The man accused of murdering spinster Marion Ross turned up on a neighbour's door-step months before the killing Glasgow High Court heard yesterday.
Mrs Isabella Munro, 50, who lived across the road from Miss Ross, told the court she had never met the stranger before. But after Marion's death she went to an identification parade and picked out David Asbury.
Marion died in January this year, and Mrs Munro revealed that in October last year Asbury came to her home and asked her for a tow rope.
When she said she didn't have one he just grunted and walked away. Mrs Munro told Mr Alan Dewar, prosecuting that there was a garage only four houses away and anyone wanting a tow rope would have been aware of its existence.
Cross examined by Mr William Totten, defending, Mrs Munro agreed there was nothing about the incident which made her go to the police.
But she added that she had an uneasy feeling the young man might have been an opportunist looking for an empty house.
Asbury, 21, of Castle Drive, Kilbirnie, denies murdering Marion between January 6 and 8 this year in her home at Irvine Road, Kilmarnock.
It's alleged he stabbed her in the eye and throat with a pair of scissors and a knife. He has lodged a special defence of alibi claiming he was elsewhere at the time.
The trial before Lord Dawson continues.
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