On the night of Thursday, April 7th, 1983, Edinburgh’s waterfront at Gypsy Brae (Granton)—a windswept promenade overlooking the Firth of Forth—became the scene of one of Scotland’s most haunting cold cases: the murder of Sheila Anderson, a twenty-seven-year-old mother of two who made her living as a sex worker.
In the early hours leading up to her death, Sheila was known to have been in Leith, an area associated at the time with street sex work and drug use. Police officers reportedly spoke with her shortly before she left with a man, believed to be the client who would later kill her.
From there, the pair appear to have travelled northwest to Gypsy Brae, a place where clients sometimes drove sex workers for privacy.
The murder itself was unusually brutal, and chillingly practical. Investigators concluded Sheila was intentionally run over and dragged by a vehicle, possibly more than once.
A key witness in the case was a CB radio enthusiast parked nearby. Gypsy Brae’s open shoreline made it a popular spot for CB users because reception carried across the water. Late that night, the witness noticed something that didn’t fit: a car driving along the promenade where vehicles didn’t normally go. When he went to investigate, he discovered Sheila’s body.
Among the details that has lingered in public memory: her watch was found near her body and had stopped at about eleven fifty-four p.m., often cited as a possible time of death.
Because investigators believed Sheila had had sex with her killer shortly before the attack, suspicion fell quickly on the client.
One theory, repeated over the years, is grimly mundane: a payment dispute that escalated. Anderson was described as someone who could be confrontational with clients, reportedly even standing in front of cars if a man tried to drive away without paying, leading detectives to suspect the killer may have used his vehicle as a weapon to force escape and then to kill.
Forensic evidence indicated the killer’s car was red and likely would have been heavily damaged by the impact and dragging. Police have repeatedly appealed for anyone who remembers a partner or acquaintance returning home around that time with suspicious vehicle damage.
Sheila’s handbag later turned up dumped near the A1, south of Edinburgh, fueling the possibility that the killer traveled in from elsewhere and left the city quickly after the murder.
Decades later, the investigation gained renewed momentum when a DNA profile believed to belong to the killer was developed (widely reported as achieved in 2009). That development raised hopes of a future match through databases or new investigative leads, even if, so far, no public identification has followed.
More than forty years on, Sheila Anderson’s case remains open and periodically revisited through cold-case reviews, media coverage, and public appeals.
Crime Immemorial 