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Unsolved Murders
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James Cox

Age: 19

Sex: male

Date: 17 Dec 1991

Place: Morris Crescent, Blantyre

James Cox was beaten to death at an address in Morris Crescent, Blantyre, and then later buried on some waste ground on Basket Road, East Kilbride.

Two people were tried for his murder, but they blamed each other, and neither were convicted, although they were each convicted for burying his body.

The two people were a 19-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man and had been lovers.

The woman was found not guilty of the murder charge whilst the murder charge against the man was found not proven.

The woman said that she saw the man hit James Cox over the head with a hammer and then tighten a wire round his neck. She said that she was then forced by him to carry his body, which was wrapped up in carpet, out into his garden hut and that two days later, at around midnight, he forced her to help him take the body to some waste ground where they buried it.

The woman denied that she lost control and killed James Cox after he made a sexual advance towards her and that the man had then helped her to cover it up.

She said that the man had murdered James Cox because he had set fire to his car and broken into his home. She said that the man dug the grave in waste ground in Basket Road and then later invited James Cox to his home on 17 December 1991 for a drink. She said that after James Cox arrived she had watched television in the living room whilst James Cox and the man were in the kitchen, and said that when she later went into the kitchen to get some coffee at about 10.30pm, she saw the man beating James Cox over the head with a hammer and pulling a wire round his neck.

She said that there was blood everywhere and that the man threatened her, telling her to keep her mouth shut or she would be next.

The man denied that he hit James Cox with a hammer and tightened a ligature round his neck.

He said that he punched James Cox on the face when James Cox sexually assaulted the woman and then pulled him away from the woman, in her defence, by means of an extension cord and that it was the woman that then hit James Cox over the head with the hammer.

He said that he then helped the woman dispose of James Cox's body because he loved her.

After the murder, the man had contacted James Cox's father several times to enquire about his whereabouts and to ask whether there was any news of him.

After the verdicts were heard, the judge described the woman as a vicious, sadistic, and calculating liar, stating that she had given an acting performance in the witness box.

It was noted that the man and woman were actually arrested whilst they were disposing of James Cox's body whilst it was wrapped up in the carpet by a policeman who confronted them and then charged the man with disposing of rubbish in an undesignated area. The man had said that the waste was old tiles and wood.

The body of James Cox was not found for another two years after which the woman told the police what had happened, and the police took tracker dogs out to the place where James Cox had been buried.

They were both convicted of destroying evidence and burying the body. The man was sentenced to 18 months and the woman to 12 months' detention.


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