A Fife ‘body in the warehouse’ murder trial is to feature in a new BBC documentary.
Murder Trial: Body in the Warehouse will give behind-the-scenes access to the trial of David Barnes, who was found guilty of killing Ean Coutts and dumping the 60-year-old Army veteran’s body on a Glenrothes trading estate.
Coutts was killed at his home in Kinglassie in 2019 before his body was hidden in a wheelie bin.
He was then dumped nearly five miles away at an abandoned warehouse on Whitehill Industrial Estate.
Mr Coutts’ skeletal remains were found more than a year later in a wardrobe in the warehouse by an urban explorer.
Murder Trial will follow Mr Coutts’ family in their bid for justice and the trial of Barnes – who was jailed for life at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Screened over two nights, the documentary will feature Mr Coutts’ sister Audrey and two of his children, Emma and Louise.
Ean Coutts’ family to appear in Murder Trial documentary
Speaking ahead of the programme’s release, Emma said: “You kind of almost feel a sense of guilt in a way because we were estranged.
“But he was still our dad and there were still a lot of feelings there.
“You know we could have had that chance to get back in contact with him but the fact that someone’s taken that chance away for us to ever be able to reconnect with him, I think that was quite gut-wrenching.”
DS Scott Roxburgh, who led the investigation, said: “It was an area which had just been completely neglected for many, many years and this individual had been callously dumped.
“It was a pretty sad scene to be honest, certainly not where you want your loved one’s final resting place to be.”
The forensic techniques that helped bring Coutts’ killer to justice featured in the BBC documentary Expert Witness in November 2024.
Murder Trial: Body In The Warehouse is available to watch on BBC iPlayer from January 28.
It will also be broadcast on BBC Scotland on February 11 and 12 at 9pm.
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