Paisley mum whose daughter’s body was dumped at a bus stop 30 years ago told her murder is 'under review'
Beware Book is a new Rayo original podcast looking at a series of unsolved murders of Glasgow women.
Last updated 11 hours ago
Jacqueline Gallagher’s mum, Alice Wilson, says she lives with the pain of her daughter’s murder - almost exactly 30 years ago - every day.
“A lovely lassie, beautiful looking. Everybody always said that. She was born with jet black hair.
"She had a twinkle in her eyes and was always bubbly. She would be walking down the street and you would see this ponytail swinging from side to side.
"I fair miss her, so I do.”
Jaqueline's body was found - wrapped in a curtain - near a bus stop in Bowling, West Dunbartonshire, in June 1996.
The 26-year-old, of Paisley, suffered more than 100 injuries.
A 55-year-old man, one of Jaqueline's former clients, later stood trial for her murder but the case against him was found not proven.
Alice says it was heart breaking:
“It was terrible, everybody was crying, even ones who came into listen to the trial were crying. I was amazed to see other people rubbing their eyes as they went away.”
She says listening to the evidence was a harrowing experience too:
“I think her last words would have been mammy, I do. I think she would have cried out mammy and it was more than 100 blows she took.
"Can you imagine that? A wee lassie. Then he bit her, he bit her as well. I don’t know… Disgusting… An animal.”
Unsolved murder of Jaqueline Gallagher is 'under review' ahead of 30th anniversary of her death
As we approach the 30th anniversary of Jacqueline's death it has been confirmed by police the case is now 'under review'
A Police Scotland spokesperson says:
“All unresolved and unsolved homicides remain under review which means they’re never closed”
“When new information, new evidence comes to light, we do act upon it.”
Tracey Wylde's sister Bernadette is also among the families Cool FM journalists Collette McGonigle and Callum McQuade have spoken to during a two year long investigation.
The 21-year-old was strangled to death at her flat in Barmulloch, Glasgow, in November 1997.
44-year-old Zhi Min Chen pleaded guilty to her murder in 2019.
He'd been eventually snared after his DNA was matched to samples found at the scene following an arrest in connection with an alleged assault in the city in 2018.
After waiting more than two decades for justice, Tracey's sister Bernadette says it never gets easier:
"You never heal, it’s your sister and you never heal. Twenty odd years down the line, you just learn to cope but the heartache is still there.”
Tracey Wylde's sister - 'the paparazzi were trying to pull me out of school'
Also that she still lives with the trauma of the murder happening when she was just 12 years old:
“When the police came to the door to say that she had been murdered. I was 12 but it never hit me, I went to school.
"The school kept me inside because the paparazzi were trying to pull me out of school. All my friends rallied around me and they were asking if that was my sister in the paper and on TV."
However she's urging other families still waiting on justice to keep fighting:
“Keep your hope, don’t give up. You might wait 10 or 50 years, but as long as your family know that this could happen one day.
"We honestly gave up hope thinking that this would never happen. He wasn’t in the system and then he got caught with a stupid crime. The pain won’t go away but talk about your loved person. Look at pictures and look at parties. If you don’t talk, you hurt harder.”
Families of a string of murdered women - who worked in Glasgow’s red-light district - are asking why police still haven't caught their killers, decades later.
Eight women lost their lives between 1991 and 2005 and at least four of those cases remain unsolved to this day.
New podcast investigates the murders and the list of dangerous men known as the Beware Book
Many of these women were left defenceless in a harsher city than the one we know today - a city grappling with unemployment, crime and the growing grip of heroin.
Distrustful of authorities and fearing for their safety, they turned to each other for protection.
They shared warnings about their most dangerous clients in a tattered leather journal they called the “Beware Book.”
Now, journalists Collette McGonigle and Callum McQuade of Cool FM revisit the cases that devastated families and left lasting scars across the city.
The first three episodes of Beware Book are available on the Rayo app, Apple, Amazon Music, Spotify... or wherever you get your podcasts.
Listen here: https://www.hellorayo.co.uk/podcasts/beware-book