Signs of Murder: A small town in Scotland, a miscarriage of justice and the search for the truth by David Wilson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


July 1973. In the small Scottish town of Carluke, Margaret McLaughlin was brutally murdered, stabbed a total of nineteen times on her way to catch a train one evening. Local man George Beattie was convicted of her murder.

Yet, behind closed doors, many of Carluke’s residents were dubious about Beattie’s guilt. Despite providing a confession to police, Beattie maintained his innocence throughout his trial and subsequent prison sentence.

Leading criminologist David Wilson, himself a resident of Carluke as a child, reexamines Margaret McLaughlin’s murder and the evidence against George Beattie. Uncovering new evidence and exploring different perspectives of the evidence in the public domain, which suggests Beattie’s conviction may have been a devastating miscarriage of justice – for Margaret, for George, for their families and the wider Carluke community, Wilson pursues lines of enquiry that should have undoubtedly been explored more by the police at the time of the murder, which may lead to the true perpetrator of this horrific crime.

I first encountered Wilson’s work when I, with much excitement, spied ‘Hunting Evil’ on bookshelves – the definitive account of the case of the Suffolk Strangler and the serial murders in Ipswich in 2006. I’d followed the case in the media from the beginning (which had comprised a small single column, with no photograph, midway through the newspaper) and had become fascinated by it. Later, I was hooked by Wilson’s TV series on criminal psychopaths, and have since looked out for his documentaries in TV schedules, most recently ‘In the Footsteps of Killers’, in which he and Emilia Fox reexamine cold cases, as well as his published works. His autobiography, ‘My Life With Murderers’, was a fascinating insight into his time working in the prison system and latterly as a criminologist, exploring the criminal justice system and the psychopathology of violent criminals.

‘Signs of Murder’ is a natural successor to ‘My Life With Murderers’, exploring a case that is close to Wilson’s heart, one that took place in his hometown during his childhood. Reexamined in later years through the eyes of a criminologist, the concerns with the handling of the case and inconsistencies in the evidence become glaring, both the true murderer and corrupt officials protected by a veil of silence – something that, as a society, we are growing ever more conscious of, a discomforting issue that we must tackle again and again if we hope to overcome it.

Drawing on psychological analysis, investigative techniques and historical research, ‘Signs of Murder’ is an engrossing account of the unofficial investigation into a decades-old crime and exploration of how the system and society of the time may have enabled a miscarriage of justice. Reviewing the events and evidence in detail, while always sensitive to the pain caused to the individuals involved, this is gripping true crime and highly recommended to anyone who has an interest in detection, psychology and criminal justice.



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