A group of friends were hanging out in an abandoned warehouse when they made a grisly discovery. In September 2020, urban explorer James Fenton went to Whitehill Industrial, a derelict estate in Glenrothes, Fife, with his brother and their girlfriends to see what they could find. The foursome was "just messing about" when James spotted something in the corner of his eye that was a "white, dull, bony kind of material".
On closer inspection, he chillingly realised it was the bones of a skull, ribcage and foot. James called the police, who confirmed the remains were human, leaving him sick to the stomach. But what investigators didn't yet know was who the body belonged to, and how they tragically ended up in a derelict warehouse. Tonight, a documentary titled Murder Trial: Body in the Warehouse airs on BBC Two and follows the police investigation. Speaking to BBC Scotland ahead of the doc, explorer James said: "It's the last thing you would think anyone would discover. It's scary to think how long he'd been lying there - nobody noticed for so long.".
After the skeleton was found, police began searching missing people databases and checked on homeless people who were known to sleep rough, but made no leads. Then a facial reconstruction was created, and a council officer came forward to speculate if the body could be that of Ean Coutts, a 60-year-old local man. Ean had gone missing the year before and was known in the area as a "cheery, jovial chap." He lived just five minutes away from the derelict estate, in a council home in Kinglassie, and hadn't been seen since September 2019.
Police Scotland crime scene manager Detective Sergeant Scott Roxburgh said: "He was a man of routine - went to the same shops at the same time, on the same day of the week. He spent his money in the same pattern for a number of years - it was quite clear to police that after September 2019 there was a complete change in that pattern of spending.". Around the time Ean went missing, a painter and decorator who had been doing work on his house told a neighbour that Ean had gone to live with his sister in England. But, neither of his sisters lived in England. As more puzzling details came to light, workman David Barnes went on trial for Ean's murder.
It was later revealed in court that Barnes had taken Ean's identity on 91 occasions to obtain thousands of pounds worth of cash and goods after his death. A woman who had been in a relationship with Barnes also confirmed he seemed to have more money after September 2019. In a clue that ultimately sealed Barnes' fate, the same species of soil outside of the industrial units was found in the footwell of his car.
While the defence argued that there was no evidence Barnes had killed Ean, a majority guilty verdict meant he was sentenced to life in prison, to serve a minimum of 23 years. Sentencing Barnes, the judge Lord Mulholland told him: "What you did was callous. The murder of a man who did you no harm - to the contrary, he gave you work. You have displayed no remorse or taken responsibility for the crimes you have committed. What you did was despicable and evil.".
Ean is survived by his three children. His daughters, Emma and Louise Coutts, who moved to Essex with their mother when they were very young, had a distanced relationship with their father. Louise told the BBC: "We hadn't seen him for 10 or 11 years until we got this phone call." Emma said: "He was still our dad and he died in an undignified way.". She went on: "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." Louise added: "There will never be full closure because we don't know what happened to our dad - only he [Barnes] will ever know that.".
