Police searching for a missing Fife mum found a body tied up in bedding and concealed under a caravan, her son’s murder trial has heard.
Ross Taggart, 31, is on trial at the High Court in Edinburgh, charged with murdering his mother Carol Anne Taggart.
The court today heard the grim discovery was made over two weeks after Taggart had reported Carol Anne as missing.
Police search adviser PC Ruth Goldie, 49, said that following searches of Ms Taggart’s caravan at Pettycur Bay and the surrounding areas, a search was made at a caravan two doors along on January 11.
Ms Goldie said she had opened the wooden swivel catch under the caravan, adding: “When I started looking, I saw what looked like a bundle of material that was sitting in the doorway to the right-hand side.
“I was unsure what I was looking at. I put a finger on the bundle and it was dense to the touch.
“The bundle was tied with a green cord in a criss-cross pattern and there seemed to be the shape of a head.
“There was a torso and it appeared there was a pair of legs that were bent upwards.”
Jurors were shown an animation of the discovery followed by a mortuary photograph of the wrapped body.
Taggart denies killing Carol Anne Walker and hiding her body under a caravan in Pettycur Bay Caravan Park, Kinghorn, between December 21 and January 11 this year.
He is alleged to have repeatedly struck his mother on the head “by means unknown”, seized hold of her neck and compressed her throat using his hands or “an unidentified item”.
Addresses listed in the murder charge include Carole Anne Taggart’s home in Dunfermline and Pettycur Bay Caravan Park in Kinghorn.
Taggart is also accused of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by concealing his mother’s body within a void under a caravan at Pettycur and attempting to tidy, clean and remove blood staining and other forensic evidence from two addresses and the boot of a car.
He is also accused of reporting his mother as missing and telling others that she earlier left her home and he did not know where she was.
Taggart also faces a theft charge of using his mother’s bank card and stealing a bangle and ring and going to a pawnbroker claiming he had inherited the jewellery.
The trial before Lord Uist continues.