For nearly a decade, the disappearance of Perthshire trucker Adam Alexander left his family, police and the public baffled.
Mr Alexander, 38, went missing from his home in Errol, between Perth and Dundee, on November 14 1999.
No trace was found of him in the subsequent search, or for more than seven years.
However, a drunken holiday confession by his killer led to police finally cracking the case.
Scone businessman Thomas Pryde had argued with the tragic victim before bludgeoning him to death and burying him in a shallow grave near his home on the day he disappeared.
Pryde became one of the few to be convicted of killing someone without their body being found.
As a new Netflix documentary is set to be aired later this year, The Courier takes a look back at a case branded by a leading detective as one of the most challenging ever seen in Tayside.
1 – Who raised the alarm?
Mr Alexander’s friend Steven McKee alerted the authorities after the long-distance lorry driver failed to show up for a new job in Bothwell, Lanarkshire.
Mr McKee visited his pal’s home on High Street, Errol, and immediately realised something was wrong.
He said: “It looked like he’d popped out for a pint of milk.
“The heating was on, the TV was on standby, there was a mug lying on the floor, a magazine lying half opened.
“It just looked like somebody had popped out for 10 minutes.
“I knew Adam well and I knew something wasn’t right.”
A neighbour was the last person to see Mr Alexander and said he went to see local drainage contractor Thomas Pryde, who had agreed to buy his Yamaha Thurderace motorbike the previous weekend.
As part of their subsequent missing persons’ inquiry, Pryde was interviewed by police.
He said he had gone to Mr Alexander’s home on November 14 to collect the motorbike but no-one was home.
Pryde’s next, dramatic, involvement in the case would come years later.
2 – What clues did police have on Adam Alexander’s disappearance?
Tayside Police, as it was then, began issuing public appeals for help in the investigation as fears over Mr Alexander’s whereabouts grew.
The only clue was the movements of his car – a black Volvo, with distinctive personal number plate – in the days immediately preceding his disappearance.
It was parked in Taymount Terrace, Perth, at 10am on November 17 was seen later that Wednesday, travelling at speed, into Hamilton Place.
Because of this, police could not be sure exactly when he had last been seen, as it was presumed he had been driving.
As the trail went cold, his mother Tricia Bremner told The Courier early in 2000 her son’s “out-of-character” disappearance may be linked to personal problems, including a break-up with his long-term girlfriend and the loss of his job.
His new job meant he had to be away from his Errol home overnight and he had to give up his dogs, described by Mrs Bremner as a possible last straw.
Tayside Police confirmed his bank account remained unused.
Although the case remained open and was reviewed periodically, it was not until January 2007 that significant progress was made.
3 – How did suspect emerge?
Thomas Pryde re-entered the investigation in the most dramatic circumstances – more than seven years after it began.
During a holiday in Greece in May 2006, a tearful Pryde confessed to his wife he had “done a terrible thing…for her and their son.”
His various confessions included the killing of Mr Alexander and she took her information to police in January 2007 as the couple endured “an acrimonious split-up” – according to Pryde’s lawyer during the later court proceedings.
By this time, Pryde had already confessed to a friend he had “done” Mr Alexander, having attacked him with a brass rod.
The following year, he told another friend: “It was him or me”.
Rumours swirled locally that Pryde was involved and when police searched his home in Scone, they found a photo of a male digging a grave, with his face superimposed on it, sent to him by someone who thought him responsible.
Pryde, then 36, was arrested in September 2007, appeared in court in October 2009 accused of murder and confessed to culpable homicide at the High Court in Glasgow on March 26 2010, more than a decade after his crimes were committed.
Between his arrest and conviction, the disgraced businessman was sentenced to five years in jail for firing gun shots at a rival’s home in a cash dispute.
After masking his face, Pryde blasted Steven Stewart’s Perth home from a motorbike as the plumber sat inside with his ex-wife and children.
He had also received prison time for torching a £45,000 Range Rover in a botched insurance scam in 2006.
4 – How did Thomas Pryde kill Adam Alexander?
Pryde’s defence agent, Ian Duguid QC, said his client had gone to collect the motorbike on the fateful day but they had argued when, he claimed, Mr Alexander tried to involve him in a cross-border stolen electricals scheme.
Pryde told detectives he “lost the plot” after his victim allegedly made threats to his wife and child and then began to hit him.
As they fought, he picked up a metal bar and struck Mr Alexander more than once.
The court heard he told police: “I put him in the back of the car…I took him along by the brickworks and buried him.”
Pryde said after bundling Mr Alexander into the back of his car and driving off, he realised he had no shovel and went back home to get one.
He also said he had not checked to see whether or not Mr Alexander was dead.
Pryde could not remember what he did with the implement used to kill Mr Alexander and claimed he burned his victim’s clothes.
He was jailed for 10 years – reduced from 14 due to his plea.
Lead investigator DCS Roddy Ross said the case was one of the most “challenging” he had ever seen, comparing it to the Templeton Woods murders in Dundee in its complexity.
Mrs Bremner, who had thrown herself into charity work in the intervening period, slammed the sentence, saying she had hoped for a life tariff.
“It’s more than 10 years since Adam went missing so that’s not even a year for every one that we have searched for him,” she said.
5 – Did police find Adam’s body?
At the time of Pryde’s conviction, Mr Alexander’s body had still not been found.
Police specialists, aided by forensic expert Professor Sue Black from Dundee University, had made various attempts to locate it, having been given a general search area by repentant Pryde.
But in September 2012, remains were found and police quickly confirmed DNA analysis showed they were tragic Mr Alexander’s.
His grief-stricken mother refused to believe they were his.
She said: “I don’t know whose bones the police have, but it is nothing to do with Adam.
“I just want to find the real bones so I can put Adam somewhere I can put flowers. I have a special place he will go.”
A service of remembrance was held in St John’s Kirk in August 2013.
Thomas Pryde has since been freed from prison.
Ten-part series When Missing Turns To Murder by Phoenix Television is due to run on Netflix in June.
The series includes the case of Ross Taggart from Dunfermline, who murdered his mother and hid her body under a seaside caravan in Fife.
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