Casefile True Crime - Case 202: Moira Anderson

Episode Date: March 12, 2022

On Saturday, February 23 1957, 11-year-old Moira Anderson set out in a blizzard to run a quick errand. When she failed to return home, locals in her hometown of Coatbridge, Scotland began searching the area for any sign of her... --- Narration – Anonymous Host Research & writing – Erin Munro Creative direction – Milly Raso Production and music – Mike Migas Music – Andrew D.B. Joslyn This episode's sponsors: The Detective’s Dilemma – New podcast from Casefile Presents Best Fiends – Download Best Fiends for free The Jordan Harbinger Show – Learn the stories, secrets, and skills of the world’s most brilliant and interesting people Noom Weight – The last weight loss program you’ll need. Start your trial today Sunbasket – Get $90 off and a free gift with promo code ‘CASEFILE’ BetterHelp – Get 10% off your first month of professional counselling with a licensed therapist For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-202-moira-anderson

Have you ever tried BBQ on BBQ? Picture this. Freshly prepared crispy seasoned chicken that's tossed in a smoky BBQ glaze and topped with a creamy BBQ sauce. Can't picture it? Well you can try it now at Tim's. Get our new BBQ crispy chicken loaded bowls and wraps for a limited time. Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local Crisis Centre. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. Today's episode involves crimes against children and won't be suitable for all listeners. 13-year-old Scottish girl Janet Anderson hurried along the footpath. She had gone home over her lunch break which was due to end shortly. As she needed her school, Janet passed a small black car parked to the side of the road. Its bonnet was up and a tall man in overalls was peering down at the car's engine. Noticing Janet, he called out to her and asked if she could help him by holding the bonnet up for a minute while he looked under the vehicle for signs of a fault. Janet had been brought up to respect her elders and the man looked pleasant enough so she agreed. The car's bonnet was heavy. Janet had to use both hands to keep it raised while the man crawled under the car.

Before long, Janet was startled by something. The man had reached out from below and was groping her beneath her skirt. Janet screamed, let go of the bonnet and fled. After running a short distance, Janet realised that she should take down the licence plate of her attackers vehicle so he could be identified later. She turned and looked back at the car, memorising the mix of letters and numbers stamped onto its licence plate before rushing off to the safety of her school. The moment she arrived, she jotted down the plate's details then went to inform a teacher of what had happened. The police were notified and school administrators warned students to travel in pairs as a bad man was lurking in the neighbourhood. The assault couldn't have happened at a worse time. Janet and her family were already dealing with a terrible trauma.

Just a few weeks earlier on a regular Saturday afternoon, Janet's sister had vanished without a trace. A blizzard hit the small town of Coatbridge, Scotland on Saturday, February 23, 1957. That late afternoon, Moira Anderson trudged through the fallen snow towards Laird Street. The 11-year-old had been sent by her uncle to purchase some butter needed for her grandmother's dinner that night. Moira was happy to oblige. She often ran errands for her family and made a little pocket money doing the same for an elderly neighbour. The second of three daughters, Moira was industrious and mature. She even had a part-time job delivering milk, which was hard work. She had to push a heavy cart stacked with milk bottles door-to-door. She had become a recognisable and much-loved presence within her close-knit community.

The walk to the co-op store on the corner of Laird Street was only about 500 yards from Moira's grandmother's home, but she had to move quickly as the shop was due to close in less than half an hour. Her blue coat was buttoned up tightly to protect against the icy air, while a dark blue scarf and a navy blue wool pixie-style hat with red bands kept her neck and head warm. The streets were silent and deserted due to the terrible weather, with very few vehicles on the road. By that night, the Anderson family was overcome with worry. Parents Andrew and Maisie had spent the past few hours making enquiries as to the whereabouts of their daughter, Moira. No one had seen or heard from her since she left for the co-op at around 3.50pm. She hadn't wound up at a friend or relatives' house, nor could she have gotten lost on the short journey as she knew the local streets like the back of her hand.

The bad weather also made it unlikely that she'd grown distracted and was playing outside somewhere. The local library was checked in case Moira had gone there and lost track of time reading, which she had a habit of doing. But she wasn't there either. Moira had missed the 5pm screening of the film Guys and Dolls at a local cinema that she had planned to see with two of her older cousins. It was an outing that she was very excited about, but her cousins assumed she had chosen to do something else entirely when she failed to meet with them and didn't raise the alarm. Hours passed before anyone realised something was seriously amiss. As the streets grew darker and colder, any plausible explanation for Moira's absence seemed less and less likely. Just before midnight, Andrew Anderson contacted Coatbridge Police to report his little girl is missing.

The following day was Maisie Anderson's 40th birthday. Celebrations were cancelled as she spent her desperately looking for her daughter. The search grew in size and scope over the next few days, with local volunteers helping to check abandoned buildings, yards and sheds. Rumours that Moira was a difficult child led police to consider the possibility that she'd had an argument with her parents or sisters and ran away. Some thought the 11-year-old might have travelled as far as London. A family thought they had seen Moira had a funfair in the nearby city of Glasgow. Other sightings arose in West Scotland and the north of England. While police considered it probable that Moira had vanished willingly and would turn up sooner or later, her family felt very differently.

