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| Alexander Pacteau confessed to Karen Buckley's murder |
THIS week Alexander Pacteau confessed to murdering Karen Buckley but what drove the middle-class public schoolboy to become a cold-blooded killer?
The precise reason why Karen Buckley accepted the offer of a lift home from a stranger in the early hours will never be known.
Karen, an occupational therapy student who just happened to be in the wrong place as Pacteau cruised the city’s streets looking for a victim, was battered to death in his car. Later he tried to destroy her body in chemicals before it was hidden in a barrel.
As Pacteau, 21, faces a life sentence questions are being asked about what drove a seemingly normal schoolboy from a loving family background to become a murderer.
His French father, Guillaume, 45, ran a courier company while his Scottish mother Noreen raised Alexander, his sister and two brothers.
The family was sufficiently welloff to be able to afford a home in the affluent Glasgow suburb of Bearsden, where his dad ran a junior football team and Pacteau attended Baljaffray primary school. Later he went to Kelvinside Academy, a private school in the West End. Fees at the boys’ school are up to £12,000 a year.
George Taylor, who once worked with him, says: “He was quite happy-go-lucky. He had quite a good sense of humour.
We called him the Gentle Giant.
“He used to visit prostitutes, he was quite candid about that. He said he enjoyed it and he was in control. He was a bit of a Walter Mitty character, a fantasist. He was always saying he was going to become a millionaire.”
Mr Taylor also reveals that a few months before Karen’s death Pacteau discussed “the perfect murder”. He claimed that getting rid of the body in a barrel of acid was the best method.
Last year Pacteau was caught forging money. About £6,000 worth of fake notes were seized and he was told to carry out 225 hours of community service.
Relieved to escape prison Pacteau went on a crash diet and joined a gym. It was an attempt to turn his life around but his next crime was murder.
The Sanctuary nightclub, where Karen spent her fi nal hours with friends, was one of his favourite haunts and barely two miles from his latest fl at, in the Kelvindale area. He moved in a few months before the killing but was already behind with the rent, coming up with various excuses to his landlord. When Karen vanished on April 12 it soon became apparent that Pacteau was the last person to see her alive.
When police visited him for the first time he told officers: “I was just coming to see you.” A strong smell or bleach was noticed at his flat and a receipt for chemicals was discovered.
Pacteau’s 44-year-old mother is said to be “devastated” by his actions. On the eve of the murder he visited her for a meal.
While the hunt for the missing woman continued Noreen was adamant that her son was innocent, insisting: “He is not a suspect.”
By then, however, Pacteau was fi rmly in the frame and he was arrested less than 24 hours later.
The High Court in Glasgow where Pacteau admitted murder was told that after Karen’s death he used his mobile phone to research caustic soda. Later he bought six litres of the chemical, masks and gloves from a branch of B&Q.
Karen’s body was found in a blue plastic barrel at a padlocked storage unit at High Craigton Farm near Milngavie where Pacteau once stored fi reworks. The youngest of four children from Mourneabbey, County Cork, in Ireland, Karen was studying for a masters degree at Glasgow Caledonian University.
She died after being hit at least a dozen times with a spanner. Her blood was found inside Pacteau’s Ford Focus and her injuries showed she fought for her life.
Karen’s family describe her killer as “truly evil” and say they will for ever be haunted by the knowledge that the last face she saw was that of Alexander Pacteau.
The 24-year-old was a streetwise young woman, having travelled extensively to countries including Thailand and crime-ridden South Africa.
Perhaps she considered herself safe in the bustling West End of Glasgow and simply let her normal guard drop. Fatefully the man in whom she placed her trust in April this year was Alexander Pacteau.
He was a loner and fantasist who had previously been suspected of rape and talked about committing “the perfect murder”.
Perhaps she considered herself safe in the bustling West End of Glasgow and simply let her normal guard drop. Fatefully the man in whom she placed her trust in April this year was Alexander Pacteau.
He was a loner and fantasist who had previously been suspected of rape and talked about committing “the perfect murder”.
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| Irish occupational therapy student Karen Buckley |
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| Karen's parents John and Marian outside Glasgow High Court |
Karen, an occupational therapy student who just happened to be in the wrong place as Pacteau cruised the city’s streets looking for a victim, was battered to death in his car. Later he tried to destroy her body in chemicals before it was hidden in a barrel.
As Pacteau, 21, faces a life sentence questions are being asked about what drove a seemingly normal schoolboy from a loving family background to become a murderer.
His French father, Guillaume, 45, ran a courier company while his Scottish mother Noreen raised Alexander, his sister and two brothers.
The family was sufficiently welloff to be able to afford a home in the affluent Glasgow suburb of Bearsden, where his dad ran a junior football team and Pacteau attended Baljaffray primary school. Later he went to Kelvinside Academy, a private school in the West End. Fees at the boys’ school are up to £12,000 a year.
Pacteau was an unremarkable pupil. He is said to have had a small circle of friends but was socially awkward and struggled to meet girls.
However he liked playing football.
Later when his father’s business began to struggle Pacteau switched to Bearsden Academy, a state school and teachers there expected the bright pupil to go on to university. However he left aged 17 with plans to launch his own courier firm.
He began a business course at Anniesland College but dropped out.
In 2011 came the fi rst hint of any serious problems. That November Pacteau, who is six foot four, was accused of attacking a 24-year-old woman.
