Murdered Annalise Johnstone was disliked by members of her traveller community because she was gay, a jury heard yesterday.
It emerged she even kept details of her relationship with a woman private from her family.
Her brother Jordan Johnstone – who is accused with his partner Angela Newlands of murdering the 22-year-old – told police Annalise had a secret girlfriend .
He told detectives: “She’s quite private about some things and open about others. She was private about who her girlfriend was.”
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He said his sister had been on the phone to her girlfriend on the Tuesday before she died and was “really down” when the call ended. He said: “I think she must have been feeling low because of issues with her girlfriend. I knew it was her girlfriend due to the way she was speaking to her.
“I knew she was feeling down, then she started shouting, calling her girlfriend a bitch.”
When Angela Newlands was questioned by police about where Annalise might be she suggested that the missing woman “could possibly be at her girlfriend’s”.
But she added: “She won’t be at the caravan park because certain people don’t like her going there because she’s gay.”
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Annalise’s estranged father Gordon Johnstone, 44, earlier admitted he had parted from his daughter after rows about her decision to come out as a lesbian.
He told the jury: “We left on an argument. That’s haunted me to this day.”
Johnstone, 25, and Newlands, 28, both deny stabbing Annalise in the neck at a witch memorial near Dunning in Perthshire on 10 or 11 May last year.
They also deny attempting to defeat the ends of justice by cleaning their car to remove evidence and making a false report that Annalise was missing to hide their guilt.
The trial continues.
