Suzanne Pilley: The Woman Who Vanished BBC Scotland Investigates

This is Silverknowes, a quiet suburb of Edinburgh. Two years ago

one resident here had a dark secret. This is David Gilroy, a man being

investigated for the murder of his lover, Suzanne Pilley. Suzanne and

I had a relationship until January of this year when I moved back to

the family home. There clearly is a belief in some

quarters that you are a murderer, that you killed Suzanne Pilley.

What do you say to that? No, that's not the case. But he was lying.

Tonight we reveal the remarkable story of how he was brought to

justice with unprecedented access to the police investigation and the

only interview with Suzanne's family, the story of a woman who

simply vanished. These are the last sightings of Suzanne Pilley as we

know it. We're not finished until we're able to bring some sort of

closure for the family. There's just a lot of parents out there

that will know where their children are and where they'll be sleeping

tonight, but unfortunately, my family doesn't know where Suzanne

is sleeping. This morning in a highly unusual move, cameras were

allowed into the High Court to see David Gilroy sentenced to serve a

minimum of 18 years for Suzanne Pilley's murder. She just

disappeared, and the jury were satisfied on the evidence before

them that that was because you murdered her and disposed of her

body, and it seems that you are the only person who knows where her

only person who knows where her body is. I hope that a day will

come in your life when you feel able to disclose that information,

and that might bring some comfort This has been a high-profile trial,

and the most remarkable thing about it with that it was a murder case

without a dead body, and that's meant police and prosecutors have

had to secure this conviction using ground-breaking techniques. Suzanne

Pilley went missing almost two years ago. Her murderer was cold

and calculating. He created almost the perfect cover-up for his crime,

and to this day, no-one knows what he did with her body. This is a

story not only of the extraordinary police investigation to convict a

murderer with no body, but it's also a story about Scotland's

surveillance culture that tracks all of our movements in the

smallest of details. These are the only images of Suzanne Pilley and

David Gilroy together caught on a supermarket camera, one of the

thousands of cameras which capture our everyday lives. It's Sunday,

the 2nd of May. They're buying dinner near her flat. What looks

like an unremarkable domestic scene is in fact his last desperate

attempt to resurrect their relationship. Two days later, he

killed her. Suzanne was constantly in touch with her mother and father

and sister. They were a very close family. Her father agreed to speak

to this is programme. It's the only interview he's done. I was the last

one to see her in the family. I picked her up for the shops, and I

dropped her off at the stair, and at the time, I was bad with my

walking. I was getting operations done to my legs, so I couldn't help

her up the stairway. She just gave me a wee peck on the cheek, and

that was the last I seen of her, never seen her again since.

starting point for the police investigation was CCTV which

captured Suzanne's journey into work. It was 8.19pm on Tuesday, May

the 4th. She'd just spent the night with a new man she'd begun seeing,

but her former lover, David Gilroy, had spent the last few weeks

besieging her with hundreds of texts and voicemails. Police were

able to recover everything left on her phone even though it's never

been found. I was just wanting to have a chat. We could sort

everything out. You know, I think both of us probably pushed things a

bit too far last night, and I just wanted to chat, OK? Suzanne had

told him it was over once and for all. Hi. It's David. I'm just

wondering how you are. I was really a bit worried. Is everything OK?

It's David. Give me a wee phone back. Bye. I'll catch you later.

Bye. She was moving on, but he wasn't willing to accept that. The

CCTV became central to the case because Suzanne had simply

disappeared. Her mother was texting her, and I think her daughter, she

- she got on the voicemail as well, and she gave her, excuse the phrase,

but hell for not getting in touch with us, but as time went on, I

thought some - something sinister had happened. It was a bit - 6.30pm,

6.45pm, and she and I decided that we'd better phone the police and

get in touch with the police. She was always on the phone to her

mother, and Saturday night was text night. You know, you're watching

the television and things like that, you know, and we just - we just

miss her and that. Saturday night just isn't going to be the same.

