Split Thread David Gilroy: murder conviction goes to Scottish Review Commission

[Alduma]

@Alduma seems to have been familiar with both the Allt Broighleachan track and the Succoth track before any of this even kicked off, and the Duncan Bàn road is also a place visitors would go

I lived in Dalmally for a time (late 90's) and was a keen mountain-biker. I biked all three routes then, and since. With the benefit of familiarity, the Allt Broighleachan is the best option. Both the Succoth and Duncan Ban tracks have dwellings on them so risky. Succoth also has the railway line passing nearby, and to reach the Duncan Ban monument you need to drive through Dalmally old village, a good chance of being noticed en route. The end of the Allt Broighleachan track is secluded, has no houses, and was not overlooked. It is a picnic area, so less suspicious to park there, rather than up a purely forestry track. It it is also off a (quiet) single track public road north of the A85, which removes him one step further from the R&BT route. Perfect.

However Gilroy did not have local knowledge and could have chosen any of them. Or none. Despite appearing quite a cool customer his plan was fundamentally flawed (large amounts of unaccounted-for time, switching his phone on too early on the way back) and his mind must have been racing the entire trip, he could easily have chosen one of the lesser-perfect spots.

Nonetheless I have an inexplicable feeling about the Allt Broighleachan picnic area. (Perhaps because it always struck me as an odd, viewless spot for a picnic bench anyway, up a dead-end in the middle of nowhere.) I have a metal detector; about time I put it to some proper use.

 

[dorricc0]

Hello. I have been following this thread for many years (lurking, only recently became a forum member). Every time I drive some of those routes I think about this case. It's fascinating that there was a successful murder conviction based largely/only on circumstantial evidence, which is somewhat against common beliefs that a dead body is required and/or circumstantial evidence doesn't count.

I don't have anything to contribute other than to say, thank you to the posters, especially Rolfe, for your insights.

 

[Rolfe]

Hello. I have been following this thread for many years (lurking, only recently became a forum member). Every time I drive some of those routes I think about this case. It's fascinating that there was a successful murder conviction based largely/only on circumstantial evidence, which is somewhat against common beliefs that a dead body is required and/or circumstantial evidence doesn't count.

I don't have anything to contribute other than to say, thank you to the posters, especially Rolfe, for your insights.

Welcome to the forum. I'm like you, I think about the case whenever I'm in the area. I cycled the 27-mile triangular route again in March to try out my new bike, and what with Suzanne probably near the B8074 and Tony Parsons up at Aust on the A82 it was quite sobering. I wish Suzanne, like Tony, could be found. I remember a long time ago @LittleSwan (who has something to do with forensic science) said that you really have to be a psychopath to get rid of a body and say nothing forever, most people eventually crack and tell. Like the McKellar guy did. But Gilroy could well be a psychopath.

In fact it was the strange nature of the case, with no forensic evidence and no eyewitness evidence that first intrigued me. I'm interested in miscarriages of justice, particularly Scottish ones (if you have a very long time to spare, get me started on Lockerbie and indeed Luke Mitchell), and I wondered if this could be another one. However, the more I read about it all the more convinced I became that Gilroy was guilty. The absence of any plausible explanation for the missing time on the Wednesday pretty much clinched it for me, but then I read an account of his appeal case. In that, he was trying to get off on a technicality. He claimed that he had been treated as a suspect on the Wednesday night although he was told he was being interviewed as a witness, and should have been read his rights but he wasn't. He was trying to get everything he said that night struck out on this basis.

Now he actually had a point there, I think the police did treat him as a suspect while he was supposed merely to be a witness, but if he was really innocent this wasn't the angle I would have expected him to go for. Not only that, it seemed to me that the only evidence his defence had to go on was the things he said that night. About the scratches on his hands being due to gardening, and the car having a problem and a few other things. So why disavow all that? Perhaps he was just using this as a lever to get another go in front of the court, but really, was that all he had? It became very clear from that that his entire strategy was simply to say to the police and the prosecution, I'm not saying anything, it's up to you to prove that I did it, good luck with that. This to me is not the approach of an innocent man. It is however the approach of a man who believes that he can't be convicted if the body isn't found. Unfortunately for him, you can. The case is a lot tighter than it seems at first sight.