Maisie Anderson told the Daily Record newspaper, I know my daughter has been taken away against her will. She would never speak to strangers. Andrew echoed his wife's thoughts, stating, I fear she has been picked up in a car and taken away somewhere. But Moira never liked leaving the town, even to go to Glasgow. She spent almost all her spare time playing around the house. A woman came forward with a story that seemed to support Andrew and Maisie Anderson's belief that their daughter had been taken. She lived in the area of Moira's last known whereabouts and recalled hearing the sound of screeching brakes on that Saturday afternoon.

She said that when she looked out her window, she saw a car speeding away. The woman suspected that the motorist had accidentally hit Moira as she was walking, then bundled her body into the car in a panic. Officers followed up on the report by visiting the woman's home. After peering out of the window that she'd indicated, they dismissed her theory almost immediately. It wasn't possible for her to have seen the street from that location. They also noted that the amount of snow on the day in question would have muffled the noise from any vehicles passing outside. Despite Coatbridge's relatively close proximity to Scotland's largest city of Glasgow, the town's small and safe community felt worlds away. Nobody was a stranger, least of all Moira Anderson, who was often recognised wherever she went.

Her trip to the co-op store had been no exception. Mrs. Twicross was clearing away a heavy layer of snow outside her house on the afternoon of February 23 when she spotted Moira Anderson walking past on her butter-buying mission. She called out a greeting to the little girl, who shouted one back in return. Mrs. Twicross thought she heard Moira ask, is the bus away yet? As Moira continued on her way, Mrs. Twicross went back inside her home. Moira Anderson was next-sided, boarding a bus near the co-op store. It was unclear why she decided to catch a bus or where she was heading, but a man waiting at the stop recognised the girl as he knew her family. From a window of a nearby residence, an elderly woman also spotted Moira at the bus stop.

Moira had been playing in the snow when suddenly she slipped and fell. She seemed fine and quickly got back up, then began rummaging through her pockets, bag and the snow as though she dropped something. The elderly woman thought Moira might have lost money for her bus fare as she kept glancing up as though checking for the bus's arrival. The bus appeared moments later, and when it drove off again, the woman saw that Moira was gone. When Moira boarded the bus, she took a seat at the front of the vehicle as the driver greeted her. She locked eyes with a woman she knew and the pair exchanged a smile. The woman carried on down the aisle towards the back. She thought Moira was still on the bus after she herself disembarked via the rear door.

The bus was bound for Kirkwood, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of town. There was no reason for Moira to go there as she didn't know anyone who lived in the area. But one local resident did raise police suspicions. They wondered whether Moira had crossed paths with a mentally disabled man named Ian Simpson. He lived in Kirkwood, but his sister owned a house next to the Laird Street co-op that Moira was headed to. Police questioned Simpson and discovered he had a solid alibi for the afternoon of the 23rd. He'd been away that weekend with the Territorial Army, the British Army's volunteer reserve force. Despite this, at least one Coatbridge Inspector remained suspicious of Simpson.

Others felt that the answers they sought were closer to home, prompting them to search a holiday property on Scotland's east coast which was owned by the Anderson family. Nothing of significance was found. Suspicion also fell on Moira's uncle Jim, who had sent her to buy butter on the afternoon she went missing. As the last person to see her alive and an unmarried man, some investigators considered him suspect. Police questioned him repeatedly, but he stuck to his story and adamantly denied harming his niece. Despite the lack of any evidence against him, rumors of his involvement persisted. Moira's disappearance was discussed endlessly at shops, pubs and other meeting places throughout town.

Coatbridge residents waited for news that might explain what had happened, believing that investigators must be making progress behind the scenes. But no news came. Fear kept children from staying out late as they constantly worried that whatever happened to Moira Anderson might happen to them as well. Janet Anderson missed her younger sister terribly. Although she and Moira were two years apart, they looked so alike that they were often mistaken for twins. Moira confided in Janet much as a twin would, telling her things that she wouldn't tell anyone else. One such story shared with Janet occurred a week before Moira vanished. Moira had been walking alone in the same area she later disappeared from when a young man stopped her.

He held a knife and threatened Moira with it, demanding she go with him in exchange for money. Terrified, Moira fled. Janet questioned whether this encounter was significant to what later happened to Moira, but it couldn't be proven. Janet soon had her own frightening experience with a stranger. Weeks after Moira vanished, Janet had been returning to school after spending a lunch break at home when she was sexually assaulted by a man who'd asked her for help to fix a car. Janet ran away from the man, but remembered to take down his car's license plate details, which she later passed on to authorities. She was interviewed by two female police officers, but her family never heard anything more about what was being done to catch the man who had attacked her. Andrew Anderson was devastated.

One of his daughters was missing, and the other had been assaulted in public in broad daylight. He no longer had any faith in local law enforcement to protect his family. The Anderson's believed the Coatbridge police lacked the necessary experience to handle a case like Moira's. People, let alone children, almost never went missing from Coatbridge, and the local police force weren't equipped to deal with it. Eventually, the Anderson's campaigning led to Glasgow's criminal investigation department taking on the case. Glasgow detectives turned their attention to a man named Peter Manuel. It was believed Manuel had murdered seven people across southern Scotland between 1956 and his arrest in 1958. While most of his victims were older, he did kill a 10-year-old boy.

