Detectives investigating a “sadistic” murder issued a photofit of the suspect despite being told it looked nothing like the man thought to be the killer, a documentary will reveal on Monday night.
A friend of Marian Beattie also tells the Murder In The Badlands programme a serving police officer was at the venue where the 18-year-old met the man suspected of killing her.
The revelations emerge in the latest episode of the BBC1 Northern Ireland documentary which will be broadcast almost 50 years after the still unsolved murder.
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Marian’s body was found at the bottom of a quarry in Aughnacloy, Co Tyrone, in March 1973. Decades on and despite a number of police appeals no one has been charged with her killing. The RUC at the time described the killing as “a most vicious and cruel murder with sadistic overtones”.
The teenager, from Portadown, was found with a pile of burnt matches next to her body and buttons from her blouse neatly stacked next to her.
On the night of her death the 18-year-old had been at a barn dance watching Tuxedo Junction - the band her older brother Isadore Beattie was a roadie for.
Marian was also with close friend Nuala Wilson who saw her dancing with an unknown man with long blonde hair. The pair later went outside passing by Isadore who got a good look at the male. It was the last time the teenager was seen alive.
At 2am when Marian had not returned, Isadore and Nuala went to Aughnacloy RUC station to report her missing. But as they waited, Nuala saw a plain-clothed policeman walk behind the counter and recognised him as a man who had been at the concert earlier and had asked her to dance.
Isadore told the programme: “Nuala says ‘that is one of the people who were with that group in the dance’, and he was a police officer.”
Nuala then adds: “That policeman who asked me to dance, he’s bound to have seen that fella from Aughnacloy. He’s bound to have known him.”
Isadore also tells the programme that a police photo-fit issued to the press after Marian’s murder looked nothing like the man who he had seen her with earlier.
He said: “After we had identified Marian the police wanted to take a statement, and they wanted to do a photofit, and could I explain what the person look liked. So Inspector Callaghan and another police officer were writing down all the notes and they came back and showed me the photofit. I said ‘that’s not what I told you, that’s nowhere close to what I told you what the person looked like’.
“But that’s the photofit that went out to the news, the one I said wasn’t right.”
Both Nuala and Isadore pointed out how the suspect had unusually long hair, right down his back. The programme also unearths failings in the RUC investigation, including how key forensic items were not retained.
The programme hears claims that the area where the murder happened, at Haddens Quarry, could not have been easily reached from the barn where the gig happened without good local knowledge.
Marian’s brother Gerard Beattie tells the programme: “The police had gathered up matches and fegs, all the forensic evidence and Marian’s clothes down at the bottom of the quarry.
“We were always led to believe there was 42 items, but after a radio broadcast (into her killing) there was 52 or 53 items. All the items are now missing and part of the file is missing.”
The programme also hears from criminologist Robert Giles who has studied the case closely and after talking to a number of people was told the name of the man suspected of murdering Marian.
The information Mr Giles gathered tallies with information in an anonymous letter sent to the Pat Finucane Centre in 2019. This was passed on to police who in September last year questioned a man about the killing under caution after he presented himself at Belfast’s Musgrave PSNI station.
The criminologist believes the neat pile of buttons from Marian’s blouse show there was “controlled” behaviour which followed the “frenzied” attack. The disorganised crime scene, he added, suggests a younger killer.
The programme also hears that witnesses later saw a man with cuts to his face, which may have indicated a struggle but that he later “got offside” and it is unclear if he was ever interviewed.
As the programme opens it hears how the family chose a closed coffin at Marian’s funeral due to the horrific injuries she suffered.
Solicitor Darragh Mackin who has been working with the Beattie family is critical of the decision by the PSNI to add the unsolved murder to those being reviewed by the Legacy Investigation despite not being Troubles related.
Murder In The Badlands airs on BBC1 Northern Ireland at 10:40pm on Monday.
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