FEATURE: The Torso Murder

By MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
15 January 2010

When the scattered parts of a woman's body were discovered around the city, Edinburgh's murder squad swung into action. In the last of our series on Lothian murders, MARK McLAUGHLIN looks at how city police tackled one of their toughest cases - the Torso Murder

In one of the most gruesome cases Edinburgh's police have faced, it came down to inter-force cooperation to finally solve the Torso Murder

BACK in the 1960s, deep in the bowels of police HQ on the High Street was a basement office with a makeshift sign reading "Murder Squad" sticky-taped to the door.

"They are too busy for the niceties of interior decoration," observed an Evening News reporter as he made his way down those "bleak tunnels" to the office manned by Edinburgh CID's major incident team. In 1969 they were indeed very busy - as those officers began one of the biggest inquiries Scotland has ever seen.

On 24 March 1969 a railway plate layer examining the track under a flyover in Broomhall found a partially stockinged leg wrapped in a brown paper parcel. Within the hour the Murder Squad, led by Detective Superintendent Ronald Clancy, was on the scene.

Nine hours later, another horrifying discovery was made. A second leg was found after a woman reported a parcel lying in the Water of Leith in Balerno.

Det Supt Clancy informed the press: "We are treating this as a murder inquiry".

Every police force in Britain was ordered to check their files for missing women. Police leave was cancelled, forensic "battle wagons" were primed, frogmen were drafted in to search the length of the Water of Leith, bricks were thrown from bridges to estimate the trajectory of hurled body parts and locals were put on alert for any more suspicious parcels.

It was one of the most curious as well as grisly cases in Scottish history and Det Supt Clancy, the man in charge of the investigation, had been head of Edinburgh CID for less than a year when the case landed on his desk. However, the man described as a "lean, ebullient ex-Londoner" had been 22 years with Edinburgh Police, 18 of them as a detective, and he had very clear ideas about how the investigation should proceed.

"You've got to keep basic facts in mind," said Clancy. "Maybe it sounds a bit Irish, but this woman belonged somewhere. That is the starting point.

"You can get lost in theories. Two and two can make anything you want if you care to think about it for long enough. A policeman's experience tells you this. No - we are probing facts. Realities."

To that end, the foreshore at Leith and Cramond was searched, the Union Canal dredged, extra police were drafted in to scour the Water of Leith westward of Balerno bridge and the River Almond, and railway wagons and abandoned cars were investigated - but the reality, by the end of the first month, was that little progress had been made.

Blood-stained clothing found in Dalry, a package in Slateford, a parcel of clothes found at Dunblane Station and reports of a severed hand in Aberdeenshire all proved to be red herrings.

An appeal was screened at 29 cinemas across the Lothians and police even started asking children to look out for body parts while out during the Easter break. At the end of the holidays a fresh appeal was put out to returning university students who, in the days before 24-hour news channels, may not have heard the news.

As the weeks passed, the lack of any new information led police to fear that locals were afraid of being branded "busy-bodies" for coming forward. An increasingly frustrated Clancy identified a further 20,000 households for questioning and vowed to spend the next 30 years knocking on doors. He said: "I don't care if we get only two houses a day done but the investigations must be thorough".

However, it would ultimately fall to another force to put together the last few pieces of the gruesome jigsaw.

By 16 April, 32-year-old Elizabeth Keenan from Lanark had not been seen for nearly a month. Edinburgh Police maintained that Mrs Keenan was just one of the 500-plus missing women reported to them in their hunt to identify the body parts, but their counterparts in Lanarkshire had already formed suspicions about Mrs Keenan's husband James, who didn't report her disappearance for five days and only came forward when the severed legs were found 30 miles from his home.

The breakthrough came on 2 May, 1969, when a travelling scrap metal dealer William Townsley, 35, found the torso, with arms and hands still attached, of a woman in woods on the site of a former PoW camp about a mile from Thankerton village in Lanarkshire.

Chief Superintendent William Muncie, head of Lanarkshire CID, confirmed that they were exploring the possibility that the body parts may belong to Elizabeth Keenan. The fingerprints quickly confirmed their fears and her husband was arrested.

