Kirriemuir murder accused Tasmin Glass sent ex-boyfriend Steven Donaldson a phone message telling him: “You either meet me up the hill or not at all” the night before his mutilated and burned body was found near the town.
The jury at the High Court in Edinburgh was also told an internet search for a two-foot “cold steel machete” was found in the browsing history of co-accused Callum Davidson’s phone.
It followed a search for “whepons” in the days before Mr Donaldson’s death.
Glass and Davidson and a third co-accused from Kirriemuir, Steven Dickie, are all on trial for the murder of the 27-year-old oil worker from Arbroath.
On the 12th day of the trial, the court heard iPhone messages between Glass and Mr Donaldson had ended shortly after 10.30pm on June 6 last year.
At 9.29am the following day, around four-and-a-half hours after the discovery of Mr Donaldson’s body at Kinnordy Loch nature reserve, Glass sent another message saying: “Are u okay? Not heard from you and I’m getting worried now.”
Detective Constable Stewart Woodhouse told the court he carried out a digital forensic examination of phones belonging to all three accused, as well as another owned by Davidson’s girlfriend, Claire Ogston.
Jurors heard a “data dump” was completed on Glass’s iPhone 7 and a series of messages were recovered from early on the day of June 6.
In the initial stages of the exchange, Mr Donaldson had sent a message saying: “It’s be different if you were up here. Then we could have an actual relationship and everything else.”
The messages resumed just after 6.30pm and Mr Donaldson asked Glass: “You bringing my money.”
She replied: “I’m bringing everything, that ok?”
“So it must be over then, yeah” responded Mr Donaldson.
At around 10.22pm Glass sent a message saying: “Up the hill then”.
She said she did not want Mr Donaldson to go to her house because her parents would be in bed.
At 10.37pm, following further exchanges, she sent him a message saying: “You either meet me up the hill or not at all.”
DC Woodhouse said data from Davidson’s iPhone 6 had revealed a series of phone calls from 7am on the morning of June 7 from Steven Dickie and Claire Ogston.
Some were missed, but one was a six-minute call to his girlfriend’s number.
He said a search of Davidson’s web history from 10pm on May 29 had revealed the term “whepons”.
Results associated with it included a link to the Wish.com website with the details Cold steel Latin D Guard machete 24”.
He told Crown prosecutor, advocate depute Ashely Edwards: “The search term would bring up a list of results.
“It would indicate that particular page has been visited.”
The trial continues.
THE CHARGES
The charge faced by the accused Steven Dickie, Callum Davidson and Tasmin Glass alleges that between June 6 and 7 2018 at the Peter Pan playpark, Kirriemuir and Loch of Kinnordy nature reserve car park, they assaulted Mr Donaldson and arranged to meet him with the intention of assaulting him, and once there repeatedly struck him on the head and body with unknown instruments whereby he was incapacitated, and thereafter took him to Loch of Kinnordy where they repeatedly struck him on the head and body with a knife and baseball bat or similar instruments, repeatedly struck him on the head and neck with an unknown heavy bladed instrument and set fire to him and his motor vehicle, registered S73 VED, and murdered him.
Dickie and Davidson face four other charges including one of behaving in a threatening manner towards two men between January 2014 and June 2018 by making threats, following them on foot and in a motor vehicle, presenting weapons and acting in a threatening manner.
They are also charged with putting a kitten in a bag in Main Street, Lochore, Fife on an occasion between February 1 and May 31 2017, swinging the bag about and punching and kicking the kitten; behaving in a threatening manner towards a man in St Malcolm’s Wynd, Kirriemuir, and elsewhere between December 1 2017 and February 28 2018 by following him on foot and in a vehicle, and threatening him with weapons.
Both also deny following and staring at a woman and kicking her car in Kirriemuir between August 1 2017 and April 31 2018.
Davidson faces a further charge of assaulting a man between June 1 2017 and December 31 2017 at a house in Glengate, Kirriemuir, by pushing him to the floor and threatening to punch him.
Dickie is also accused of assaulting a woman at the Ogilvy Arms pub in Kirriemuir between February 1 and 28 last year by seizing her by the wrist and neck and threatening her with violence.
