HE’S THE DEVIL IN THE WOODS, HE’S PURE EVIL
Linda, 52, relives her ordeal at hands of killer psychopath
A MUM who survived a horror attack by twisted Robbie McIntosh has spoken for the first time about her ordeal – branding him “the devil in the woods”.
Linda McDonald described the 32-year-old “Law killer” as pure evil and said she had not returned to the place where he tried to murder her while she was walking her dog.
McIntosh was jailed for life with a minimum of 15 years in 2002 for the knife murder of dog walker Anne Nicoll on Dundee Law.
He was out on home leave in August 2016 when he pounced on Linda with a dumbbell in Templeton Woods, near Dundee, leaving her with two skull fractures, hand injuries and permanent scars.
The 52-year-old felt blood running into her eyes and ears and screamed for help as she was dragged into the woods.
Brothers Charles and Peter Connor stumbled upon the scene and McIntosh fled. He was later traced in a house wearing blood-stained boxer shorts.
Linda spoke for the first time about the attack on TV documentary Murdertown, which appeared on the Crime and Investigation channel this week.
She said: “For me, it’s the devil in the woods. It’s the monster. It’s never going to be the way it was before. He’s not human – he’s evil. He’s pure evil.
“The part of his brain that would have to consider empathy and understanding and all those emotions doesn’t work.”
The programme also included interviews with former and serving police officers who were involved in bringing McIntosh to justice twice.
Linda told the programme what happened to her was “just hell”.
She said McIntosh’s attack had left her looking “like the Elephant Man”, adding: “A lady called Joyce lay down with me and she just kept speaking to me and asking me questions.
“I begged her not to go because I didn’t want to die on my own. I didn’t know if I was going to live.”
At the High Court in Aberdeen in February this year, McIntosh was handed a lifelong restriction order for the attack.
After the trial, Linda’s husband Matthew blasted the decision to grant McIntosh home leave.
He said: “Given his past conviction for a brutal murder, I can’t believe the Scottish Prison Service deemed this sick individual, who attempted to murder my wife, was to be allowed to be in the public domain.”
And he called on the Scottish Prison Service and parole board to examine their criteria for release and assessment.
The Daily Record revealed CCTV footage of McIntosh leaving his mum’s home, in Bridgefoot, on the way to attack Linda.
We told how locals in the village had warned the authorities about the killer’s alarming behaviour in the weeks before the attack but nothing was done.
They described him prowling the streets at night, often standing outside homes whenever he was on work placements, preparing for parole.
He would also sit by an ornamental fire in his back garden into the early hours “in a hypnotic state”.
They were so concerned, they told councillor Beth Whiteside, who took their warnings to Angus Council.
But they reassured the community that McIntosh was “being monitored” by “multiple” agencies.
I begged Joyce not to go because I didn’t want to die on my own LINDA McDONALD