Killers jailed three decades after murder of 14-year-old Caroline Glachan
The murder of a 14-year-old girl almost three decades ago left a “void that can never be filled”, a judge has said, as he jailed two of her killers for life.
Robert O’Brien and Andrew Kelly were sentenced on Monday for the 1996 murder of Caroline Glachan, who was beaten unconscious and left to drown in the River Leven near Renton, West Dunbartonshire.
O’Brien, Kelly, and 44-year-old Donna Marie Brand were convicted after a trial last month at the High Court in Glasgow.
The witness evidence of a four-year-old boy, which was deemed not credible at the time but was later corroborated by other accounts, was crucial in bringing the three killers to justice.
Caroline had been a popular teenager “kicking against boundaries” when she formed a relationship with O’Brien, who was then aged 18, Lord Braid, presiding, said.
She had become “infatuated” with him and agreed to meet him on the night of Aug 25 at Black Bridge at the River Leven.
However, rather than the “romantic encounter” she expected, O’Brien arrived “mob-handed”, with Kelly and Brand, and carried out a “murderous assault” with blunt weapons before leaving her face down in the water.
O’Brien, the ringleader, will serve at least 22 years in jail, while Kelly was sentenced to at least 18 years. Brand was ill so will be sentenced at a later date.
“It is hard to find words to describe the evil nature of your crime, but three which come to mind are brutal, depraved and above all, wicked,” Lord Braid told O’Brien.
He described Caroline as a “lover of life” and said the killers had also robbed her mother, Margaret McKeitch, of her daughter.
Caroline had said she was having a sleepover with a friend but snuck out to meet O’Brien on the night she died.
Lord Braid told them: “Mrs McKeitch speaks eloquently and movingly of the lasting pain which Caroline’s death has caused, the void which has been left in her life which can never be filled, and the incalculable feelings of deep loss and sadness which will always be there.
“She has been deprived of seeing the woman that Caroline would have become and of taking pride in the potential Caroline may have fulfilled.
“No sentence that I pass can possibly make up for what she has lost.”
‘I saw Caroline in the water’
A police investigation was launched after Caroline’s body was discovered, but at the time police failed to find enough evidence to bring charges.
As part of their investigation, they had taken evidence from Archie Wilson, who was four at the time of the killing.
On the night of the murder, he and his younger brother, Jamie were being looked after by Kelly and his then girlfriend, Sarah Jane O’Neill, while the boys’ mother was out with friends. It later emerged that O’Brien and Brand were also at the property.
When questioned at the time by police, in an interview played to the jury, Archie told them: “I saw Caroline in the water”.
He also claimed that O’Brien hit Caroline with a stick and a metal pole, and that when she was pushed in the water, he closed his eyes. Police interviewed him after he told other adults what he had seen.
The young boy’s evidence was deemed not credible because of his age and the three killers, as well as O’Neill who has since died, stuck to the same alibi, claiming they had spent the night babysitting the children.
However, after the case was reopened in 2019, police reinterviewed neighbours and one said they had seen the children leave the property with the accused on the night of the murder.
She said she had then heard a commotion and arguing after they returned, corroborating the child’s account.
Lord Braid said Kelly, 16 at the time, had played a “lesser role” in the murder than O’Brien but was still part of a plan to “inflict murderous violence upon Caroline Glachan”.
He told him: “While you were not the principal perpetrator in the physical assault itself, you must take equal responsibility for having left Caroline lying face down in the water when she was still alive.”