How does a woman who, like many of us, works in an office, commutes

into the City and leads a very straightforward, normal life

suddenly disappear in the middle of the City, in the middle of rush

hour, without a trace? The answer we'll show you tonight came through

modern police techniques and ultimately the ability to

reconstruct 48 hours - two days in May pieced together through pain-

staking efforts and relying on the electronic trail we all leave in

our surveillance society. This is the man who had to build that case,

Detective Superintendent Gary Flanigan. We overlaid our own, you

know, if you like, electronic footprint, how we live our lives,

so everything we do from text messages from, you know,

photocopiers that have a log-in - you know, every aspect from

telephones which record our use - everything - we overlaid to give us,

you know, a time line to be able to chart people's movements, and that

was - you know, that's been - that's been the hallmark of this

investigation. The first question he had to answer

was a fundamental one. You're having to establish that Suzanne -

through all the circumstances Suzanne was dead taking into

consideration all we know about her normal behaviour, just

demonstrating that, you know, it's so unlike her that there can only

be one explanation. Although a network of CCTV cameras covered

Suzanne's last journey, none had a clear view of her getting to her

office door. Police had to prove she'd arrived and that Gilroy had

the opportunity to kill her soon after. This is the man who had to

wade through hours of that material. It took footage from 84 different

premises, which equates to about a thousand hours of footage. We

really needed that starting point of having Suzanne leaving the bus

and making her way to work, and from there we were able to build up

that picture of her movements that day, and my role was to ensure that,

one that she got to work and that also that she didn't return away

from the building, that actually once she'd entered, she didn't

leave again. And they also traced David Gilroy. Bus cameras show he'd

travelled early to the office where he and Suzanne worked together.

They'd been having a secret affair for more than a year. They'd

managed to keep it hidden from colleagues, but it was a turbulent

relationship. He was controlling, manipulative and could be

aggressive. A little later, Suzanne arrives in the City centre. She

stops at the supermarket just around the corner from her work.

It's 8.50pm. Police had to prove she'd carried on her usual route,

that she'd not suddenly left Edinburgh. They turned to

specialist CCTV investigators for help and brought in an expert in

extracting tiny details from surveillance camera footage.

instructions were to look at all the sightings of Suzanne Pilley.

These sightings started from Suzanne Pilley getting on the bus

at the start of her day. It's good- quality footage showing what she's

wearing and what she looks like, what her hair was like, the tones

and colours of her clothes, and then moved between each location

following that along a map. This then led to later sightings leading

up to Suzanne Pilley's work where the quality of the imagery was not

as good - just a few sort of pixels that would show a person.

eventually came down to proving that this grainy image from a

distant camera was Suzanne only metres from the front door of her

office. The distance you see here in the red circle - that's where

the - that's the sighting of the person believed to be Suzanne

Pilley, and it's this person I've then viewed to look at what the

tones of the clothing are like - and not just what that person's

like, but also in comparison to other people on the street as well

so you can get an indication of what someone in dark-coloured

clothing would look like. But her clothing is actually more of a

lighter tone than those around her. There's also a moment where there's

a dark tone midway down the body, which could also be the bag that's

being carried earlier on, which can be seen here. So all that together

with the location and the timings - all that added together allow

significant evidence to say that it's the same person throughout,

and then these are the last sightings of Suzanne Pilley as we

know it. Investigators were now convinced Suzanne was dead, and

that creeping realisation was happening for her family too.

