30 YEAR MYSTERY OF THE GIRL IN THE CANAL
Her body was found abandoned in freezing water. Three decades after Ann Ballantyne’s horrific murder, troubling questions remain
ON a cold January afternoon in 1987, three men spotted something floating in Edinburgh’s Union Canal. It had been a freezing winter and the waters had only just started to thaw. As they did, they uncovered the body of a young woman.
Ann Ballantine had been strangled. Her body was found naked, bound hand and foot. She had been dumped in the canal wrapped in a carpet. The 20-year-old had been dead for weeks before she entered the icy water.
Thirty years on, Ann’s case remains unsolved, one of the most perplexing murders in Scottish criminal history. Although there was a suspect, and a report was even submitted to the procurator fiscal, there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.
For years, Ann’s parents Isobel and Graham kept a picture of her above the fireplace in their Edinburgh home, a reminder of the pretty, clever daughter they lost.
They held on to a few of her things – photographs, some of the heavy metal records she adored – but it is the memories that persist, along with the knowledge that her killer has never been caught.
‘There’s still a big hole in our lives,’ mum Isobel said once. ‘I think about her every day and think about what could have been. What should have been. We’ve all been denied so much.’
What happened to Ann Ballantine? The popular young woman had seemed in fine fettle the last time her mother saw her, on November 18, 1986, after visiting a friend at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. She had popped home to her parents’ house for a chat and her mum waved her off cheerily, after the independent young woman had made plans to stay with the family on Christmas Eve.
Ann was a rock music fan, a real Eighties girl, and was so desperately looking forward to an upcoming Alice Cooper gig that she had bought her tickets weeks beforehand.
She had a wide circle of friends and sometimes hung out with the Edinburgh biker crowd. She was also, according to one detective on the force at the time of the initial investigation, ‘a good girl’.
She had recently split up with a boyfriend, Joe Burden, but the pair had remained on good terms and Ann seemed upbeat about the future.
A former Trinity Academy pupil, she worked as a volunteer at the Canongate Youth Project and also helped out with local handicapped children. She had moved into a place of her own, a flat in Yeaman Place on Dalry Road.
‘She was unemployed, but she was confident she would get a job soon,’ her mother once explained. ‘She loved music, especially heavy metal, and clubs. She liked the Venue in Calton Road. She could be very deep at times but so full of life and fun. She adored kids and wanted to get married so she could have them. She never got that chance.’
One of the things that has made Ann’s murder so difficult for police to investigate is that no one can be sure exactly when she went missing. She lived on her own, didn’t have a regular job and was single. However, police believe that she was probably killed just a few days after she last saw her mother.
Over the days that followed that last visit to her parents’ house, there were sporadic sightings of her across Edinburgh by various pals. But five days later, a friend of Ann’s came to the house to alert her parents that she had failed to turn up for a meeting they had arranged. It was out of character for the sociable and vivacious young woman.
Her parents went to her flat, expecting their daughter to be home, but there was no answer at the door. Over the following weeks, her family became increasingly concerned over her whereabouts and would trudge round to her flat regularly, chapping on the door and pushing notes through the letter box – with messages such as ‘Phone us, even if you’re skint,’ and even putting money through the door. But there was nothing.
When Ann did not turn up for Christmas as arranged, her parents were sent into a spiral of panic as their beloved daughter’s presents remained unopened under the tree. On Boxing Day, her father went to the police station and reported her missing.
Over the ensuing weeks, the search for her stepped up. Her flat showed no signs of forced entry or a struggle. Police tracked down her wide circle of friends and spoke to her exboyfriend, but could find no trace of Ann at all.
THEN, on January 21, 1987, dad Graham took his car to the garage and overheard some people talking about a body that had been found in the canal. Fearing the worst, he rushed home.
It wasn’t long before the knock on the door came, telling her parents the most horrendous news imaginable – the body was Ann’s. Her mother said later that she cried for days after the discovery.
The circumstances of Ann’s death were highly unusual. Her body was found in the water only 100 yards from her flat in Edinburgh’s Polwarth. She had been asphyxiated by a ligature round her neck. Her hands and feet had been tied.
