Killer showed Zoe’s sister her charred remains and said the same thing would happen to her
Show features story of teen’s death at hands of monster
THE sister of a teenage girl who was murdered and set on fire was terrified she would be the killer’s next victim after he showed her the body, a documentary has revealed.
Robert Bayne beat 17-yearold Zoe Nelson to death before burning her body in woodland near her home in Wishaw, Lanarkshire, in May 2010. The bodybuilder, who was then aged 20, had been going out with Zoe but he was also seeing her younger sister Laura Anne, then aged 16. Bayne showed Laura Anne her sister’s charred remains but she kept quiet for five days before telling police, after he’d threatened to kill her. The horrific case is featured in a new episode of Crime+Investigation documentary series Murdertown, presented by Anita Rani. Retired Police Scotland assistant chief constable Derek Robertson, who led the investigation, told the programme Laura Anne was frightened of revealing the truth at first because of Bayne’s reputation.
He said: “Laura Anne was interviewed by specialist family liaison investigators.
“We thought she could help us because she knew her sister and what was going on in that community.
“But we just weren’t getting that information. It was as if she shut down inside, she just withdrew into herself.”
The former detective praised Laura Anne for having the courage to eventually speak out.
He added: “On the Friday afternoon, late on, that was when she said, ‘I know he killed Zoe. I know he killed Zoe because he said to me he killed Zoe’.
“She basically said she had been seeing him and her sister had been seeing him and they fell out.
“The day after, she went to return clothing to Bayne and he took her to the murder scene and pointed Zoe out. She recognised her from a tattoo and Bayne told her, ‘If you say anything, that will be you’.
“Robert Bayne towers over her, massive muscles, dominating, controlling, threatening. You can imagine the fear in the girl.”
Bayne’s trial heard a member of the public found Zoe’s badly burned body the day after the murder but believed it was a charred tailor’s dummy before realising it was a corpse.
When his guilty verdict was read out, Bayne went berserk, shouting vile abuse at his victim’s family and headbutting a security guard. He was jailed for a minimum of 20 years.
The episode will be shown on the Crime+Investigation channel on Monday at 9pm.