Baffling execution of Scottish banker on doorstep 2004

[cobalt]

It’s been described as Scotland’s most baffling murder mystery and little progress has been made in almost 20 years. Nairn is a small Scottish town of around 10,000 people and considered a quiet, peaceful part of the country. Alistair Wilson, a bank manager for HBOS in nearby Inverness, was leading an equally quiet, peaceful life with his wife Veronica and their two young children who were not yet of school age. Veronica’s father lived in a flat on the top floor of their property and on the Sunday evening of the 28^th November 2004 a young child of a friend was also there prior to being collected.

At 7pm Veronica answered the front door to a man, not easily identifiable due to the darkness, who asked for her husband. Alistair came down and spoke to the man for around ten minutes whilst Veronica attended to the children. Alistair then returned from the door and showed his wife a turquoise envelope he had been handed, apparently empty, upon which was written the name ‘Paul.’ He seemed puzzled by the situation. Alistair went back to the front door and was then shot three times at close range: twice in the head and once in the body. He was declared dead soon after arrival at Inverness hospital.

Although the murder weapon- an inter-war German pistol so small it could fit inside the palm of a hand- turned up 10 days later dumped in a nearby drain, it yielded no clues. And the envelope- which really gives the case its baffling Sherlock Holmes element- has never been seen since, presumably disposed of by the murderer who was seen on the doorstep by independent witnesses and observed walking away after the crime.

Police have struggled to discover the motive for what was clearly a planned execution, albeit of a delayed kind which adds to the bewilderment. Since Alistair Wilson is a generic name in Scotland they explored the possibility of mistaken identity but drew a blank. They examined Alistair Wilson’s financial dealings at the bank with a fine tooth comb and came up with nothing. Everyone from former teachers to colleagues and friends spoke to Alistair Wilson being exactly what he appeared to be on the surface: a pleasant, honest, family man. Last month the police claimed they had a local suspect, already jailed for drug offences, who was connected to Alistair Wilson’s complaint about the hotel opposite his house building an outdoor extension without planning permission. They even visited the previous owner of the hotel- now living in Canada- to develop this as a motive. It seems a rather thin motive but I will leave the synopsis there and give my thoughts in the next post.



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[cobalt]

The suggestion that the motive for the murder of Alistair Wilson arose over an argument over outdoor decking at the hotel on the opposite side of the road from his property seems a little bizarre, but is being followed as a line of enquiry. After all in the UK disputes over Leylandii hedges, fences and trees are the very stuff of suburban drama and tempers can fray. However this generally happens over a period of time as the situation escalates and this was not the case here. The owner of the hotel only discovered that Alistair Wilson had lodged a complaint over the hotel’s (retrospective) request for planning permission on the Friday: Alistair Wilson was shot two days later.

It’s known that patrons of the hotel had voiced their annoyance over Wilson’s objection that weekend, fearing that their outdoor smoking area might have to be dismantled. But a more likely response would have been, once inebriated, to lob a bottle or two into his front garden and shout a few insults. There was no guarantee that the objection would be upheld.

The hotel owner himself has a cast iron alibi since he was eating and drinking with others in a pub quite near to his own hotel at the time of the shooting. However he was informed very quickly of events and hastened to the scene, even helping the ambulance workers place Wilson on the stretcher. It is not known if the person who informed him so swiftly of the incident is the person whom the police are considering a suspect.

Some reports indicate that Wilson and the hotel owner had been friends, though doubtless that friendship would have come under strain over the decking dispute. Purely as conjecture it’s possible that Wilson, in his role as a banker whose job was to attract business customers, had helped arrange the loan which enabled the hotel owner to purchase the property. If that was the case then a sense of betrayal would have been understandable on the hotel owner’s part. He has said since that he probably overpaid for the hotel.

But none of that takes us any nearer to the execution of Alistair Wilson really and it certainly does not explain the mystery of the turquoise envelope with the name ‘PAUL’ written on the outside.

[cobalt]

The initial suspicion was that Alistair Wilson, in his role as a bank manager, had wittingly- or more likely unwittingly given his excellent character references- been linked to a money laundering scheme. It may be significant that he was due to leave HBOS for another post and was working his notice at the time of his death. This seems a more plausible motive for what appeared to be a professional execution but if such a money laundering scheme existed then it has so far remained beyond the reach of the police to detect it.

An uncanny coincidence occurred almost 10 years after the murder. A couple clearing out their recently deceased father’s attic in Nairn came across a pocket pistol of exactly the same type as used in the murder. It was assumed the weapon had been smuggled back in a kit bag at the end of WW2 as a memento by the father. However such pistols are very rare and the fact that one turned up in Nairn, the scene of the Wilson murder and a town of little more than 10,000 people, seems astonishing.

In such a mysterious case rumours fill the void and Veronica Wilson has not escaped these. This is probably a result of the police keeping some information close to their chest and they had to officially announce at one point that Veronica was in no way suspected of involvement in the crime. The problem lies in the fact that her testimony has surely been edited by police. If a stranger came to the door and simply uttered a husband’s name very few wives would trot off to fetch him. The obvious response would be to ask, ‘Who shall I say is asking for him?’ or ‘What will I say it’s about?’

Likewise if her husband Alistair conversed with this stranger on the doorstep for around 10 minutes then that is too long for a misunderstanding or for people to remain talking at cross purposes. Some sort of dialogue must have taken place and when Alistair came back with the envelope he must have communicated something of that to his wife. At the very least he must have commented on whatever significance the envelope seemed to hold for the person who had handed it to him. It’s not clear why Alistair thought his wife would be able to shed any more light on the issue since she had barely spoken to the stranger.

