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Part 3: Suicide


This post continues with my plan to give the basics about McRae’s death.  The first two posts give an brief introduction and then a description of his last journey.  Today we look at the authorities’ decisions to label his death as suicide. 

In other posts I’ll look in more detail at the inconsistencies and confusions which have given rise to belief, among many, that McRae was murdered.

I need to state that I have an open mind; I come with no agenda other than to pick my way honestly through the morass of words written since 1985.  Too much in the past appears to have been written from various fixed positions.   When I write about politics, Scottish independence or my faith I write from a fixed position.  I can’t do that here. 

I’m not writing to change anyone’s mind.  I want to understand, as best I can, what happened to Willie and writing here is the best way for me to continue and complete my task. 

 

Now in the last post we got to the point where McRae died at 3.30am on Sunday, 7th April, from a gunshot wound to his head.  

The key question to be answered was whether the wound was self-inflicted or not and deliberately or not.  It doesn’t take a great mind to see that the act of shooting was deliberate, whether the death was murder or suicide.

Therefore we are left with:

Did Willie McRae shoot himself?
Did another shoot Willie McRae?

McRae had an unlicensed handgun, he was shot with that gun and the gun was fired while pressed against or very close to the his skull which, according to the post mortem report was indicative of suicide. 

PM Extract 1A

 

McRae struggled with depression and alcoholism, according to his younger brother, Fergus, who was  a GP,

I have no doubt at all that it was suicide.  I had the gun in my possession for about a year, after a previous occasion on which he had threatened suicide.  I took the gun from him and kept it in a drawer.  When he improved so much, I gave it back to him more as a gesture of confidence.

            [West Highland Free Press, 31 March 1995: Source] 

 

Thomas Aitchison, the Inverness procurator Fiscal, is quoted as saying,

The death has been fully investigated.  There is

 (sic) no suspicious circumstances in this case.

In 1989, the Lord Advocate, Peter Fraser as was, Lord Fraser of Carmylie, wrote about why a Fatal Accident Inquiry into McRae’s death was denied,

Lord Fraser Extract 1A

[Highlighting and editing is mine]

 

So there we have the official position.

 

Willie McRae committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with his own gun.

 

I have no doubt that there is significant evidence to support this contention.  Despite this, however, many dispute the decision.  In the final short scene-setting post I describe how attempts to have more information released have struggled.  Thereafter, I will start to look in much more detail at aspects of McRae’s death.

 

[originally posted 5 December 2014]

© CalumCarr 2014

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Please feel free to reproduce extracts provided you attribute the words and images to me taking into account the provisos below.

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