Most of his murders were shootings carried out during break-ins, but he did stalk, rape and murder a 17-year-old girl, whose body he buried in a field. It was believed he also did the same to another 17-year-old, but this murder charge was dropped due to insufficient evidence. Manuel was active around Lanarkshire, the county where Coatbridge lay, and hadn't yet been apprehended when Moira Anderson vanished. The Glasgow CID thought they might be able to link Manuel to her disappearance, but soon discovered he was in prison for another offense at the time. The lead reached a dead end, just like every other one that investigators had pursued. Months turned into years, and soon decades had passed without Moira Anderson's family ever learning what had happened to her on the afternoon of February 23, 1957. Sandra Brown was eight years old and living in Coatbridge when the town was rocked by Moira Anderson's disappearance. As Sandra was three years younger and attended a different school, she hadn't known Moira well, but she was familiar with her.

Like other children in Coatbridge, Sandra was permitted fewer freedoms after Moira vanished. She avoided play areas that had previously felt safe and began looking over her shoulder frequently, fearful of whatever forces had taken Moira away. Sandra was also dealing with a rocky home life. Her father was staying in hospital due to illness, leaving Sandra, her mother, and her two younger brothers to fend for themselves. Sandra helps her mother carry out cleaning jobs to support the family and also assisted in raising the two boys. The absence of Sandra's father, Alexander Garchor, was felt throughout town. He was a constant presence in the day-to-day lives of Coatbridge residents, and he knew many of them by name. Just before Christmas in 1956, some men had arrived at the Garchor House and taken Alexander away.

After that, the other adults in the family would whisper to one another in hushed tones, always stopping when Sandra walked into the room. One day, Sandra's paternal grandfather explained to her that her father had been hospitalized for mental illness. The significant stigma around mental illness at the time meant that Sandra couldn't visit her father, and his situation was rarely spoken of. When her father finally returned home in 1959, he settled back into the community and resumed his position behind the wheel of the bus he drove for the Baxter's coach company. Alexander's treatment was shrouded in mystery. Sandra didn't understand the extent of it. Whatever it entailed, she came to find that hadn't changed him much. Once back home, he returned to his old bad ways. He continued cheating on his wife with multiple women, including a lengthy affair with a co-worker half his age. This was the catalyst that led to Sandra's parents' separation and eventual divorce in 1965.

Alexander started a new family and a new life in Leeds, England, effectively ending his relationship with his daughter Sandra. Many years passed. Sandra eventually married and had two children of her own, while also pursuing a successful career in teaching. In the early 1980s, Sandra and her family relocated to the Scottish Highlands. Sandra immersed herself in her new neighbourhood by participating in community theatre productions. At an after-party for one such production, Sandra was surprised to run into a former neighbour from Coatbridge. The two began to chat, and the neighbour told Sandra how she particularly remembered Sandra's father. His height, good looks and dark hair meant that he'd been easy to notice. Before Sandra could explain that her parents had divorced, the neighbour remarked,

I always felt sorry about what happened to him. As her former neighbour continued speaking, it became clear to Sandra that she had been lied to. Her father had never had an extended stay in a mental health hospital during her childhood. Between 1957 and 1959, Alexander Garchaw had been in prison for raping his children's 13-year-old babysitter. Sandra remembered her old babysitter well. She was the sister of one of her father's colleagues. Sandra had never liked the way her father looked at the bubbly blonde-haired young teen. The discovery that her father was a convicted rapist rattled Sandra to the core. Although his crime had been covered in the local papers at the time, Sandra had been too young to read the articles,

and her family had withheld the truth. Sexual assault was a taboo subject, and Alexander's positive reputation in the community shielded him from backlash. Many co-bridge locals rallied behind Alexander, believing he was being unfairly judged, and laid some of the blame on his 13-year-old victim. This mentality carried on into subsequent court proceedings. The victim claimed Alexander had coerced her into having sex with him, then paid her so she wouldn't talk about it. The two had met repeatedly over a six-month period in Dunbeth Park, a large public reserve popular with children. The defense worked to paint the ongoing abuse as something more like a love affair,

while depicting the victim as mature for her age and promiscuous. They claimed that their client only continued seeing the teen because he was scared that if he ended things, she would tell his wife about his infidelity. The judge was unconvinced by the defense's attempt to victimize their client, saying nothing could minimize the seriousness of Alexander Gershaw's offenses. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. The news that her father was a rapist was shocking to Sandra, but she had always felt something wasn't right about him. She remembered how he would leer at young women and make crass jokes while grabbing at or stroking their bodies.

Sometimes he'd pin them to the ground if they struggled, then lift their clothing and rub his stubbled face all over their skin. He dubbed this the beady game and insisted that women loved it. His inappropriate behavior wasn't limited to adults. Alexander liked to take Sandra and her friends out in his black baby Austin car. On one particularly hot day, he drove them to a remote lake. When they arrived, he gave Sandra some money and asked her to go and buy ice creams for the group. Sandra got out of the car and headed back to an ice cream van they had passed on the way. It was a fairly long walk and the ice creams were melting by the time Sandra returned to her father's car.

She noticed its windows were fogged up and the doors were locked. Peering inside, Sandra saw some items of her friend's clothing scattered about. She wondered if the group had been playing the beady game. On another occasion, Sandra watched her father lean over from behind the wheel to tickle and pinch her friends in the back seat. Sandra had been sitting beside him in the front passenger seat and when she turned to see what he was doing to her friends, she saw he had pulled their underwear down and was touching their chests. He also liked to join in on their games of hide and seek, telling the girls that he knew of excellent hiding spots if anyone ever wanted to hide with him.

