When a district nurse called at the Dundee flat of an elderly patient on January 2nd, 1979, and received no response to her knocks she became worried and informed the police. The patient was 78-year-old Miss Agnes Waugh, and the police made inquiries in the neighbourhood without success. It seemed unlikely that she would have gone away, because she had recently hurt herself in a fall. When officers finally gained access to her flat two days later there was no sign of her, although her gas fire was burning and a full pot of tea stood on the table.
She had last been seen on DECEMBER 29th when a neighbour saw her open her door to a man wearing a woollen tammy hat. On the same day another Dundee woman, Mrs. Cathy Millar, had been reported missing when she failed to return home after going shopping.
Mrs. Millars husband recalled that she occasionally visited an elderly friend, Mrs. June Simpson. He went twice to Mrs. Simpsons flat, which was in the same complex as Miss Waughs, but he received no reply to his knocks. On the afternoon of January 4th he went there again, his visit coinciding with the arrival of the police. The officers were continuing their search for Miss Waugh, and Mrs. Simpsons flat was the only one they hadnt checked in the complex. Like Mr. Millar, they had called twice before, and on receiving no response to their knocks they had assumed that Mrs. Simpson must be out.
They now forced her door, and on entering her flat they found the bodies of three women. Mrs. Simpson and Miss Waugh were sitting upright in chairs, and Mrs. Millar was lying on her back in the rooms bed-recess. All three had ligatures round their necks, and all were dead.
The police learned that Miss Waugh had a nephew, Robert Mone senior, a habitual criminal whose son Robert was serving a life sentence as a double-killer. Mone senior admitted that he had been in Mrs. Simpsons flat on the afternoon of December 29th. He said he had gone there with another man who knew Mrs. Simpson and had invited him to accompany him there for a few drinks. Mrs. Simpson and Mrs. Millar were there, and Miss Waugh had then joined them. He claimed he had left the flat at 3.30 p.m., leaving his friend with the three women.
The friend was traced and questioned. He said it was he who had left the flat at 3.30, leaving Mone with Mrs. Simpson and Mrs. Millar. Miss Waugh had not arrived when he departed. He had then gone to place two bets, and the date and time on the betting slips found in his pocket confirmed his story.
So Mone was lying, and a plaster cast of a jagged indentation caused by a blow to Miss Waughs right cheek matched the pattern of a ring he was wearing. He was charged with the three murders, which he denied. But his friends told the police that he was jealous of his sons notoriety as a double-killer, and it seemed that he had decided to eclipse Robert Mone juniors reputation by committing not just two murders but three. That was why he had persuaded his aunt to join the other women.
He was convicted and jailed for life, but he was not destined to enjoy his reputation as a triple-killer for long. In 1981 he himself was murdered in prison.