Fresh images have provided a fascinating insight into a notorious north-east murder.
The “Kinky Cottage” murder, in which Aberdeenshire farmer Max Garvie was shot in the head amid a sordid love triangle caught the attention of the public in 1960s.
But when Max encouraged Sheila to sleep with his friend Brian Tevendale the pair fell in love.
© The Storyteller: Violent Delights
On the morning of May 15 1968, Sheila, then 33, reported to the police that her husband had gone missing.
When, in August, she told her mother, Edith Watson, she thought Tevendale had killed him, Mrs Watson went straight to the police.
On August 17 1968 Max’s remains were found in a culvert near St Cyrus. He had a gunshot wound to his neck and a fractured skull.
Tevendale had placed a pillow over his face while in bed and shot him with a rifle.
At the High Court in Aberdeen Tevendale was unanimously found guilty of murder while Sheila was convicted on a majority verdict; both were jailed for life.
Now more than half a century on the story is the subject of a true-crime podcast which has uncovered never before seen police photographs.
© The Storyteller: Violent Delights
The photos being made public for the first time include one showing the 35-year-old’s skull which has a square piece of bone missing from the bullet entry point, an x-ray showing the bullet still inside his head and a headboard with blood on it.
Other images include inside the tunnel where Max’s body was found, interiors of the car in which his body was transported and interiors of the bedroom where he was shot.
They were unearthed by former ITV and Channel Five TV news presenter and investigative journalist Isla Traquair, who is the creator of The Storyteller: Violent Delights podcast series.
The podcast also looks into Shelia’s life once she was released from jail and reveals how Alzheimer’s took its toll on her.
Isla said: “She was jailed for her crime but what happened later in her life and no one knows about, is that she ended up a prisoner of her mind.
“It’s utterly tragic. She relived the worst period of her life like a Groundhog Day of hell due to Alzheimer’s.
“She spent every day grieving the loss of her three children as though they had just been parted and remembered being in jail and of course, the murder.
“She was in a secure unit at a hospital which was in itself another type of incarceration but the psychological torment she endured was worse than any other form of punishment.”
© The Storyteller: Violent Delights
A nurse, known only as Maggie, who cared for Shelia features on the podcast.
She said: “One day she just came out with it and said that her husband was murdered and she had been in prison for it.
“I was a bit shocked by it. I would never have expected this little old lady to be part of a murder. To begin with I thought she was joking. I tried to laugh it off. So that was the start of our conversations about it.
“I’m not even sure what made her tell me. We weren’t having a conversation about crime or husbands or anything. She just blurted it out. It was like she wanted to get something off her chest. It was kind of thrown at me.”
© The Storyteller: Violent Delights
Five retired police officers were interviewed for the podcast who have never spoken about the case before.
They included Alistair Smith, who was the first man to go into the tunnel at Lauriston Castle where Tevendale led them to the location of Max’s body.
Alistair, who was a Detective Inspector at the time, kept the slides from the case, and said: “I was the first sucker to go into that tunnel and examine the body. There was a strong smell, unpleasant smell because in my experience I’d dealt with human bodies many times before.
“I could see in front of me a pile of boulders and it appeared to me there was something wrapped. It looked like white sheets or something that had been white. One thing that was quite amusing that on a boulder next to the head of the body was a frog, a living frog which jumped off.”
Max’s skull was sent to pathology department at Aberdeen University and it reappeared at the trial having been kept in a hat box.
© The Storyteller: Violent Delights
Alistair said: “I think it came as a shock to everyone including His Lordship. I don’t think he had seen it before. It was in a hatbox. You would have very little understanding of the effect of a .22 bullet on the back of someone’s skull if you hadn’t seen it. It was only possible and it was critical in some ways to understand why did this man die, to see the skull. “
Shelia Garvie spent three days in court giving evidence as she denied any involvement in the murder and actor Kate Dickie is the voice of Sheila for the court reenactments in the podcast.
Both Sheila and Tevendale were released from prison in 1978, but they never made contact.
Sheila died aged 80 in November 2014 and Brian died suddenly of a heart attack in December 2003.
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