Twisted killer Alexander Pacteau stalked a mystery woman outside a nightclub just moments before he murdered Irish nurse Karen Buckley.
The police officer who led the probe into the horrific murder called her the “luckiest woman alive” after revealing detectives believed she had been Pacteau’s intended victim on the night.
Retired Detective Superintendent Jim Kerr said CCTV captured the woman in the pink dress unaware she was being followed and walking along a street near the Sanctuary nightclub in Glasgow in April 2015 before she was seen hailing a taxi.
The former officer said: “He followed another woman earlier that night. She’s probably one of the luckiest women alive.
“The CCTV shows him earlier in the night outside the nightclub following the girl. She is wearing a pink dress and he’s ducking in and out of parked cars as if he was surveilling her. At the last minute she flags down a taxi and gets into the taxi and leaves and he walks back down to the Sanctuary nightclub.
"It could have been the girl in the pink dress that night. It could have been anybody that night.”
The former DS, speaking on a new crime show, said that once they traced the woman she had no idea how close she had come to danger that night.
At the time, they had appealed for information that could assist with their inquiry but did not reveal any more information.
She was later traced and, when interviewed, she told detectives she did not know Pacteau and was unaware of him paying her any attention.
Thirty minutes later, Pacteau, then 21, took 24-year-old Karen to his car, where he strangled her and repeatedly hit her on the head with a foot-long wrench.
The brute carried her body into his flat in nearby Kelvindale and tried to dissolve her body in a bath of caustic soda before dumping her remains in a barrel at a farm in Milngavie, near Glasgow.
Pacteau admitted murdering Karen and hiding her body and was ordered to serve a minimum of 23 years at the High Court in Glasgow in September 2015.
Judge Lady Rae described the case as “shocking and disturbing” and said she found it “extremely difficult” to find words to describe what he did to Karen.
Speaking on Murdertown, a new TV documentary about the case, Kerr told how he feared Pacteau would deny murder when the case came to court and claim he didn’t mean to kill Karen.
He said: “With that culpable homicide ‘I didn’t mean to kill her’ type scenario, you then have to set about disproving that scenario. It’s very difficult to do.
"For him to plead guilty to that type of crime is pretty unusual but I’m not going to give him any credit for it.
“It wasn’t going to bring Karen Buckley back and it wasn’t going to provide much comfort to the family because they had lost their only daughter.
“But it vindicated myself and the team and the huge efforts they had made over many hours.
“It’s always good to get vindicated at the court.”
Karen, who was from Cork, was a nurse and had moved to Glasgow in February to study occupational therapy at Glasgow Caledonian University.
CCTV images captured her outside the club talking to a man and her parents made an emotional television plea for her safe return. The man in the CCTV was later identified as Pacteau and then Karen’s handbag was found in a park.
Murdertown, hosted by award-winning actress Emilia Fox, visits towns and local communities across the UK rocked by murder and retells the shocking incidents through the testimony of investigating police officers, local journalists, friends and relatives.
The fourth season of the series visits Rotherham, Glasgow, Peterborough, and Swanley in Kent and began earlier this month.
The Glasgow episode of the show is due to air on Sunday, September 25, at 9pm on the Crime and Investigation channel.
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