Catrina Singleton

Unsolved Murders

Age: 4 months

Sex: female

Date: 12 Sep 1986

Place: 33 Park Square, Campbeltown, Argyll

Catrina Singleton died from injuries on 12 September 1986.

Her 50-year-old grandmother was acquitted of her murder. Although she was held to have been insane at the time Catrina Singleton died, it was heard that there was not enough evidence for the case to go to the jury.

Catrina Singleton's grandmother denied murdering her, claiming that she had been insane at the time and had been insane for three months thereafter, although by the time of the trial was sane and fit to plead.

At the time of the trial, the grandmother's address was given as, State Hospital, Carstairs.

It was alleged that the grandmother had killed Catrina Singleton by gripping her arms and body, beating her, dropping her or causing her to hit her head, immersing her in water and drowning her at 33 Park Square, Campbeltown.

The court heard that her skull had been crushed:

Like an eggshell as if used as a battering ram.

A professor of forensic medicine said that it was likely that Catrina Singleton would have still been alive before she was drowned.

The court heard that Catrina Singleton's mother and the mother's 26-year-old sister, had left Catrina Singleton and the sister's 4-year-old son with the grandmother and gone out for the evening and later returned at 3am, at which time Catrina Singleton was fine. However, they then left again and when they returned the following morning, Catrina Singleton was dead.

At the trial, Catrina Singleton's mother's address was given as c/o Cannon Row Police Station, London.

She said that she and her sister had coaxed the grandmother to babysit for them. She said that her mother was quite well and often looked after the children.

She said that Catrina Singleton and the grandmother were then locked in the flat. She said that they then went off to a party and that she and an American returned at 8am to feed Catrina Singleton. She said that her mother then left the flat and that afterwards they saw Catrina Singleton lying naked on the sitting room couch.

Catrina Singleton's mother had been living at 1 Park Square in Cambeltown at the time and on 11 September 1986 she went out for the evening with her sister and a friend.

She said:

We could not find a babysitter. My sister also needed a sitter for her son who was four at the time. My mother was staying at a woman’s house about a mile and a half from Campbeltown. My mother came to my sister's house at 33 Park Square and we asked her to babysit. At first she said she didn't want to, but we explained we wanted to go out so she said she would. When we went out my mother and my sister's son were in the house. My daughter was in care at the time.

She went on to say that she, her sister and a friend then went to Pipers Disco and that whilst there they met some American servicemen and left the disco with them and arrived back at 33 Park Square at 3am.

She then said:

We got my daughter out of the bedroom when we got back. Everyone was still in the small bedroom. My mum was awake and my sister's son was asleep. I took my daughter into the living room and all the people that were there were holding her, my sister and my friend and the Americans. Then my friend asked us to go to her mum's house at 14 Park Square. I didn't feed my daughter because she woke up and then went straight back to sleep. We put her back in with my mother when we were getting ready to go out. Catrina was perfectly alright at that time. When we went out I think my sister locked the door from the outside. She always did that because her son would get up and go outside.

They then went to the other house and stayed there until morning.

Catrina Singleton's mother said that her sister woke her up at 8am and told her she was going home.

However, she then said:

My sister came back and said my child was dead. I went back to my sister's flat but by that time the police were there and I couldn't get into the house.

When Catrina Singleton's mother was asked at the trial what her mother's health had been like at the time, she said that she had been well and could look after herself.

She said that she later saw her mother at Campbeltown Police Station and that she told her that she had done it.

She said:

She was in a cell and I spoke to her through part of the door which was open. I asked her what happened to Catrina and she said she had done it. She did not say anything more than that.

When she was asked whether her mother's behaviour was strange in the police station, she said:

She seemed different. She wasn't acting the way she usually acts. She said she liked it in the police station because she got tea and cigarettes. She said she killed my daughter and I know she never done it.

When she was asked by the defence whether or not she had been worried about leaving so young a child in the top bunk of a set of bunk beds, she said she had not been worried as she was with her grandmother and was too young to move on her own.

The sister said that she had been living at 33 Park Square with her son at the time of Catrina Singleton's death but that her son was by the time of the trial living with his father in America.

She said that she went to her sister's to get another bottle and some nappies for Catrina Singleton, noting that she was going to look after Catrina Singleton until her sister was ready to come back.

