Where are you Renee MacRae? Is Scotland’s Longest Missing Person Case Finally About to be Solved?
I t was raining stair rods, as they say in Scotland, when Renee MacRae buckled her youngest son Andrew into her distinctive blue BMW. A storm had threatened all day and by 5pm on the 12th November 1976, it had begun to wreak its havoc across Inverness. It was not a night to venture abroad.
Renee had just dropped her oldest child at the offices of her estranged millionaire husband, Gordon MacRae, so the two could spend the weekend together. Before driving away the 36 year old mother turned and waved one last time at her 9 year old son. He would never see his mum or his little brother again.
Renee had told her son and his father she was planning to spend the weekend with her sister in Kilmarnock. She lied. In the boot of her car she had packed a small brown Antler suitcase, 3 year old Andrew’s pushchair and a blanket. Only two other people knew Renee’s real destination, her best friend and her secret lover, the true father of her toddler son.
Into the Night
Renee did not like driving. Gordon MacRae, concerned about the inclement weather, had offered to buy her a train ticket to Kilmarnock where her sister lived. To his surprise Renee declined and instead headed out of Inverness and along the A9; a long expanse of road that unfurls like a great black ribbon meandering through hills, valleys and the dense dark forests of the Scottish Highlands.
A little after 6:00 pm another driver whose child attended the same school as Renee’s son, recognised her vehicle as it tentatively made its way along the A9. When it reached the Meall Mór layby the driver pulled over and parked.
A Ball of Fire
Over the next few hours the blue BMW was spotted by a number of drivers. They all confirmed that the car appeared empty and the lights and the engine were switched off. By 9:30 pm the car was gone.
Renee’s BMW was next seen 6 miles further along the road a little after 10pm. This time it was parked in a more secluded spot, hidden from the road in the Dalmagarry layby. A passing motorist, alerted by the smell of smoke, left the A9 to investigate and found Renee’s car ablaze. The car, fortunately, was empty but there was no sign of Renee or Andrew. They had disappeared into the night.
Alarm Bells Ring
When Renee failed to pick up her oldest son from school on Monday 15th November, Gordon MacRae rang her sister in Kilmarnock to check on her safety. When Morag Govans told him she had no idea where Renee was, he telephoned the police.
Renee and Gordon were heading for divorce but remained good friends. Both had found new partners but Renee chose to keep the identity of her lover secret. Later that week a furious Gordon discovered why.
When the police contacted Renee’s best friend, Valerie Steventon, to see if she could cast any light on her whereabouts. Valerie was forced reveal that Renee had been in a relationship with Gordon’s Chief Accountant, Bill MacDowell, for almost five years. The two, she claimed, had arranged to spend the last few days together in Perth before they told Gordon and Bill’s wife, Rosemary, that they were leaving to start a new life in the Shetlands.
Gordon MacRae sacked MacDowell on the spot.
When MacDowell was interviewed by both police and a curious press eager for salacious details, he told the same story. He denied making any firm arrangements to spend the weekend with Renee and rubbished the idea that he had any plans to start a new life with her in the Shetlands.
Mac Dowell was pictured in the Scottish newspapers standing next to his distraught wife and swearing, to the press at least, that his affair with Renee was over. He also claimed that in the days since their disappearance he had received a number of coded phone calls which indicated to him that Renee and Andrew were still very much alive and did not wish to be found.
Rosemary chose to stand by her husband. Curiously, a senior police source later revealed to the Scottish press that MacDowell had gone to Inverness Police Station shortly after Renee’s disappearance in a distraught state and with ‘significant information’. Before he could reveal that information Rosemary dragged her husband from the building.
When the police searched Renee’s house, they found her belongings packed in boxes. She was definitely planning a trip somewhere.
The Search Begins
A forensic examination of the burnt out car confirmed that it had been set alight deliberately. Only the boot remained relatively intact. When police forced it open they discovered that Andrew’s pushchair and the Antler suitcase were gone. Only Andrew’s blanket remained, stained with a small amount of blood.
Police immediately suspected foul play and issued a nationwide request for information. Missing Persons posters were circulated to every police station in the UK. Gordon MacRae also offered a £1000 reward for information, a substantial sum at that time.
Witnesses though, were few and far between; it had been a filthy night and only those who really needed to, had taken to the roads. A search of the surrounding area proved fruitless and snow soon wiped away any realistic chance of tracking the mother and child.
The trail, like the Scottish weather, was freezing.
Press Speculation
Interest in the case was intense and Renee, the wife of a rich and successful man, was portrayed as something of a scarlet woman in the press. In reality she was a simple woman from an ordinary background who had married a wealthy man and found herself in an unhappy marriage. Her sister, friends and estranged husband fiercely defended her reputation.
‘Renee was a happy down to earth responsible and devoted mother. She was willing to do a good turn for anybody at any time. She really would put herself out to help you. She was one of the best.’
Val Steventon
Eventually, the Inverness police who had helped stoke rumour and speculation when they described their investigation as being hampered by secrets, deception and lies, were forced to set the record straight about Renee’s good character;
‘She was not a fast living, high stepping woman. Basically she was an unhappy woman. In company she tended to withdraw. She went home early. She would be fairly lonely. She had few friends apart from Valerie Steventon. She was separated from her husband and I think she may have felt a little inadequate’.
