Catfisher jailed for life after murdering retired teacher he 'lured' to flat using fake profile on gay dating site
17 June 2024, 14:47
A man has been jailed for life after murdering a retired teacher after catfishing him on a dating app.
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Paul McNaughton, 29, murdered retired biology teacher Peter Coshan, 75, after luring him to his home on August 11 or 12, 2022.
McNaughton catfished the former Fettes College teacher using a fake profile on gay dating website Gaydar, luring him to the address at which he was killed in Leith, Edinburgh.
The killer first met Mr Coshan - who taught at the school from 1972 to 2005 - online in 2021, before gaining access to the pensioner’s bank accounts and stealing tens of thousands of pounds.
After the murder, McNaughton hid Mr Coshan’s body with the help of flatmate Paul Black, 65, until August 15 - when they put the corpse into a suitcase and dumped it in a layby on the A696 between Otterburn and Belsay in Northumberland.
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McNaughton admitted murder and attempted to pervert the course of justice in 2023, before Paul Black’s trial began.
Black, accused of murder, was cleared at his Edinburgh High Court trial in May after the jury returned a not proven verdict - but was nonetheless jailed for five and a half years after admitting an attempt to pervert the course of justice.
Convicted killer McNaughton was sentenced to life in prison with a recommended minimum sentence of 22 years at Glasgow high court on Monday.
He told the court that he set up the fake profile on Gaydar in order to “lure” Mr Coshan to the flat - claiming that he was “fed up with having to keep doing sexual favours and not getting anything from it”.
At his trial in May, he said: “There were text messages on my phone which the police have got, saying I had to do sexual favours for a year or he was going to go to the police and say I’d stolen the money.”
McNaughton said he moved in with Black after having difficulty finding a landlord who accepted a dog and a cat, sleeping on a sofa-bed in the living room of the one-bed, ground floor flat in Seafield Road, Leith, DailyMail.com reported.
He said he had known Mr Coshan for a year after meeting him on Gaydar.
