Facing life, pair who slit mum’s throat in horror that shocked isle
TWO drug users who slit a motherof- two’s throat during a failed robbery are facing life behind bars.
Ross MacDougall, 32, and Dawn Smith, 29, murdered Tracy Walker, 40, in a frenzied attack in Lerwick, Shetland, in July of last year.
The targeted Miss Walker because they needed money to buy drugs, the High Court in Edinburgh was told.
The pair knew she had been carrying cash and ‘scoped her out’ in the hope they could steal it from her.
A jury heard Smith gave MacDougall a fish-filleting knife which she had taken from her stepfather’s home in the town.
The pair then confronted Miss Walker and MacDougall struck her on the head with a rock before strangling her and repeatedly stabbing her throat. Her carotid artery and jugular vein were cut in the attack.
Jurors heard that after the assault, Smith stood f or ten minutes and watched her victim die before she and MacDougall left the scene and took a ride in her co-accused’s car.
Smith told a man how she had watched Miss Walker lying on the ground, holding her neck as she fought in vain for her life.
Rather than phone for an ambulance, both MacDougall and Smith left the scene.
Yesterday, jurors returned guilty verdicts to a charge of murder. Smith was also convicted of possession of a knife, while MacDougall was convicted of attempting to pervert the course of justice by asking a man to provide him with an alibi and change of clothes.
The pair were cleared of a charge which alleged they assaulted a man who gave evidence in court.
It is thought to be only the third murder to have been committed in Shetland in the past 50 years.
During the trial, the court heard how both MacDougall and Smith had spent the evening of July 29 last year trying to obtain drugs, but they did not have any cash.
When they learned Miss Walker was going to buy drugs and had £100 in cash on her, they attacked her in the town’s Ladies Drive in the early hours of July 30. Witness Barry Colquhoun told the trial he had a conversation with Smith hours after the murder.
Mr Colquhoun, from Glasgow, said he had been working as a gardener at a home on Shetland when he spoke to the killer.
He said: ‘She said she knew what had happened [to Miss Walker] and she was present.
‘When she told me, I was taken aback. She said Ross had killed Tracy and he had struck her with a rock to the side of her head and then proceeded to strike her one more time on her head.
‘At that point, Tracy was on the ground and Ross had cut her with a knife. She said that it was horrific. They took Ross’s mother’s car and went on a long drive into the hills where they got rid of their clothes, phones and the weapon.’
He added: ‘At that point, I told her to speak to the police. I told her that several times.’
When the pair were being transferred to a prison on the mainland, Smith made an admission about the attack to prison escort Margaret Haughian, 50.
Miss Haughian told the court: ‘She said, “We are going to spend the next ten to 15 years together for something I’ve done”.’
Following the verdict, Detective
‘Got rid of clothes and the weapon’
Inspector Stewart Andrew, of Police Scotland’s major investigation team, said: ‘This was a brutal attack and one that left Tracy’s family absolutely devastated.
‘I hope this conviction has given them some sense of justice.’
The last murder investigation in Shetland was in 2009, when a man was cleared of killing his baby by setting fire to their home.
In 2007, the bodies of Richard Horne, an illustrator who went by the name Harry Horse, and his wife, Mandy, were found in their bungalow in Papil, a village on the Shetland island of Burra.