Police estimated she had been dead for around two months, but
had only been in the water for a few days. Her parents were advised not to view the body.
Police frogmen trawled the canal, searching for clues in the water. An appeal also went out for anyone who had found 6in x 4in photographs scattered on a footway near where her body was found to come forward – but nobody did.
There were also a number of strange items missing from her flat. A black leather jerkin, a brass petrol lighter with her initials engraved on it, a photo album, a camera and a black shoulder bag. They seemed an odd assembly of things to pack if she had been heading out for the day.
Could they be mementos taken by her killer?
The hallmarks of Ann’s murder – strangulation, binding, the fact that the body had been kept – at first seemed to be the calling card of a crazed killer, the type who might strike again.
For weeks, police in Edinburgh were on alert, worried the murderer might search out another victim. But nothing happened.
Police eventually identified a suspect and a report went to the procurator fiscal. There was never enough evidence to take the case forward.
Ann’s family have always been convinced they know who her killer is, a fact that has haunted them for 30 years. They even have a picture of him with their daughter.
‘We know who it is, but we are not allowed to say,’ her father Graham said once. ‘He is a sociopath – he has to be.
‘We have a picture of him. He did not know this picture was being taken. He was sitting with our Ann at a family function. He had this expression on his face. I will never forget it – he looked pure evil. We still have that picture stored away somewhere. It is not really something we want to look at.’
YET despite believing they know the identity of their daughter’s murderer, after 30 years, her family think the person will never give up their secret.
‘He has had pressure put on him before and it did not bother him,’ her father said once. ‘But if someone does know something, then please come forward – please put us out of our misery. I would be happy to see him jailed.’
The family does what it can to keep Ann’s memory alive. When her sister Grace married in 2008, Isobel placed one of Ann’s rings, as well as one belonging to her late grandmother, on a chain for Grace to wear round her neck on her wedding day. She is permanently in her mother’s thoughts, along with the regrets of what might have been, had she been allowed to live.
Over the years, there have been glimmers of hope. In 2008, Bert Swanson, who at the time headed up the Lothian and Borders Police cold case team and has since been appointed Scotland’s first inspector of crematoria, took up the case, investigating old leads and using modern policing and DNA methods in an effort to bring resolution for the family.
By 2012, the unit had undertaken a review of all the evidence and submitted fresh DNA analysis, as well as the opinion of an expert who deals with knots – crucial in trying to understand the bindings on Ann’s hands and feet.
‘This is a pretty harrowing case,’ Bert Swanson remarked at the time. ‘I really, really feel for this family as they have clearly not had the justice they deserve.’
But it was not to be. DNA may have provided the key, but unfortunately for those investigating, Ann’s body was in the worst possible place for significant DNA to be retained.
‘DNA is seen as the miracle for cold cases like this, and often it is,’ said one retired detective. ‘But one thing that DNA evidence cannot withstand is damp and wet conditions.’
Today, police do not seem hopeful that the case may ever be solved. In 2014, yet another review of Ann’s murder was carried out.
Detective Inspector Rory Hamilton, from the Major Investigation Team, told the Scottish Daily Mail this week: ‘As with all unsolved murders, we will conduct periodic reviews of all the evidence gathered to establish if there are any new lines of inquiry to follow.
‘In 2014, a review of the murder of Ann Ballantine was conducted and subsequently concluded in 2016. No new evidence or information to take the investigation forward was identified. We will continue to keep this inquiry open and any new evidence or information will be appropriately investigated should it be brought to our attention.’
There was one final, cruel twist to Ann’s murder. Not long before her death, she had been watching a horror film with her parents. After it was over, she turned to her mother and said: ‘Mum don’t bury me. I couldn’t stand all those beasties crawling about me.’
Yet because of the circumstances of her death, the family were unable to cremate her, in case her body ever needed to be exhumed. Now she lies in Mortonhall Cemetery, while her killer roams free.
‘There was always an idea of who might have done this but there just wasn’t enough for police to catch them,’ her mother said once.
‘So you keep hoping and hoping that there will be a breakthrough and something will happen to get over whatever stumbling blocks are in the way.’
After 30 years of waiting, hope is all Ann’s family have left.