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 the teenager, whose body was discovered on the banks of the River Leven in Renton, West Dunbartonshire, in 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.
His evidence was not deemed credible at the time because of his age, but his account was later corroborated by other evidence and was crucial in bringing the trio to justice.
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’.
