bigrus

End of the World murders: Ten years since serial killer Angus Sinclair was sentenced to 37 years in prison

Harry November 14, 2024

Ten years ago today, serial killer and rapist Angus Sinclair was sentenced to a minimum of 37 years in prison for the murders of two teenagers in Edinburgh.

This remains the longest minimum sentence ever imposed by a Scottish court

Sinclair raped and murdered teenagers Christine Eadie and Helen Scott in October 1977 after meeting them at the World’s End pub in Edinburgh, in a case that became internationally famous.

The man convicted of four murders is suspected of being responsible for several more unsolved cases.

DNA first linked him to the World’s End murders of Scott and Eadie in 2004.

Serial killer and his brother-in-law Gordon Hamilton attacked the girls after leaving the pub on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.

The girls were raped in Sinclair’s caravan before being taken to East Lothian, where they were tortured, strangled to death and their bodies dumped.

At his trial in Superior Court in Livingston, the jury found Sinclair guilty of raping and murdering two girls.

Sinclair captured his first victim when he was just 16, luring seven-year-old Catherine Reehill to his home in Glasgow, where he sexually assaulted and strangled her.

He then threw her body down the stairs and said her death was an accident. He pleaded guilty to the 1961 murder and was sentenced to ten years in prison.

The judge in that case said Sinclair was “callous, cunning and evil” and no young girl would be safe around him.

In 1968, Sinclair was released and placed on probation for three years. He moved to Edinburgh where he met his wife Sarah. They married in 1970 before the family moved to Glasgow.

Although Sinclair appeared to have settled into family life, in reality he began a killing spree targeting young women in 1977.

End of the World murders - Angus Sinclair victims. — The End of the World murders – Angus Sinclair victims. STV News

All three women – Anna Kenny, Matilda McAuley and Agnes Cooney – were kidnapped and murdered after a night out in the Glasgow area. All of the murders remain unsolved to this day.

In 1982, there were a series of sexual assaults on young girls in the Govan area of Glasgow.

They would be asked to deliver a message to an apartment before the attacker followed them nearby and sexually assaulted them.

Sinclair is brought in for questioning by Detective Inspector Joe Jackson, who is now retired.

The police officer believed Sinclair had committed more crimes but could not prove it.

Mr Jackson, who was only able to get Sinclair to confess to his crimes with the help of his wife Sarah, believes catching Sinclair in 1982 prevented him from committing further crimes.

Sinclair was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1982 for attacks on 11 victims aged between 3 and 14. The judge recommended that he never be released.

Although he was in prison for life, it wasn’t until the development of DNA testing that Sinclair’s murders caught him.

He was about to apply for parole when police reopened Mary Gallacher’s case and made a DNA match to Sinclair.

The 17-year-old was sexually assaulted and had her throat slit before her body was dumped in a dump near a railway station in Springburn, Glasgow, in 1978.

In 2001, Sinclair was given a second life sentence for murder. A few years later DNA linked him to the World’s End murders.

Sinclair was sentenced to life imprisonment and a minimum of 37 years in prison in 2014; this was the longest prison sentence ever imposed in Scotland.

The 73-year-old man was found dead in Glenochil prison in Clackmannanshire in March 2019.