The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large (65 page)

Margo had six brothers, though her younger brother Billy had been killed in a road accident at the age of 18. He had been left brain-dead in a coma when they had to switch off the ventilator. Her father had died when she was just a toddler. After a night of drinking, he had choked to death in his sleep. His death left the family struggling and her mother would go without food so the children could eat. But they were a happy family and the house was always full of the children’s friends – there would be as many as 14 for Sunday lunch.

The others remember Margo Lafferty as a carefree child, full of laughter and charming enough to wheedle sweets from the man on the ice-cream van when she had no money. As a young girl she had been soft-hearted, always ready to help a pal in trouble. Once she brought home a school friend who’d lost her mother. The girl stayed with the family for six years and whenever Margo got something the other girl got the same.

Margo’s older brother Monty, who assumed the role of father figure, treated his little sister like a princess, always buying her frilly things. But she was a tomboy, who would wear her trousers right up to the school gate before changing into the uniform skirt she hated. She could play football better than most boys and captained a local team.

“She was never ’feared of anybody or anything in her life,” her mother said. “She was the only one that would face up to Monty. The rest of them would never answer him back, but Margo would stand and confront him.”

Curiously for a girl of her calling, she was not interested in boys. Local lads were crazy about her, but when they came on to her she would reject them.

“I can’t be bothered with it, Ma,” she would tell her mother. “They’re too serious.”

The family lived in Barlanark, then a run-down estate riddled with drugs. Margo started sniffing glue, then moved on to harder things.

“She was a daring lassie,” said her mother. “She wasn’t scared to try anything once. If only she’d realized where it was going to end up.”

As addiction took hold, her life became increasingly chaotic. She would spend the night out with one “friend” after another, selling her body to buy drugs. One minute she would be the life and soul of the party, the next she would crashed out on the sofa.

One day, her mother came home to find Margo lying on her bedroom floor in a coma. Her face and lips were blue, and there was a syringe sticking out of her groin. Her mother pulled the needle out and slapped Margo’s face to get her breathing. It took a quarter of an hour to bring her round. When her mother explained what had happened, Margo called her a liar. Her mother said: “I’m sorry, Margo. I can’t take any more of this.”

“Fine, Ma,” Margo replied and left.

“I didn’t put her out of the house,” said her mother. “The lassie knew herself she couldn’t go on like that. It had got to the stage where you were ’feared to leave her in the house. You didn’t know what was going to be missing when you got back. I told her I would keep her, but I wasn’t knocking my pan in to keep her drug dealers.”

She knew that Margo could look after herself. Although only five foot, she was tough, aggressive and knew how to use her fists. Many of the other girls on the streets would turn to her when they needed physical protection.

“I’ve seen her taking the jacket off her back and giving it to an old woman in the street, but she had a bad temper,” said her mother. “You needed to watch her because she’d hit you as soon as look at you. She was very brave physically. Not that she went out looking for bother, but she wouldn’t run away from it either. That was why I told the police that Margo fought, that whoever had murdered Margo had been well and truly scarred. She would fight for every minute of her life and every second.”

Indeed she fought ferociously with her killer, gouging the flesh of his face.

Margo was the seventh prostitute to be murdered on the streets of Glasgow in six years. Another would follow. But hers was the only case where the police secured a conviction. Men accused in two other cases were acquitted. Suspects in another were released. And in four cases no arrests have been made. But, as we have seen, prostitute murders are notoriously difficult for the police. Between 35 and 40 remain unsolved in England and Wales each year.

In Glasgow all the murdered women were drug addicts who had turned to prostitution to support their habit. Such women are often estranged from society and there is little pressure on the police to discover who was responsible for their fate. And by the nature of their calling, few admit knowing them.

The killings began in 1991 when 23-year-old Diane McInally was found dead in Pollok Park, near the Burrell Collection, Glasgow’s famous art gallery. On 15 October, her body, clad only in a black mini-dress and stockings, was dumped under a bush. She came from the Gorbals, where drugs were bought and sold openly on the streets. It was thought that she was killed because she owed drugs money. Two men were arrested for her murder, but later released due to lack of evidence.

