Incident unit in Lybster as police probe Stefan death
A MOBILE police incident command unit is sitting on Main Street in Lybster and acting as the base of operations for the latest investigation into the death of 25-year-old Stefan Sutherland.
Officers from Police Scotland’s Major Investigation Team are focusing on the villages of Lybster and Latheronwheel as they gather information.
On Tuesday the village was buzzing with detectives conducting door-to-door enquiries as well as TV news broadcasting teams and journalists.
On Wednesday afternoon a detective was observed conducting interviews with local people who had made their way to the incident command unit.
Lybster resident George Carter said he had two detectives at the door with a "questionnaire".
"It was on Tuesday afternoon that they came," said Mr Carter, a retired fishing skipper.
"It was just a tick-the-box thing with a signature at the end.
"They had about a dozen questions or so asking if you knew the chap, when did you last see him and if you'd seen anything between 10 o'clock one night and four o'clock the next morning."
Mr Carter said the detectives were "going about in pairs" and he believed that there were 15 in total.
"I think they'd divided the village into sections that each pair operated within."
Stefan went missing in Lybster on September 6, 2013, and his body was found on the shoreline at nearby Occumster 11 days later.
Mr Carter said that the detectives who interviewed him said they were starting from scratch "as if they knew nothing about the case".
"I knew him [Stefan] only vaguely for seeing him. I think I probably did see him the day before [he went missing]."
Detective Superintendent Graeme Mackie, who is leading the review, said: “Stefan was well known in the local community and I would also encourage those who saw him between September 6 and 17, 2013, to contact us."