World's End Murders - Background

Background

On the night of 15 October 1977 Christine Eadie and Helen Scott were seen leaving the World's End Pub at closing time, the final stop on a Saturday night pub crawl. The following day, Christine's naked body was discovered in Gosford Bay, East Lothian by hill walkers. Helen's body was found unclothed six miles away from Christine's, in a corn-stubble field. Both woman had been beaten, gagged, tied, raped and strangled. No attempt had been made to conceal their bodies.

In the winter of 1977 Lothian and Borders Police conducted a high-profile criminal investigation, collating a list of over 500 suspects and taking over 13,000 statements from members of the public. Despite their efforts, they were unable to identify a culprit. The case commanded widespread attention in the Scottish media at the time, the photo-booth picture of the two girls used by police in their appeals for information, becoming an iconic symbol of the case (right).

Media outlets reported at the time, that several witnesses had told police, they had seen Helen Scott and Christine Eadie sitting near the public telephone in the bar, talking with two men. Neither of these men have been traced or since presented themselves to police. Speculation that the killings had been the work of two men was heightened, when it was revealed that the knots used to tie the girls hands behind their backs were of different types.

In May 1978 Lothian and Borders Police announced that they were scaling down the investigation.

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