I don't have any reasonable doubt about his guilt (I assume she wasn't abducted by aliens who then performed a mind probe on him to get him to behave in a way that made him behave as if he was as guilty as hell), but I can't see any way to narrow down the search area more than we have already.

By the way, I discovered a couple of years ago that a close neighbour of mine, a retired forensic psychiatrist, dealt with both David Gilroy and Luke Mitchell in prison after their convictions. Obviously he's reasonably circumspect, but it's pretty clear he thinks Gilroy is guilty and not quite right in the head, and that Luke is innocent.

 

[Rolfe]

I lived in Dalmally for a time (late 90's) and was a keen mountain-biker. I biked all three routes then, and since. With the benefit of familiarity, the Allt Broighleachan is the best option. Both the Succoth and Duncan Ban tracks have dwellings on them so risky. Succoth also has the railway line passing nearby, and to reach the Duncan Ban monument you need to drive through Dalmally old village, a good chance of being noticed en route. The end of the Allt Broighleachan track is secluded, has no houses, and was not overlooked. It is a picnic area, so less suspicious to park there, rather than up a purely forestry track. It it is also off a (quiet) single track public road north of the A85, which removes him one step further from the R&BT route. Perfect.

However Gilroy did not have local knowledge and could have chosen any of them. Or none. Despite appearing quite a cool customer his plan was fundamentally flawed (large amounts of unaccounted-for time, switching his phone on too early on the way back) and his mind must have been racing the entire trip, he could easily have chosen one of the lesser-perfect spots.

Nonetheless I have an inexplicable feeling about the Allt Broighleachan picnic area. (Perhaps because it always struck me as an odd, viewless spot for a picnic bench anyway, up a dead-end in the middle of nowhere.) I have a metal detector; about time I put it to some proper use.

You make a good point. If we assume Gilroy was making for somewhere he knew already (I'm pretty certain he was), then that, rather than suitability, would dictate where he went. The Allt Broighleachan picnic area could be as perfect as it likes, but if the place he had already been to was Succoth, not Glen Orchy, that would count for nothing. But there is another point, and you also touch on that. The picnic place at the Inbhir nan Allt is spooky. I've read a few accounts of treks up there on walking forums, and several people say pretty much exactly that. (It doesn't have a vista but it's still a pretty spot to stop. Just, well, eerie.)

If he'd been to Succoth or the Duncan Bàn memorial, these are not spooky. Maybe he would still have recalled either location as a possible disposal site, although as you say both seem to be more frequented than the Allt Broighleachan, but it seems to me that there's something about the atmosphere at the picnic place that would predispose it to be recalled in this context. Also the Allt Broighleachan track is the one with the vicious potholes and little fords, and witness the borked suspension.

It's also as you say a place where he could park the car with less chance of being noticed. I was interested in this photo posted by @NightOfTheDemon.



OK the logo on the car helps, but it looks quite natural there. Supposing Gilroy had been able to unload the body as near as possible to the edge of the commercial forest as he could get the car, then drag her into the trees out of sight, that wouldn't take very long. The going is very uneven but he was a big strong guy. A couple of minutes to re-park the car in an innocuous position like this, and even if someone passed by, would they think anything of it? All the calls for a silver Vectra were talking about the R&BT, Glen Croe and Hell's Glen, not Glen Orchy. It's most likely that nobody passed at all, but he would really only be vulnerable for the relatively short time it would take to get her in among the trees, then he could take his time with the concealment.

The little pond does look almost like the perfect place. Hidden behind the big tree, an almost stagnant backwater that would hold the body rather than allowing it to tumble or drift downstream, and a tendency for the surface to be covered by vegetation. If he could have been sure of being able to weigh the body down so it wouldn't float to the surface (and I wonder if he knew about puncturing the body cavities so that gas wouldn't turn the body into a ballon, and if he did was he prepared to do it?), then he could have concealed her fairly quickly with no need for digging. And the suggestion of wet clothes?

