The detective who led the hunt for Adam Alexander’s killer says he is still keen to find the missing body.
Thomas Pryde became one of the very few people in Scotland to be convicted without the victim being found, despite an extensive search.
Detective Superintendent Roddy Ross said, “We’re clearly pleased that we’ve got to this point and it’s been a long, complex investigation which has really tested the investigators and specialists of Tayside Police.
“For the family it’s not finished. Mrs (Tricia) Bremner is still devastated by the loss of her son and very keen she should get his body back for a proper burial.
“As far as we are aware Thomas Pryde took us to where he thought he had buried Adam Alexander. I’m absolutely satisfied that Adam’s body is not there.
“Professor Sue Black’s team carried out the excavation and she tells me there’s no body there and I believe her.”
Mr Ross feels the body is somewhere in the Carse of Gowrie but Pryde got the location wrong.
“There is now an opportunity to appeal to the public again because it’s still my belief somebody might have information which could lead to us finding the body.”
Although Pryde was known to police from his work as a bouncer at a Pitlochry hotel, they had no notion of his criminal activities.InterviewedOnly as they interviewed him about Mr Alexander’s death did they realise his list of crimes.
Mr Ross said, “He was a family man, self employed and hard working and his criminal activities weren’t known to the police.”
He is already serving five years and two months in jail after leaving a family petrified by firing a shotgun outside a house in Perth — because he was owed money.
The subcontractor used the terror tactics after pressing for payment of £5100 for work he did at a new housing development.
Days before, Pryde turned up at the premises of a Perth plumbing firm demanding the money and warning the managing director that he had “pals with shotguns.”
On September 10, 2004, a masked motorcyclist drove up to the family home in a residential area of Perth.
He was seen approaching the house with a crash helmet visor down and carrying a shotgun.
Advocate depute Lesley Shand QC told the High Court in Edinburgh, “The accused loaded the shotgun.
“He fired two shots in the air. He then made off on a motorcycle.”
Miss Shand said plumbing firm boss Steven Stewart was left “shaken” by the incident and family members were “petrified.”
Pryde was also involved with another in an insurance scam that saw a £45,000 Landrover set ablaze.
He admitted setting fire to the vehicle and was jailed for eight months in 2009.