Daughter who killed mother facing life in prison

Wilson was found guilty of the lesser charge of culpable homicide after he admitted in court that he helped to dispose of the body in Craignaught Burn, which runs through farmland close to the victim’s home in Burnside.

Mrs Brown, who was divorced had 60 injuries in total, with 49 blunt-force injuries to the face and neck, which included a broken nose, jaw bone and larynx.

The victim’s brother, Michael Elliot, 48, who was unable to identify the body of his sister because of the extent of her injuries, said following the conviction that it was “reprehensible” that neither his niece nor Wilson had shown any remorse for their “heinous” crime.

The couple had originally lied to police about their whereabouts the night Mrs Brown was murdered and later turned the blame on each other in court as their original story unravelled.

Judge Lord Matthews deferred sentencing until August and told Brown and Wilson, who had been dating since the summer of 2007, that they face a long spell behind bars.

He said: “This was a horror story that touched four generations of the one family.”

The court heard how Brown, a failed archaeology student, had a turbulent relationship with her mother that often turned violent.

The row between mother and daughter intensified after Mrs Brown started legal proceedings to gain custody of a child that both women had cared for. Brown went to the police and social workers for help.

When this failed, she and Wilson hatched a plan to kill her mother and take the child, Brown later gave birth to a baby girl while on remand at Cornton Vale.

ANALYSIS

SHE planned the meeting that ended in the murder of her mother over the social networking site Bebo.

Lisa Brown would talk casually about the hatred she felt towards former nurse Anne Brown, and her plans to put an end to their feud – for good.

In one message recovered by police, the 21-year-old told a friend: “Let’s just say if me and my mum meet again, one of us won’t be seen alive.”

The mother and daughter had, over a number of months, rowed viciously over the custody of a child they both cared for and the anger of the 21-year-old appears to have intensified after she became pregnant.

In one posting on Bebo, when she asked a friend for a lift to her mother’s house in the Laigh Gree area of Burnhouse, Ayrshire, she said: “Feel as big as an elephant and more ready than ever to deal with mum.”

As she set out her options in dealing with the row, Brown, in another message, told a former friend that she could ask the local police or a family lawyer for help. Her third choice, she said, was “just going down myself and knocking my mum out and driving off in her car. I can drive, but just not legally.”

It was this course of action that Brown, and her boyfriend John Wilson, a former security guard, were to take. The couple had started ­dating in July 2007, when she was working on the Tall Ship at Glasgow Harbour on the Clyde and he was a security guard at a car park in nearby Finnieston Quay.

The pair were former pupils at Stewarton Academy in Ayrshire, but had not known each other at that time. She had gone on to study archaeology at Glasgow University, but dropped out after a year. Her mother paid off her £1500 student loan.

Much to her mother’s disapproval, Brown moved into Wilson’s housing association flat in the Maryhill area of Glasgow in October of that year. When she became pregnant four months later, the former nurse ordered her daughter to have an abortion.

Brown did, and moved back to Ayrshire, later claiming in court that her mother instructed her to send an e-mail to Wilson “wishing he was dead”. However, the couple soon rekindled their relationship after Brown said her mother was abusive to her.

This allegation further angered Mrs Brown, who allegedly told her daughter to “sign forms” to hand over full custody of a child they had both cared for, whose identity cannot be disclosed publicly.

Another e-mail further highlighted the turbulent nature of the relationship between the two women. It said: “Mum has said I ain’t classy, she doesn’t want me coming on holiday

with her and she’s not going to be my birth partner when I go into labour. I f****** hate her.”

On the wet and windy night of October 18 last year, the couple’s murderous plan swung into action. They travelled to Burnhouse with incendiary news to share: Brown was again pregnant with Wilson’s child.

The couple left Wilson’s flat in Maryhill and took a bus to Dunlop. Through the dark and stormy country roads they walked for a further 45 minutes, until they reached Anne Brown’s bungalow.

The mother did not know the pair were on their way. She did not know that her daughter and her boyfriend came equipped with two balaclavas, or that the foot-long silver torch that had guided them through the Ayrshire countryside was to be used to beat her to death.