But on the other hand the commercial forest itself offers much better concealment for working, and unlike most such forests the floor isn't flat and open and covered with pine needles, it's carved out by a network of little waterways with a lot of sphagnum moss, and offers fairly good potential to find a hollow where she could be covered up.

I doubt if he would have dragged her over the almost-imperceptible ford to the other side of the Allt Broighleachan. Depends how high the water was, although Hugh Venables said it was unusually low four weeks later. But it's very rocky and I'm not sure where the advantage would lie compared to staying on the same side of the burn and going into the forest there.

The downer is that @NightOfTheDemon dragged that pond with a grappling hook quite a few times and got nothing but pond weed. The metal detector didn't go off at all. However, it had been something like 11 years and I don't know whether a body would simply sink into the silt in that time and not be caught by a grappling hook. He also scanned a bit of the forest and got nothing. But really, it would take a more systematic search such as @Bikepacker suggested to be more confident that we hadn't missed anything. In short, we didn't find anything but that doesn't mean there's nothing to find.

You say Gilroy could have chosen any of the three places. Yes he could, but like you I have a feeling about this one. Or chosen none? I'd put a pretty large bet on her being somewhere in the triangle of Tyndrum, Dalmally and Bridge of Orchy or a road close by, and given the restrictions placed by the nature of his transport and the fact that this was happening in the middle of the afternoon in broad daylight, only these three locations look at all likely to me.

 

[NightOfTheDemon]

The forestry clearance is advancing up the Allt Broighleachan, with areas closer to the River Orchy already cleared in recent years. One never knows - although clearance is done from the cab of large machines therefore workers may not be in a position to closely observe what's in the ground, the subsequent tree replanting will be done by hand.

Allt Broighleachan Foresty Clearance

The ongoing tree felling will reach the picnic bench area (on the other side of the river) and will be completed by the end of September 2025 according to this forestry website and this pdf. The trees opposite the picnic bench on the other side of the river are a possible disposal site and will be felled. If the bones are in there then hopefully they are found by the forestry workers when they are felling the trees or when they are replanting.

 

[NightOfTheDemon]

I have attached 2 images which are screen grabs from Critical Evidence episode 8 of season 2 (presented by Robbie Coltrane) which show the front seats of his Vectra. One explanation for the wet passenger seat is DG entered the river at the picnic bench and his clothes got wet. After the disposal he changed clothes, placed the wet clothes on the seat and put his suit back on. This is just one hypothesis, he may have spilled a drink on the seat.

 

[Rolfe]

The ongoing tree felling will reach the picnic bench area (on the other side of the river) and will be completed by the end of September 2025 according to this forestry website and this pdf. The trees opposite the picnic bench on the other side of the river are a possible disposal site and will be felled. If the bones are in there then hopefully they are found by the forestry workers when they are felling the trees or when they are replanting.

Great find! How do you track these things down?

It's possible the disposal was over the river, but I think less likely than on the side the picnic place is on. No sign that they're closing the Allt Broighleachan track from the Eas Urchaidh (just the much newer, post-Gilroy track from Bridge of Orchy), or scheduling any felling on the side we're more interested in. I suppose they might get to that once they've done the other side of the burn.

ETA: they also seem to be stopping at about the point where the ford to the mountain access crosses the burn, so most of the area you indicated across the river isn't actually scheduled to be felled in this tranche.

As Alduma said, the felling is so mechanised I'd worry that it would me more likely to further conceal a body dumped there than reveal it. There was a news item a long time ago about Hell's Glen being felled and looking out for her body there, but by the way the cops are behaving nobody is suggesting to the work crews in Glen Orchy that they might exercise some vigilance. Once the felling is done, what then? I've seen these eyesore scars left fallow and covered in rosebay willowherb for several years. By the time they get round to replanting I wonder what's likely to be left. And if nobody's really looking for anything. I imagine finding a skull would be a big wake-up, but long bones? Where do deer go to die if the stalkers don't get them?