A few cryptographers have suggested the name ‘PAUL’ is a misreading of what was written on the envelope. Either way the mystery remains of why an assassin bothered to hand it to his victim after speaking to him for around 10 minutes, with no guarantee his victim would return.

[Fantomas]

Wilson's family have complained to the Crown Office about the police handling of the case, over the last nineteen years:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c84vnxvk19do

Only having the wife as a witness is the biggest obstacle in this case. Is the turquoise/blue envelope in fact a red herring?

[cobalt]

I think the police have held back information that was given to them by Veronica Wilson. Here is a report penned by a crime writer from the Scottish Daily Express (2022) which suggests the turquoise envelope was not a red herring.

“Alistair did not open the envelope because he already knew what it contained” a senior policeman told reporters in the early days of the investigation.
(Reporter) If he already knew what the envelope contained, then that establishes a prior relationship of one kind or another between victim and assailant. It cannot be any other way.

That information, if correct, can only have come from Veronica Wilson and she must therefore have been privy to what the envelope contained or was demanding.

[Fantomas]

An odd substory of the case:

Chef sacked after closing hotel on night of Nairn banker's murder | The Herald (heraldscotland.com)

[Dupplin Muir]

I do actually have a suspect: Alistair Wilson's father-in-law. It's a bit odd that despite all the noise and fuss, he didn't come out of his room until his daughter called out for him. There's a knock at the door, Veronica clumping down the stairs and then back up, then Alistair clumps down and up and down again, there are several shots, and finally Veronica comes down and screams, yet the FiL just stays in his room. The fact that he heard his daughter's (relatively-quiet) call disproves any suggestion that he was deaf, or that the walls were too thick for the noise to be heard. There have been a number of murders where a father or mother became hostile to their son-in-law or daughter-in-law because of mythical mistreatment of their offspring.

I believe that this case - plus the similar shootings of Jill Dando and Alan Leppard, and also the Chillenden murders - remain unsolved because the British cops will never, ever, accept that an ordinary person can hire a hit-man. In the case of Leppard they actually pooh-poohed the idea that it was a contract-killing because 'he wasn't associated with organised crime' - as if only gangsters can hire killers.

[Darryl Kenyon]

I believe there is a strong suspect for the murder of Alistair . The theory being a local man around the age of 20 [ who is now in prison for other offences ], was paid to frighten Alistair off in airing anymore reasons why the patio shouldn't have been built outside the pub across the road. Tragically for Alistair this person played Mr Big with a gun and when Alistair came back downstairs an argument started, a quick scuffle the gun went off and poor Alistair was killed.
His name is well known in the area and to the police, unfortunately the evidence is lacking for a charge.

Regards Darryl

[cobalt]

When a man is murdered inside his house then a domestic motive is the place to start. When a man is murdered on his doorstep then a neighbourly dispute is an obvious area to investigate, which is where the police are at the moment it seems.

The owner of the Havelock Hotel has been described as a 'former friend' of Alistair Wilson. (It's not clear in what sense the word 'former' is being used here.) It is highly likely that Wilson offered financial advice to his friend, perhaps even helped arrange loans and such like in his capacity as a bank manager. The owner has since said that he believes he paid over the real value to buy the hotel. Therefore when Wilson made a formal objection to the decking area that had been built in the hotel car park, the owner might have felt some kind of double betrayal. Business at the hotel had apparently been boosted by the decking and Wilson's official complaint to the local council about noise, car parking and litter seems to confirm that trade was brisk. So, banal as the decking dispute seems on the surface, there may have been a serious financial motive and a personal revenge element involved in confronting Alistair Wilson on his doorstep.

The owner of the Havelock Hotel was informed officially of Wilson's complaint on the Thursday. The matter was 'discussed' in the Havelock that weekend, no doubt a lively discussion after a few drinks had been consumed. The major police suspect as of now, a man aged 20 at the time, was known to drink in the Havelock. He has since been described as a person who collects both guns and knives as a hobby, and has also been described as a former emergency worker. He is at present in jail on drugs offences.

Wilson was killed on the Sunday evening and the owner, who was actually in another local hostelry at the time, was swiftly informed of the incident. Informed so swiftly he was actually able to help ambulance workers lift Wilson's body on to the stretcher. We have not been told whether the person who informed the owner was the same person now believed to be the major suspect by the police. So the notion that the killer reported back: 'Job done- now fill the envelope!' is at present just Hollywood/mafia style speculation.

The weaknesses in this theory have probably become rather obvious to you as you have read through this summary. Hiring a contract killer from within a small town seems odd. To select one of your customers- a young man developing a macho self-image- seems like madness. To organise the 'hit' 20 yards from the hotel you own is patently absurd. So there could never have been any serious decision to assassinate Alistair Wilson in such a manner.

That leaves us with the possibility of a young man trying to earn himself a reputation and perhaps anticipating a healthy reward for his services. Instead, he wrecked the family life of the Wilsons and wrecked any hope the owner of the Havelock had of building a thriving business in the town. The owner has since moved to Canada to put the matter behind him.

The police were expected to make an arrest in May 2023 but the PF (CPS equivalent in Scotland) advised the case was not yet strong enough. It might never be. The owner probably never issued a 'fatwa' against Wilson, and even if he did there would be no independent witnesses to the fact. The suspect is on his own, already serving time, incapable of proving a conspiracy, and has no motivation to add a life sentence to his present punishment at the age of 40.