think - I don't think - I thought to myself that I'm never going to

see her again. I don't know whether it's - what it was, but it was just

so unlike Suzanne not to be in touch. I knew there must have been

something sinister had happened, and it's - it was just the case of

being the police to see that something had happened, like, you

know, that's when they said they'd seen her on the - during the

investigation they'd seen her on CCTV and eventually arriving and

going to her work. Although police launched a public appeal for

information, the electronic evidence they'd gathered from

Suzanne's intimate personal e-mails and public CCTV cameras quickly

pointed towards one man. It was David Gilroy, the lover she'd

become determined to break away from. There clearly is a belief in

some quarters that you are a murderer, that you killed Suzanne

Pilley. What do you say to that? that's not the case, and the police

will do their investigation, and time will show that, you know, I

don't have anything to answer to. That's all I've got to say. Gilroy

had been an electrical engineer in the Royal Navy, but he had a

reputation for exaggerating his military career. He was now a

regional manager regarded as an expert problem solver and good

under pressure. Given his relationship with Suzanne, he was

the prime suspect, but without Suzanne's body and hard forensic

evidence, it seemed he'd committed the perfect crime. But he was

leaving an electronic trail. He'd called and texted Suzanne 450 times

in three weeks, but incredibly, he stopped the moment she vanished.

That morning, colleagues quickly noticed Suzanne was missing, and

they described Gilroy as seeming clammy, sweaty, and he had marks on

his face and his neck. Gilroy knew there was no CCTV anywhere within

his building, but cameras on the properties outside show him going

in and out of the basement garage. What was he doing? He'd arrived by

bus, but that morning, he made excuses to go home and collect his

car. He brought a silver Vauxhall back to the garage. At lunch time,

he goes shopping. Inside the bag, he's carrying are four air

fresheners he's just bought. Police were increasingly convinced he

killed Suzanne soon after she'd arrived at work, that she'd

followed him to the basement, where there had been a fight, and he'd

hidden her body under a stairwell. Once I've established that Suzanne

has, you know, for all intents and purposes, made to it her work, the

great challenge that I'm faced with - the premises, obviously, is the

sheer size. It was a very, very large space and different levels

with, you know, a number of separate offices and spaces where,

in theory, something could have happened to Suzanne. With little to

go on, police turn to the most basic of senses, the sense of smell.

That's why I decided to bring the dogs in who are trained and, you

know, trained in detecting dead bodies. Gary Flanigan took the

unusual step of bringing in two highly trained cadaver dogs from

South Yorkshire Police's is specialist dogs unit to give

forensic teams a focus to gather evidence. When you die, your body

automatically starts breaking down. The chemicals in your body start

decomposing, and your body gives off numerous gases, and the dogs

are picking up on the gases that are produced by the body

decomposing, and that's what they alert to. Check this. Check. Check

this. Check. The dogs are capable. They really are capable of

indicating something at this moment in time. I think the forensic

technology is quite not there. days after Suzanne went missing,

the dogs were brought to Edinburgh. The spaniel Buster searched the

basement first and almost immediately got a result. Buster,

when he was first on the ground floor basement area, and during the

search of that, there were several indications from the dog. The dog

had searched and located something which he is trained to search for,

and that is the scent of human decomposing remains and human blood.

The indications were pointed out. We carried on searching through the

entire building in conjunction with putting the dog away, getting Ian's

dog out and obviously letting Ian work his dog on those areas. There

were no indications from either dog anywhere else other than - within

areas within the garage basement and a recess area under the

stairwell. One of the areas Buster identified was exactly where

Gilroy's car had been parked right next to the boot. That was quite a

significant breakthrough for us there, and that led to then, you

know, a painstaking approach for the forensic scientists and scenes

of crime people, you know, who spent two or three days then going

through the area forensically. an exhaustive forensic search found

nothing to back up the dogs' indications. The investigation

could have faltered. More evidence was needed. Gilroy had been clever

covering his tracks, but he also underestimated the ability of

police to track his movements. of the first things that he did

emerging from the basement was to go on to his computer and make a

diary entry which would give him the cover to go to Argyle the

following day. When he finished his work that day with the arrangements

in hand, we now believe Suzanne in the boot of his vehicle, he drove

home and then behaved in a very normal fashion. Here is David

Gilroy that evening going to a school concert. Scotland's CCTV

network is so extensive, it captures the most innocuous detail.

