Infamous Scots. Robert Bayne.

Contains Sensitive Information.

Classification: Murderer

Characteristics: Attacked the teenager, put a plastic sheet over her face and set her on fire

Number of victims: 1

Date of murder: May 22, 2010

Date of arrest: 6 days after

Date of birth: 1989

Victim profile: Zoe Nelson, 17

Method of murder: The cause of death was recorded as “unascertained”

Location: Wishaw,  North Lanarkshire, Scotland, United Kingdom

Status: Sentenced to life imprisonment (minimum 20 years) on April 27, 2011

The murder of Zoe Nelson was committed in the Cambusnethan suburb of Wishaw, North Lanarkshire, Scotland on 22 May 2010. Seventeen-year-old Zoe Nelson’s extensively burned remains were found in woodland near a colliery spoil heap known locally as Monkey Hill after her killer constructed a pyre in an attempt to destroy evidence.Forensic pathologist Julia Bell told the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh that the possibilities for a full post mortem were “limited” because the body was too badly burned, but that “some form of throttling or suffocating was the most probable cause of death, which was recorded as ‘unascertained'”.During their enquiries, police used new media for the first time in a murder investigation, in an effort to reach out to local teenagers who may otherwise have not wanted to communicate with the police. During the trial it also emerged that the victim’s sister had withheld the identity of the killer for five days.On 25 March 2011, 21-year-old Robert Bayne was found guilty of her murder and of a second charge of attempting to defeat the ends of justice. The judge deferred sentencing for psychiatric and social background reports to be prepared. On 27 April 2011 Bayne was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum term of twenty years, for the murder and six years, to be served concurrently, for the second charge.MurderDisappearanceZoe Nelson was a seventeen-year-old motor vehicle repair student at Motherwell College, who lived with her mother, stepfather and younger sister at Crindledyke Crescent, Newmains, on the eastern edge of Wishaw.Both Nelson and her 16-year-old sister Laura Anne were involved in relationships with the same man, 20-year-old Robert “Rab” Bayne, who lived with his grandparents in Harper Crescent, Cambusnethan, although the elder sister was also dating another local man, Ross Hemphill.Marieann Nelson, the girls’ mother, described how the sisters had argued about Bayne outside the family home at around 5pm on 22 May. She said: “Laura Anne ran out and flicked Zoe’s hair and tried to slap her face and the two of them ended up having a fight at the end of the driveway. I split it up. I said ‘Go away you cow and don’t come back’. She said she wouldn’t come back.” Isobel Park, Nelson’s stepsister, said Zoe and Bayne seemed “a bit intoxicated” and that Laura Anne had been upset as “she was supposed to be seeing Rab as well.”Zoe walked off with Bayne, who was drinking from a bottle of tequila, and was not seen alive by her family again. At 5pm on 24 May, after police had announced the discovery of a body, Mrs. Nelson reported her daughter as a missing person.

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