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Iain Packer, the 51-year-old suspect in the Emma Caldwell murder case, was charged with a prison sentence of 36 years on Wednesday, February 28. He was first arrested for the crime in 2022, following the culprit’s interview with the BBC in November 2018, which initiated a new line of investigation into the crime.
According to the news outlet, Packer emerged as a suspect in the case back in 2005 as well, being questioned six times in two years. However, senior officials's persistence to overlook Packer and focus on other, unlikely suspects led to Emma Caldwell’s death becoming “one of Scotland’s most high-profile unsolved murders.”
In April 2005, Emma, who was living in Glasgow, had reportedly disappeared for over a month before her body was discovered in a remote forest near Biggar by a dog walker in June. The discovery launched a murder investigation, which remained unsolved until 2022.
Following Packer’s verdict, the police have apologized for how the original inquiry was handled and for letting down Emma and other victims, the BBC reported.
Emma Caldwell’s body was found in Limefield Woods
During the Emma Caldwell trial, it was revealed that the victim had started living in a hostel in Glasgow about a month before her body was found. According to the BBC, Emma’s mother, Margaret Caldwell, told the trial that she dropped her daughter off at the hostel on April 3, 2005, which was also the last time she ever saw her.
The trial also heard that Caldwell had left home after “becoming addicted to heroin” and started working as a pr*stitute to “fund her habit.”
BBC reported that Iain Packer, who was 32 at the time, had driven Emma Caldwell to the Limefield Woods, a remote forest 40 miles southeast of Glasgow, where he strangled her and disposed of her naked body. Caldwell’s body was found by the police at the same location on May 8, 2005.
After more than a month, Iain Packer was first questioned regarding the murder case on June 22, 2005. He initially maintained that he did not know the victim.
According to the BBC, the police spoke to Packer six times between 2005 and 2007. In his fourth statement in August 2006, Packer admitted to paying Emma Caldwell for s*x and taking her to a remote spot in the woods.
Despite his statement, the investigating officers were ordered not to detain Packer by their seniors and asked to focus on four Turkish men who they thought had killed Caldwell instead, the BBC reported.
In 2008, the case against the Turkish men collapsed as the evidence in the form of taped conversations was found to “have been taken out of context or simply translated wrongly.”
Iain Packer’s sentence is the second longest ever handed by a Scottish court
According to the BBC, it was the interview with the British public service broadcaster in November 2018, that opened up a line of investigation, eventually leading to Packer's arrest in February 2022. The BBC's investigation also uncovered “the real Iain Packer—a serial offender who was a s*xual predator—a fact that had been known to police since 2005.”
Retired Detective Sargent Willie Mason, who was the investigating officer in the Emma Caldwell case in 2005, called the decision by his senior officers not to charge Packer earlier "catastrophic," the BBC reported. The officer further said:
“They’ve caused one of the worst injustices… the fact that they actually gave licence to Iain Packer to continue his violence towards women.”
The High Court of Glasgow delivered Packer a prison sentence of 36 years for the murder of Emma Caldwell 19 years ago. Packer was also found guilty of 32 other charges, including 11 r*pes and multiple s*xual assaults against a total of 22 women, the BBC reported.
Packer's prison sentence is the second longest handed down by a Scottish court, after the 37-year jail sentence given to Angus Sinclair in 2014.
According to the BBC, Packer remained passive as the verdicts were being delivered. Following the trial, the Scottish government also said it would consider holding a public inquiry into what went wrong in the original investigation.