It was, as prosecutors described, a “night-time surprise assault”. Mrs Brown suffered 60 injuries that night, of which 49 were to her head and neck. Both her upper and lower jaw were broken, and she also suffered a broken nose and larynx. Her wounds were so horrific that her brother, Michael Elliot, was unable to identify her body in the mortuary.

Mr Elliot, 48, who lives in England, later described in court the tumultuous relationship between his sister and his niece. “It would stretch and stretch like elastic,” he told the jury.

There were no witnesses to the murder, and no-one recalled seeing Brown and Wilson on the night the woman died. It would appear that the body of Mrs Brown was dumped between two sheds in her back garden,

a location that was later pinpointed by a police sniffer dog, while her killers searched around the house for tools for her disposal.

The woman was wrapped in two B&Q builders’ sacks, which had Mrs Brown’s name written on them, and then a sleeping bag. The two balaclavas brought from Glasgow were pulled over her head. The bundle was weighed down with stones and bricks, Wilson later telling the court that it was also wrapped in wire and chains to hold together the sleeping bag, which had a broken zip. Brown helped lower the body of her mother into the boot of her own black Ford Focus, and she drove to Craignaught Farm.

One expert told the trial last week that Mrs Brown could have been alive as daughter and boyfriend wrapped up her body after the attack.

Wilson, in his evidence, told the court that he checked for a pulse and could not find one but agreed that the former nurse could still have been alive.

The court heard from a pathologist who explained that Mrs Brown would have been alive for at least 30 minutes after she was struck. It was a gruesome detail that heightened the barbarity of the crime.

Other evidence revealed the clandestine actions of the killers as they made their escape.

Audio recordings taken from CCTV footage from the farm that night captured the sound of a bolted gate being opened, the deep voice of a man and the cries of a young baby who had been placed in the back of the car.

With the absence of witnesses, the circumstantial case built by the Crown rested largely on DNA evidence, drawn chiefly from extensive blood staining in the vehicle, which also carried a smudged fingerprint of Wilson on the tailgate.

Wilson had dragged his girlfriend’s mother from the boot to the burn before dropping her into the water. He hurried back to the car in anticipation of leaving the scene, but the torrential rain had softened the ground so much that the car had become submerged into the roadside verge and their getaway was delayed.

After Wilson, described in court as a weak and submissive man, was unable to move the vehicle, the pair walked four to five miles back to Leigh Green, child in hand and the car abandoned at the roadside. It was reported to police the following days by passers-by, and police tried to contact Mrs Brown, unaware that her corpse was a few

minutes’ walk away.

After sleeping in Anne Brown’s bed that night, the couple made the journey back to Glasgow on public transport after making an unsuccessful attempt to transfer funds from their victim’s bank account.

Back in the city, Brown and Wilson gave interviews to the press, claiming that they had gone to Burnside on Saturday to find nobody at home apart from a child. They painted a picture of innocence, but the two were already busy covering their tracks.

William Stephen, a neighbour of the couple, recalled in court how they used his washing machine to clean five loads of laundry on October 21 last year – the date remaining in his memory as it was when Celtic met ­Manchester United in the Champions League. Wilson gave him £5 to cover the electricity.

Despite that cleaning, traces of Anne Brown’s blood were found embedded in the fibres of some of the couple’s clothes.

A spot of Mrs Brown’s blood was also found on Wilson’s watch and the gloves he wore during the murder.

The next day, Mrs Brown’s mother, Vera Kelly, who is 80 and lives in Fenwick, Ayrshire, became concerned that she was unable to contact her daughter, with whom she had a close relationship.

A police search of the Burnhouse home found only Mrs Brown’s dogs and cats. It was two days later that the missing person inquiry was switched to a murder investigation after a police helicopter, fitted with heat-seeking radar, spotted the bulky object in the burn.

As the trial progressed, John Wilson deviated from the version of events that he concocted with his girlfriend, a move that saw him branded a “consummate liar” by his girlfriend’s QC.

After 19 days of evidence, 50 Crown witnesses and 400 productions, the jury took just three hours to convict the couple of what judge Lord Matthews described as an “appalling” offence.

Last night, the two were facing up to their role in what the trial judge further described as “a horror story that touched four generations of the one family”. Lord Matthews deferred sentencing until August but told the ashen-faced pair they faced a long spell behind bars.