Eventually, Sandra's friends began telling her that they couldn't play with her anymore. When she asked why, they replied, We're just not to. And we're not allowed to say why. Then there was the incident when Sandra was seven years old. Tasked with delivering her father his lunch while he worked, Sandra headed to a nearby bus stop on Main Street that she knew he pulled into ever since. The bus was already waiting there when Sandra arrived, so she boarded with sandwiches in hand.

Her father and three other adults were seated in the back. As Sandra moved down the aisle towards them, she sensed something wasn't right. Her father was grappling with the young woman who worked on his bus. A pair of women's underwear was sticking out of his trouser pocket. Next to them was one of the company's other drivers, who was likewise engaged with another female employee. Sandra struggled to process the scene in front of her. She spoke to them all and told them that she had never seen a woman before. Sandra had never seen a woman before.

Sandra struggled to process the scene in front of her. She spoke to them all, announcing her arrival, and the four adults scrambled to cover themselves. In a furious voice, her father bellowed, Get the hell out of here. Sandra fled from the bus and ran to the home of her aunt, who comforted her as she sobbed. Sandra was terrified that her father would be angry at her. A leather belt that he wore around his waist doubled as a weapon. If he thought his children had misbehaved, then Alexander would remove the belt and whip them with the buckle end.

He also thought it was funny to punish Sandra by dipping a teaspoon in freshly made tea, before pressing it against her bare leg or arm, leaving burns on her skin. Then he'd tell her mother that Sandra had hurt herself by carelessly spilling the hot drink. As the head of the household, his word wasn't to be questioned. Sandra's aunt reassured her that she wouldn't be in trouble, but also cautioned her against telling her mother what she'd seen. It would be best if Sandra forgot the whole thing. Her father took the same approach and never mentioned the incident.

Instead, he started to doad on his wife more, taking her out on dates. Despite Alexander's sudden shift into becoming a kinder person, Sandra struggled to trust her father. At the Theatre Production Afterparty many years later, she finally came to learn that her feelings had been entirely justified. It would take another decade after learning her father was a convicted rapist before Sandra could address the matter with her family head on. In 1992, following the death of a relative,

Sandra made her way to their house to help with funeral arrangements. To her shock, her father was there. It was the first time she had seen him in decades. By now, Sandra was in her mid-40s, and Alexander Garchor was almost 71. Taking the opportunity to confront him about what she had since discovered, Sandra asked to speak to her father in private. The two went to a bedroom and sat side-by-side on the bed. Alexander was smiling, but his expression fell as Sandra began to tell him how disgusted she was by him.

When she brought up his conviction for rape, Alexander became defensive. He insisted that he'd try to improve himself following his release from prison, but struggled when he found not everyone was willing to forgive him. Although his wife and mother had given him a second chance, his father never trusted him again. After a tense moment of silence, Sandra asked, Why wouldn't your father forgive you? Her father waited a long time before speaking. Finally, he said,

He wouldn't forgive me for the Moira Randerson thing. Picture this, freshly prepared crispy seasoned chicken that's tossed in a smoky barbecue glaze and topped with a creamy barbecue sauce. Can't picture it? Well, you can try it now at Tim's. Get our new barbecue crispy chicken loaded bowls and wraps for a limited time. Alexander Garchor's father, Sunny, was horrified when he heard that Moira Randerson was missing. He immediately suspected that he knew who was responsible. His own son.

He was well aware that in the previous month, Alexander had been arrested and charged with carnal knowledge of a minor for raping his children's babysitter. Alexander had been quickly released on bail, and the company he worked for allowed him to resume his bus driving job while awaiting trial. When news broke that 11 year old Moira Randerson had vanished, Alexander mentioned to his father how the girl had boarded his bus on the afternoon she went missing. Witnesses had placed Moira on his bus, with one female passenger recalling how Alexander had said,

hello Moira, when she boarded. He'd been the last person to see or speak to her that day. Sunny was instantly suspicious. He knew about his son's fixation with little girls, as evidenced by his recent charge for raping one. Sunny feared that his son had abducted and killed Moira and demanded that Alexander tell the police where he had put the little girl's body. He was so certain of this that he used a crowbar to tear up Alexander's kitchen, which had recently been renovated.

Sunny pulled up the floorboards and broke through the false panelling behind the brand new sink, just to check that Moira hadn't been placed under there. Then he stormed through the rest of the house, searching every room. He didn't find any sign of the little girl, but his niggling instincts remained. In the days that followed, Sunny examined the vehicles his son drove and other areas where someone could conceivably hide a small body. These efforts also failed to uncover anything. Two months later in April, Alexander was convicted and sentenced for rape,

at which point he left his family for what his children were told was an extended hospital stay. For the rest of his life, Sunny continued to believe that his son was responsible for Moira Anderson's disappearance. Now, decades later in 1992, Alexander spoke of his father's suspicions to his own daughter, Sandra Brown. He didn't confess to having done anything to Moira, but Sandra knew he was fully willing and able. Moira Anderson was exactly the type of little girl Alexander used to pay attention to. Her family had described her as a tomboy and she'd been slender and lively with a striking and mischievous smile. In an effort to discover the truth, Sandra spoke with other family members to see if they could recall anything from the afternoon of Saturday, February 23, 1957. Sandra had been just eight years old at the time and was home sick with the flu.

