A grieving family say their loved one is finally "at peace" after they paid thousands to have him exhumed when they made the horrifying discovery that he was buried next to a notorious child killer. The devastated family said there was no way they were going to leave their loved one where he was buried after finding out child murderer Sam Glass was in the grave next door.
Glass was jailed for longer than anyone else in Scotland after he indecently assaulted, stabbed and strangled a girl aged five in the 1960s. After he died in a secure hospital at the age of 71 in November 2018, he was buried in an unmarked grave near The State Hospital, Carstairs.
The killer's grave went unnoticed for more than a year, the Daily Record reports - until a local family noticed a headstone bearing Glass's adopted name of John Frederick Faucet had appeared next to their loved one's grave at Carnwath cemetery. The determined family then embarked on a three-year battle to get their loved one exhumed and reburied in a different spot in the same graveyard.
Glass was ordered to be detained indefinitely in 1967 after he molested, stabbed and strangled Jean Hamilton, five, near her home in Bridgeton, Glasgow. Little Jean's body was found in a disused rail tunnel between Dalmarnock and Bridgeton Cross.
The Daily Record previously reported Glass lived nearby and would play in the tunnel. Aged 20, he was ordered to be detained at Carstairs "without limit of time".
The killer reportedly died aged 71 suffering with a brain tumour after being held in secure hospitals for 51 years. He changed his name to John Faucet in 2015, and allegedly left around £50,000 which he had accrued in benefits over the years. It cost millions of pounds to hold Glass at the State Hospital at Carstairs then, for the last three years of his life, at Glasgow’s Rowanbank Clinic.
After the killer's headstone appeared on his grave, the family of the man buried next to him were horrified and set about trying to get their family member exhumed and reinterred in a different spot. That has now finally happened.
A member of the family, who do not want to be identified, told the Record their relative was now “at peace” and said the several thousands pounds it cost to move him was a “small price to pay”. They have called on South Lanarkshire Council not to allow anyone else to be buried around Glass’s lair without relatives being made aware, but the council said they are bound by "data protection" not to disclose any information.
The family source said: “It’s not a cost you would want but we weren’t going to leave him where he was. He’s at peace and we are happy now.
Subscribe here for the latest news where you live
“The headstone of Sam Glass is currently sitting on its own with nothing either side of him. It should stay that way.”
The Record told in 2020 of the family’s grief at discovering who their relative had been buried beside the previous year, saying a “good man” had been laid to rest alongside “evil through and through”. They told how their loved one’s widow was too traumatised to visit the grave as frequently as she once had.
Soon after they became aware of Glass’s grave they instructed a lawyer and applied through the court system for an exhumation order - a process which took more than two years to complete.
A family source said: “They moved him at 5am so no one was around and moved him further up within the same cemetery. They put one coffin into another and just moved him quietly.
“His widow is happy now because she can go and visit whenever she likes. We can all settle now as she had planned to go in with him and couldn’t have if he had stayed next to Glass.”
The family paid an undisclosed sum of several thousands pounds for the exhumation and more fees to an undertaker who oversaw the process. They now want assurances from the council that no other family will go through what they have.
The source said: “I’d hate for another family to go through what we have and for a child to have been put in there. Our loved one is now laid to rest next to a wee baby who was born sleeping. I dread the thought of this wee baby being put next to Sam Glass.
“I don’t think the council had thought properly about the area they put him in. There are lots of ex Carstairs hospital workers in the area who know exactly who he was and what he did. It was insensitive.”
The Record understands the areas around Glass’s grave will still be available for use. They asked the council if families who purchase the plots will be made aware that the child killer is buried there. A South Lanarkshire Council spokesman said: “Requests for bodies to be exhumed from lairs are dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
“We understand and sympathise with the sensitivities in this case. However, information about adjacent lair owners cannot be released in any circumstances as this is personal information and to do so would be a breach of data protection legislation.”
