Could the brutal “cheese wire murderer” have run all the way to Mannofield along the brightly-lit North Deeside Road and into a chipper to order food immediately after committing their vicious crime?
Allan Hendry, former police dog handler and now Aberdeenshire councillor, believes that scenario is extremely unlikely.
He remains convinced the killer had instead hid himself in a field close to Pitfodels Station Road until the emergency services left the scene, before sneaking off safely with as few witnesses as possible.
Mr Hendry argues this because he had driven up from the bottom of the narrow road where the killing took place and a group of onlookers had gathered at the top – leaving any killers little choice for escape than to scramble through gardens to the nearby field.
Now, 33 years later, the former dog handler still has hope that someone with information will come forward: “It’s one of the only cases in all the time that I was with the police that’s always irked me, and hurt me, that we never caught the person responsible.
“They all did, but that one was quite a brutal attack, for a minimal amount of money, and the guy got away – and he got away because of our inefficiency.
“I don’t care if the police say, oh you shouldn’t be saying that, but I’m sorry, that’s the truth of the matter.
“We were inefficient at the time.
“I hope this highlights this again, hopefully somebody does come forward.
“Anything that helps to catch this creature, the better, as far as I’m concerned.”