Her mother, Mary, had been looking after her while her father worked an afternoon shift from two till ten. Yet, he didn't return home until midnight. Mary noted how exhausted her husband looked and attributed it to long hours driving the bus coupled with the bad weather. The following afternoon, a relative visited the Garchore home and informed the family that Moira Anderson was missing. The next week, Alexander arrived home to find his wife chatting with her sister who had stopped by for a visit. He told the two women that he had to head back out again to speak with the police. As he was already out on bail for raping the family's 13-year-old babysitter, this news upset Mary and she demanded to know what was going on. Alexander explained that someone had mistakenly reported that Moira Anderson had boarded his bus on the day she went missing and heard him greet her by name.

He had to tell the police that it was all a mix-up. The young passenger he'd picked up that afternoon was another little girl named Moira Laddell. Garchore left for the police station and was back home within an hour. A short while later, Mary received an anonymous letter crafted from letters cut out of newspapers. The author warned that the babysitter was an Alexander's only rape victim and told Mary she should take her children and move away to Australia. The letter concluded, Why don't you go if you know what's good for you? You think you know what he's done but you don't know the half of it. He won't stop with the lassie Anderson.

Mary took the letter to the Coatbridge police. When no one followed up on the matter, Mary disregarded the letter and forgot about it all together. Curious to know if her father had been ruled out of the investigation into Moira Anderson's disappearance, Sandra reached out to an old friend who worked as a police inspector. He put her in touch with a colleague who worked near Coatbridge. Within a few days, two plainclothes detectives visited Sandra at home. One of them, who introduced himself as Detective Inspector Jim McEwan, was carrying a large file filled with case documents. Detective McEwan informed Sandra that there was no record of any interview with her father in relation to Moira's disappearance.

He's claimed that he had driven a girl called Moira Ladel, not Moira Anderson, on the afternoon of February 23, 1957, was also disputed, as there was no child living in the area by that name at the time. Surprisingly, despite having been on bail for sexually assaulting a child when Moira disappeared, Alexander Garchaw's name didn't appear once in her entire case file. There was a line that made reference to a bus driver refuting the sightings of Moira on his bus. It read, The driver indicated that neither he nor the conductorous were aware of any child answering Moira's description. The bus's female conductor had not been spoken to at all.

Although it had been 35 years since Moira Anderson disappeared, her case was only ever classified as a missing person file. It had never been upgraded to a murder investigation, meaning that it received fewer resources. Although it had never been closed, it wasn't being actively investigated either. Detective Jim McEwan was genuinely interested in everything that Sandra Brown had to say about her father. He was convinced that Moira had met with foul play, and Alexander Garchaw was a promising person of interest. Detective McEwan began looking further into Garchaw's history. After his release from prison, Garchaw hadn't been charged with any further sexual assaults. However, after moving to England, he was arrested for trying to obtain a mortgage under false pretenses.

Detective McEwan tracked down retired police inspector John McDonald, who would overseen the original investigation into Moira Anderson's disappearance. McDonald had a clear memory of Alexander Garchaw as a local bus driver, but no recollection of his conviction for raping a minor. When Detective McEwan raised the possibility of Garchaw's involvement in Moira's case, McDonald replied. It couldn't have been him. He stopped his bus for all the old ladies and dropped them at their gates, and the kiddies all gave him sweets. Instead, McDonald still suspected Ian Simpson, the mentally disabled Kirkwood resident who'd had a strong alibi for the day in question. Detective McEwan didn't get much further with most of the other ex-officers who'd been involved in the Moira Anderson investigation, either. But one did confirm that Garchaw had a reputation for predatory behaviour, and lots of complaints had been filed against him. He was suspected of being a flasher who exposed himself to children in Dunbeth Park and the nearby area, though this was never proven.

Garchaw was also well known to local cinema owners. He had a habit of going to film screenings and sitting next to children or young women, harassing them throughout the show. The women would often move to another seat, but the children typically stayed where they were, too scared to do anything. Some parents, like those of Sandra Brown's friends, told their children they weren't to go near Garchaw, but social moorays at the time meant they didn't really discuss why. Detective McEwan stayed in touch with Sandra Brown over the following months, with the two updating one another on new information that came to light. Sandra revealed that she had started speaking about her father to her six female cousins, some of whom had some very troubling things to share. Rebecca, not her real name, was six years old in 1962 when she went to a family tea party at her grandparents' house. It was a warm summer's day and everyone was sitting in the garden enjoying the sunshine. Everyone except Rebecca's uncle, Alexander Garchaw.

He was alone in the garage, working on his baby Austin car. Rebecca was playing with her four-year-old sister when her attention turned to her uncle, who was summoning her to the garage. Garchaw was sitting behind his black car, wearing a pair of navy blue overalls over the top of his regular clothes. The car's bonnet was up, but Garchaw was focused on something else, a one-bar electrical heater that was lying across his lap. It looked as though he was repairing it. Garchaw called out to Rebecca to come closer, but she was hesitant to venture further into the dark garage. Something just didn't feel right. Sensing her hesitation, Garchaw said,

Come here, Hen, there's something I want you to hold for me here. Rebecca moved to her uncle's side. He spoke again, stating, Come on, hold it just for a minute. That's all you have to do. It's a cable. Rebecca looked down at her uncle's lap to see what he was referring to. When she saw that his penis was exposed through his overalls, she froze in shock. Suddenly, Rebecca heard her four-year-old sister behind her. She had followed Rebecca into the garage, curious about what she was doing.