If there is decent weather into October, I have a hybrid gravel bike that would eat that track for breakfast. Might be worth another wee trip up there? Just to see how the land looks with half the trees gone? Alduma? Anyone?

 

[Rolfe]

I have attached 2 images which are screen grabs from Critical Evidence episode 8 of season 2 (presented by Robbie Coltrane) which show the front seats of the Vectra. One explanation for the wet passenger seat is DG entered the river at the picnic bench and his clothes got wet. After the disposal he changed clothes, placed the wet clothes on the seat and put his suit back on. This is just one hypothesis, he may have spilled a drink on the seat.

I see what you mean. It does look a bit more like a spilled drink, but you could be right. Most cars have cup-holders so people don't spill drink on their seats, but anything can happen.

 

[Rolfe]

Despite appearing quite a cool customer his plan was fundamentally flawed (large amounts of unaccounted-for time, switching his phone on too early on the way back) and his mind must have been racing the entire trip.

This is one thing I always keep in mind. He must have been really stressed. I think that if the too-early switch-on (after nine o'clock I think by which time he must have been pretty exhausted) was his only real mistake he was doing remarkably well. I don't think he could have avoided the missing time though. If he had simply dumped her relatively close to a road and hoped she wouldn't be found - as Tony Parsons initially wasn't - he could have managed without losing suspicious amounts of time, and that would have been much less incriminating. But he really, seriously, couldn't risk her being found by accident - as Louise Tiffney was, albeit 15 years later. That case shows what can happen if the murderer leaves the body in a location which in itself will incriminate him, and it's later found by pure chance. Gilroy would have worked this out. I'm sure he took time to conceal the body more carefully.

I have wondered this about the proposition that he disposed of the body in a commercial forest. We all know these are felled on a regular cycle, and if he chose a fairly mature plantation, how long before the logging machines move in? But he may have thought that was worth the risk, given the highly mechanised nature of the felling, with the crew being way above the forest floor in the cabs of huge machines.

 

[Alduma]

If we assume Gilroy was making for somewhere he knew already (I'm pretty certain he was), then that, rather than suitability, would dictate where he went. The Allt Broighleachan picnic area could be as perfect as it likes, but if the place he had already been to was Succoth, not Glen Orchy, that would count for nothing.

This points more to the Allt Broighleachan track. He's much more likely to have previously visited a signposted official route listed in guides, than the uninviting Succoth and Duncan Ban options, both appearing to serve private property.

The picnic place at the Inbhir nan Allt is spooky.

It absolutely is.

Here is a walker following the route. Watched with the sound off it sums up the enclosed nature of the route (less so since the video, with forestry clearance) and it still feels eerie to me. Walk up and past Allt Broighleachan picnic area.

 

[Rolfe]

This points more to the Allt Broighleachan track. He's much more likely to have previously visited a signposted official route listed in guides, than the uninviting Succoth and Duncan Ban options, both appearing to serve private property.

It absolutely is.

Here is a walker following the route. Watched with the sound off it sums up the enclosed nature of the route (less so since the video, with forestry clearance) and it still feels eerie to me. Walk up and past Allt Broighleachan picnic area.

And yet, subjectively from just a few visits, I feel I'm more likely to encounter other people at Succoth or the Duncan Bàn monument. Possibly because the going is so much less challenging, and there is habitation around, as you say. You can just wander into Succoth right off the road, even though the tracks go on a long way, and the Dalmally road is tarred all the way to the monument with fairly level forestry tracks branching off from there. (I think it's another old Wade's road.) In contrast the Allt Broighleachan track is relatively steep and until you get to the picnic place you're just trudging upwards with forest on both sides. It seems to attract purposeful hikers, not casual strollers. (When I've been there recently there have been quite a few people around the car park and the bridge, but nobody seemed interested in climbing the track. Of course the car park wasn't there in 2010 and the bridge was that rickety structure leading directly into what looked like dark forest.)