The circumstances, even down to the age of the alleged random victim, were strikingly similar to events leading to the killing of Karen four years later.
On that occasion it was claimed he approached a woman outside a Glasgow nightclub, winning her trust by offering to share a cab.
He was accused of attacking her in an alleyway where she was rescued by passers-by.
There was a long delay in the case going to court because Pacteau was involved in a car accident that left him in an induced coma for four weeks.
He also had a broken hip and broken ribs. Once his case went to court he was cleared of the attack.
Following the break-up of his parents’ marriage, which ended in divorce in 2013, Alexander first lived with his mother in the Stirlingshire village of Drymen.
He began a business course at Anniesland College but dropped out.
In 2011 came the fi rst hint of any serious problems. That November Pacteau, who is six foot four, was accused of attacking a 24-year-old woman.
The circumstances, even down to the age of the alleged random victim, were strikingly similar to events leading to the killing of Karen four years later.
On that occasion it was claimed he approached a woman outside a Glasgow nightclub, winning her trust by offering to share a cab.
He was accused of attacking her in an alleyway where she was rescued by passers-by.
There was a long delay in the case going to court because Pacteau was involved in a car accident that left him in an induced coma for four weeks.
He also had a broken hip and broken ribs. Once his case went to court he was cleared of the attack.
Following the break-up of his parents’ marriage, which ended in divorce in 2013, Alexander first lived with his mother in the Stirlingshire village of Drymen.
There was more upheaval when he then went to live with his father. It’s believed there were tensions between him and Guillaume’s new partner.
After a series of rows his father lost patience and is said to have kicked him out. He used the small ads to find a fl at in the Drumchapel area of Glasgow.
Pacteau rarely socialised with his flatmates and became obsessed with his failure to fi nd a girlfriend. He began gorging on takeaways, causing his weight to balloon to more than 20 stone.
His behaviour became increasingly strange and he unnerved one flatmate by stating in a benefi ts claim that she was his girlfriend when in fact there was no romantic link.
Kathleen Stewart, 48, who shared with Pacteau and a Greek couple, says: “We thought he was creepy. He would often talk to me and our female housemate about sex. He told my housemate he heard her having sex. “It reached the point where she didn’t want to be alone in the fl at with him.
There was something not right about him.” His attempts to fi nd work were erratic. There was a stint in a home and garden shop and he sold fi reworks.
Company records show he is the director of ABP, an online furniture company, but it’s never been a success making just £3,000 in one trading year.
After a series of rows his father lost patience and is said to have kicked him out. He used the small ads to find a fl at in the Drumchapel area of Glasgow.
Pacteau rarely socialised with his flatmates and became obsessed with his failure to fi nd a girlfriend. He began gorging on takeaways, causing his weight to balloon to more than 20 stone.
His behaviour became increasingly strange and he unnerved one flatmate by stating in a benefi ts claim that she was his girlfriend when in fact there was no romantic link.
Kathleen Stewart, 48, who shared with Pacteau and a Greek couple, says: “We thought he was creepy. He would often talk to me and our female housemate about sex. He told my housemate he heard her having sex. “It reached the point where she didn’t want to be alone in the fl at with him.
There was something not right about him.” His attempts to fi nd work were erratic. There was a stint in a home and garden shop and he sold fi reworks.
Company records show he is the director of ABP, an online furniture company, but it’s never been a success making just £3,000 in one trading year.
We called him the Gentle Giant.
“He used to visit prostitutes, he was quite candid about that. He said he enjoyed it and he was in control. He was a bit of a Walter Mitty character, a fantasist. He was always saying he was going to become a millionaire.”
Mr Taylor also reveals that a few months before Karen’s death Pacteau discussed “the perfect murder”. He claimed that getting rid of the body in a barrel of acid was the best method.
Last year Pacteau was caught forging money. About £6,000 worth of fake notes were seized and he was told to carry out 225 hours of community service.
Relieved to escape prison Pacteau went on a crash diet and joined a gym. It was an attempt to turn his life around but his next crime was murder.
The Sanctuary nightclub, where Karen spent her fi nal hours with friends, was one of his favourite haunts and barely two miles from his latest fl at, in the Kelvindale area.
When police visited him for the first time he told officers: “I was just coming to see you"
When police visited him for the first time he told officers: “I was just coming to see you.”
Pacteau’s 44-year-old mother is said to be “devastated” by his actions. On the eve of the murder he visited her for a meal.
While the hunt for the missing woman continued Noreen was adamant that her son was innocent, insisting: “He is not a suspect.”
By then, however, Pacteau was fi rmly in the frame and he was arrested less than 24 hours later.
The High Court in Glasgow where Pacteau admitted murder was told that after Karen’s death he used his mobile phone to research caustic soda. Later he bought six litres of the chemical, masks and gloves from a branch of B&Q.
Karen’s body was found in a blue plastic barrel at a padlocked storage unit at High Craigton Farm near Milngavie where Pacteau once stored fi reworks. The youngest of four children from Mourneabbey, County Cork, in Ireland, Karen was studying for a masters degree at Glasgow Caledonian University.
She died after being hit at least a dozen times with a spanner. Her blood was found inside Pacteau’s Ford Focus and her injuries showed she fought for her life.
Karen’s family describe her killer as “truly evil” and say they will for ever be haunted by the knowledge that the last face she saw was that of Alexander Pacteau.
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