The death in prison of one of Dundee’s most notorious murderers will be examined at an inquiry at Perth Sheriff Court.
Alastair Thompson was sentenced to life in prison at the High Court in Edinburgh in 1993 for dismembering a man and dumping his body on the Law in Dundee.
Thompson protested his innocence, claiming he had only disposed of the body parts for two Glasgow “heavies.”
Confined to Perth’s Edinburgh Road prison, Thompson died in December, aged 61.
Although his death is understood to have been be from natural causes, a fatal accident inquiry is held for all prisoner deaths.Murdered grandmother
Thompson was jailed after a jury found him guilty of hacking to death Gordon Dunbar (52), a man he picked up in Dundee.
The case provoked revulsion in the city at the end of 1992 when it emerged that he had dismembered Mr Dunbar, wrapped his body parts in plastic bags and dumped them around the hill.
Mr Dunbar’s head was never recovered and an old operation scar, DNA and fingerprints were used to prove his identity.
Edinburgh-born, Thompson had been known to the police from the age of 16. In 1968 he was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his grandmother and was released on licence in 1984.
He subsequently lived in Perth, Dundee and England, returning to Dundee just months before the killing.