I think it would have been a lot quieter in 2010, and midweek in early May he would probably have had the place to himself. I hadn't seen that video before, but then it was posted a few months after I went there for the first time. I was surprised he turned back so soon, but then as he said himself, lack of daylight. I was there in May on a lovely day and walked all the way to the Lochan Coire Thoraidh. Absolutely beautiful.

Paradoxically, much earlier in the thread, I initially dismissed this track because of the OS indication of a "Mountain Bike Trail" there. I was imagining something like Glentress with a bike hire facility and lots of people about and actual staff. When I realised it was just a forestry track the Forestry Commission had used to get brownie points from by labelling it as a bike trail and doing a bit of minimal maintenance, and that it was basically deserted, I changed my mind. It may be signposted and listed in guides, but it's not a major tourist attraction.

It's a pity, now that I've taken to camping in the car, that you can't get a car up there now. Otherwise I could have made it a base for a stay of several days!

My conclusion, arrived at while sitting in my car in the rain beside the Duncan Bàn memorial, was that any attempt to search that location or the Succoth track would be doomed to failure. It's not just that the tree felling in both places has rendered them relatively unrecognisable compared to what they presumably would have been like in 2010, it's the lack of an obvious place to start. The picnic place defines the Allt Broighleachan location - the track up to it is too constrained between the burn and the forest for any disposal attempts, and the deer fence puts an absolute limit on where he could have taken the car. (Realistically he's unlikely to have gone past the picnic place.) So assuming the car was parked at the picnic place we have a manageable area. In the other two locations we just have miles of fairly undifferentiated tracks that don't even look as they would have looked to him 15 years ago.

So even though it's not certain that's the right location, it's the most probable, and it's the only practical one to concentrate on.

 

[Rolfe]

If he could have been sure of being able to weigh the body down so it wouldn't float to the surface (and I wonder if he knew about puncturing the body cavities so that gas wouldn't turn the body into a ballon, and if he did was he prepared to do it?), then he could have concealed her fairly quickly with no need for digging.

Thinking about this, I don't think he would have tried to puncture the body cavities to prevent the body from floating. It would have been a messy job and he was being very careful not to get DNA on himself or the car. I'm not at all sure that you could get enough stones in her jacket pockets or whatever to keep the body submerged. The pond might have been too risky in the short term with the possibility of things floating to the surface and the summer in prospect when people might well be walking in that location.

 

[NightOfTheDemon]

The above photo was taken on 1/6/2021. All other photos were taken on 16/4/2021.


Photo taken 16/4/2021

The trees for life car (a Honda CRV all wheel drive) has to drive through this - presumably very slowly to limit any suspension damage and DG would have to drive through this to get to the picnic bench/deer fence. Driving too fast through this ditch may have contributed to the "4 fractures to 3 suspension coils" (see paragraph 9 - here)

His car could have been damaged on the way to the picnic bench as above and damaged further on the track from the picnic bench to the deer fence. (as seen in these photos below) Any search should include another look in the forestry areas to the left and right of the track between the picnic bench and the deer fence. (especially at the turning point)

 

[Rolfe]

There is another cracker of a suspension-busting ford on the way to the deer fence. First my photo when the water level was low. At least you can see the depth of it like that.



Note the tree shadow over the danger zone, this was about the same time of day and the same time of year Gilroy was concealing the body. Now this is Hugh Venables' photo four weeks after Suzanne's murder, at a slightly earlier time of day by the look of it.



More water in there so you can't see the depth. Especially if that tree shadow was right over the "puddle" as in the previous picture. A real elephant trap. (On the other hand, it was cloudy on 5th May 2010, so maybe that's a non-point.)

ETA: Wait, that's the same place as the last picture in your post, isn't it?

Mind you, I don't think I'd have gone beyond the picnic place, myself. He could easily have borked his suspension before that. There is a slightly odd side to this in that his driving times indicate that he wasn't flooring it at all that day, on the actual roads, so I'd be surprised if he was going faster than was prudent on the potholed tracks. But you don't need to be going that fast to do real damage when these sorts of obstacles are in the way.

