THANKS A PLOT
Grieving family plan to exhume loved one after realising they’re buried next to notorious beast FURY OVER CHILD MURDERER ‘NEIGHBOUR’
We recognised the name and were horrified
FAMILY SOURCE ON DISCOVERING KILLER’S GRAVE
A GRIEVING family are exhuming their loved one after learning they have been buried next to one of Scotland’s most notorious child killers.
Sam Glass, who was locked up for longer than anyone else in Scotland after indecently assaulting, stabbing and strangling a five-year-old girl in the 60s, died, aged 71, in a secure hospital in November 2018.
His unmarked grave went unnoticed at a Lanarkshire cemetery near the State Hospital, Carstairs, for more than a year, until a headstone bearing his adopted name John Frederick Faucet appeared recently.
A horrified family, who unwittingly buried their loved on in the plot next to Glass in January last year and have links to Carstairs, instantly recognised the moniker when the stone went up in January.
They are now embarking on the heartbreaking process of having their loved one exhumed and moved to another part of the cemetery – costing thousands of pounds.
A family source, who does not want to be named, told the Record the man’s wife had been left “distraught” by the revelation because it had been her wish to be laid to rest alongside her husband and she no longer feels able to visit his grave. They said: “We instantly recognised the name and we were horrified.
“Glass abducted and murdered a five-year-old girl. This guy was evil through and through. The man buried next to him is a good man and we don’t think of him as being at rest now.
“Our only option was to look into having him moved.”
Glass molested and murdered Jean Hamilton near her home in Bridgeton, Glasgow, in 1967.
Then aged 20, he was ordered to be detained at Carstairs without limit of time and was held in secure hospitals for 51 years, where he later fell ill with a brain tumour. It cost millions of pounds to hold him at the State Hospital at Carstairs then, for the last three years of his life, at Glasgow’s Rowanbank Clinic.
Glass, who changed his name to John Faucet in 2015, died with an estate of £50,000 which he accrued in benefits over the years and is understood to have put his burial plans in place long before his death.
The family whose loved one is to be moved say they are surprised Glass was allowed to be buried in Carnwath
Cemetery given his name was well known in the community.
The source said: “There are a lot of former Carstairs staff buried in the cemetery who will have known this man and what he did.
“It seems disrespectful to the community to have him there.
“If he had left the name off, we would have been non the wiser about who was lying in that grave.
“Now every time we go to pay our respects, we just can’t take our eyes off the headstone.”
The family are working with a solicitor in a bid to obtain a warrant of exhumation from South Lanarkshire Council, which owns the cemetery. The process is expected to cost several thousand pounds.
The source said: “We should have been told and we could have asked for a lair away from his. We’ve also asked what will happen to the lair when he is moved.
“I would hate to think of a child being laid to rest there.”
South Lanarkshire Council confirmed its Bereavement Service was recently approached regarding information on the cost of an exhumation.
A spokesman said: “The information requested was provided and the council await further contact with regard to progressing this issue.”