On a suburban Dundee street, I watched in shock as a man was led from a house in handcuffs and suddenly said: “You will never find them – they are 10ft under the floor.”
That man was Andrew Innes.
It was an early spring afternoon on March 5, 2021 and I was the first journalist on the scene.
We at The Courier had received a tip-off from a source.
‘There’s lots of police activity on Troon Avenue, you might want to get yourself up there,’ the source said.
‘Hard to make sense of…’
When I arrived soon after, I saw that police had sealed off the street, with officers standing guard by cordons.
On that Friday afternoon, nobody outside of the police knew this crime scene was linked to the disappearance of Bennylyn and Jellica Burke.
That was only made public the following day, so it was hard to make sense of the unfolding horror on that street.
I got there in time to see police leading Innes in handcuffs to a police car.
He was laughing and joking – and I was among a group of gathered neighbours who heard him make that infamous, horrific comment, that will stay in my mind forever.
Once the car carrying Innes had left the street, police inquiries continued inside and outside the property.
I stayed there for a while longer on that Friday, and returned on Saturday and Sunday, as part of my reporting shifts.
‘Banging and drilling’
I spoke to many people with knowledge of the case, who told me Innes was living at the property around 2012 with his Japanese wife Ryoko and their three children.
The family went to Japan in 2013 and Innes returned to Dundee alone in 2019, though he did get at least one visit from one of his children.
Neighbours of Innes described him as quiet and not one for speaking to those around him.
They said Innes had once converted his garage into a computer room and regularly did DIY around the house
Some told me they had heard a lot of banging and drilling in the weeks before Innes was arrested – though they could have never known what was going on inside the house.
Horrific discovery
In that key period between February 17 and March 5, nobody in the community had seen Bennylyn or Jellica and none of the neighbours saw anything that would have been cause for concern.
At the time of the murders, Innes was renovating the kitchen and had placed a skip on the driveway, which had old kitchen units, plaster and debris in it.
Some said they had seen him in B&Q buying concrete.
From my view from the street, it seemed as though police had dug up every room during their forensic search of the house – and their discovery was horrific.
My heart goes out to not only the loved ones of Bennylyn and Jellica Burke, but also the emergency service workers who must have seen deeply disturbing things during their investigation.
That visit to Troon Avenue is one I will remember for the rest of my life. RIP, Bennylyn and Jellica.