The following day, Mrs Keenan's head was recovered one mile east of the Lanarkshire village of Carnwath and her husband James Joseph Keenan, 34, a lorry driver's mate, was led under cover of a blanket from police cells to Lanark Sheriff Court, where he was charged with Elizabeth's murder.

After 44 days of intense police inquiries it took Muncie just a few hours to break Keenan down to a confession.

Keenan told how on 19 March he had killed his wife with an axe and sawed her body into several pieces.

Working behind curtains he washed his axe and hacksaw, scrubbed the blood-stained house, parcelled up the body in separate blankets and put them in the boot of his car. Eighty miles and four stops later the head, torso and both legs were scattered throughout south-east Scotland.

For the next month and a half Keenan carried on as if nothing had happened. He concocted a story that his wife had run away to London after a row, and he continued to drink and play dominoes in the local pub.

Realising that he had to keep up the pretence of the concerned husband, he helped organise a nationwide appeal to find his wife and told friends that he hoped the body parts didn't belong to Elizabeth.

However, by the time her torso was discovered there was a large body of evidence against him.

Remnants of the blankets that were wrapped around the body parts matched another blanket produced by Mrs Keenan's mother, and police found woollen fibres that matched Keenan's clothes.

In his confession Keenan told how he killed his wife because she threatened to leave him and take their daughter away.

The couple met at a dance hall in 1955, when Elizabeth was just 15, and within two years they were married. Neighbours described them as "a couple of lovebirds" but Elizabeth had difficulty conceiving and had to have several operations to help her get pregnant. Their one and only child Veronica Jane was eventually born in early 1968.

However, by that time the relationship was turning sour and rumours abounded that James was having an affair - or was at least hoping for one - with a pretty young clerk named Ray Shankley.

Following Keenan's arrest Miss Shankley strenuously denied the gossip. She said: "There was no suggestion of having a relationship. He did write to me once. He wanted to make more of the situation and I said no."

Friends described how Keenan was known as Mr Kindness - for his efforts to win friends by offering lifts and odd-jobs around town - and Tarzan, for his love of fitness and bodybuilding.

Despite his 5'1" frame Keenan's friends also described him as "small but tremendously strong" and said his biggest ambition in life was "to be a big man".

Keenan's head barely reached above the dock when he appeared at Lanark Sheriff Court on 27 May, 1969 and pleaded guilty to murdering his wife. A week later he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Senior Advocate-Depute Ronald King Murray QC said the conviction was "brought home by very thorough and painstaking police inquiries".

The Torso Murder was the most gruesome case Edinburgh police had been involved in for decades but it would not be the last time they would be called upon to hunt for discarded body parts.

In 2003, schoolteacher Alan Wilson, 51, was hacked up by former friend Ian Sutherland and dumped in a Merchiston garden. Sutherland was convicted of murder in 2004 and is currently serving life. On Hogmanay last year the head of 44-year-old Heather Stacey was discovered on a path in Hawthornevale. A man is currently awaiting trial charged with her murder.

However, the Torso Murder of 1969 has a special place in Edinburgh lore, according to an Evening News editorial of the day, "not only because it was a particularly gruesome crime but because the subsequent investigation was a model of cooperation between different police forces, forensic experts and the public".

TIMELINE

19 March 69 Last known sighting of Elizabeth Keenan

24 March 69 Two severed legs found in Broomhall and Balerno

2 May 69 Torso of a woman found in the woods near Thankerton village in Lanarkshire. Fingerprints confirm identify it as the remains of Elizabeth Keenan. Husband James Keenan arrested

3 May 69 Mrs Keenan's head is recovered close to Carnwath in Lanarkshire. James Keenan is charged with Elizabeth's murder

10 May 69 Keenan makes second court appearance

27 May 69 James Keenan pleads guilty to killing his wife with an axe, chopping her up with a hacksaw and distributing her body throughout south east Scotland

4 June 69 Keenan is sentenced to life imprisonment