THE story of a brutal murderer who killed his mum in her Dunfermline home will be told in a new Netflix documentary tomorrow (Wednesday).

When Missing Turns to Murder will feature the case of Carol Taggart, a 54-year-old childminder who was beaten and strangled to death by her son, Ross Taggart, a few days before Christmas 2014.

The callous killer disposed of her body under a caravan at Pettycur Bay in Kinghorn, went on a spending spree with her money and tried to sell her jewellery – all the while misleading police and friends and family by pretending she had gone missing when he knew she was dead.

Justice caught up with him in 2015 when the then 31-year-old was found guilty of Carol's murder and given a life sentence with a minimum term of 18 years behind bars.

As he was sentenced, Judge Lord Uist told Taggart: “How you have lived with your conscience since you murdered your mother, I do not know.”

When Missing Turns to Murder is a 10-part series, created by Phoenix Television, with the second season recently picked up by Netflix. 

The show has been described as a “powerful, forensic and highly emotional series that reveals what happens in a police investigation and to the family at its heart when a loved one goes missing and then they get the worst possible news”.

Carol's daughter, Lorraine Taggart Bristow, will appear in the hour-long episode. 

Miles Jarvis, founding partner at Phoenix, said: “Viewer feedback from season one of When Missing Turns to Murder was hugely supportive of the families who take part. 

“It’s an honour and huge responsibility to have the opportunity and trust to tell the stories of these ten new families and the police officers who worked with them. 

“The contributors we work with take part to help stop such horrors happening again. In this series, their brave testimony highlights issues including coercive behaviour, domestic violence and relocation of paedophiles in communities.”

The story of Carol's murder previously featured in a Channel 5 programme in 2021.

After Taggart attacked and killed his mum, he wrapped her body in bed sheets, tied it with rope and bundled it into the boot of her car.

He drove to Pettycur Bay and hid her in the bedroom of her holiday home on the caravan site.

At some point over the next few days, he moved Carol's body and put it underneath an empty adjacent caravan.

Taggart later went to meet a woman for sex, who he had just met through a dating site, and went to Edinburgh for a night out, buying trainers, going for a meal and watching Hunger Games at the cinema, all paid for with his mum’s credit card.

Two days later, he called 101 to report her missing, saying they’d had an argument and she had left the house – something the family didn’t believe.

Her body wasn't found until three weeks after she was killed.

In an interview that was shown on Channel 5, Lorraine recalled the moment police officers told her the news she had been dreading. 

She said: “It was my family liaison officer and he just looked at me and I knew.

“He just said: ‘We’ve found a body’ and I collapsed. It’s everyone’s worst nightmare.

"He killed my mum. He murdered her in cold blood.”

Taggart was imprisoned in 2015 but due to a bizarre legal quirk he is allowed to remain in charge of his mother's estate as the executor of her will – despite being found guilty of murdering her.

Until Carol's house at Hill of St Margaret was sold in August 2020, family members were forced to ask her killer for permission to gain access to the property to recover precious photos and mementoes. 

A campaign, started by Lorraine’s husband Stephen Bristow, calls for the Scottish Government to change the law to prevent murderers from being able to act as administrator or executor of the estate of the person they killed.

Almost 62,000 people have added their names to the petition. You can sign the petition here.