Rebecca grabbed her hand and cried, run. The two girls fled back outside to where the rest of their family was gathered. When Rebecca quietly told her mother what had happened, she was warned not to tell lies. But Rebecca's mother never let her daughters have much contact with their uncle after that. Another cousin told Sandra that Garchaw repeatedly molested her when she was seven or eight years old. He had shoved her into a cupboard that he used as a workspace in his home and assaulted her in the dark. Her sister was also assaulted between the ages of seven and ten. Though Sandra was never sexually abused by her father, of her six cousins, at least four and possibly five had been.

Garchaw offered money and sweets as a way to bait his victims. Other times, he used his car. Not many people in Coatbridge could afford a vehicle in the 1950s, and going out for a ride-in one was a rare treat. Garchaw would offer to entertain his nieces by taking them for a drive, and their parents happily accepted. This abuse impacted Sandra's cousins well into their adult years, resulting in depression, anxiety and traumatic flashbacks. Some of Sandra's school friends spoke of being tormented by her father as well. Once, when he took a group of girls out on a fishing trip, he cornered one child by a riverbank and pressed his weight on top of her while reaching under her dress. She avoided Garchaw after that, refusing to even catch a bus in case she saw him.

But one day, she went looking for Sandra at home, and her father answered the door. Sandra was out, so Garchaw invited the girl inside to wait for her. He pushed her into a bedroom and locked the door behind them, then molested her. Before leaving, he handed the girl some money, then told her she could earn some more if she stopped by again when no one else was home. By mid-March of 1993, Detective McEwen felt he finally had enough information to interview Alexander Garchaw. He and his superior travelled to Leeds to speak with Garchaw in person. They showed the elderly Garchaw a photograph of a young girl smiling broadly from behind a desk when she was reading a book. When asked if he recognised the girl, Garchaw looked shaken and began to tremble.

In a halting voice, he said, Moira. Then he added, She looks a lot older there. Garchaw said he'd first learnt that Moira was missing when he overheard passengers on his bus talking about it that very evening, despite the fact that Moira's father hadn't reported her missing until almost midnight. She was a regular passenger, Garchaw explained, but he insisted he had nothing to do with her outside of that. This was contradicted by a friend of Moira's who'd reported that Garchaw had once called out to Moira while the two of them were playing in Dunbeth Park and he was working on his car.

When the two girls approached Garchaw, he exposed himself to them. Garchaw eventually admitted to police that Moira had boarded his bus the afternoon she vanished. Their interaction had gone beyond a simple hello, with Moira explaining her intention to go to a larger supermarket in town because the co-op had been closed early due to the bad weather. She told Garchaw that it was her mother's birthday the next day and she wanted to buy her a card as a surprise. Garchaw told detectives that he had made an unofficial stop at the supermarket Moira wanted to visit. She disembarked the bus, waved to him and then he drove off. Garchaw was correct, February 24 had in fact been Moira's mother's 40th birthday. But this was the first time police had heard of Moira's plan to buy her mother a birthday card as she hadn't told anyone else about it.

The only person who knew this information was Alexander Garchaw. Detective McEwen was more convinced than ever that the man held many more secrets. In the meantime news had spread that investigators were interviewing a man in relation to the decades old Moira Anderson case. Word of the update was relayed to Moira's sister Janet who had since relocated to Sydney Australia where she built a new life for herself. Co-bridge held too many painful memories all of which were now being dredged back up. While Janet was pleased progress was finally being made it was also bittersweet. Moira's parents had longed to know what happened to her but had since died. Janet and Moira's other sister Marjorie still awaited closure over the enduring painful mystery.

Upon learning that a person of interest had recently emerged Janet contacted Scottish police to find out more. As it happened Detective Jim McEwen was in Sydney visiting family. He made plans to meet Janet at her home to speak with her directly. During their conversation Janet spoke of her disturbing encounter she had with a sex pest weeks after her sister disappeared. Thirteen year old Janet had been walking to school when a tall man in overalls called her over to his car under the guise of needing help. He got Janet into position telling her to hold up the car's bonnet while he crawled underneath to look for a fault. He then groped her. Janet ran to school in a panic but remembered to look back at her attackers black car and take mental note of its license plate number.

The car was a black baby Austin. It belonged to Alexander Garchore. When Janet laid eyes on a picture of Garchore she recognized him immediately. The man being questioned about her little sister's disappearance was the very person who had sexually assaulted her. Despite Alexander Garchore having been established as a serial predator who had interacted with Moira at the time she disappeared in circumstances that he was being deceptive about, there was no concrete evidence that he had harmed her. The focus turned to trying to find Moira's remains. If Garchore was her killer then detectives speculated that he wouldn't have driven far to dispose of her body. The blizzard that consumed co-bridge that day would have made travelling difficult and dangerous.

