Forger beat nurse to death after chance meeting

A convicted forger has admitted beating Irish student Karen Buckley to death with a spanner then trying to dispose of her body using caustic soda.

Karen’s parents travelled from Cork to hear that Alexander Pacteau, 21, had pleaded guilty to their daughter’s murder when he appeared at Glasgow’s High Court.

A major search was launched for 24-year-old Karen when she was reported missing from the flat she shared with friends after failing to return home from a nightclub in Glasgow’s west end in April this year. Her body was found four days later in a barrel at a farm on the outskirts of the city.