A killer as a kid and a monster as a man, he evaded justice for years

HE WAS a boy when he killed for the first time. Angus Sinclair was just 16 when he lured seven-year-old Catherine Reehill into a basement in St George's Cross, Glasgow, sexually assaulted her and left her for dead. She had gone to the shops for her mum.

- BY JANE HAMILTON

He was jailed for culpable homicide and sent to a juvenile facility but only served six years despite dire warnings that he would kill again.

When he walked out of custody at 21, he returned to his old life as if nothing had happened.

He married, became a father, and worked as a painter and decorator.

But behind the mask of normality was a calculating predator.

By the 70s, Sinclair had partnered with his brother-in-law, Gordon Hamilton and embarked on one of the most disturbing killing sprees in Scottish criminal history.

They cruised the streets of Edinburgh and Glasgow in a camper van, preying on women, the method opportunistic and violent.

In 1977, as Scotland celebrated the Queen's Silver Jubilee, two teenage girls vanished after a night out.

Christine Eadie and Helen Scott, both 17, were last seen alive leaving the World's End pub on Edinburgh's Royal Mile.

Their bodies were discovered miles apart, Christine on a beach at Gosford Bay, Helen dumped near Haddington.

Both had been gagged, bound and raped. Christine had been strangled with her own tights, Helen had suffered multiple injuries and was left partially clothed in undergrowth.

The violence was frenzied and the double murder shocked the country.

A huge police investigation followed, but the trail went cold.

There were no eyewitnesses, no viable suspects, and no usable forensic evidence.

The case was filed as unsolved.

Families were left in limbo while Sinclair moved on.