She said:

When we got back to my house my neighbour was shouting about water. I ran upstairs quickly and I went into the bedroom. There was water there. I went into the kitchen and the kitchen was mostly full of water. My son was in the kitchen and his clothes were all wet. A man came with me and helped clean up the water. Then I went into the living room and I looked and seen Catrina lying in the middle of the couch, she had nothing on, and she was all bruised. I shouted to the man, 'I think Catrina's dead'. He checked her pulse and said yes. My mother was sitting in a chair next to the fire in the living room at that time. She was dressed and had her coat on. She stood up and said she wanted to go home to get her breakfast. That was before I noticed Catrina. I asked her about the water on the floor, but she didn't say anything. I walked her down to the bottom of the stairs and she left.

When she was asked about her mother's health, she said that she was not really able to look after herself.

A 22-year-old sailor in the United States Navy said that he had met the sisters at Pipers Cave disco and gone back to 33 Park Square with them and that he saw Catrina Singleton there, noting that at the time she was uninjured. He said that he saw both the children and their grandmother in the top bunk before he left the flat.

He said that he returned the following morning with the sister.

He said:

When we got back we stood outside because the people living below said something to the sister, I couldn't understand what because they were speaking too fast. We went upstairs and I helped to clear up some water. The grandmother was sitting in a chair and the little baby was lying on the couch. It was not dressed and was not covered in any way. After the mother left I said to the sister, why don't you put some clothes on the baby because it was cold. The sister went over and touched the baby, then jumped back and I went over. I did everything I have been taught to do, but the baby was cold and it had been dead for a while in my opinion.

The two downstairs neighbours, a couple, said that they were woken up early on 12 September 1986 when water started running down the walls of their living room. The husband said that he went to the door of the upstairs flat but found that it was locked. He added that the sister and the American sailor then came to the door, but couldn't open the door as they didn't have a key.

Both the downstairs neighbours said that they had also been woken up at 3am by noise on the stairs and by a child crying, with the wife stating that she could identify the crying as that of the 4-year-old boy.

A woman that ran the Mile End Guest House, said that the grandmother had lodged with her for three years by September 1986.

She said:

I would say she was senile, but I would not say she was insane. She was one of the best lodgers I have had. as long as she had her cup of tea, a smoke, her meals and the TV she was quite happy. Anything you gave her she could not help but thank you. I used to bath her and dress her. She was not physically incapable of doing it herself, she just wouldn't. I had heard that she had been sleeping outside the swimming pool in the open and I was worried about her.

She said that on the evening of 11 September 1986 that she followed the grandmother into Campbeltown because she was worried about her, and saw her go into her daughter's house just after 7pm.

She said:

She came back the next day quite early. She took a good breakfast, but did not get finishing it because the police came and took her away. She seemed normal to me.

The professor of forensic medicine said that he found that Catrina Singleton was badly bruised but that the worst injury was a fractured skull, which he said would definitely have killed her, but that death had in fact been caused by drowning.

When he was questioned, he said that the head injury could have been caused if she had fallen out of the top bunk.

Two psychiatrists said that when they first saw the grandmother in 1986 that she had been insane and not fit to plead, but they both agreed that by the time of the trial she was sane and although still suffering from a mental illness, it was under control through medication. They both said that her memory of the events of 12 September 1986 was likely to be very poor.

A doctor that was called out to 33 Park Square on 12 September said that when he found Catrina Singleton she was dead and that he concluded that she had been severely assaulted.

When the case was brought to trial, the defence submitted to the judge that there was not enough evidence for the case to go to the jury. They noted that the pathologist's evidence suggested that Catrina Singleton's injuries could have been caused by a fall and that she might have drowned whilst someone attempted to revive her in a bath. The defence noted that the only other evidence was that of what the grandmother said to her daughters, but added that as the grandmother had been insane at the time, that was not reliable.

The judge then upheld the submission, and said:

This is a very sad case. It is obviously a case which the Crown had to bring, but I have decided that in law there is insufficient evidence to hold that whatever this woman did, she did it deliberately. My decision is to acquit her of the charge brought against her.

*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

see Aberdeen Press and Journal - Friday 11 September 1987

see Campbeltown Courier - Friday 11 September 1987

see Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser - Thursday 10 September 1987

see Daily Record - Thursday 10 September 1987

see Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser - Thursday 17 September 1987