was lying across a track partially on his right side with one arm underneath him. His gun was a few feet away from him resting on the embankment on the road. It was found that he had been shot in the stomach. It's believed he was shot with his own gun. 

One theory was that he had stumbled in the dark and accidentally shot himself, but his guy was found several feet away and the locks of the gun were found to be empty of cartridge cases. The other is that Robert and one of the men fought over the gun and he was shot in the struggle. That the killer moved him and his gun from their original positions. 

SOURCES:

Unsolved Murders UK

Murder of William Ronald Cree

On the night of June 23, 1923, 31-year-old Philip Murray and 30-year-old William Cree would be in Philip's room at a tenement home at 40 Jamaica Street, Edinburgh, Scotland. The two would get into a fight. William would be thrown from the second story and would die from it. 

Philip was arrested and tried for the murder. He was adamant that William fell out of the window on his own accord. The majority would find him guilty and set to hang on October 30th at Calton. Philip would carry a crucifix to his execution.



SOURCES:
British Executions
The North Star October 10, 1923
Lincolnshire Echo October 10, 1923
The Gloucestershire Echo October 30, 1923

INFANTICIDE: August 26, 1952 Dunblane, Scotland

 On August 26, 1952, a newborn baby was found Thornhill to Callander Rd in Dunblane, Scotland. She was found lying among pieces of newspaper, garbage, and potato peelings. The baby was found alive and was murdered. Someone had shove portions of newspaper down her throat. It's believed that someone may have taken the child there in a garbage pail, probably by car, and disposed of the previous night.

SOURCES:

Unsolved Murders UK

Murder of James Humphrey

In Aberdeen, Scotland 51-year-old Catherine Davidson/Humphery and her husband James Humphrey were said to be drunks and to not get along. On several occasions, she threatened to kill him. She would openly hope that someone would poison him. One time she held a razor to James' neck and threatened to kill him as he dared her. He knew that one day his wife would end up killing him.

Janet Petrie was a servant of the Humphery's and 6 weeks before 16 April 1830, she had gotten a vial of vitriol (sulfuric acid) to burn off a wart on Catharine's wrist. Before April 16th very little was used in the vial.

On the night of 16 April 1830, James was not happy when he came home to see Mrs. Walton in his home. He tried to kick her out and this caused James and Catherine to fight. The fight was both verbal and physical as they struck each other. Catherine and Mrs. Walton would then hide out in a room and lock the door. This did not keep James from breaking the door and forcing Mrs. Walton to leave.

Around this time a John Roy would come over to the house. The two men would drink whiskey and ale together that night. Roy would leave and James would ask Janet to cook some beef steaks. She did as he went to his bed in the kitchen. Janet would give him the beef steaks and would go to bed, it was unusual for her to do this before Catherine or James. While she was getting ready James called for her to take the steaks away as he couldn't eat them.

Catherine had decided that night she was going to hurt her husband. She would pour the vial into James' open mouth and give him a drink with it in it. The acid was also on a glass as a child who'd tried to drink it got burned.

She would wake up Janet only dressed in stockings. She was smiling as if in joy when she told her that "James is ill" Janet would go down to check on James and found him withering in pain. "I'm burned...I'm roast...I'm gone." were some of the things he was screaming. She would try to tell him that he must have had a bad drink while out, but he knew better. “Oh, woman, woman whatever I have gotten, it was in my own house.”

Neighbors began to gather at the home, as James agonizing shouting attracted the neighbors. They would essentially hear him accuse his wife “Oh, woman, woman, you have tried to do this often, and you have done it now.” James would die of his injures.

Catherine would be calm during the murder trial. She plead not guilty. The jury though would return with a guilty verdict and be set to be executed. She was so stunned and accepting of her verdict that she didn't hear when she was going to be executed. She would later ask one of her visitors how long she had.

She was treated well while she waited for her execution, but a day from her youth ran through her head. She was a witness to the hanging of a habitual thief, Jean Craig, on 25 July 1784. She was in the crowd and it had become customary to throw the cut rope out into the crowd. The rope had touched her chest and terrified her.

At 2:30 p.m. on 8 October 1830, Catherine hanged. She would then be buried in at the old Aberdeen jail.

SOURCES:
British Executions
Lena the Hyena 
The Black Kalender by  James Bruce
Blood and Granite: True Crime from Aberdeen by Norman Adams
Aberdeen Journal, and General Advertiser for the North of Scotland September 15, 1830
The Morning Post September 20, 1830
The Caledonian Mercury October 11, 1830
The Lancaster Gazette October 16, 1830
The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, Western Countries and South Wales Advertiser October 19, 1830

MISSING: Moira Anderson

On Feb. 23, 1957, 11-year-old Moira Anderson left her grandmothers Coatbridge, Scotland home to go one an errand for her grandmother. She was supposed to go and buy a birthday card and butter for her mother's birthday. This was unfortunately during one of the worst snowstorms that the area knew.

She was last seen around 5:15 p.m. on the bus by a couple. Police believed that the girl was abducted while traveling home on the bus and murdered. Her body was never found.

