The Diane Watson Playground Murder: Trauma, Loss, and a Love That Endured
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By Audrey Gillan (BBC Scotland) and Pauline Love Thomson
When Diane Watson was stabbed to death in the playground of a Glasgow school in 1991, her best friend Pauline was standing by her side.
Pauline watched as 16-year-old Diane collapsed after a knife attack by another pupil and then helped to carry her across the road to the arms of her parents, who lived in an upstairs flat within view of the school.
Diane's murder would not only devastate her family, her friends, and the local community; its shockwaves would continue to be felt for decades.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of violence, death, and suicide.
Thirty-five years later, Pauline Love Thomson has spoken for the first time about the trauma of that April morning when she was just 16.
In a new BBC Scotland podcast, Crime Next Door: The Playground Murder, she relives the day 15-year-old Barbara Glover came to Whitehill secondary school in Glasgow's east end armed with a large kitchen knife.
Pauline describes how a large crowd of schoolkids gathered around as Glover shouted at Diane while waving the knife—and the chilling moment she dealt the deadly blow.
"She actually let out a growl when she stepped forward," Pauline says. "She stabbed her, and people started just moving away. Everybody just vanished."
She tried to help her bleeding friend get home to the flat across the road she shared with her mum, dad, and brother Alan.
Pauline recalls Diane saying, "I don't believe it. She stabbed me."
It was a short distance to the flat, but Pauline felt her friend slumping even before they reached the school gate.
With the help of two other girls, she got Diane across the road but by the time they reached the entrance to the flat, Diane collapsed.
Her father, Jim, who had been alerted by another girl battering on his door, ran down and took his daughter in his arms. He carried her upstairs and desperately tried to revive her as her mother, Margaret, and 15-year-old brother looked on in horror.
Jim attempted to give Diane mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Pauline said. "I'm shouting, 'you're not doing it right'," she recalled. "I could hear her gurgling. There was blood coming out her mouth."
Diane Watson was later declared dead at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.