We can even see him here in this restaurant having dinner. It's only

hours after he murdered Suzanne, but he's already got a plan to get

rid of her body. It's the day after Suzanne disappeared. Gilroy's

heading for Argyle, a trip police were able to reconstruct through

CCTV. He gets petrol, buys some lunch. Nothing is unusual, but all

the time, Suzanne is in the boot of his car. These pictures are

remarkable. The inquiry team used 250 cameras in pursuit of the

investigation. It was a case of basically dividing up the country

and joining up intersections that allow us to go and pursue all CCTV

that can be recovered in that area. The whole process of that was to

show that this was the movements of this person across the country from

the area of Stirling all the way through to Inveraray and also we

had officers who were based in the Argyle area for a number of weeks

who carried out a number of trawls for CCTV in that area, not just the

main route we'd covered from Inveraray to Lochgilphead, but

surrounding routes as well, particularly up in towards Arrochar

and Rest & Be Thankful. Gilroy would routinely visit Lochgilphead

for work up to 30 times a year. He would usually travel the most

direct route up Loch Lomond site, but police discovered on this

occasion, he travelled much further north via Tyndrum to Inveraray.

That looked suspicious. This is Gilroy's mobile phone seized by

police along with his car. It's just another piece of technology we

all use, but it gave major clues as to his movements, even when he

switched it off. During the course of the inquiry, we had assistance

from various experts, and someone very quickly realised that there

was something indeed really interesting in that he turned his

phone off around the Stirling area and hadn't reconnected his phone

until he reached Inveraray, and then on his return journey, he'd

mimicked that and switched his phone off and then switched his

phone back on. Clearly, that was very significant to the

investigation. I was, you know, immediately aware that the - there

was a similarity in the length of time that he was effectively

uncontactable during the afternoon - was similar to the evening, and

it arrived, the car, around the same area. So police suspected

Gilroy had deliberately turned his phone off to conceal his movements

when he was disposing of Suzanne's body, but where? Damage to his car

suggested somewhere remote deep in the forests of Argyle. Upon

examining the vehicle, it was found that the suspension coil was

fractured both at the top and the base. Not only was the front

offside suspension coils damaged, the front nearside suspension coil

was fractured, and the rear offside suspension coil was also fractured.

When you put a that into context with the fact that there was

longitudnal scrape marks on the under side of the vehicle and there

was also vegetation clinging to the under side of the vehicle, it was

in my opinion consist went the vehicle having been driven offroad.

The journey was also suspicious in another key way. Police drove the

route several times and found a problem with Gilroy's story.

outbound route between Edinburgh to Lochgilphead was found to be 136.7

miles long. Our average time over the reconstructions was two hours,

55 minutes. CCTV analysis of the time taken by Mr Gilroy indicated

that he took a time of five hours and eight minutes to complete the

same route. The significant difference occurred between Tyndrum

and Inveraray. So they knew there was missing time in a remote area,

but another small detail emerged. Here's Gilroy on his way to Argyle.

We can clearly see an umbrella on the parcel shelf. By the time he

returns to Edinburgh, the umbrella is out of view. That was a

breakthrough for detectives. umbrella on the rear of the parcel

shelf of the car on two occasion over two days - that - that's

something that at the blink of an eye someone saw that going past

camera - really, really important. It showed that there was action.

Something had happened around about the boot of that vehicle that day.

By the time it came into the police hands, it wasn't where it was in

the footage. That was another really crucial time for myself.

