Disappearance of Renee MacRae

Renee MacRae lived in Inverness and was married to Gordon MacRae, though the couple were separated. She had two sons, 9-year-old Gordon and 3-year-old Andrew. On Friday 12 November 1976 MacRae left her home in Cradlehall with both her sons. She dropped her elder son Gordon at her estranged husband's house and turned south on to the A9, in the direction of Perth, to visit her sister in Kilmarnock. Neither MacRae nor Andrew have ever been seen again. Later the same night, twelve miles away, a train driver spotted MacRae's burning BMW in an isolated lay-by.[3] When the police reached the vehicle, it was charred and empty apart from a rug stained with blood matching MacRae's blood type.

One of the most intensive searches ever mounted in Scotland failed to find any trace. It was concluded that mother and son had been murdered, that the murderer had made careful plans and had disposed of the bodies without leaving any clues.[3] Witnesses on the A9 reported seeing a man dragging something they thought was a dead sheep not far from the car. MacRae was reported to have been wearing a sheepskin coat when she disappeared. Reports also placed a man with a pushchair near Dalmagarry quarry.[4]

As police investigated, it became apparent that MacRae's personal life was not straightforward. Around 1971, unbeknownst to her husband, MacRae began to have an affair with William (Bill) MacDowell, who was married with two children and worked for Gordon MacRae as an accountant and company secretary. Nobody knew about the affair except Valerie Steventon, MacRae's best friend.[3] Steventon revealed that MacRae had not been planning to visit her sister that night, but had intended to travel to Perthshire to visit MacDowell, who happened to be Andrew's biological father. MacRae had first confided to her friend about her conducting an affair in the spring of 1973, when she had been pregnant with Andrew. According to Steventon, "Renee was completely besotted by Bill", and he had told her that he had a job with Texaco in Shetland and had found a house where they could live. According to Steventon, however, these details "turned out to be a pack of lies."[3] MacDowell admitted their affair but has not spoken about the case since then except to deny any involvement.

The revelation of MacRae's four-year affair with MacDowell led senior officers to admit that the case was "mired in a sea of deceit and untruthfulness from its start."[1] Detective Sergeant John Cathcart coordinated the search and after eight months he had a breakthrough. While excavating Dalmagarry quarry he was hit by a stench after removing a layer of topsoil. Convinced it was a sign of corpses, Cathcart continued digging, but was told by a superior officer to stop as the bulldozer they were using had to go back to the contractors due to short funds.[5]

The inquiry was wound down two years later. However, a 2004 Grampian Television documentary, Unsolved, screened throughout Scotland, renewed interest in the case and the investigation was reopened. In 2004, Chief Constable Ian Latimer launched a cold case review, which led to £122,000 being spent on an excavation of Dalmagarry quarry in August.[4] Over the course of three weeks, 20,000 tons of earth from the quarry had been excavated and 2,000 trees were removed. All that was found were two crisp packets, some men's clothing and rabbit bones.[5] As of August 2006, £250,000 has been spent re-investigating the case.[6]

In recent years speculation has focused on the bodies having been buried under the A9, which was in the middle of a major programme of upgrading at the time of the disappearance.[4] An 80-year-old farmer with supposed divining skills took his divining rods to Dalmagarry and declared the bodies to be under a track, 12 ft down. He claimed that the bodies are under the A9, at a spot he marked with a yellow circle.[5] In 2010, the Scottish Government announced that a £2.6 million contract had been awarded for an overtaking lane at the location, which renewed interest from the farmer, who claims to have discovered "anomalies" in a radar survey of the area.[4] However, a spokeswoman for Northern Constabulary said that after studying aerial photographs taken by the Royal Air Force during the construction of the A9, they were satisfied the bodies were not buried under the road.[4]

On 2 October 2018 it was reported that Leanach quarry, near to Culloden Battlefield, was being searched by Police Scotland in relation to the case.[7]

Northern Constabulary named a suspect in a report to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in October 2006, but the Crown Office declared there was insufficient evidence to go to court.[8] From the start the prime suspect was MacDowell, MacRae's lover and Andrew's alleged father. MacDowell has always been reluctant to speak to the media in the decades since the disappearance, but broke his silence in a 2004 interview and insisted that he did not kill MacRae.[9] A week after the disappearance, MacDowell walked into Inverness police headquarters to make a voluntary statement, but his wife dragged him out of the building and nothing was said ever again.[10]

More than forty years after the disappearance, further details emerged of a suspect who had fled to the US the day after being interviewed by police. James Taylor claims that his late friend Sandy Thompson, a senior officer who worked closely with MacRae's contacts and had carried out fieldwork investigating the case, had been sure MacRae was murdered and buried on the A9 near a flyover. Taylor reported his concerns to Police Scotland following an appeal for information to mark the forty-year anniversary of the case, claiming that Thomson spoke to a foreman in the roads department who had said someone had dug up a section of the road on the day Renee disappeared. There was one man he spoke to about the road and showed the evidence they had gathered. Taylor recalled: "Sandy said he knew right away when the man looked at it that the woman was dead, that was where she was buried and this man knew far more about it than he was telling." The man fled to the US the next day before returning to Scotland after the case had gone cold.[11]

In September 2019, detectives from Police Scotland's Major Investigation Team arrested a 77-year-old man in connection with the disappearance. At Inverness Sheriff Court on Wednesday 11 September, MacDowell was charged with the murders of Renee and Andrew MacRae.[12]

• List of people who disappeared
• List of unsolved murders in the United Kingdom

• The Scotsman article - A 2004 article on the case, including a picture of Renee MacRae's charred BMW.
• Renee MacRae's case on The Doe Network
• A website with newspaper cuttings, maps, and pictures of the excavation of Dalmagarry Quarry
• Quarry May Hold Key To Renee Mystery - A BBC News article on the reopening of the case
• The Sunday Herald article - A 2004 article on the case