MacRae case: I hope I am proved wrong again
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Company secretary Bill MacDowell very quickly came under suspicion when his secret lover Renee MacRae and her son vanished 47 years ago.
She had told a close friend about the relationship and allegedly confided to her that she was meeting him that weekend to go off together.
And this relationship led to MacDowell attending at Perth Road police station in Inverness for questioning at one stage in the early investigation.
MacDowell also became the centre of intense media interest and there was a regular procession of reporters and photographers to the door of his family home at Nairnside near Culloden, only for them to be repeatedly shown the way out.
As a freelance at the time I was keen to join the hunt and by chance I was the first reporter to get an interview with MacDowell into print.
It was a brief piece in the Aberdeen Evening Express eight days after Mrs MacRae's blazing car was found in an A9 layby at Dalmagarry south of Inverness.
MacDowell confirmed some details of his relationship with Mrs MacRae, but denied any involvement in the disappearance of the mother and son.
As the years since turned to decades, I honestly never thought there would come a day when anyone would be convicted, never mind arrested, for killing the young mother and her toddler son Andrew.
I became quite cynical about the repeated fresh cold case investigations and new theories that emerged from time to time.
The missing persons' inquiry was eventually declared a murder inquiry but still no breakthrough, and every November the fateful anniversary would be marked sadly with often stale media recaps, and another appeal from the police for any new witnesses or information.
But then it happened.
A new major police case review was launched in 2018 led by DI Brian Geddes, who ordered the draining of Leanach Quarry near MacDowell's former home.
Relatively quickly MacDowell was arrested, charged and convicted at the High Court in Inverness
This brought a large measure of "closure" for the MacRae family and friends, but now they still pray that the remains of Renee and Andrew can be brought home for a decent burial.
With MacDowell's death in hospital that full closure seems a distant hope, but I was wrong before about the killer being caught.
Now I hope that I will be proved wrong again.
Someone out there may have the answer we all seek.
