The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
I pretended I was dead – and hoped he’d go away
Brave Linda recalls moment killer attacked her in woods and her fight to survive
A woman subjected to a brutal assault at the hands of a Dundee killer has revealed how she “played dead” to make her attacker go away.
Linda McDonald, 53, was walking her Jack Russell terrier Betsy in the city’s Templeton Woods in August last year when Robbie McIntosh attacked her while on home leave from prison.
Recalling the moments immediately after McIntosh struck, Linda said: “I thought that if I stopped breathing and played dead it would finish and he would go away.
“I said a prayer to God and went somewhere else peaceful in my own mind to remove myself from what was happening to me.”
Linda told how she had passed other walkers before getting “a bad feeling” about McIntosh as he approached.
“My sixth sense told me that something wasn’t right and I was very uncomfortable,” she said.
“He was a really tall figure and he had a military-style march.
“I had a really strange feeling about him. It was a relief when he passed me by, but next thing I heard loud, heavy footsteps behind me.
“There was a nanosecond of silence when the footsteps stopped and I just knew that something bad was going to happen.
“I turned around and he was running towards me.
“I had no chance to react before he struck me on the right-hand side of my head.
“The blow stunned me and immediately I felt lethargic but I also realised immediately that I was going to have to fight if I was going to survive.” She pled for her life.
“He was expressionless but he also looked like he was enjoying me begging.
“I knew he was going to strike again and I decided I was going to have to scream and make a noise.
“Then the blows continued and I felt warm blood.
“I couldn’t see and thought I was going blind.”
McIntosh then grabbed hold of her ankles as she lay on the ground and dragged her off the path and into a wooded area.
“I must have passed out because I came round and was aware I was on my tummy, being dragged very quickly into the wood.
“The clothes on my upper body were off and I thought he was going to rape me. He was leaning over me and it was at this point I decided to stop breathing and play dead.
“I took myself somewhere else and at that point I felt peaceful and had no pain.
“I thought about my family and how distressed they would be if I left them.
“I prayed to God and above all else I was determined that I would live to be able to describe my attacker so that he wasn’t able to do it to anyone else ever again.
“I knew I would have to fight to stay conscious to remember as much as possible.
“My overriding thought was to make sure that I could describe every detail of that man. I had to make sure he was caught.”
Linda’s next recollection was her rescuers, fellow dog-walkers Charles and Peter Connor, leaning over her.
McIntosh had fled but was quickly caught by police in his mother’s house, nearby.