Court shown gruesome images of scene in flat but pair deny murder
BY VIC RODRICK GRAPHIC images of a woman lying in a large pool of her own blood were shown to a jury on the first day of a murder trial yesterday.
The shocking video footage and photos showed 36-year-old Claire Turnbull in the living room of her flat in Fife, her hair matted with blood from massive head injuries.
Judge Lady Scott warned jurors and people on the public benches they might find the material “distressing”.
But Claire’s mum Heather stayed in court, cradling her head in her hands and weeping.
Aaron Donald, 28, and Laura McMurdo, 30, both from Blairhall near Dunfermline, where Claire also lived, deny murdering the mum last October.
They deny attempting to pervert the course of justice by concealing a hammer believed to be the murder weapon and giving false evidence to police.
Donald has lodged special defences claiming he was suffering from a mental disorder and diminished responsibility.
An earlier hearing was told a psychiatrist had assessed Donald as fit to stand trial.
Friends of Claire described her as a “lost soul” after she lost her baby daughter to cot death two years before.
On the first day of the trial at the High Court in Livingston, recently retired PC David Matheson, 55, told how he and a colleague had found Claire’s body after other officers forced entry to the flat.
He said: “There was a female lying flat on her back with a large pool of blood around her neck. It was quite clear at that time that she was dead.”
Claire’s partner Charles Weir, 39, from Dunfermline, told the jury she had a child who was staying with Heather.
On the day of her death, he said he and Claire bumped into the two accused outside a pub.
Both accepted an invitation to Donald’s new flat, where the accused later drank Jack Daniels and Strongbow and played loud music.
When Charles left, he said Claire was sitting on the couch in the living room drinking.
He added: “I did go back. I tried the door but the door was locked. I went home because I didn’t expect my girlfriend to get murdered.”
The trial continues.