Blundering police only worked out that a murder victim had been shot days after his body was found.
The shocking mistake meant that Brian Low’s killer, former gamekeeper David Campbell, roamed free for months as the death was initially dismissed as ‘non-suspicious’.
But on Wednesday, Campbell, 77, was jailed for life for the execution of a man he had harboured a festering grudge against for years.
He gunned down former colleague Mr Low, 65, as he walked his dog Millie along a secluded farm track yards from his small cottage outside Aberfeldy, Perthshire, Scotland.
Despite being blasted in the neck on February 16, 2024, officers initially thought Mr Low’s death may have been related to a medical condition – and only discovered it was a murder after gun pellets fell out of his body bag when he was being prepared for a post-mortem examination.
A pathologist confirmed he had died from gunshot wounds, and it took police ten days to launch a murder inquiry, having initially failed to seal off the scene.
But now Campbell, who worked at the Edradynate Estate with his victim for years, is likely to die behind bars after being found guilty at Glasgow‘s High Court.
Lord Scott on Wednesday handed him a life sentence for the ‘carefully pre-meditated’ murder and ordered him to serve a minimum of 19 years behind bars.
Former gamekeeper David Campbell has been found guilty of murdering Brian Low by shooting him with a shotgun near Aberfeldy
David Campbell hunted down his former colleague, travelling on his wife’s e-bike in a hooded jacket and carrying a shotgun on his shoulder
Brian Low (pictured) was left so severely injured he died at the scene in Leafy Lane near Pitillie track
The judge told him: ‘The bitterness and grudge you bore Brian Low, reflected in some of things said to others, did not diminish. This led to you carrying out the sort of killing referred to as a targeted assassination or pre-planned execution.’
Campbell showed no emotion at the verdict, which was delivered in front of relatives including his wife of 57 years, Betty. Their daughter Sarah Aitchison had to be comforted by her mother.
Campbell had complained about being called a liar when he took to the witness box in a bid to clear his name. But the jury saw through his story and found him guilty.
Lord Scott said he had read two ‘moving’ impact statements from Mr Low’s partner Pam Curran. The judge told Campbell: ‘You robbed her of the chance to say goodbye.’
Campbell was head gamekeeper at Edradynate between May 1984 and February 2018 and Mr Low was a groundsman between August 2000 and February 2023.
Campbell would tell colleagues how much he hated him. And he insisted he was set up by Mr Low, who he said had planted evidence to implicate him in wildlife crimes.
Michael Campbell, the now late owner of Edradynate who is not related to the murderer, told detectives his former gamekeeper had been left furious about a police raid at his home on the estate.
The financier told detectives Campbell ‘implied Brian had planted the stuff in his house’.
But the murderer told the court he never had a problem with Mr Low. Campbell was later sacked amid claims that hunts on the estate were declining in quality.
CCTV footage showed David Campbell riding his wife’s bicycle on the day of the murder
Campbell was seen placing duct tape on ring doorbell cameras to conceal his wherabouts before carrying out the killing
Police at the scene in the Pitilie area on the outskirts of Aberfeldy, where Brian Low was shot dead
He went on to plot Mr Low’s assassination, disabling his CCTV system and taping over his doorbell camera, before taking his wife’s electric bike to the track where he killed Mr Low, whose body was found the next day.
Detective Constable Mark Chance, one of the first officers on the scene, initially concluded Mr Low’s injuries were consistent with a fall, despite 30 injuries from shotgun pellets.
Four days later, and only after he was taken to a mortuary, were suspicions raised about the more sinister cause of his death – which pathologists found to be gunshot wounds to the neck and chest.
Even Campbell told the jury that police ‘made a monumental shambles of the investigation’.
Police Scotland on Wednesday apologised to Mr Low’s family.