An Inverness neighbourhood was coming to terms with a third tragedy last night as news filtered through of a pensioner’s unexplained death.
Murdo Mackinnon was found dead at his single-storey home in the city’s Kintail Crescent at 2.40pm on Monday.
According to neighbours, Mr Mackinnon was a widower but had a partner until recently.
The tragedy shocked neighbours, in a street within a few hundred yards of a council house where two murders were committed.
Margaret Lyall, who is retired and has lived in the street for four years, was visibly upset by the loss of her next-door-neighbour.
“I used to say hello to him when out and have a wee chat in the garden. He was a very nice man,” she said.
“I’m not sure how long he’d lived there but less than a year I would think.
“I know that his wife died years ago and I knew he was lonely because he told me. He had been separated from his partner for a few months.”
Another neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: “It’s just very sad. He was a very pleasant man.”
The death comes a year after a council tenant was bludgeoned to death at her house in nearby Kintail Court.
Elizabeth Mackay, 60, was murdered by 72-year-old Michael Taylor who was jailed for life for the offence last month.
Ms Mackay had lived in the same semi-detached council house where Ilene O’Connor was murdered by Brian Grant in 2006 and then buried in the garden.