Elizabeth Sutherland

Elizabeth Sutherland was murdered at her home in Culbokie, Black Isle, on 24 September 1984.

She was stabbed to death and had her throat cut in her house.

Her body was discovered by her 9-year-old daughter.

A 30-year-old labourer was convicted of her murder and spent 18 years in prison for her murder before having his conviction quashed.

Elizabeth Sutherland had lived in a cottage called Dunrobin which was on the outskirts of Culbokie on the road towards Munlockie, the next village.

Elizabeth Sutherland was noted for only being 4ft 9in tall and weighed 6st 4lb. She was also known as Totsie. Her husband was a builder and they had a son. Elizabeth Sutherland also had a 9-year-old daughter.

On the morning of 24 September 1985 Elizabeth Sutherland dropped off her daughter at the village school. She then went and picked up the morning paper at a local shop.

By midday, after calling at her parents house, she had returned home and had been finishing off her housework. Then, at about 12.30pm, she walked 50 yards down to her parents house to see her sister. They had been planning for a local bulb show in the village.

Around the same time, a lorry driver, driving along the Mount Eagle Road, past the Mount Eagle trasnmitter, in the direction of Culbokie, and then past Dunrobin. As he was doing so, he said that a red Cavalier car overtook him, and racalled that the registration number ended with the letter T. however, shortly after, further along the road, he saw the red cavalier car parke dup near a gate to a field with the driver apparently gone, less than a quarter of a mile from Dunrobin.

Elizabeth Sutherland left her sisters place after talking to her for no longer than 10 minutes and was back home by the time the lorry driver passed her house, the time beingm, according to his tachograph, being 12.38pm, the last time she was definatly seen alive.

It was noted that locals recalled seeing several unusual things. The first was the sighting of a man cycling into Culbokie at about 1pm. He was described as wearing a hat and a fawn coat, however, the police were never able to trace him.

Later, at 1.35pm, a man was seen on the Duncaston Road walking towards Culbokie, he he was also never traced.

Then, between 2pm and 4pm, another car was seen, a white Cavalier, was seen parked up close to Dunrobin, only a few yards away. However, the car was never traced. It was seen by two separate witnesses.

At about 4pm, Elizabeth Sutherland's daughter returned home from school and found her mother dead.

It was thought that she might have been murdered after disturbing an intruder.

The pathologist that examined Elizabeth Sutherland's body said that he thought that her attacker had first strangled her to incapacitate her, stabbed her on the chest and then twice cut her across the throat. He said that it was his view that the attacker had struck her from behind, holding her round the neck, before inflicting the stab wounds with a single-edged knife. He said that she would have only lived for a few minutes after being stabbed.

He said that he thought that considerable force would have been used in inflicting the more serious of the two thraot wounds, which was gaping and was 4½in long and 1in deep.

He said that three of the stab wounds had penetrated her lungs and that bruising on her neck suggested she had been held in a stranglehold.

He estimated her time of death as being between 12.10pm and 2.10pm.

Early reports were made of an English man with blood on his hands calling in at a petrol station at Conon Bridge to fill a can with petrol and a search for him was made, however, he was soon after traced and eliminated after it was found that it hadn't been blood on his hands and that he had an alibi.

In January 1985 the police said they were going to fingerprint all the men that lived in or had visited Culbokie, which they later compared to fingerprints they had.

The man that was convicted of her murder had been brought up in Culbokie but moved away at some point but returned a few times to commit burglaries. He had been living in England at the time. He was arrested a year after the murder, but blamed another person for the murder. However, he was tried on the evidence of a prisoner that he had shared a cell with who said that he had confessed to the murder to him.

The police also linked him to the scene via footprints that had been found outside the house. However, the footprint evidence was later discredited by scientists and the evidecen of the prisoner, the key witness to whom the man had allegedly confessed, along with another cellmate, was found to be unreliable, and as such the man's conviction was quashed in 2005.

There was also doubts raised about the credibility and reliability of evidence given by a senior detective.

The court heard that the new evidence:

however, it was reported following the man's release that Elizabeth Sutherland said that he remains convinced that the man was guilty.

However, the man that was convicted said that he would always beleive that it had been Elizabeth Sutherland's husband that had murdered her, and called for a public inquiry.

The court heard that het man had been in the Willington area at the time, collecting scrap with a friend. The friend later gave evidence against the man.

At the time of the man's arrest, his address was given as 4 Ulceby Road, South Killingholm, South Humberside.

He was arrested following a burglary in August 1985 in Culbokie. during their investigation they got a call from a garage hand in Muir of Ord who recalled a man calling in wanting some holes drilled in some new number plates. The garage hand said that he became suspicious and so made a note of the real numberplate of the vehicle the man had been driving and called the police. When the police investigated they found that the vehicle had been reported missing from Perth and they issued a warrant for the man's arrest.

He was arrested on 20 August in Crook and when the police searched his home they found a television that came from the recent burglary in Culbokie. However, they found nothing to connect him to the murder.

It was noted that he had already been interviewed a month after the murder and that he had at the time appeared to have an alibi, stating that he had been in England with a friend.

However, when the police interviewed his friend, he told them that he had gone on a theeiving expedition with the man across Scotland. However, when he was pressed he said that it had been the man that had murdered Elizabeth Sutherland. He said that they had been driving around in a red transit van with the words EVENING CHRONICLE in eight inch letters on the side and that as they drove along Mounteagle Road towards Culbokie that they saw the cottage, dunrobin and that they drove around towards the back by some woods and that the man got out to burgle it. However, he said that the man took a long time and that when he came back he had nothing, but had had a wash and that his hands, which had been dirty from earlier stealing metal poles from along a road, were clean.

He said that after they had hidden in a quarry and then later driven back to Durham, in England.

The man added that he recalled stopping off at the Conon Bridge petrol station to buy some petrol, and that it had been him with the blood on his hands, noting that he had cut himself on a hack saw whilst cutting down snow poles.

At the trial the man gave a detailed account of how they had gone through the forest at the back of the cottage and that the man had then gone in. He then noted that shen the man came out, over half-an-hour later, that he had appeared shocked, looking the same way his mother had on the day his sister died.

When the man was tried, he initial had an alibi, but halfway through the trial he changed his story and said that it had been the other man that had gone into the cottage and killed Elizabeth Sutherland.

After the man admitted to having been at the cottage during the murder, it was heard that it was just a case of proving that it had been him that had gone it, and not the other man.

It was heard that the attack had been carried out by a big strong man that had possibly lifted Elizabeth Sutherland up off her feet when strangling her and that the stab wounds had been caused by a strong person. It was then noted that the man had been over 6ft tall whilst his friend was only 5ft 8in tall. Further, the footprints found in the garden were estimated to have been either a size 9 or 10, and the man was a size 9 whilst his friend was a size 7.

At the trial it was heard that the train of events in the murder appeared clear, and that was that Elizabeth Sutherland had come home from her mothers and had started to do some washing up and had heard a noise from one of the bedrooms and had gone to investigate, still holding the dishcloth in one hand and the knife she had been washig in the other. She was then thought to have encountered the murderer going through some of her husbands documents and that he had turned and attacked her, first strangling her and then stabbing her, and after that he had washed the knife and put it back in the kitchen drawer and then dragged her body into the bedroom where it was found.