Actually, looking at the amount of water in that wee ford four weeks after Suzanne's murder compared to how it was at the same time of year in 2019, that would suggest that there was significantly more water in the burns in 2010. And four weeks earlier there would probably have been even more. I think this suggests that the Allt Broighleachan itself would have been significantly higher when Suzanne was being disposed of than it was at the times I have seen it, and I would suggest this would have precluded crossing that burn either with a car or carrying/dragging a body. It was OK to walk through with the right footwear when I saw it (you'd have got wet - I filled my water bottle there and there was still quite a lot of water), and a Land Rover or similar could have done it, but it would have been too risky for a normal saloon car. If he'd got stuck there, or punctured a tyre, he'd have been toast.

 

[Alduma]

When I realised it was just a forestry track the Forestry Commission had used to get brownie points from by labelling it as a bike trail and doing a bit of minimal maintenance, and that it was basically deserted, I changed my mind. It may be signposted and listed in guides, but it's not a major tourist attraction.

We rarely met a soul when biking that route, from 1990s into 2000s. And that was at weekends. Everywhere’s much busier now than it was in 2010, the Scottish tourist industry has gone crazy in the last decade.

 

[dorricc0]

Thinking about this, I don't think he would have tried to puncture the body cavities to prevent the body from floating. It would have been a messy job and he was being very careful not to get DNA on himself or the car. I'm not at all sure that you could get enough stones in her jacket pockets or whatever to keep the body submerged. The pond might have been too risky in the short term with the possibility of things floating to the surface and the summer in prospect when people might well be walking in that location.

This part of the story is a bit horrifying isn't it. So he's killed her, presumably accidentally, and has now decided to dispose of the body. Gilroy is not a serial killer (and even serial killers take a few kills to perfect their 'art' / 'technique') so I doubt he would have the presence of mind to think about puncturing the body or weighing it down. It's just too grotesque for an amateur murderer to think about, isn't it? Just dump it (sorry Suzanne, to reduce you to an 'it') somewhere in the vast landscape of Argyll.

 

[Alduma]

I have seen somewhere photos of the damage to the underside of Gilroy’s car - could someone point me to them please? (If only there was one place for all evidence sources.)

 

[NightOfTheDemon]

These are screengrabs from the Critical Evidence video (which I downloaded from YouTube but is not there anymore)

The video is available to watch free here with adverts or on Amazon or Apple TV if you have a subscription.

 

[Alduma]

Amazing work, thank you.

I was thinking that actually those dips in the picnic area track didn’t look too bad, and actually not likely to cause significant damage. And I was thinking about the concrete trough that used to cross the track just after the bridge over the River Orchy, which is ingrained in my mind after hitting it on a fast mountain bike. And I was thinking - it would be interesting to see the underside of Gilroy’s car to see whether it had been hit by a rocky boulder, or a consistent scrape right across from a trough. And (although I’m fitting evidence around our preferred theory) that last photo would seem sonsistent with my thoughts.

 

[Rolfe]

We rarely met a soul when biking that route, from 1990s into 2000s. And that was at weekends. Everywhere’s much busier now than it was in 2010, the Scottish tourist industry has gone crazy in the last decade.

That has been my opinion too. I went up on a Wednesday (as far as I remember) in late May, in 2019. Despite the existence of the car park and the better bridge and the trees being cleared from around the area of the bridge, and a fair few people walking dogs along the B8074 and gawping at the Eas Urchaidh, nobody was attempting the track up. I saw only one person in fact, a woman, who passed me on the way up when I had decided I was too hungry to wait till I got to the picnic table and had sat down at the side of the track to eat lunch. She must have turned on to the cycle trail to Bridge of Orchy because I wasn't that far behind her and I never saw her again. It was a gorgeous day, too. Gilroy's day was dull and overcast, also just two days after a bank holiday weekend, when people tend to have done their off-road hiking for this week. There was also no car park (cars were parking on the grass verge then) and the track into the trees didn't look particularly inviting. I think he'd have been very unlucky indeed to have met anyone.