The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Fife man guilty of murdering sister in her own home
Jury rejects defence solicitor’s plea to find Charles Gordon guilty of the lesser charge of culpable homicide
A Fife man has been found guilty of murdering his sister in her own home.
Charles Gordon, 52, strangled Elizabeth Bowe within her flat in Bobby Jones Place, St Andrews, on September 17 last year, causing injuries which ultimately resulted in her death three days later.
A jury took just over two hours to convict Gordon of murdering Ms Bowe by placing his hands around her neck and compressing her neck, putting a dressing gown around her neck and placing a bag over her head.
During his trial at the High Court in Glasgow, the jury heard how Gordon had himself dialled 999 and told the call handler he thought he had killed his sister.
Police arrived to find him casually smoking a cigarette on a sofa while his half naked sister lay unresponsive on the floor near his feet.
A blue dressing gown was around her neck and a torn carrier bag stained with Ms Bowe’s blood was close by.
Gordon even told a police officer performing CPR on his sister: “She’s already dead, you might as well give up.”
Gordon had admitted grabbing his sister by the neck after a drunken row but said he had not intended to kill her, suggesting Ms Bowe had provoked him.
He claimed his 50-year-old sibling had taken the lower half of her clothing off and threatened to have him arrested for rape, before she then threatened to “cut his face off” – which prompted him to seize her by the throat.
Pathologist Dr David Sadler, who carried out an autopsy, told the court Ms Bowe had died as a result of mechanical asphyxia, most likely due to manual strangulation.
Defence solicitor Iain Paterson had urged the jury to convict on the lesser charge of culpable homicide, suggesting there was insufficient evidence to prove murder. He also argued Ms Bowe might have died within seconds due to a rare phenomenon known as vagal inhibition – stimulation of a nerve in the neck which can stop someone’s heart.
“It is a tragedy, there’s no getting away from that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s murder,” he said.
However, the jury of seven men and eight women disagreed. Gordon will be sentenced on July 19. He had also been charged with sexually assaulting Ms Bowe and threatening detectives, but those two charges were withdrawn by the Crown on Thursday.
It is a tragedy, there’s no getting away fromthat, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s murder. IAIN PATERSON