Crown office vows to keep murder case under review
David Strathern sobbed as he walked free from court
The murder of Jamie Connelly will remain under review, the Crown Office has said.
The procurator fiscal service spoke out as David Strathearn was cleared of murder during a trial at Glasgow Crown Court on Friday, March 4.
Strathern, 29, sobbed as he walked free from court after a jury found the case against him not proven.
Mr Strathern denied murdering 28- year- old Jamie, nicknamed Jamboy, by stabbing him through the heart at Greenhill Road, Rutherglen, on March 8, last year.
A Crown Office spokesman told the Reformer on Tuesday - the anniversary of Jamie’s death: “Our cold case unit regularly reviews cases to ascertain if there are any new evidential developments, including advances in forensic techniques, which would assist in providing a basis for criminal proceedings.”
The court heard last week that Jamie worked for Mr Strathern at a dial- a- booze company which charged drinkers double price for out-of-hours alcohol.
Jamie had run up the debt using the drink service himself.
Jamie spent much of the day making repeated phone calls to Strathern before being told that a deal had been hammered out and he was to pay Strathern half of the cash he owed immediately.
Mr Strathern said in evidence he drove in a BMW 6 series and parked outside Jamie’s house in Greenhill Road, Rutherglen, just before 8pm, and sat looking at rental property on his phone.
But, instead of a cash handover the deal turned violent.
Mr Strathern said: “My windscreen was going in. I thought I was getting shot at.”
He said he also received a wound to his head, before reversing out of the street and driving towards his girlfriend’s house.
In evidence Strathern claimed that Jamie was uninjured when he left him. When asked how he came to be fatally stabbed through the heart, he replied: “It’s a mystery.”
He denied getting out of the car and stabbing him and said: “Jamie was like a brother to me.”
Jamie’s father Thomas Connelly, 54, who was out on the street with his son, told the jury: “Strathy said something to my son which I didn’t hear and he lunged at Jamie.”
Mr Connelly alleged that Mr Strathern then got into his car which had a damaged windscreen and drove away.
He revealed that his son managed to get up into his nearby flat before collapsing in the toilet.
He told of how Jamie lifted up his t-shirt and said: “He got me a f***ing cracker, dad.”
Mr Connelly added: “There was blood everywhere. I was trying to stem the blood, but I couldn’t stop it. I was saying ‘Jamie don’t leave me.’”
Mr Connelly said that hours earlier his son had told him that Strathy had put a hit out on him for £20,000 or £30,000.
Mr Connelly was asked what he took the comment about a hit to mean and replied: “To my way of putting it he wanted my son killed.”