In another sad aspect in this travesty of family life, Brown gave birth to a baby girl, who was developing in her ­mother’s womb at the time of her grandmother’s murder.

RELATIONSHIP

THEY planned to stick to the same story and “live happily ever after” when they got out of jail.

But the two young ­lovers turned on each other as they fought to hold on to their liberty, with each lodging a special defence of incrimination which saw them blame the other for the murder of Anne Brown.

In the days that followed the fatal beating, John ­Wilson and Lisa Brown told police they had gone to visit her mother on October 18 last year, claiming that on arrival they

discovered a 20-month toddler was home alone.Officers were told that Mrs Brown had taken off unexpectedly before, and the couple took the child back to their flat in ­Glasgow for safety.

Wilson told the High Court trial that this was a story he and his girlfriend had planned to stick to until he learned that she was blaming him for the murder.

He admitted to lying to police about the sequence of events on October 18. He then tried to construct a plea bargain, by admitting to the disposal of the body on the grounds that Brown committed the murder, but this was rejected by the court.

Wilson, 25, told the High Court in Glasgow that Anne Brown was killed by her daughter.

He said he was sitting at the back of the victim’s house in Burnhouse when his girlfriend came out and said: “John, I think I have just killed mum.”

Wilson said he saw the body of Mrs Brown lying between two sheds, and that he later helped cover up the corpse and put it in the back of a car.

Wilson told the trial he helped dispose of the body in the burn to stay together with his girlfriend and ensure he had contact with his child. A picture of a submissive man emerged in court, with the jury told that, before the murder, Brown told Wilson to choose between her or his job as a security guard. He left his job, even though Brown

was pregnant with his child at the time.

Regarding his role in Anne Brown’s death and disposal, his QC, Ian Duguid, asked: “How did you end up doing something as criminal as this?” Wilson told him: “I

loved Lisa.

“If I did not do as she wanted, I would have lost her and not seen my child. “I still have not seen my child.”

He was branded a “consummate liar” by his girlfriend’s QC after he changed his original version of events.

Ms Frances McMenamin said that Mrs Brown died on the “one and only” occasion that Wilson went to her house and that there was not one piece of Crown evidence to place the victim’s daughter at the murder scene.

Ms McMenamin said: “There was not one piece of Crown evidence that actually has Lisa Brown attacking her mother or putting her at the spot where the assault may have taken place.”

She said the only evidence putting her client in the role of the killer was that of her co-accused.

Advocate Depute Gary Allan QC told the court it was the Crown’s contention that Brown and Wilson had “a common criminal plan”.

He went on: “They were in it together. “John Wilson’s evidence is clearly riddled with lies. He has told you that himself.

“John Wilson only speaks out now when he is faced with an overwhelming body of evidence.

“Only now, when staring into the abyss of a conviction for murder, does he say he is telling the truth.”

But his version of events was enough to convince the jury that he could not be found guilty of the murder of Anne Brown, and they instead convicted him of the lesser offence of ­culpable homicide.

Lisa Brown did not give evidence during the trial.

BROTHER’S GRIEF AND ANGER AT CALLOUSNESS AND LACK OF REMORSE

A FAMILY betrayed; a ­family sickened by the callous murder of their loved one by one of their own.

Following the conviction of Lisa Brown, 21, for the murder of her mother Anne, the victim’s brother Michael Elliot issued a statement that expressed the heartbreak felt by both him and their elderly mother Vera, who lived close to Anne in Fenwick.

The court had heard that it was Mr Elliot who was called to identify his sister’s battered body in the mortuary, but her facial injuries were so bad that he could not confirm it was her.

Mr Elliot, 48, a chemist, said both he and his mother had cried following the murder of his sister and yesterday the sentiment turn to anger; anger that his own niece had shown no remorse for the ruination of their family.

He said: “I would also like to place on record my disgust at the image portrayed of my sister Anne in court, which I neither acknowledge nor recognise.

“Yes, Anne had pressures in her life that were incumbent with being a single parent but our abiding memory of Anne is of a warm, loving and giving person who would always help anyone in distress, sometimes to her own detriment.