In April 1993, 26-year-old mother-of-two Karen McGregor was found dead in the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre. She had been battered around the face and head with a solid object, strangled and sexually assaulted with a foreign object.

The police had an obvious suspect. Her husband, Charles McGregor, was arrested and charged with the murder. Two witnesses said that they had seen him beat his wife to death with a hammer, but retracted their statements in court. Another witness said they had seen Karen’s battered and bruised body, but grew fearful and ran off before observing the situation further. A woman testified that she had seen McGregor in the cemetery, crouching over his wife’s grave and saying: “I’m sorry, Karen. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” And a fellow prostitute gave evidence that Karen was fed up giving all the money she had earned to her husband to feed his drug habit.

However, when McGregor appeared in court, he did not look like a junkie. He wore a smart suit and overcoat, and had his hair neatly cut – looking every inch the thrusting young businessman. The jury were impressed and returned a verdict of “not proven” – a third option allowed by Scottish courts. He later died of a drug overdose.

On a warm summer evening in June 1995 the body of Leona McGovern was found in a Glasgow car park. She had been stabbed seven times with a screwdriver, then strangled. The petite 22-year-old, barely five feet tall, had been sleeping rough. Two weeks before her death, her boyfriend died of an overdose.

“He meant a lot to her,” said Detective Chief Inspector Nanette Pollock, who was leading the investigation. “When he died she really lost it.”

Then Leona had found her best friend dead in bed.

On the night she died she owed her dealer money and asked her brother to lend her £35, but he could not give it to her. About 7 p.m., a security guard said he saw a man stabbing something on the ground. At the time he thought it was a bag of garbage as he could not imagine witnessing a murder take place in the street in broad daylight – even in Glasgow.

A man was arrested and charged with Leona’s murder – but, again, the jury returned a not-proven verdict. He claimed the murderer was another man who had been seen with Leona in the last two weeks of her life. He was not her boyfriend, just another homeless person she hung around with. Inspector Pollock thought their relationship entirely innocent.

“Homeless people tend to stick together,” she said. “They’re in the same situation. She’d lost a lot in her life.”

The body of 34-year-old mother-of-two Marjorie Roberts was pulled out of the River Clyde in August 1995, four days after she drowned. Citywatch cameras taped her walking by the river with a man. A month later the same man was arrested after trying to push another prostitute into the river. She managed to struggle free and ran to a taxi driver for help. However, she did not want to press charges. As a prostitute and drug user, she did not want the glare of publicity.

“She was a drug addict,” said Marjorie’s younger sister Betty. “They don’t care about their own life.”

There were no witnesses and no marks on Marjorie’s body – nothing to indicate that she did not slip and fall into the water accidentally, perhaps, at night when it was pitch black, or even jump in and drown.

“She had Valium in her body,” said Betty. “When she went into that Clyde she had no strength to fight.”

It was Marjorie’s boyfriend who introduced her to drugs. At first, she took temgesics – a barbiturate used to treat withdrawal symptoms. Then people in the projects where she lived began selling heroin. Marjorie’s boyfriend left her and the children and she started letting prostitutes use the house to take drugs. By the time he came back Marjorie herself was on the game.

“He just went, ‘Well, hen. As long as you’re using plenty of protection.’ He didn’t care,” said Betty. “‘She was dead shy and quiet. She never had any confidence. That’s how we couldn’t believe she could go and do that.”

As her habit grew, her life slipped downhill. In her last few months, she slimmed down until she looked like a skeleton. She would sit motionless with her face covered for hours on end. Eventually, her doctor prescribed Valium.

Like Karen McGregor and Marjorie Roberts, 26-year-old Jaqueline Gallagher had only been on the game for five or six months when she died. Jacqui’s own mother did not even know her daughter was a prostitute.

“I know those girls,” she said. “See the way they’re dressed? When I saw Jacqueline she was never like that. She was always prim and proper. People used to say, my God, she’s beautiful. If she was a wee bit taller she could be a model.”

