Avril Jones, a woman convicted of murdering a vulnerable teenager in her care and fraudulently claiming her benefits for over two decades, has died in prison. According to BBC News, Jones died at HMP Stirling on 8 November 2026 at the age of 66. She and her partner Edward Cairney were found guilty in 2019 of killing Margaret Fleming, a 19-year-old who disappeared around the turn of the century. Cairney died in 2023 aged 82.
Margaret's last confirmed sighting occurred in December 1999 after she went to live with the couple in Inverkip, having moved in with them following her father's death in 1995. Her disappearance remained undetected for 17 years, during which Jones claimed £182,000 in state benefits. The teenager's body has never been recovered despite repeated appeals from police and her family.
How was the crime discovered?
Margaret's absence went unnoticed for nearly two decades until a 2016 application for Personal Independence Payment raised concerns when officials could not contact her, prompting police involvement. The couple had constructed an elaborate web of deception to explain her vanishing, claiming at various points that she had run away with a traveller, become a gangmaster travelling across Europe, or worked as a drug dealer operating under multiple aliases. Police Scotland even questioned whether Margaret had existed at all.
What were they convicted of?
A jury found Jones and Cairney guilty of murdering Margaret within three weeks of her final sighting on 17 December 1999. According to available records, the pair were also convicted of perverting the course of justice. Jones faced additional charges of fraud and was ordered to repay the £182,000 she had unlawfully claimed. Prosecutor Iain McSporran QC told the court that there was no eyewitness or body, and that the evidence pointed to a killing motivated by greed.
What happens now?
A fatal accident inquiry into Jones's death is likely to be held, as is standard practice following deaths in custody. The Scottish Prison Service reports deaths in custody to the Procurator Fiscal, with inquiries conducted in due course, though no date for an investigation into Jones's death has been announced.
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay, who interviewed the killers when he was a journalist, said:
Margaret Fleming was a vulnerable and innocent young woman who fell into the hands of two monsters. With both of her killers now dead, the only tears that should be shed today are in Margaret's memory. The refusal of Cairney and Jones to ever reveal the location of her remains confirms that they didn't possess an ounce of decency or compassion.