“She was a loving daughter, sister and mother who gave selflessly of herself to those close to her. We will miss her terribly and feel no sentence can be adequate to compensate us for her loss.

“We would also add that we feel it is reprehensible that neither of the accused in this tragic case has expressed any remorse for their part in this heinous crime.”

Mr Elliot last spoke to his sister early in October 2008, before receiving a call later that month from his mother that Anne was missing. He travelled to Ayrshire and was later asked to identify her body.On conclusion of the trial, Mr Elliot thanked the procurator-fiscal’soffice, the police and social services for their diligence and professionalism.

Geri Watt, area procurator-fiscal for Ayrshire, described the murder as “particularly callous”. She added: “There were no eye-witnesses to the crime and both accused continually denied responsibility; however, they have been brought to justice as a result of police and prosecutors working together.

“This began at the start of the police investigation, which involved both traditional investigative tools and the most up-to-date scientific techniques.

“The specialist High Court team in the fiscal’s office in Kilmarnock worked closely with the police and with Gary Allan, the senior advocate-depute who ultimately prosecuted the case in court.

“Careful consideration was given to the presentation of evidence in court and a multi-media package was developed to ensure that the range of complex evidence, which together built up the picture showing the guilt of the accused, was ­demonstrated to the jury.”

More than 150 witnesses were cited for the trial, which was supported by 400 separate labelled documents and 25 volumes of photographs.

Detective chief inspector Peter McPike, the officer in charge of the investigation, said last night: “I sincerely hope that the verdict will go some way in helping Anne Brown’s mother and brother put the horror of the past nine months behind them.

“It is difficult to fully appreciate the anguish suffered by Anne’s loved ones.”

CORNTON VALE HAS 25TH LIFE PRISONER

isa Brown will become the 25th life prisoner at the all-female Cornton Vale prison.

She returned to the prison on the outskirts of Stirling yesterday afternoon a ­convicted murderer, having stayed there on remand since first charged with the offence in October.

As soon as she stepped out of the prison van, Brown will have been assessed for the risk of suicide.

The 21-year-old will not be sentenced until next month, but she has already been warned by Judge Lord ­Matthews that she faces a long spell behind bars.

Following the initial assessment, Brown will have received an induction into prison life. By now, she will have been assigned a dedicated prison guard and told about her visiting rights.

About six months after ­sentence, work will start to rehabilitate Brown.

A multi-disciplinary case conference will be held to establish more information. Documents such as the trial judge’s report and the social work inquiry report will be used to build a better understanding of Brown’s life and to establish any areas of concern, such as mental health problems.

These will then be used to select which courses she will be sent on, such as the Female Offence Specific programme, which works to establish the roots of the prisoner’s criminal behaviour and encourage remorse and empathy.

These case conferences are then held at least once a year to determine a prisoner’s progress. Evidence that the woman has worked hard to improve her skills and understanding of her behaviour can be rewarded by a move to ­better accommodation. Brown will eventually have the chance to work in the prison canteen, a hairdressing salon or a bicycle workshop. However, keeping life prisoners motivated can be problematic.

Jim Kerr, deputy governor of Cornton Vale, said he could not comment on individual prisoners but talked in general terms about some of the issues facing those on a long sentence.

“The difficulty in life ­sentences is keeping the prisoner engaged in the early part of their sentence,” he said.

“Prisoners can feel hopeless. In my experience, they usually have a pretty tough time coming to terms with the fact that a life sentence in Scotland means that conditions will be placed upon their liberty for the rest of their life.”

A community-based social work team will decide if Brown is entitled to have ­visits from her children, one of whom was born while she was on remand but was removed from her care.

John Wilson, who assisted Brown in the killing of her mother, has never seen his daughter and is unlikely ever to be allowed such access ­following conviction.

Brown will be entitled to five to six visits a month from friends and family. However, with her mother dead, her boyfriend in prison, her children in care and an uncle and elderly grandmother left appalled by the brutality committed against their family, Brown may have little contact with the world outside ­Cornton Vale.

Mr Kerr added: “It is an unfortunate situation that many of the women in Cornton Vale don’t receive visits at all, either because they don’t have any family members who want to visit them or they don’t ask their families to come and see them.”