Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Brutal murder that
Killing of Sharon, 8, haunted detectives
THE brutal murder of Dundee schoolgirl Sharon Smith shook the city and haunted even the most hardened detectives.
The discovery of eight-year-old Sharon’s partially-clothed body in a small brick-built shed on May 23 1971 sparked one of the city’s biggest manhunts.
It began with a break-in at a shop in Victoria Road on May 8, which barely merited a paragraph in the local paper.
The till was stolen, along with £1 and four razors, which set in motion a series of events that led to the murder of the Glebelands Primary School pupil.
She stood out because of her height and red hair. By all accounts, she was a quiet girl.
Sharon was the eldest of three children and lived in Broughty Ferry Road with her mother and stepfather, who knew 24-year-old Charles Shepherd.
Shepherd was known to give children runs on his scooter and drove away with Sharon at 5.15pm on Saturday May 22. She was reported missing at 7pm.
A search took place on Saturday evening involving hundreds of police officers, TA and Royal Naval Reserve personnel, and members of the Boys’ Brigade.
Shepherd said he’d dropped her at a shop close to her home.
Police discovered an old-fashioned razor in the tool bag of his Lambretta. Bloodstains on it were subsequently found to belong to Sharon.
Some police officers searched all night, in atrocious weather, and the operation continued from 4am on Sunday at first light.
Search headquarters were set up beside Baldovie pond after a tip-off that a child answering Sharon’s description was seen there on Saturday evening. She was on the scooter at the time.
As heavy rain fell, volunteers began to serve hot drinks to the bedraggled searchers before the news arrived that Sharon had been found dead.
She was discovered i n an outbuilding in the grounds of the derelict Linlathen House – on the north side of the DundeeArbroath road, near Claypotts.
Sharon had been savagely raped and her throat slashed with an open razor.
It was a murder which sickened detectives and revolted residents with its barbaric brutality.
A post-mortem examination was carried out by Dr Donald Rushton on Sunday afternoon before the announcement of a murder charge at 7pm.
Shepherd made no plea when he made a private appearance on May 24 1971 before Sheriff Cox and was remanded in custody.
He appeared from custody at
Dundee High Court in July 1971 where he was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to Sharon’s rape and murder.
He stood in the dock dressed in a bright yellow jerkin and brown trousers, chewing gum. Advocate Nicholas Fairbairn made no statement on his client’s behalf.
Lord Emslie told Shepherd he had pleaded guilty to a charge of unparalleled savagery and the only sentence he could pronounce was life imprisonment.
“I won’t waste words in heaping on you the condemnation that society feels for you,” he said.
Shepherd was taken down from the dock to the cells by two police officers, still chewing gum.
He served time at Peterhead Prison, known as Scotland’s Alcatraz – home to some of the country’s most notorious sex offenders and murderers.
Bobby Donaldson, a relatively inexperienced member of Dundee CID, was one of the detectives who arrested Shepherd.
The retired former detective inspector was 24 at the time and described it as “probably the most horrific case I dealt with in 30 years of policing”.
“Everyone from Detective Superintendent William Melville down was personally involved in the operation during some of the most atrocious weather I have ever seen.
“I knew Sharon’s folks, and it was very distressing to see what it did to them when the full horror of what had happened to this little girl came to light.
“No one deserves something like this to come into their life.
“We knew Shepherd was the man we were looking for and, having traced his scooter, we