UK UK - Arlene Fraser, 33, Elgin, Scotland, 28 April 1998

[Al Ka]

Arlene Fraser

Arlene Fraser was a 33-year-old woman from Elgin in Moray, Scotland, who vanished from her home on 28 April 1998 after her two children went to school. No trace of her was ever found, but her husband was convicted of her murder, upheld on appeal.
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The second trial was the subject of a television documentary "The Murder Trial", which was shown on Channel 4 on 9 July 2013, only the second time that footage from a British murder trial was broadcast on television. The documentary won the award for the best single documentary at the 2014 British Academy Television Awards.

Murder of Arlene Fraser - Wikipedia

 

[Al Ka]

10 Oct 1999
Ex-husband of missing woman faces trial for murder attempt

It should have been just another day in the busy life of Arlene Fraser. Still in her dressing gown, she waved her kids off to school from the doorway of her bungalow in Elgin, near Aberdeen, and started on the housework and the laundry before meeting her friend for lunch. She then planned to meet her solicitor before rushing home to meet the kids from school.

A devoted mother, 33-year-old Arlene was paranoid about security - she had recently fitted an alarm system after her bungalow had been burgled - so her friend Michelle Scott was surprised to find the front door ajar when she called to pick up Arlene for lunch. The washing machine was in mid-cycle, a pair of spectacles lay on the kitchen table and clothes laid out for the day were untouched. When Arlene still had not appeared to meet her children from school, the police were called in.

In what has become one of the most bewildering cases in Scottish criminal history, more than 1,000 people have been interviewed since the hunt for Arlene began at the end of April 1998. Woods, brushland and lakes have been searched and inquiries made as far afield as the Canary Islands in an investigation costing well over £1 million. But 18 months later no one has been charged with her abduction or murder, and the police are no nearer knowing what happened to her.
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There have been suggestions that the housewife and mature student had become involved with an international crime syndicate trading in bootleg whisky and vodka - and that she paid with her life. That, police admit, is speculation.

What is more certain is that a month before she vanished Arlene's estranged husband, Nat Fraser, had appeared at Elgin Sheriff Court charged with her attempted murder. He had been released on bail on condition that he did not return to the family home. No date had been fixed for a trial, but Arlene was to have been the chief prosecution witness. Without her, the case for the Crown was severely weakened. Mr Fraser was interviewed at once and denied having anything to do with her disappearance. Police made a point of telling the eager local media that he had been 'fully co-operative' and had shown 'geniune concern'. He had been able to explain his movements on the day his wife vanished and would face no new charges.
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As the hunt continued, detectives began to probe every aspect of Arlene's private life. She was proud of her appearance and would never leave home without her make-up or a treasured watch that she wore everywhere. Her business studies course at a local college was going well and Arlene seemed to be getting enough money from her husband - though she had apparently been trying to win a higher divorce settlement - and made a little extra selling cut-price vodka and whisky to friends. Rumours that Arlene had run off with another man came to nothing.
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Another bizarre twist emerged when police announced that in the early hours of 5 April, three weeks before she vanished, Arlene's car had burst into flames as it sat on her driveway. At first the fire was put down to an electrical fault, but a re-examination of the vehicle showed it had been started deliberately.

In June 1998, Nat Fraser went public for the first time and offered a £10,000 reward for information leading to Arlene's whereabouts. 'My message to Arlene is to come home because the children are missing you terribly. But when Arlene failed to appear for her children's birthdays in August, the police had to accept that she was almost certainly dead.
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Last October the police said they were trying to trace a Ford Fiesta known to have changed hands in Elgin the night before Arlene vanished. After that, the trail went cold until last month, when a joint police and customs team raided addresses in Fife, questioned a number of men and announced the most dramatic twist yet. The whisky and vodka Arlene had been selling was tracked to a massive bootlegging gang shifting tens of thousands of pounds' worth of spirits each week between Fife and Moray. The team behind the smuggling - which stopped after Arlene's disappearance - were said to be ruthless criminals; the fear was Arlene had been murdered to prevent her exposing them.
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Soon after the bootlegging link was announced, Nat Fraser's life also took a dramatic twist. He had been on bail on the attempted murder charge since March 1998 and under Scottish law any accused person must be brought to trial within a year. In Fraser's case, however, the Crown granted an eight-month extension. Despite the absence of the key witness, he is due to stand trial on 1 November for the attempted murder of Arlene.

Last week local farmer Hector Dick made a four-minute appearance in private session at Elgin Sheriff Court. He was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice in relation to the whereabouts of a Ford Fiesta. It was alleged that between 28 April 1998 and 1 October this year, having been advised that police were seeking the vehicle, he repeatedly pretended he had no knowledge of the car and denied he had purchased it. Dick, known to both Nat and Arlene Fraser, was not charged with her suspected abduction or murder.

