Sheila Garvie - Mastermind or Victim

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Mr Nicola's book implicates Tevendale's sister Trudy who died of cancer in 1998 after she was unceremoniously dumped by max Garvie when he decided he wanted his wife and is said to be the real brains for the murder plot. But now, a new book suggests that the police ignored many of the signs of gaslighting and other indignities which Mrs Garvie endured – and while it doesn’t argue there was a miscarriage of justice, highlights the desperate lengths to which she was prepared to go to be free of her husband’s iron grip. Peters blamed both Tevendale and Sheila, claiming his role was removing and hiding the corpse. He said Sheila let them into the house before Tevendale hit Max on the head with the butt of the gun then shot him. Tevendale said the killing was Sheila's idea and he had gone along with it out of infatua-tion. The prosecution claimed Sheila and Brian had coldly plotted the murder. A crime of passion. But crimes of passion have no status in Scots law. Henry Burnett was hanged in Aberdeen on August 15, 1963 - the last man to be hanged in Scotland.

While alive, Maxwell enjoyed a lascivious life. He was fond of female company and maintained physical relations with many. Tevendale's sister Trudy Birse was just one of them. Maxwell frequently arranged wild parties in his house which involved orgies. At first Sheila was not eager to take part, but her husband insisted and the latter won. Related Articles Nothing..and no-one was sacred; For years, the mainland lived under the shadow of the bombers. Hundreds of innocent lives were scarred.Yet sitting alongside her were Tevendale, 22, and his friend Alan Peters, 20, who was also accused of the killing and the disposal of Maxwell Garvie’s body in a disused tunnel, where he was buried after being shot to death. Sheila Garvie was called a femme fatale A short time before, the pair would undoubtedly have been hanged for their crime. But capital punishment had been repealed and they were sentenced to life. However, Sheila fell in love with Tevendale and Garvie's plan turned into bitter jealousy. It led to Sheila Garvie making two attempts to leave her husband - the first was fleeing to a hotel in Stonehaven with her children and Tevendale but returned after Max Garvie threatened to shoot them all. Tevendale said later he believed she wrote the letter because she was being denied access to her children, Wendy, Angela and Lloyd.

The orgies with friends were something she and Max did together. For her to have sex with another man on her own was like an affair, infi-delity. Sheila wasn't that type - not then. He was arrested after he led the officers to where he had d umped the body by Lauriston Castle and he immediately blamed Sheila Garvie, who put all her trust in him. Read More Related Articles He then brought a young man, Tevendale, to the family home. One night he stayed and Max shoved his naked wife into the guest’s bedroom. Max Garvie drank a lot and took drugs to excess, forcing her to indulge in outrageous sexual behaviour and assaulted her. He made Sheila join a nudist colony against her will and developed an obession with photography, pornography where he would snap nude picture of his wife, which he would display to his friends. The widow put forward a defense claiming that the two men had appeared out of the blue that night, killer her husband and wrapped his body in tarpaulin and drove away stating she had no prior knowledge of their plans.As the murder trial went on, stories emerged of orgies at a rural hideaway called ''kinky cottage'' and of Max Garvie's insatiable desire for drugs, drink and sex.

Max had been getting bored for some time. Described as a farmer, he was more of a manager with other people doing the work and him reaping substantial profits. First fast cars filled his time, then a private aeroplane. She was happy just looking after the kids and getting on with their lives. It led to rows between her and Max who called her a fuddy-duddy, square, old fashioned. What had she to lose? She might like it. She thought her husband was there. I had never seen her like that before. As soon as someone said his name, she was absolutely petrified. She never went into detail of what he made her do. Just that she didn’t like it, she didn’t want to do it but he had made her do it.” The foursome existed happily until Max realised Tevendale and Sheila were in love. His drinking and drug-taking spiralled and he’d assaulted Sheila and had threatened to kill her if she left him.

Marriage to murder

Max Garvie was slowly losing the plot. As the sex orgies broke one taboo, he had to move to new challenges. He found his next move in a most unexpected setting. When it became clear that Tevendale was the killer, the prosecution case evolved into proving her guilt by her failure to somehow intervene in the assault on her husband, then doing nothing to bring Tevendale to justice before the three accused were arrested.

During the trial it was revealed that Max had forced his wife naked into a bedroom with Brian Tevendale, whom he had groomed to become her lover. At first only friends were invited. Just some well-to-do folks having a laugh. These were not times for the shy or self-conscious.The Garvie's had two daughters and a son together appearing to have an idyllic life at their luxurious farmhouse at West Cairnbeg near Fourdoun, Kincardineshire. READ MORE: Martin Kok: Dutch crime blogger shot dead by a Scottish gangster after standing up to drug syndicate Robert Balfour became the fifth Lord Balfour of Burleigh on the death of his father, Robert Balfour, in 1713. As a young man, this fifth Balfour did something that his aristocratic parents—his mother was Lady Margaret Melville—took great exception to. He fell in love with a woman below him in the rigid Scottish social hierarchy of the day. Balfour’s parent’s reacted by sending him abroad. Peters claimed Sheila let them into the house and that she and Tevendale carried out the murder and he was simply observing. He died in 2007 from cancer. Allan Nicol's new book about the case (Image: Ringwood Publishing) Officers found the body near St Cyrus and subsequently charged Garvie and Tevendale with the murder.