How a callous murderer Angus Sinclair was caught 20 years later

Mary, who lived in Springburn on the north side of Glasgow with her five younger siblings and parents, was ambitious and had dreams of being a nurse with handicapped children.

Before she left the house that Monday evening, she said goodbye to her mother Catherine. It would be the last time Catherine would see her daughter alive.

A few hours later Mary’s partially clothed body was found on waste ground close to a footbridge at nearby Barnhill railway station in Petershill Road.

Mary Gallacher (Image: Newsquest)

She had been attacked as she walked to her pal’s house on the other side of the line, then forced at knifepoint into bushes and raped.

The killer had then choked Mary to death with the leg of her trousers.

In one final act of depravity, he slit her throat before fleeing the scene.

A grieving Catherine would later recall: “Mary kissed us all goodbye, borrowed my new handbag and told me not to worry as she wouldn’t be late. Mary looked a picture. She always had such a happy smile.”

A major murder hunt was launched with more than 90 detectives, but they drew a blank in their hunt for Mary’s killer.

Local men with a history of sex offences and violence against women were traced, interviewed and then eliminated.

A week later Mary’s handbag was found in a tenement close some distance from the murder scene, but it did not yield any clues to the killer’s identity.

At that time there was no CCTV that the police could use to track the killer’s movements, as is commonplace nowadays.

Despite interviewing hundreds of men, detectives made little progress and after a few months, the investigation was wound up with only a few officers remaining to follow up any new leads.

For almost 20 years the case remained in cold storage.

Mary Gallacher (Image: Newsquest)

However, in 1997 it was decided to review Mary’s unsolved murder using the latest in forensic technology including DNA. It was then, for the first time, that a prime suspect emerged.

Semen taken from a pubic hair on Mary at her post-mortem had been stored and preserved.

More importantly, it gave a DNA profile which was then compared to hundreds of thousands of others contained on the National DNA Database.

The computer flagged up a name, 54-year-old Angus Sinclair, who hadn’t featured in the original investigation.

Forensic scientists said it was beyond doubt that the man who raped Mary was the same man who murdered her.

Sinclair, who was already in prison, was arrested for her murder and stood trial at the High Court in Glasgow in June 2001.

The jury was told that the odds of the semen belonging to anyone else were 1.3 billion to one.

The prosecution also had the evidence of a witness from the time of Mary’s murder.

Barry McGonigal, 34, quickly picked out Sinclair in the dock as the man he had seen that night when he was just 14.

He had never forgotten his eyes.

Barry explained: “They were staring – like black holes.

“I was terrified the man with the staring eyes would come and get me. It has destroyed my life.”

Sinclair lodged a defence of incrimination, naming as many as 22 other men. But his legal team led no evidence and he did not testify.

A jury of six women and eight men took five hours to return a majority verdict after a trial lasting 12 days.

Forty members of Miss Gallacher’s family and friends cheered as the jury foreperson announced the outcome of the deliberations.

Sinclair, with greying hair and wearing gold-rim spectacles, sat impassively and stared only at judge Lord Carloway.

Lord Carloway then told Sinclair: “This crime was a callous, brutal and depraved act on a young girl for which there is only one sentence which I am allowed to pass in law, and that is one of imprisonment for life.”

As the judge sent Sinclair down, Mary’s family and friends shouted “beast” and had to be calmed by police.

Before sentencing, the court learned that Sinclair was already serving a life sentence and that Mary’s murder had been his second homicide.

In 1961 he had sexually assaulted and strangled neighbour Catherine Reehill, a seven-year-old girl who lived in the same tenement in St George’s Cross.

A medical report at the time concluded: “Sinclair is obsessed by sex and given the minimum of opportunity, he will repeat the offence.”

While the judge, Lord Mackintosh, told the killer: “No young girl would be safe with you about. I cannot conceive a more wicked crime.”

Sinclair was sentenced to 10 years for culpable homicide and released in the late 1960s after serving six years.

He was back at the High Court in 1982, accused of sexually assaulting 11 young girls in Glasgow, three of whom were raped.

He admitted carrying out the attacks on victims aged between six and 14 over a four-year period.

Sinclair, who lived in the South Nitshill area of Glasgow at the time, had been working as a painter and decorator – a skill which he had learned in prison.

The High Court in Edinburgh was told that psychiatrists believed Sinclair was too dangerous to be released. One said the only answer was a course of chemical castration to depress his sex drive.

Judge Lord Cameron told Sinclair he had a “naked and uncontrollable lust”.

Angus Sinclair (Image: Newsquest)

He continued: “I have considered very carefully whether a limit should be placed on the extent of that penalty and I have decided there is only one limit – namely your life – and you will be imprisoned for life.”

At the time, Sinclair was only the fourth man in Scotland sentenced to life to be told he would never go free.

Police did not link Sinclair with Mary’s murder at the time, as she was much older than his other victims.

However, the teenager was only 4ft 11in tall, meaning Sinclair may have thought she was younger.

Following the murder verdict Catherine Gallacher, 58, said that the family could now get on with their lives.

Speaking outside the court she added: “We never gave up, we knew that one day he would be caught. Now we can let our daughter rest in peace.”

Three years later police set up a Scotland-wide investigation – Operation Trinity – to look at the unsolved murders of women and possible links to Sinclair.

Police suspected he may have gone on an earlier killing spree between August and December 1977, murdering at least five women. His suspected victims were Anna Kenny, 20, Hilda McAuley, 36, Agnes Cooney, 23, and two 17-year-old pals Helen Scott and Christine Eadie.

Anna Kenny (Image: Newsquest)

Five women were found in countryside having been bound and gagged. All had gone missing after a night out at a dance hall or a pub and all had died a violent death.

As a result of the 2004 review, Sinclair was charged with the murders of Helen and Christine.

They had spent the evening at the World’s End pub on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile in October 1977.

Agnes Cooney (Image: Newsquest)

Both women were lured by Sinclair and another man into a caravanette parked nearby and killed.

In 2007 Sinclair was cleared of killing Helen and Christine at the High Court in Edinburgh after a judge ruled there wasn’t enough evidence for a jury to consider.

However, in 2014 he became the first person in Scotland to be retried for the same crime, following a change in the double jeopardy law.

Hilda MCauley (Image: Newsquest)

This time Sinclair was convicted of the double murder and given yet another life sentence – his third.

In Edinburgh, the breakthrough came when tiny traces of DNA on Helen’s coat were matched to Sinclair.

However, linking him to the murders of Agnes, Hilda and Anna proved more problematic as there wasn’t enough evidence to take the case to trial.

All three had met their killer after becoming separated from their friends while on nights out in Glasgow.

At the time of their murders, Agnes and Hilda lived in the city and Anna was from Coatbridge.

Angus Sinclair (Image: Newsquest)

Sinclair died in 2019 in prison, taking the secrets of any other murders he may have committed to his grave.

However, for the family of Mary there was at least the closure denied to the other victims’ families.

At the end of Sinclair’s trial for her murder, Mary’s uncle James Brown said the guilty verdict had ended years of anguish and pain.

The 52-year-old then added: “With science the way it is we always held out hope for the police catching this man.

“We are just hoping now to get on with the rest of our lives. As for Sinclair, I hope he rots in hell.”