This is another scene-setting post.
To launch into all the confusions and contradictions now would lead to our getting totally lost in a mishmash of facts, lies and conjecture. Better that I outline the basics first and then go back and look in more detail. I hope Part 4 will start this more detailed process but I’m not sure of my path yet. Time spent well now will bear fruit. Also because of the complexity of this case each detailed post is likely to take me several days to write. Please bear with me.
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On Friday, 5th April 1985 about 6.30pm, Willie McRae set out from Glasgow to his holiday home near Dornie in Wester Ross – about a 170 mile drive. Almost the entire drive was on single carriageway roads with much of the driving being in the dark. Sunset would have been about 8.05pm [based on sunset being that time on 6th April 2015]. Google maps estimates the driving time as 3h 55min. He should have arrived some time around 10.30pm if he didn’t stop.
He never arrived.
He never arrived.
About 10am on Saturday morning, 6th April, two Australian tourists saw a car some distance off-road.
For those who don’t know Scotland, below is a map showing the route which McRae took.
Glasgow and Dornie are marked. McRae’s car was found off-road on the stretch between the yellow arrows about 30 miles from his destination.
The image below shows the crash area (between the yellow arrows) in more detail. We will examine this area in subsequent posts.
The Australians drove on for a few miles before returning and, with the aid of binoculars, they saw the driver unconscious in the car. They stopped the next car, two of whose occupants were a GP and David Coutts, a member of the SNP who knew Willie McRae.
They scrambled down to the car where Coutts recognised the unconscious driver as Willie McRae. Dorothy Messer, the GP, noticed McRae had a head wound and had a dilated pupil, which indicated brain damage. [Some reports mention one dilated pupil and others two.]
A passing car drove on and raised the alarm. Only one police constable and the local ambulance driver came to the scene. With the help of the witnesses, they freed McRae who was taken the 46 miles to Raigmore hospital in Inverness (shown on the map by a white arrow).
The synopsis from Northern Constabulary states,
Because he had a brain injury McRae was transferred to hospital in Aberdeen, 102 miles away, (also white arrowed). Only in Aberdeen Infirmary was it found that McRae’s head wound was caused by a bullet.
The police synopsis continues,
At 3.30 in the morning of Sunday, 7th April, McRae died without regaining consciousness.
And so Willie McRae’s life ended.
And the uncertainty of his death started and continues now, more than 29 years later.
Next time will be a scene-setter too as we look uncritically at the official view that McRae’s death was suicide.
Come by again.
[originally posted 4 December 2014]
© CalumCarr 2014
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