A novelty keyring found at the scene of a brutal murder could be the crucial piece of evidence that helps to nail a killer 27 years later. I’ll let that sink in for a moment.
Twenty.. seven.. years to release a simple piece of information that could be something, nothing or everything to one of Scotland’s most baffling cold cases.
Mum Shona Stevens was savagely attacked just yards from her home in Irvine, Ayrshire in 1994.
The 31-year-old had just left a Co-op store in Bourtreehill Shopping Centre and was last seen walking alone along Towerlands Road at about 1.10pm.
Just 10 minutes later she was found with serious head injuries in a wooded area and airlifted to hospital where she died three days later without ever regaining consciousness.
Detectives believe she was hit with a blunt instrument – possibly a hammer – during the frenzied attack. No motive has ever been established.
Last July police released a picture of the distinctive keyring – a semi- naked fat man – in the hope someone would recognise it and come forward.
Earlier this week it formed part of the main appeal on BBC’s Crimewatch.
The keyring was found at the scene but nobody except the inquiry teams knew a thing about it until now.
This seems like a bizarre decision on the part of the original murder team but what remains just as baffling is the length of time it’s taken police to release this information.
I get that they don’t want to release sensitive information when hunting a killer, I get that they hold back information that may only be known to the killer such as cause of death.
But this was a significant distinctive object that someone may have recognised and been able to clear up who owned it and why it was there.
It may or may not have any significance in the murder but what is clear now is that police are hoping to rule it in or out – almost 30 years down the line.
A local journalist who covered Shona’s murder contacted me the other week. He said: “What I find bizarre is the practice of releasing pieces of information relating to unsolved crimes that have been in their possession for many years.
“The recent appeal relating to the Shona Stevens murder is a classic example. What sense is there in putting this out after all this time? After all, it was found at the scene of the crime?
“I worked at the local paper at the time of the murder and this revelation would have had much more impact if it had been featured in the local press when interest in the case was at its peak among people in the area and would have had a much better chance of identifying the object.”
Indeed. There could be a perfectly innocent explanation – a teenager who collected novelty keyrings dropped it, someone chucked it away weeks earlier or in the fight for her life Shona somehow knocked it from her killer’s hand.
Detective Inspector Fraser Normansell said: “Something that seemed insignificant 27 years ago could be hugely significant now. These cases can flip on the smallest of details, and I’m determined to bring the offender to justice.”
As seems to be the case on a regular basis, the need for secrecy superseded the need to find her killer.
I’m no Sherlock Holmes but it seems a no-brainer to me that the keyring should have formed parts of the original appeals for information in 1994 when memories were fresh and the horror surrounding the murder was still raw in the minds of the Irvine population.
It’s elementary, my dear Watson.
How to stop another Lamara case
Earlier this week Police Scotland admitted failures that contributed to the tragic death of M9 crash victim Lamara Bell.
The young mum lay severely injured beside boyfriend John Yuill, who was also fatally injured, in a car wreck waiting for help from the emergency services for three days.
If she’d been rescued much earlier there was a good chance she would have survived but a call-handler sergeant had failed to log a two-minute call from a concerned member of the public who spotted the car inside bushes near Stirling.
It would take a call from someone else days later before police attended.
Among the many issues the case has highlighted, it must be a bitter pill for her family to swallow as it became clear that centralisation of police call handling services resulted in a significant disconnect between local policing and local knowledge that may have saved her life.
In the wake of the deaths and after a review, 38 recommendations were implemented but with 40 per cent of 101 calls this June still going unanswered, perhaps the powers that be need to look at the return of local call handlers to prevent similar tragedies in the future?
Spare a thought for cops
Spare a thought for cops dealing with the fallout from vaccine passports.
hey said: “We’re going to be the first port of call for clubs and venues when folk kick off when refused entry for fake passports or no passports at all.
"Weekends are already busy and this is just going to add to the usual drink-fuelled anti-social behaviour.
"We’ll be expected to police this new rule and it’ll be the rank and file who cop it from the angry public.”
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here .
