Police have pledged to continue their attempts to find the body of Suzanne Pilley, after her former lover was convicted of her murder.
The 38-year-old Edinburgh bookkeeper vanished almost two years ago on her way to work, and, although her remains have never been found, David Gilroy, 49, was yesterday found guilty of killing her.
Detectives and prosecutors were able to build up a powerful circumstantial case against the married father of two that showed he overpowered Ms Pilley in the basement of the offices where they worked and later dumped her in woodland in the Argyll Forest.
Described by prosecutors as a “deceitful, controlling” man, he was incensed that she had dared to end their affair days earlier.
Yesterday, Ms Pilley’s family said their ordeal continued and they wished one day her grave would be found. Detective Superintendent Gary Flannigan promised them that Lothian and Borders Police would “continue to pursue any new information which comes to light which could help recover Suzanne”.
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Ms Pilley, who dreamed of settling down and starting a family, vanished on her way to work almost two years ago. She was a diligent, reliable woman who was in daily contact with her parents and never late for work. So when she did not turn up, the alarm was immediately raised. Police discovered that she had been having an affair with Gilroy, a manager at Infrastructure Managers, but had ended it four days before she vanished. She had begun dating a man she met online.
CCTV footage showed that she caught the bus to work as normal and reached within a few feet of her office on Thistle Street. The case presented to the jury at Edinburgh High Court was that Gilroy ambushed her as she went in. He got her into the basement and killed her, hiding her body briefly under the stairs.
He picked up his silver Vauxhall Vectra from home and put her body in the boot. At lunch, he went to Superdrug and bought airfreshner to cover the smell. That night, leaving her body in the car, he went to a presentation at his children’s school and on for a family meal at an Italian restaurant.
The next day, Gilroy drove to Argyll Forest on the pretence of a business trip and picked up bin bags from a school where his firm had a contract. He dumped Miss Pilley’s body and returned to Edinburgh, where he calmly spoke to police.
They discovered that his hands, chest and neck were covered in scratches — possibly from Miss Pilley’s efforts to fend off his attack — some of which he had tried to cover with makeup. They later discovered his car was not roadworthy because of, they believed, the off-road tracks he had forced it through in Argyll.
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Police conducted 1,470 interviews, took 1,164 statements, visited 90 premises near the murder scene to recover CCTV, took footage from 250 locations and searched 30 different areas.They used mobile phone triangulation and roadside cameras to track Gilroy’s trip through the forest. Officers who reconstructed the journey found it took them three and a half hours — two hours less than it had taken the killer.
Faced with the circumstantial case, jurors took eight hours of deliberations over three days to return a verdict. When they did, Ms Pilley’s mother sobbed uncontrollably.
Gilroy stared straight ahead, as unflinching and emotionless as he has been throughout the past two years. When his wife, Andrea, left the court later, she declined to comment but the family later released a statement insisting on his innocence.
A police worker read out a statement on behalf of Ms Pilley’s parents. Rob and Sylvia, saying: “This day has been a long time coming but finally Suzanne has received the justice she deserved.”
They said Ms Pilley had been a devoted daughter, supportive friend and exemplary colleague. They described her as a “proud Scot” who led a full, active life and enjoyed the outdoors. Thanking prosecutor Alex Prentice and the police, they added: “Although the trial has ended, our ordeal goes on, and we hope that one day we can lay our daughter to rest.”
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Simon Peck, the director of Infrastructure Managers, said he could not express the “revulsion and disgust” he and his staff felt towards Gilroy and called on his former employee to reveal where Ms Pilley’s body lay. Gilroy was dismissed two months after Ms Pilley disappeared.
The judge, Lord Bracadale, called for background reports and deferred his sentence.