A Sheriff says he is unable to say how a wealthy farmer met his death in a grain silo on his Aberdeenshire farm.
Bruce Ferguson, 61, is believed to have fallen into a grain store while he swept the rafters of his farm in Ardmiddle Mains, Turriff.
It was later revealed that the former secretary of the Turriff Show left almost £3 million to his family in his will.
The north east farming community had been shocked by Mr Ferguson’s death in March 2015. He had been president of the Turriff Show in 2014, when they Queen visited to mark its 150th anniversary.
On the day he died, Mr Ferguson had not been seen for some time after preparing a 30-tonne order of barley. His son, Andrew, went to look for him and found him submerged in the grain store.
Following a Fatal Accident Inquiry, Sheriff Philip Mann said a post mortem examination had failed to find any natural disease that may have led to his death.
Neither was there any intoxicating substance, save for a “minimal amount” of alcohol that might have caused him to fall.
In his judgment, Sheriff Man said: “It is not possible for anyone to say how Mr Ferguson came to be submerged in grain within the storage container.
“All that can be said is that he fell into the container by unknown means and had been unable to free himself, resulting in his death by asphyxiation.”
Mr Bruce’s estate was shared by his wife, Kathleen, son Andrew, who works on the farm, and daughter Lisa, a pharmacist and athlete living in London.