The Unsolved Murder of 11-Year-Old Tracey Waters
Tracey left her home on February 14, 1983. She was found dead the next day.
On February 14, 1983, Tracey left her home on Craigview Avenue in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland allegedly to attend a local youth club. However, there are various other sources that state that she went to find her mother.
The majority of newspaper sources do state that Tracey was on her way to a local youth club, located about a half mile away from her home. However, the book, Real Hard Cases: True Crime from the Streets by Les Brown and Robert Jeffrey and also reported in the Herald, states that Tracey left her home in search of her Mother, who was in the local pub.
Tracey was reported missing sometime that evening. Again, there are two different versions. One states that when Tracey did not return home from the youth club by 11 pm, her mother reported her missing. The other states that when Tracey's mother returned home from the pub and her daughter was not there, she went out in search of her and then reported her missing.
Tracey was found the following day. Her body was found underneath a hedge in the garden of a home on Shanks Crescent in Johnstone, only about a half mile from her home. Tracey had been beaten and strangled. Police believed that the motive was sexual, but the killer got disturbed and ran away.
It is unclear at what time Tracey left her home, none of the sources that I found gave the times when her mother left and returned home from the pub if that's where she was, for us to work out a time window of when she was killed.
The police had a witness who saw a man running away from where Tracey’s body was found. On investigation, the police managed to retrieve a footprint they believed to be that of the killer. One thing that I find strange in this case is that the area is heavily built up, but nobody heard any screams.
Adam McDermott, who was Tracey’s uncle was initially charged with her murder in March of 1983. I could not find out what evidence the police had on McDermott. However, Les Brown and Robert Jeffrey wrote that the footprint that police thought belonged to the killer was a size 7 and McDermott was a size 10, leading them to believe that McDermott was not the killer.
McDermot was released just two months later due to insufficient evidence. Police are said to have lost vital evidence in the 1980s, making a conviction extremely difficult, even with DNA advances.
A free man, Adam McDermott was a divorced father of 3 children. On the morning of October 31, 2001, he told his family that he was going to the post office in Kilbarchan to collect his benefits. He has not been seen or heard from since.
In 2004, The Herald reported that McDermott’s relatives were convinced that he was still alive as they received a parcel which was said to be from him, posted from the Helensburgh area in 2003. However, in 2009, an investigating officer stated that he thought Adam McDermott was deceased. Various sources have also reported that the police believe that McDermott has probably killed himself. However, a body has never been found.
Police also wanted to speak to him regarding the murder of 16-year-old Pamela Hastie in Paisley in 1981. A man named Raymond Gilmour was initially convicted of Pamela’s murder. However, he was released on parole pending an appeal. In 2018, the Glasgow Times reported that Gilmore had been cleared of Pamela’s murder.
In 2020, Margaret Waters, Tracey’s mother told the Daily Record that she is convinced that her brother, Adam McDermott killed Tracey. As of October 2022, Tracey’s murder remains unsolved.
Sources and Further Reading
Real Hard Cases: True Crime from the Streets by Les Brown and Robert Jeffrey
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/real-life/mothers-in-arms-murdered-girls-mums-1079921
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/devastated-mum-who-waited-37-22191937
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Armchair Detective
Amateur writer, I mostly write about true crime.
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