Footage has been released of Brenda Page’s killer Christopher Harrisson claiming damning evidence linking him to the crime scene must have been planted.
During the interview in 2020, detectives presented Harrisson – who was yesterday sentenced to life in prison for the murder – with forensic evidence found in and around the Allan Street flat where Brenda was murdered.
During the sometimes heated interrogation, officers put it to Harrisson that he was the man who prised open the back window of Brenda’s flat and brutally bludgeoned her to death.
As well as the interview footage, the Crown Office also released images of some of the letters between Brenda and Harrisson, which lay bare his tendency for violent rages and also her fear that she would ultimately die at his hands.
Lead investigators assigned to the 44-year-old cold case believe Brenda’s final letter to Harrisson, telling him to get out of her life, unwittingly put her at the “greatest risk” and saw her “murdered within days”.
During the police interview police officers reveal that flecks of green paint that were found near the entry point of the flat matched the paint of his green Mini Countryman Estate.
The Cambridge-educated biochemist, looking flustered, suggests that police must have put them there.
He says: “Police took my car and whether the police have scratched my car and left paint residue in Allan Street I really wouldn’t know, but after this interview, I wouldn’t put anything past them, I really wouldn’t. It’s so ridiculous as to be completely nonsensical.”
Harrisson, who was 37 at the time of the murder, likely prised open Brenda’s bedroom window with a chisel and lay in wait inside her wardrobe, according to investigators.
Forensics experts told the trial that the paint flecks found near the window were “identical” to those in Harrisson’s car.
When she returned at around 2.30am, it is believed he waited until she was in bed before lunging at her with a blunt instrument and striking her around 20 times to the head and face.
Brenda, 32, lapsed into a coma from her injuries and died of inhalation of blood.
However, during the 10-day trial, the jury heard evidence that suggested that not only was Harrison in the flat at the time of the murder, but he had also stalked her prior to her killing.
Incriminating letters
In a letter from Harrisson to Brenda, he speaks of flying into “rages”, leading advocate depute Alex Prentice KC to brand him a man “consumed with anger and rage” who “couldn’t bear” to see Brenda with other men following their divorce in 1976.
An extract from the letter also makes mention of Brenda being “afraid” of his erratic behaviour – giving credibility to a letter she penned to her solicitor, Nicol Hosie, a year before her death.
“If I do depart this earth rather suddenly, please make sure I get a good PM (post-mortem) and that my sister and her boys get any benefit,” she states.
This letter was described by Mr Prentice during the final moments of the trial as “a letter of death foretold”.
In the days before her murder, Brenda then writes a final letter to Harrisson telling him she wants “no part” of the “dishonesty” with which he surrounds his life.
“Just get out of my life and stay out,” she demands.
Police believe this letter was the moment Harrisson put into action his plan to murder his ex-wife on July 14 1978.
He was also quizzed about the last time he had sex with Brenda, prior to her murder, due to police finding his semen and DNA on a duvet and bedsheet at the crime scene.
“Did you have sex at 13 Allan Street?” one officer asked him.
“No, I didn’t,” Harrisson replies.
Realising he may have caught Harrisson in a lie, the officer probes further: “You sure?”
“Absolutely certain,” Harrisson states.
Following the trial at the High Court in Aberdeen, it took the jury less than two and a half hours to find Harrisson guilty of murder.
Judge Lord Richardson sentenced Harrisson, of Mile End Place, Aberdeen, to life imprisonment with a minimum period of 20 years before he would be eligible for parole.
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