Like Leona McGovern and Margo Lafferty, Jacqueline Gallagher was only five feet tall. She had met her boyfriend when she was just a teenager. He was ten years older and already on drugs – but then, so were most of her friends. According to Gordon, they were very much in love.

“On our 10th anniversary she was running about and singing, ‘Our House in the Middle of the Street’,” he recalled. “She was happy. I came in with a big, massive card and I got her a gold necklace. She loved gold. I put bits of gold in her coffin, things that we’d given each other.”

Their idyllic life together was marred only by drugs and the periods he spent in prison for shoplifting. While he was inside, she wrote hundreds of love letters to him that he kept in a plastic shopping bag. One read: “Gordon, I know myself it’s not going to be long till you’re walking through the door, and baby I will be there for you. I always will be, Gordon, no matter what. You know that yourself, baby.”

However, on his last stint in prison Jacqui did not visit him as she had before.

“She knew I hated this,” said Fraser Gordon.

He knew the risk she was running, earning money as a prostitute.

“I told her, I worry about you from the moment you walkout that door to the moment you walk back in,” he said. “It’s frightening. You don’t know how much strain you’re putting on me.”

On the night she died in 1997, Jacqueline was picked up by car from the kerbside in Glasgow. Later her half-naked body was found on a grass verge near a bus stop in Bowling, a village four miles outside the city. She was hidden in shrubbery and wrapped in a home-made curtain. The fabric was pink and grey, and the lining white with blue polka dots. The police never managed to discover where it came from – even after it was shown on the nationwide TV programme
Crimewatch
.

The police had a suspect – 43-year-old George Johnstone of Erskine, who was one of her clients. But he was cleared and the real killer is still at large.

“Somebody knows who killed my daughter,” said her mother. “I didn’t know she was a prostitute but it doesn’t matter what she was doing. She was a lovely girl and didn’t deserve to be killed.”

Gordon Fraser was devastated by Jacqui’s death. Six months later, he was found on the roof of his house, throwing down slates and threatening to kill himself by setting himself on fire.

Twenty-one-year-old single mother Tracy Wylde was the only victim to be murdered indoors. Like Marjorie Roberts and Jacqui Gallagher, she was new to the game and only went out on the street a couple of nights a week.

She lived in a top floor flat, which she kept impeccably. People were always trooping up and down the stairs to her flat, leading neighbours to wonder if she was a drug dealer. According to her friends she was not, just a timid girl who could not say no – though others say she was warm and funny, with enough confidence to talk to everybody.

“I was shocked when I heard about the prostitution,” said a neighbour who lived downstairs. “I said to her about the risks she was taking, but she said she’d rather go out and earn money like that than steal it off anyone else. She knew what that was like.”

But her work as a prostitute allowed to keep her three-year-old daughter Megan, who was always conspicuously well dressed.

Tracy had had a troubled upbringing. She had been raised by her grandparents and called her grandfather “Dad”. He came up to her flat nearly every day and even dropped her off in the city centre sometimes when she was working on the streets.

“I feel sad for her,” said her downstairs neighbour. “It couldn’t have been an easy life for her.”

Tracy was killed in the early hours of 24 November in her home. Strangely no one heard anything that night. Her block had poor soundproofing and residents could overhear neighbours’ conversations and footfalls. But not even her downstairs neighbour, a young mother who was kept up by her 11-week-old baby, heard a thing.

After Margo Lafferty died on 28 February 1998, the police discovered that she had gone with two violent criminals that night. On the dark piece of waste ground where she was found dead, they picked up two condoms. One contained the semen of Brian Donnelly, who had previously tried to set fire to the house of his former girlfriend and their son, and he had also mugged an old woman. The other contained the semen of Scarborough construction worker David Payne, a convicted sex offender who had been jailed for holding up a woman at knife point and indecently assaulting her.

That night Donnelly had been out celebrating his 19th birthday but went into a rage after being rejected by a couple of female work colleague. Instead he decided to go with a prostitute and was captured on CCTV with Margo before the pair went to the disused builders’ yard in West Regent Street for sex. The jury was also shown CCTV footage showing a man, who the Crown said was Donnelly, walking away wearing a leather jacket Margo had borrowed.