A world-leading forensics expert believes the vital clue to finally solving Scotland’s most infamous murder mystery still lies in the Highlands.
Local residents have been urged to mark the 40th anniversary of the disappearance of Renee MacRae and her son Andrew next month by helping to find the truth.
Dame Sue Black, a renowned forensic anthropologist, said young Highlanders should “ask your granny, ask your granddad” in case any crucial evidence has been missed.
The Inverness-raised expert, who led the search in 2004 of Dalmagarry Quarry for evidence during a cold case review, said: “There’s a responsibility on everybody.”
It is a case that shocked the country four decades ago and remains the UK’s longest-running missing persons inquiry.
Mrs MacRae left her home in the Cradlehall area of Inverness with both her sons on Friday, November 12, 1976, before dropping her elder son Gordon at the home of her estranged husband Gordon MacRae.
She turned south on to the A9, reportedly on her way to meet her lover, Bill MacDowell, an accountant in her husband’s building company, with the couple said to be planning to start a new life on Shetland.
The 36-year-old’s burned-out BMW car was found with a bloodstain in the boot in a layby off the A9, a mile south of Tomatin.
A murder inquiry was launched, but the bodies of the mother and her three-year-old son have never been found and no one has ever been convicted of their killing.
Dame Sue, who is professor of anatomy and forensic anthropology at Dundee University, helped lead an excavation in 2004 of Dalmagarry Quarry, just a few hundred yards from where the young mother’s car was found, but no fresh evidence was unearthed.
The expert told the Press and Journal yesterday remains optimistic that the case can finally be solved, however.
“There’s always a chance and that is the most important thing,” she said.
“We’re missing the most important piece of evidence. If anyone knows anything about it, wouldn’t it be good if they came forward.
“Evidence comes in unexpected forms. It could be someone digging a hole or moving a fridge. We have to have faith.
“I’m a great believer that it will find its way out in one way or another.
“People shouldn’t forget that this is a major event in the Inverness area that caused a tremendous amount of grief for the families involved, and they have to find out where she is.”
Dame Sue, who was born in Inverness and educated at Inverness Royal Academy, remembers her family’s property being searched by the police at the time of Mrs MacRae’s disappearance.
She said she hoped the upcoming anniversary would help jog the memories of local residents.
“Ask your granny, ask your granddad, ‘do you remember anything?” she urged.
“There must be something out there. Somebody knows, that is the thing. Until we ask the right questions…”
Asked if she believed someone in the Inverness area still knew something that could help solve the crime, she said: “Inverness is a very small community. There must be.
“Whether they are local now or are from Inverness and have moved away. They should help the family put this to bed.”
Dame Sue added: “As these cases become colder and colder, as they do, these cases become more challenging. There’s a responsibility on everybody.
“I remember it as a teenager in Inverness, knowing it was going on. Our outhouses were searched like everybody else’s.
“It’s still an open event for me and others. Nobody in terms of Police Scotland has forgot it, be absolutely assured of that.”