Dramatic footage of a four-year-old boy describing how he witnessed the brutal murder of a schoolgirl is to be shown in a new TV documentary.
Archie Wilson’s testimony was crucial in bringing to justice the killers of 14-year-old Caroline Glachan after more than 27 years. Robert O’Brien, Andrew Kelly and Donna Marie Brand were convicted of killing Caroline, whose body was discovered on the banks of the River Leven in Renton, West Dunbartonshire, on 25 August 1996.
The case was one of Scotland’s longest running unsolved murders and documentary makers from Glasgow-based production firm Firecrest Films were given unprecedented access to the High Court in Glasgow for the trial.
BBC series Murder Trial: The Girl In The River will show a police interview with Archie which was recorded shortly after the murder when he was four-and-a-half years old. He was dragged out of his home in Renton shortly before midnight on August 24, 1996, and taken to a pathway beside the River Leven by Kelly, who was babysitting him.
They were accompanied by O’Brien, Brand and Kelly’s then girlfriend, Sarah Jane O’Neill, who has since died. Archie told officers he saw Caroline being attacked “down the Leven”. He also identified O’Brien as the person who hit Caroline with a pole.
In the police interview, he said: “She got hit with a metal pole because there was metal in her eye. I saw it. I closed my eyes when the metal was in her eyes and when she got pushed into the water.”
During the interview Archie drew a picture of the River Leven on an etch-a-sketch board and said all three accused were at the murder scene. The killers all rigidly stuck to the same alibi and told officers they spent the night of the murder in the flat where Archie lived.
Police Scotland’s Major Investigation Team started re-examining the case in June 2019. As part of the reinvestigation, police sent a child psychologist a package containing everything that had been done with Archie and his relatives.
Detective Inspector Stuart Grainger – the senior officer who led the cold case review – said the expert believed Archie “was experiencing a lived event”.
Speaking on the documentary, lawyer Alex Prentice KC, who led the prosecution case in the trial, said: “It is of course a concern that a very young boy is giving evidence in a murder trial and some people might think that a four-year-old boy is not someone who can be relied upon. Archie talks about Caroline getting metal in her eye and an injury being caused.
“We heard from the pathologist who illustrated to the jury that there was such an injury. The question would be ‘How would he know that?'”
O’Brien, Kelly and Brand were found guilty of the murder after the trial in 2023. All three got life and O’Brien was ordered to serve at least 22 years in jail. Kelly must serve a minimum of 18 years and Brand 17 years.
Brand and Kelly, both 45, appealed, claiming there was insufficient evidence to support their convictions. O’Brien was refused permission to appeal.
At the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh earlier this month judges rejected the appeals against conviction as well as a plea by Brand to get her minimum jail term reduced. The trial heard Caroline had been “infatuated” with O’Brien and had gone to meet him by the River Leven when the trio attacked her and left her to drown.
Murder Trial: The Girl In The River airs on the BBC Scotland channel on Tuesday 28th January and BBC Two on Wednesday 29th January at 9pm.
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