A member of the Traveller community and a teenage girl have gone on trial charged with murdering the man’s sister by repeatedly stabbing her in the neck.

Jordan Johnstone, 25, and Angela Newlands, 19, both deny murdering Annalise Johnstone, of Ardrossan, at the Maggie Wall Memorial – an eerie monument to a witch in Perthshire.

A jury at the High Court in Livingston heard agreed evidence on Friday that the cause of Annalise’s death was a deep puncture wound to her neck which severed vital veins and arteries and caused death within a few minutes.

Annalise from Ardrossan was just 22 years old when she died.

The prosecution and the defence confirmed that her brother’s car was near the monument at the time Annalise was attacked on May 10 last year.

Jurors were told they would hear recordings of a 999 call made by two hillwalkers to police on May 12 and another of a call made by Johnstone in the early hours of May 11.

The sources of samples taken for forensic reports were also agreed as was the timing of CCTV footage prepared for the trial by police.

In addition to murder, both accused are charged with attempting to defeat the ends of justice to avoid detection, arrest and prosecution for the killing.

The indictment states that they transported Annalise’s lifeless body in Johnstone’s Ford Galaxy from the memorial and dumped her behind a stone dyke at the side of the B8062 road between Auchterarder and Dunning.

It’s also alleged that they then cleaned the vehicle, set fire to unknown material connected with the murder and falsely reported Annalise to Police as a missing person.

Johnstone is further accused of assaulting Annalise two days before she died by grabbing her and pulling her from his Ford Galaxy at Denholm Way, Beith on May 8.

He is also charged with stealing a Hobby Caravan and its contents from Carmichael Place, Irvine on 9 May.

Johnstone and Newlands both face an additional charge of assaulting Nadia Johnstone at Bank Street, Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, on 6 May 2018.

The prosecution alleges that the pair threatened Nadia with knives, repeatedly attempted to strike her on the neck with a knife, threw liquid at her and punched her on the head to her injury.

The Crown claims that the charges against Newlands are aggravated by being committed while she was on bail granted at Perth Sheriff purt on 13 April last year.

Both accused deny all the allegations and Newlands has lodged a special defence of alibi, claiming she was somewhere else when the murder was committed.

The trial, before Lady Scott, was adjourned until Tuesday 7 May when the first witnesses will give evidence.

Maggie Wall’s monument achieved notoriety during the trial of Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley when it emerged the pair had visited it during their killing spree.

Photographs of them posing next to the stone cross during a holiday to Scotland in 1965 were published in the press, prompting headlines comparing Hindley to a witch.

It’s believed Brady had visited the site as a child. 

The memorial, which sits by the roadside around half a mile south west of Dunning has the words “Maggie Wall burnt here 1657 as a witch” written across it in white letters which are regularly repainted.