Ex-husband of missing woman faces trial for murder attempt

 

[Al Ka]

Pretty mum-of-two Arlene Fraser was just 33-years-old when she was last seen in the Scottish town of Elgin in 1998. Since that day she was never seen again.

The vacuum cleaner was still plugged in and the washing machine had been recently used. If Arlene had left she hadn't been prepared. Her medication for Crohn's disease, her glasses and contact lenses were still in the house.

Just weeks before her disappearance, her violent husband Nat Fraser had throttled her for coming home late. He was sentenced to eighteen months for that assault but that only happened two years after the assault on his wife which was first treated as attempted murder.
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Initially her disappearance was treated as a missing persons case. The detective in charge of the case, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Simpson said: "Something criminal has taken place here. Arlene has been the victim of a crime. I am of the opinion that she's dead. There's no indication that she's living somewhere else."

The police believe Nat Fraser paid someone to wipe his wife off the face of the earth. During the search for her, he was accused of not being interested in her whereabouts as if he already knew where she was.

In 2003, he was convicted of her murder and sentenced to 25 years in jail.

In 2011, he successfully challenged his conviction and it was quashed. But in 2012 in a new trial he was again convicted of Arlene's murder. In 2013, he lost yet another appeal.
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There was no body and Nat Fraser did not commit the murder himself.

The prosecution argued that Nat Fraser accused his wife of having a lover and decided that he wanted her dead to avoid giving her half his fortune. What's more Fraser was willing to pay someone £15, 000 to kill her.

Weeks before she vanished, Nat Fraser is alleged to have said to his wife: "If you are not going to live with me, you will not be living with anyone."
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Arlene's body has never been found so her children and the rest of her family don't have a grave to visit. It's believed that her body was disposed off after she was murdered.
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In a shock documentary on Channel 4, in 2013 Arlene's daughter Natalie Fraser who was just five-years-old when her mum went missing, said she was "100 per cent" sure that her dad's friend Hector Dick and not her dad Nat Fraser, who was guilty of killed her mum.

Hector had testified against her dad.

Timeline: The Arlene Fraser case

This is how the events have unfolded in the case, which has seen her husband Nat twice being found guilty of her murder.

28 April 1998
Arlene Fraser goes missing after waving her children off to school.
Grampian Police officers say they are baffled by her disappearance.
A major search is then launched for the missing mother-of-two.

27 October 1998
The senior detective investigating the disappearance says he believes Arlene Fraser is dead and the victim of "something criminal".

Det Ch Insp Peter Simpson says officers had found no evidence that she was still alive.

1 October 1999
The Crown Office says an indictment has been served on Arlene's husband, Nat Fraser.

1 March 2000
Nat Fraser is jailed for 18 months for earlier assaulting his wife, who at this stage has been missing for almost two years. Mr Fraser is sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh after previously admitting a reduced charge of compressing his wife Arlene's neck to the danger of her life.

26 April 2002
Three men are indicted for Mrs Fraser's murder. The Crown Office says the men involved are Arlene's estranged husband Nat Fraser, his friend Hector Dick and English businessman Glenn Lucas. They are all charged with conspiring to murder Mrs Fraser, murdering her and attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

7 January 2003
The trial of the three men accused begins. It hears that she disappeared on the day she was due to see a solicitor about a divorce.

29 January 2003
The jury finds Nat Fraser guilty of murdering his wife, and he is jailed for life.

6 May 2005
Nat Fraser is allowed to appeal against his conviction for killing Arlene.

6 May 2008
Nat Fraser loses his appeal against a life jail term.

3 Oct 2008
Nat Fraser announces plans to ask judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal if he can appeal to the Privy Council in London.

24 Mar 2009
Court of Criminal Appeal judges refuse his bid to appeal to the Privy Council in London.

31 May 2010
Nat Fraser plans to challenge his conviction at the Supreme Court in London.

25 May 2011
Nat Fraser wins his appeal to have his conviction quashed.

23 April 2012
Nat Fraser goes on trial again charged with his wife's murder. For legal reasons, it cannot be reported that it is a re-trial.

30 May 2012
Nat Fraser is found guilty, for the second time, of his wife's murder.

Timeline: Arlene Fraser case

 

[wtiger]

Watched this trial....

Hector Dick is comfortably the most dodgy and dubious witness that i have ever seen in a courtroom

 

[wtiger]

Hope i am allowed to post this link...

The Nat Fraser Case

Lot of info about the case on there

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Glenn and Hector were charged with conspiring to murder Arlene but, in a tactical move, prosecutors dropped the charges against Glenn.

They told Hector that if he shared what he knew, his charges would also be dropped.

The gamble paid off.

In court, Nat maintained his innocence, but Hector took the witness stand and stated that Nat paid a hitman $27,000 to kill Arlene.
Wife killer Nat Fraser - caught by a lip reader

 

[CastlesBurning]

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BBC Crime Files: Nat Fraser cop believes 'controlling' killer will never reveal where Arlene's body is