D.I. Donald MacArthur, Inverness Police
Leanach Quarry
By the summer of 1977, with no sign of the missing mother and son, Inverness Police believed that the clue to their whereabouts lay in one of the flooded quarries near to the A9. They were particularly interested in Leanach Quarry close to Culloden Battlefield.
Unfortunately, a thorough search of the quarry which was used by locals as a fly tipping site would prove expensive and hazardous. Initially, a camera was used to probe the murky depths and, when what looked like a skeletal face appeared in one of the images taken, navy divers were sent down to investigate.
To the disappointment of the search team, the face on the camera turned out to be a crumpled plastic bag containing household rubbish. The divers sent down described the conditions as virtually impossible. Visibility was extremely poor and the more they searched, the more silt was disturbed, making conditions even worse.
When it became apparent that police were searching for a needle in a haystack, the search of the quarry was reluctantly abandoned. Detective John Cathcart a member of the search team later spoke of his frustration. He and other were convinced that they had detected the smell of rotting flesh in the area and believed that had their search lasted another few days they would have uncovered the source.
The Case Goes Cold
With few real leads, the search for Renee and Andrew went cold but the mystery was far from forgotten. Police routinely revisited the case on the anniversary of the mother and son’s disappearance and Renee’s friends and family made sure that they remained in the public consciousness.
In 1998 police made what they believed was a breakthrough when a bank card bearing the name R MacRae was found in a derelict building near a house once owned by Gordon MacRae. In a strange coincidence the card had been lost by a lady called Rene MacRae years before. It was another false lead.
Dalmagarry Quarry
I n 2004 at the request of Renee’s sister, Morag, the case was reopened and a fresh appeal for witnesses was made. When two separate witnesses came forward and revealed that they had seen a man acting suspiciously close to Dalmagarry Quarry on the night that Renee and Andrew disappeared, police were intrigued.
The first witness claimed to have seen a man pushing a pram along the A9 through the teeming rain close to the quarry. The second person said they saw a man dragging a sheep along the A9 close to the Dalmagarry bypass. Renee was wearing a sheepskin coat on the day of her disappearance.
This time a detailed and painstaking search of the area was made but sadly no new evidence was uncovered.
The publicity surrounding the search did prompt Bill MacDowell to come out of the woodwork. At the time he lived in London with his wife Rosemary.
‘I didn’t do it. It’s all starting up again and it’s a nightmare for myself and Rosemary. It keeps following us around. We can’t escape it but I didn’t do it.’
Bill MacDowell
Despite the failure to uncover a body at Dalmagarry Quarry, Inverness Police continued their investigation. In 2006 they took the step of naming their prime suspect. To their immense disappointment the Procurator Fiscal decided there was not enough evidence to prosecute him. The suspect immediately fled the country to the U.S
The Amateur Sleuth
Frustrated by the lack of progress made by the police, local farmer, Brian McGregor, decided to make his own enquiries into the case. Convinced that witnesses who wouldn’t speak to the police would speak to him, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper asking for information.
Within days two men who were working on the resurfacing of the A9 came forward with new evidence. The two men had left a section of the A9 close to the Dalmagarry layby neatly patched at the end of their shift on Friday 12th November 1976. When they resumed work the next day, their digger had been moved and the tarmac churned up as if it had been re surfaced by an amateur. They didn’t come forward at the time because they believed press reports that Renee may have run away with a lover.
Brian McGregor used his own funds to scan the patch of tarmac identified by the two men and discovered an ‘anomaly’ which he believes to be Andrew’s Silver Cross pushchair. The police have agreed that this is a possibility and the area will be investigated when widening work is undertaken on that stretch of the A9.
New Evidence
November 2016 marked the 40th anniversary of the disappearance of Renee and Andrew’s disappearance. Once again the police and Renee’s sister Morag, made an appeal for witnesses to come forward. This was followed in September 2018, on what would have been Andrew’s 45th birthday, with the release of a picture of his missing Silver Cross pushchair.
After fresh witnesses came forward police announced in the Summer of 2019 that they were returning to Leanach Quarry to conduct a fresh search.
This time the quarry was fully drained and a plantation of fir trees dug up. Over 50 cars were removed from the mud along with tonnes of rubbish which required meticulous analysis.
At the bottom of the quarry police discovered human bones and a mangled Silver Cross pushchair. They are yet to confirm whether there is any connection to Renee and Andrew.
An Arrest
Whether the discovery of human bones prompted them, we are yet to discover, but within weeks police flew out to interview an unidentified witness in Spain, who after 43 years decided to come forward and make a fresh statement.
On the back of this statement police travelled to Cumbria in the English Lake District and arrested Bill MacDowell.
MacDowell, 77, was charged with the murder of Renee MacRae and his 3 year old son, Andrew. His trial will take place some time in 2020.
Bill MacDowell may of course be completely innocent. If he is found guilty, one would hope for the sake of Renee’s surviving son, Gordon, and her sister, Morag, he finally reveals what happened to a loving mother and her young toddler son on a dark stormy night all those years ago.
