Leona McGovern

Leona McGovern was found dumped in a car park behind the Arts Centre in Washington Street, Glasgow.

She had been throttled with a belt around her neck and stabbed seventeen times in the face and neck.

A man was tried for her murder but acquitted. The court heard that he had lived in a nearby hostel in Cheapside Street and that Leona McGovern had owed him money for drugs. However, his defence team produced another man who they said had killed her. The other man denied murdering Leona McGovern. The police also said, 'The man named by the defence was investigated by us and eliminated from our inquiries. We do not intend looking at him again'.

The prosecution at the trial said that Leona McGovern had owed him £30 but that she had refused to give it to him and that that he needed it to feed his drug habit. The court heard that he had been seen in the area and a security guard had said that he had seen the man stabbing at something on the ground where her body was found.

The court also heard how a prisoner that the man on trial for Leona McGovern's murder had shared a cell with whilst on remand had heard the man confess to the murder. He said that the man described how he had done it. The prisoner said that the man had initially denied murdering her, saying that her murderer must have been a psychopath, but said that:

The prisoner added that the man had also told him some months earlier whilst they had been taking drugs that he had throttled Leona McGovern.

A professor of forensic medicine said that Leona McGovern's murderer had probably not intended to kill her, but had instead been trying to disfigure her.

The location where she was found was 200 yards from Anderston, Glasgow's red-light area.