I know who killed Stefan
Dramatic turn in Highland horror case
A WITNESS is set to tell cold case cops probing the death of Stefan Sutherland about a pub confession allegedly made by the man named locally as his killer.
The witness is due to speak to detectives early next week.
COLD CASE cops reviewing the violent death of Caithness man Stefan Sutherland in 2013 will hear of a dramatic pub confession allegedly made by the man suspected locally of killing him.
The new witness, who we are not naming for his and his family’s safety, is due to make a statement early in the week and said he will tell detectives who killed Stefan.
He added: “I made statements to the local police in the past and tried to point them in the right direction without being too direct because I wanted to protect someone close to us both.
“What he had done disgusted me but I didn’t sell him out then as I had no faith the local police would lock him up and keep the rest of us safe. They didn’t want to hear anything against this man and wanted to pass off Stefan’s death as a suicide. “But I was with him in the pub one day and we were having a bit of a set-to so I tried to provoke him by asking about what he had been accused of. “He turned away from everyone else at the bar and said under his breath to me: ‘You know as well as I do that I killed Stefan but the cops will never prove it’. “I should have gone straight to the police but he would have denied it. “They would have told him and he’d have made trouble for my family, and the cops would have done nothing to protect us or deal with him. “But the time has come to tell all.” Stefan’s family and the wider community have long believed he was killed by the man the new witness is accusing, a drug dealer who had beaten Stefan unconscious a year earlier and threatened to finish him off.
Stefan died in September 2013, his body washing up on the beach at Occumster, 11 days after he was last seen going into the drug dealer’s home in Lybster.
No one except the man who lived there claimed to have seen him leaving.
DNA tests on traces of blood in his living-room proved it was Stefan’s and witnesses revealed a carpet was lifted that night and later destroyed, yet police maintained until recently that there was no evidence of foul play.
A post-mortem showed he had not drowned and his body was badly decomposed, indicating he had not gone into the sea alive or just after death.
Late last year, Police Scotland decided the case would be reviewed by experienced detectives from outside the area.
Stefan’s dad Sandy said: “We have hope that after years of being let down by police, this new team will deliver justice.”
Detective Superintendent Graeme Mackie, who is leading the investigation, said: “We will act on any new information reported and would ask anyone who can assist us to please come
forward.”