Former gamekeeper guilty of shotgun murder of Brian Low near Aberfeldy

A former head gamekeeper was found guilty of murdering 65-year-old Brian Low after shooting him on a rural path near Aberfeldy and fleeing the scene on his wife's e-bike. Low had been walking his dog in Highland Perthshire when he was killed.

The body was discovered in the Pitilie area on the outskirts of Aberfeldy at about 8.30am on 17 February 2024, but officers initially treated the death as medical-related or otherwise non-suspicious. Only a post-mortem carried out days later showed that Low had been shot dead, turning what first looked like a natural death into a homicide inquiry.

Police later apologised to Low's family and accepted they had "fallen short" in the opening stages of the investigation. The officer in charge described the case as a "massive investigation" and said no suspect had been identified at that early point, even though the fatal shooting had happened on a remote country track in open rural ground.

David Campbell, 77, was eventually identified as the killer and found guilty of murdering his former colleague. Campbell was convicted of the shotgun murder of Low in the High Court in Glasgow after a case that exposed how badly a gunshot death can be misread when the scene is not immediately recognised as suspicious.

The killing took place near Leafy Lane, another reference to the same rural area on the edge of Aberfeldy. Low, a retired groundsman, was left dead on a quiet path in broad daylight, and the delay in identifying the shooting raised hard questions about what evidence may have been lost before investigators understood they were dealing with a murder rather than a medical emergency.

Campbell's conviction closed the criminal trial, but it did not erase the central failure that shaped the case from the start. A man was dead on a public path, yet police did not realise for days that he had been shot.