Most likely Garchore had dumped Moira's body somewhere close to his bus route. There were any number of places he might have chosen. Lennoxha had been the centre of Scotland's coal industry and co-bridge was dotted with old mine shafts. There were ponds, lakes, marshy areas and canals that cut right through the town. During their search efforts Detective McEwen drove around town with a psychic named William who found himself embroiled in the case after being visited by Sandra Brown. He knew nothing about Moira's disappearance but had told Sandra he believed the girl's body was lying near a quarry not far from her former home in Co-bridge. Detective McEwen was willing to explore this unconventional lead and as he drove with William around town the psychic revealed more information. He said Moira had trusted her killer because he wore a uniform then suddenly asked,

where is a bus involved in all this? I'm clearly picking up that she got on a bus. William then led detectives to a remote area with old mine pits and quarries and made them stop at a pond. He got out of the car and walked towards a marshy area where he became visibly sick. He spoke of sensing Moira all around and asked to leave. The location was near a bus terminal that Alexander Garchore was familiar with. Investigators had the pond searched but nothing was found. Although he hadn't succeeded in finding Moira's body Detective Jim McEwen remained certain she had been murdered. He'd accumulated seven boxes full of documentation relating to the case including new statements provided by a range of people who knew Alexander Garchore from former colleagues to his ex-wife.

On May 18 1993 more than 36 years after Moira vanished Detective McEwen arrested Garchore on suspicion of murder. He was also charged with five counts of lewd until a bitterness behavior for abuses against four of his nieces. Garchore was immediately released on bail while Scotland's Crown Office reviewed all the evidence to determine whether the case would go to trial. They reached a decision. They wanted the abuse charges dropped stating that it wasn't in the public interest to pursue them. A reason as to why wasn't given. Without these charges investigators had no way of forcing Garchore to return to Scotland. The Crown Office also advised that further investigation needed to be carried out before any murder charges could be laid.

In the words of the public prosecutor known in Scotland as the Debut Procurator Fiscal. There is no murder without a body. The Moira Randerson case is still officially a missing persons inquiry, pure and simple. He noted that while Alexander Garchore had said some incriminating and suspicious things the police aren't much further forward than in 1957. The Moira Randerson case remained open but without a body and with Alexander Garchore living in England there was little that Scottish detectives could do. Sandra Brown was devastated to learn that her father wouldn't be held accountable for his crimes against her cousins. The fact that Moira's case had stalled as a result compounded the blow. But she wasn't done with him.

Sandra arrived in Leeds accompanied by a journalist from the Sunday Mail named Marion Scott. The pair visited Alexander Garchore's home and he welcomed them both in accepting Sandra's word that Marion was just her friend. The women then questioned Garchore about Moira Randerson. He maintained that he had left her at the supermarket but this time he insisted she was with a friend whose name he didn't know. He added that he had gotten off the bus at the same time as Moira, a new and incriminating detail he hadn't shared before. Sandra pressed him on this which led to her father quickly correcting himself. He disembarked so he could go home for an hour long break in the middle of his double shift. A relief driver had taken over his bus during his absence.

However, Sandra knew that her father never used to return home between double shifts. No matter how many different ways Sandra pushed him, Garchore would not admit to killing Moira. But he did confess to abusing one of his nieces stating, I admit that I did touch her but it was never the full thing. Everything else, like, but she was a relative and I liked her Mar and Pa so it wasn't the whole hog. He began to rant about how he'd been cast as a black sheep his entire life. He was sick of police looking for things to pin on him and children accusing him of things he hadn't done. He had kept count of all the times investigators had questioned or interviewed him over the years.

In total, he had been suspected of committing sexual offences against 122 children. Unbeknownst to Garchore, Marion Scott had hidden a tape recorder in her bag and recorded their entire encounter. She wrote a full page article about the visit and what Garchore had revealed. This still wasn't enough for Sandra so she began to write a book detailing her experiences with her father and the case against him. Over the years, she had come to suspect that Coatbridge police in 1957 might have actively covered up for her father. Garchore was a member of the Freemasons organization as were most of the town's policemen and they all attended the same lodge. Sandra's childhood home had also been just across the street from the police station and she had observed how her father seemed to know all the officers. In 1999, Sandra's book was published.

She titled it Where There Is Evil in reference to a biblical passage which states that where evil resides, it must be cast out. Following its publication, new witnesses began to contact Sandra to share information. One woman, who was a teenager in 1957, recalled how she had disembarked Garchore's bus in the town centre on the day of Moira's disappearance. She began walking along an isolated road to a family friend's farmhouse, trudging through the snow as the road gradually became an unpaved track. As she walked, she noticed footprints in the snow. She also heard a scream. The area was remote and there shouldn't have been anyone else out there, so when the girl reached her friend's house, she told them what had happened. They didn't think it was anything to worry about and told her not to bother reporting it to the police. A different witness said they'd seen a man in what looked like a Baxter's bus uniform dragging a little girl into a field near a pond.

The girl was wearing clothes similar to what Moira had been wearing when she was last seen. Another individual contacted the authorities to report something a now deceased family member had seen on the night in question. A farmer who lived near the neighbouring town to Coatbridge had noticed an empty bus parked in a way that was partly blocking the road. Its engine and lights were off, but the farmer noticed condensation on its windows. The following day, the bus was gone. The farmer had reported the sighting to police, however they never followed up on it. The initial investigation into Moira Anderson's disappearance was marred by many instances such as this, in which police work was lacklustre or botched. From the outset, there was an unwillingness to take the case seriously, with police more willing to suspect the 11-year-old girl had fled all the way to London than believe she met with foul play.