Two years later Janet, Moira's sister, was out on her lunch break from school. A man working under his hood asked her to hold his dipstick. While holding it the man groped her and she ran from him, but not before taking note of his registration plate. She reported it to the school and they called the cops. This caused the school to ask students to pair up if they leave.

Nothing was done of this incident, but it was later found out the man was Alexander Gartshore. At the time Alexander Gartshore was out on bail for raping his young babysitter. He was also the bus driver of the bus Moira was last seen on. 

When his daughter, Saundra Brown, was older she wrote a book Where There is Evil about suspecting him of killing young Moira. At one point he when she was bringing up his shortcomings as a father he told her that his father thought he killed Moira. That his father tried to convince him to go to the police to admit where Moira's body was. He said he didn't know the girl, but was the last person to talk to her. It wasn't a confession, but his own father was convinced he had done something to the girl. His own daughter even believed so. 

He died in 2006. He was a suspect before his death but wasn't prosecuted due to a lack of evidence. But in total it isn't really known what had happened that snowy night. 

Moira is a white female and was 22 at the time. He's 5'3" and 113 lbs. She was wearing a fawn-colored kilted Burberry coat, a blue winter scarf, a blue jumper, a lemon-colored cardigan, a thick tweed skirt, fawn socks, brown shoes and a navy-blue woolen pixie hat with red bands. 

SOURCES:

Doe Network

BBC

The Scottish Sun

Old Glasglows Murders

The Rosemarkie Man

In 2016 members of the Rosemarkie Caves Project discovered the body of a medieval man in Black Isle, Ross-Shire in Scotland. He was found in the recess of the cave with his legs crossed and rocks on top of his limbs. He was possibly buried there because it may have been thought of as an "entrance to the underworld" as part of a ritual. animal bones near his remains showed there may have been a celebration for him. Even though it seemed as if he was carefully buried his death was brutal.

It's believed that he was Pictish. The Picts were a group of tribes in Scotland during the iron age and Medieval times. Romans gave them their name likely from the word "picti" which means painted ones. The Picts had distinctive tattoos and war paint.

The man had died between 430 to 630 and was around 30-years-old at the time. He was 5'6" and was well built much like a rugby player.  He had a high protein diet. The fact that he had a high protein diet and didn't have any injuries that warriors would have or wear and tear from being a laborer it's believed he was Royal or a Chieftain. 

His end was not pleasant. He had been attacked about the head 5 head injuries With a weapon the first 3 impacts broke his teeth and fractured his left jaw and the back of his head. The 4th, which likely ended his life, the weapon used was driven through his skull from one side out the other as he was laying on the ground. 

It's unknown who this man was and why he was killed and this will remain a mystery. 

SOURCES:

Archeology

Live Science

BBC July 24, 2019

BBC Feb. 17, 2017

Ancient Origins

Murder of Lord Darnley and William Taylor

Henry Stuart better known as Lord Darnley came from a family that had both the Scottish and English thrones via ties with James II of Scotland and Henry VII of England.  He had the potential to claim either side. Lord Darnley met Mary Queen of Scots when he was 20 in Feb. of  1565.

The two became smitten with each other. They have soon married in July and he had become King of the Scots. Soon the bliss faded though. Lord Darnley had a bad temper and made enemies in a drunken and arrogant manner.

Mary Knew that he shouldn't succeed the crowd as he would make an awful ruler. She refused to grant him the Crown Matrimonial which would make him the successor if she was childless. Mary didn't have to worry about that as she became pregnant with her son James. Who would become the future James I of England.

Mary became close to her private secretary David Rizzio. He was stabbed 56 times on March 9, 1566, by Darnley and his confederates and Protestant Scottish nobles. This was all front of Mary whom people suspected was pregnant with David Rizzio's child.

In 1567 Lord Darnley was staying the Kirk o' Field in Edinburgh, Scottland. In the weeks leading up to Feb. 9, 1567, he was either suffering from smallpox or syphilis and stayed at the Old Provost's lodging at Kirk O'Field. He had formed pocks on himself. He was staying with his family in Glasglow before but Mary thought he'd do better there.

On Feb 10, 1567, around 2 a.m. an explosion could be heard. The place that Lord Darnley resided was in rubbles, but his body was not inside the home. He and his valet, William Taylor, were found in the orchard. Their bodies were found outside surrounded by a cloak, a dagger, a chair, and a coat. Darnley seemed

Two barrels of gunpowder were placed underneath Lord Darnley's room. Something had spooked him and he and William ran outside the place. It's believed that Lord Darnley had been asleep at the time because he was only dressed in a nightshirt. He had apparently been smothered there were no physical signs of violence, but he had internal injuries possibly from the explosion. It's not stated how William died and why they thought the items that were around them were around them.

Some suspect that it was Mary who had plotted his death. That she may have gotten revenge for David Rizzio's death or because she was in love with James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell. She was a devout Catholic and believed that divorce was not an option.

It's unknown what had really happened that night.

SOURCES:
Tudor Society
Wikipedia
The History Jar
Historic Mysteries