Now police cordon off memorial to witch in hunt for Annalise killer
Brother charged with fraud and held in custody
‘Suspicious death’
THE brother of a woman whose ‘suspicious’ death is being investigated by police was remanded in custody yesterday after being charged with fraud.
The body of Annalise Johnstone, 22, was discovered beside a rural Perthshire road on May 10 – 80 miles from her Ayrshire home.
Jordon Johnstone appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court accused of a ‘bogus workman scam’ at a cottage two miles from where Miss Johnstone’s body was discovered, three weeks before she died.
On Monday, police sealed off a ‘witch monument’ that claims a connection to Moors murderers Myra Hindley and Ian Brady and which stands close to where Miss Johnstone’s body was found.
It is alleged that between April 14 and April 18, in Aberuthven, Johnstone, 24, pretended to Susan Rodrigues he was a bona fide workman, received payment for agreed work and failed to complete it, obtaining £600 by fraud.
A second charge alleges that between April 14 and April 18, in Dundee, he carried out a similar fraud on Lindsey Scott and obtained £55 by fraud.
Johnstone, of the Redburn Travelling Persons Site in Irvine, Ayrshire, appeared in private on petition before Sheriff John Rafferty. He made no plea or declaration. The accused, who was arrested on the weekend of May 11-13, was committed for trial and remanded in custody.
His court appearance came the day after police had taped off Maggie Wall’s, a memorial to a 17th century witch near Dunning. Brady and Hindley were photographed next to it in 1965 at the height of their killing spree of children.
It is understood the memorial is one of at least 11 locations being investigated by police as part of the probe.
The body of Miss Johnstone, from Ardrossan, was found in a wooded area by the B8062 Auchterarder to Dunning road.
She had left her home in a silver Ford Galaxy during the previous day and was last seen in Auchterarder, where she had family, around 10pm that night.
That car was later found on the driveway of a home in Inchture, Perthshire, nine miles from Dundee.
Yesterday, police were seen in the area around the Tool Station hardware store in the city’s Kings Cross Road as part of the investigation.
A Police Scotland spokesman said: ‘We are conducting a number of inquiries at various locations across Tayside.’
Last week Detective Superintendent James Smith of Police Scotland’s Major Investigations Team said the force was treating Miss Johnstone’s’s death as suspicious. He also appealed for information about her movements.