'I was uncomfortable being so close to someone I believed was a double murderer', says reporter who covered the Renee and Andrew tragedy down the years
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Highland columnist Bill McAllister recalls reporting the Renee and Andrew MacRae mystery over the years.
There were alleged sightings of Renee MacRae as far away as Brazil in the immediate years after her disappearance. But in Inverness, most people were convinced she had been murdered and that Bill MacDowell was her killer.
- 'Most horrible aspect was what happened to young Andrew'
- MacDowell set to lodge appeal over murder conviction
- 'Did I think after my interview that MacDowell was the killer?'
It is difficult for people not of that vintage to appreciate just how massive the publicity was around ‘the MacRae mystery’. It was front page headlines day after day, week after week, with an insatiable public appetite for any new nugget of information on what could have happened to Renee and wee Andrew.
I remember, when the divers searched Leanach Quarry the first time, the Daily Record published a front page photo under the banner headline: 'Is this the face of Renee MacRae?’
The underwater camera had picked up a round white object with darker indentations which suggested eyes and a mouth. Next day it turned out to be a bag of rubbish.
Every fact, statement and opinion surrounding the case, however trivial, was pored over locally and nationally. In Inverness, it was all they talked about. The media circus was phenomenal.
When police said they were looking for a man with a Zapata moustache, every guy in Inverness with whiskers under his nose was eyed suspiciously, and tip offs led to quite a few innocent men being interviewed. One or two, it was said, were having affairs which they had to admit to police when their alibi was needed for that fateful night!
Newspapers sold out on any mention of the case and when international journalists flew in to Inverness, which, apart from the odd Nessie story, was then entirely unused to being in the spotlight.
Renee, who grew up in a council house in Beauly, worked behind the counter in Boots in Inverness High Street when she met and married Gordon MacRae, joint owner of a family firm with a £30 million turnover. Who could have imagined how things would end so tragically?
It seemed so unfair that Ross County director Gordon, who formerly played for the club, should, in his 80s, find himself in court days ago being asked if he had killed his wife. The man with the motive and opportunity was clearly her boyfriend MacDowell, an accountant for Macrae Homes.
Yet, down the decades, MacDowell seemed to be the man who had got away with murder.
Chief Inspector Donald MacArthur, the man who led the hunt, eventually retired home to the Western Isles, always regretting that MacDowell was not behind bars.
For years people used to point out the house in Cradlehall where Renee had lived.
I remember chairing a local sports council awards dinner in the Cummings Hotel, Church Street, about six months after the disappearance. Our secretary was Rosemary MacDowell, who was involved with the Pony Club, so we were at the top table – and she was accompanied by her husband.
He wore tinted dark glasses – to an indoors evening function. I was uncomfortable being so close to someone I believed was a double murderer, while he was probably ill at ease having a journalist a yard away. It seemed to be an act of bravado to turn up when his name had been so prominently associated with the case. Perhaps, indeed, he regarded it as all over.
The one time he took off his glasses, to read a prize list, he had a piercing gaze. I was reminded of that recently by the evidence in court of ‘the man with the staring eyes’ pushing a child in a buggy.
Dalmagarry Quarry was searched in vain in 2004 and Leanach again years later, though it has not yet been completely searched. I’m far from alone locally in assuming Renee and Andrew are under the A9, which was being resurfaced at the time, or in the murky depths of Leanach.
The person who knows will now spend his remaining days in a cell. But he’s lived his life, Renee and his own infant son were cheated of that, while her elder son, nine years old, was robbed of his mother.
At least, however, justice has belatedly been done. With the wealth of circumstantial evidence it now turns out was available, could MacDowell not have been charged years ago?
Those responsible for bringing the case to court deserve our gratitude. It will never be completely closed, however, until, or unless, the remains are uncovered.
And those of us who remember those days, will always, as we pass along the A9 12 miles from Inverness, gaze at the lay-by where it seems Renee MacRae drew her last breath.
