Serial killer who preyed on girls dies in jail aged 73

SERIAL killer and rapist Angus Sinclair has died in prison aged 73.

The so-called World’s End murderer spent more than half his life in jail for killing four girls in Scotland as well as a string of sex attacks on children.

Detectives believe he could have been behind at least four other unsolved murders from the 1970s – and victims’ families yesterday said he had cheated justice.

Two years ago, it was reported that he had had a series of strokes and would be ‘lucky to last the year’. However, the cause of death at HMP Glenochil in Clackmannanshire, has not been made clear.

After his conviction in 201 for raping and murdering two teenage girls in Edinburgh in 1977 he was handed the longest minimum sentence ever imposed by a Scottish court – 37 years. Sinclair, who grew up in Glasgow, was 16 when he carried out his first killing in 1961. He raped and strangled neighbour Catherine Reehill, seven. He was freed after six years.

In October 1977 Helen Scott and Christine Eadie, both 17, were found dead after last being seen at the World’s End pub on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. Despite the biggest manhunt in Scottish police history, their killer was not identified.

In 1982, Sinclair was jailed for life for 11 rape and indecent assaults. Almost 20 years later a case review revealed that his DNA had been found on Mary Gallacher, 17 – killed in 1978. He was convicted of her murder and given another life term.

When police began to look for links between Sinclair and further cases, scientific advances put him in the frame for the World’s End murders.

A 2016 bid to cut the 37-year-term was rejected by appeal court judges who said Sinclair ‘demonstrated an immeasurable capacity for evil.’