Alexander Gartshor was completely overlooked despite his previous interactions with Moira Anderson and the fact he was out on bail for raping a 13-year-old girl. Any clues that led to Gartshor as a suspect were disregarded or never pursued. Search efforts were sometimes lazy and in other instances non-existent. The town's canal wasn't searched, not because police had deemed it irrelevant or unnecessary, but because there were too many weeds. Although televisions had been used in Scotland since 1952, investigators didn't initially bother making a televised appeal until three months after Moira went missing. Witnesses who'd provided tip-offs waited in vain for police to contact them and arrange follow-up interviews. One such person, Mrs Twicross, had seen Moira walking on the afternoon of her disappearance and overheard her talking about the bus. Mrs Twicross assumed investigators would door-knock all the homes in the neighbourhood as a part of their enquiries, which would provide her the opportunity to tell them what she had seen.

When they never stopped by, she concluded that they must have known more than she did and carried on with her life. Multiple witness accounts that placed Moira on Gartshor's bus were dismissed after investigators spoke to one of the company's drivers, presumably Gartshor himself. While the sightings did end up in police reports, they were never shared publicly, preventing others from coming forward with additional information that could shed further light on Moira's final movements. In 2012, Moira Anderson's missing person case was finally reclassified as a murder inquiry. Scotland's newly formed cold case unit took over the investigation and two years later, prosecutors publicly named Alexander Gartshor as the prime suspect for the first time. They stated that he should have been charged with Moira's murder back in 1957, but clarified that they were not labelling him as guilty. They were merely saying there was enough evidence against him to warrant an indictment and to likely conviction. This declaration came eight years too late.

Alexander Gartshor had died in 2006 at the age of 85. He had lived in Leeds for the remainder of his life and passed away in one of the city's hospitals. There have been repeated searches for Moira Anderson's remains in recent years. The grave of one of Alexander Gartshor's friends was assumed as he had previously made reference to the friend having done him a big favour. The friend was laid to rest three weeks after Moira vanished, leading to the belief that Gartshor stashed Moira's body beneath his friend's coffin before the grave was filled in. This theory, like many others, proved false. As of early 2022, Moira's remains have not been found. In August 1997, 40 years after Alexander Gartshor was jailed for raping his children's babysitter, news broke that another pedophile had been convicted in Coatbridge.

66-year-old James Gallagley was a retired lorry driver and church elder found guilty of abusing four girls over a 12-year period. In one case, he'd assaulted a girl in his bedroom after holding up a Bible and telling her, it is God's way. The truth of these abuses only came to light decades later, after Gallagley was accused of assaulting another child. Following these revelations, parents in the Coatbridge area asked their now adult children if they'd ever been a victim of Gallagley, and two sets of sisters admitted that they had. James Gallagley was an old friend of Alexander Gartshor. The two men were colleagues at Baxter's bus company, and Gallagley was responsible for introducing Gartshor to his sister, the 13-year-old babysitter who Gartshor went on to rape. Gallagley was finally convicted of his own crimes in 1997 and given a 10-year prison sentence. Gallagley didn't spend long behind bars.

He was diagnosed with cancer and died in prison a little over 18 months later, in 1999. Six months after his death, another convicted pedophile named Alexander Kiel came forward, claiming to have knowledge of further crimes. 58-year-old Kiel said he'd been cellmates with Gallagley, and that he'd confessed to being part of a pedophile ring named the Untouchables. Other members of the ring included police officers, politicians, and notorious criminals, such as English serial killer Fred West and the perpetrator of the Dunblane School Massacre. Kiel had penned a 26-page dossier detailing supposed admissions from Gallagley. Amongst them was a reference to Moira Anderson. Gallagley had said that he and Alexander Gartshor abducted and sedated the 11-year-old before assaulting her on Gartshor's bus back at the depot. The man had left Moira on the bus overnight and she died from exposure.

After discovering her lifeless body the next day, Gartshor dumped her in an area of parkland called the Witchwood Ponds. Kiel tried to sell his dossier to the Sunday Mail newspaper for £20,000 before suddenly handing it over without any payment at all. When Moira's family first learned of this dossier, they held high hopes that her case would be solved. But after looking into the claims more closely, investigators dismissed the entire document as a cruel hoax by Kiel, as he'd provided no evidence to support any of his accusations. Sandra Brown hasn't given up hope that Moira Anderson's case will one day be officially solved. In the year 2000, she launched the Moira Anderson Foundation, using proceeds from her book sales as a legacy to Moira and her family. The charity provides support to children and adults who have been impacted by child sexual abuse. Sandra has received an order of the British Empire for her services to child protection.

Moira's sister Janet has expressed her gratitude to Sandra for establishing the Foundation, telling a BBC journalist, Children now have a voice and someone who will listen. Just over a month after she disappeared on March 31, Moira Anderson would have celebrated her 12th birthday. She had been asking for the board game Monopoly as a gift. After she disappeared, Maisie Anderson honoured her daughter's request and purchased the game, telling the press that she wouldn't give up hope that Moira would one day play it. On each birthday in the years that followed, Maisie would buy her daughter another gift and set a place for her at the dinner table, still holding on to the hope she had in 1957 and until her death 20 years later. Speaking of her beloved sister, Janet told the Scottish Sun newspaper,

I still think of her every day. I pray each night that she's found and I still have nightmares, although not so often now. All we want is closure. .