Gilroy had been in his boot. He'd had hours to spare, and he tried to

conceal his movements, but sightings of a silver car on May

the 5th led investigators to believe Gilroy detoured towards the

Rest & Be Thankful that he'd recce'd it on the way to Inveraray

and on the way back he'd dumped Suzanne's body off a remote forest

road. The rough countryside around Glenn Crowe and an area known as

Hell's Glen was the focus of a major police search in the summer

of 2010. We'd been searching in Glenn Crowe forest for weeks and

weeks in order to be comfortable that we hadn't missed something. I

made the situation to go out and look for volunteers from the

various mountain rescue and cave rescue teams throughout Scotland

and, you know, we got a fantastic response. Fine. I'd expect with the

terrain, it's tough work. It doesn't seem as though we have

covered much, but because of the ground, it's obviously very time-

consuming. There was a specific purpose to my mind why we were

searching, but we were led by members of the public and their

sightings. The family - they were extremely pleased at the response

that we were given from the volunteers - that meant a

considerable amount to them. The main search was at the weekend. I

phoned up Gary when he was at the Rest & Be Thankful and asked him to

thank all the volunteers for giving up their weekends, but

unfortunately, it was to no avail. I'd just like to say there's a lot

of parents out there that'll know where their children are and where

they'll be sleeping tonight, but unfortunately, my family doesn't

know where Suzanne is sleeping. The search found no trace and

exactly where he hid her body remains a mystery, but police have

been able to reconstruct so much of his movements, the net was closing

in on the suspect. Could you answer a couple of questions, please, Mr

Gilroy? In Britain, we're more likely to be captured on CCTV

surveillance cameras than anywhere else in Europe. Here is Gilroy

arriving at Lochgilphead High School. It's almost at 4.30pm in

the afternoon. His visit there is the cover story for his urgent

business trip to Argyle, but that story was just another lie.

It's now almost midnight on the day after Suzanne disappeared. David

Gilroy's back in Edinburgh after disposing of Suzanne's body.

Detectives have been leaving messages on his phone all day and

he's arrived at a police station. He was questioned for the next 11

hours. Well, as part of a sort of process of eliminating someone from

the inquiry, I have always looked to make sure that people haven't

shown signs of having been in a struggle, any violence, and we

applied the same process with David Gilroy, and we noticed when he was

in for interview that he had marks on his hands, the backs of his

hands and his forearms. He gave an explanation that those marks had

been the result of gardening - and a plausible enough explanation, so

in order to record those, we asked him if he'd agree to come in and

have those injuries photographed, and it was when he came in to get

those injuries photographed that officers noticed that they thought

he had a makeup-like substance on the backs of his hands, and at that

stage that was the, you know, for me, that was the defining moment.

Police were convinced that the unprecedented use of technology and

hard work had proved Gilroy was the murderer.

But would a jury agree? The key evidence you've heard tonight was

teased out in painstaking detail. The evidence you've seen from the

CCTV images to the mobile phones, the cadaver dogs and David Gilroy's

car formed the heart of the prosecution case. In an unusual

step, the jury was taken from the High Court to retrace Suzanne's

final journey for themselves. David Gilroy accompanied them. When they

visited the building at Thistle Street, it was the first time he'd

been back to the premises since he killed Suzanne there two years

before. During the trial, his wife was called by the prosecution to

give evidence against her husband, but she chose not to testify. Every

day Suzanne's family would get up and take the bus to court and have

to sit in a room with the man they believed killed their daughter.

don't know. I just felt like I wanted to be there and to support

Suzanne because we were the only ones there that can actually

support her now. Ultimately, you had to wait three days for a

verdict. I think that's the worst three days of our lives. It's -

just sitting there, you're - 15 men and women, you say to yourself, you

know what decision the family's made, but it's a case that is - has

the prosecution got the message across to the jury? And you just

hope and pray that he has. Gilroy was found guilty of murder by a

majority verdict. This day has been a long time coming, but finally,

Suzanne has received the justice she deserved. As a family, we

continue to struggle to come to terms with losing her. We've lost

our daughter, but her memory lives on in everyone who knew her.

Although the trial has ended, our ordeal goes on, and we hope that

one day we can lay our daughter to rest.

Thank you. Ten years ago it wouldn't have been

possible to prosecute a case in such a way. With no body and no

forensic evidence, it's likely her killer would have walked free, even

if the case had made it to court, but as you've seen, we leave an

electronic footprint wherever we go. In this case, police could catch a

killer, but one key question remains - where is Suzanne?

haven't recovered Suzanne's body for the family, and, you know,

that's what this is all about, and, you know, that is - we're not

finished until we're able to bring some sort of closure for the family,

so there is only one person that knows where Suzanne is, and that