On 25-11-04 acting on information from a machine operator, who had graded the new A9 in 1976, near Dalmagarry Farm Tomatin, and had found his work disturbed on the morning after Mrs MacRae disappeared, a powerful metal detector recorded a strong signal from metal below a specific spot under the A9.

The location is fifteen feet away from a permanent marker spot, and three feet from the center of the road. A second scan was taken using a lower powered instrument, when no detection was recorded.

Does this evidence sugest that this location is the burial spot for the MacRae pushchair, and other clues in the MacRae murder mystery?

Gollanfield farmer pinpoints probable burial site at Dalmagarry Quarry access track.

Wish to help?

Members of the general public who are concerned about the distinct lack of progress by Northern Constabulary in this matter and want to get a better understanding of the issue and offer help, should park up at lay-by 161 beside Dalmagarry quarry.

Looking across the roadside fence to your right, sits a grassland area where the concrete mixing plant stood in 1976.
Follow the fence towards Inverness, about half-way down the hill to the woodland, a fence and gate divide the moorland.
Below that gate there is the distinct outline of the track that connected the concrete plant to the quarry.
Trace the track down towards the woodland. According to George Matheson, Carrbridge, who worked a machine in the quarry in 1976 "the line of the track ran straight down into the quarry face that had been at right angles to the new A9 road". This means that the track sat just inside and along the fence dividing the new A9 from the woodland.
Turning into the quarry enterance take the gate on the left hand. Simply bend down below the half-gate which the Forestry Commission erected a few years ago to allow countryside access for the Public.
Pace out around 46yards, and there on the right sits a triangular clearing in the woodland.
The thin tree on the left of the triangle appears to have been denuded of its lower branches, upto a height of 10 feet.
This is the triangular area which needs to be excavated and examined.

And if the YOU the Reader wants to help then write to your MP asking how or why Northern Constabulary neglected to inverstigate this area, and still continue to do so,while squandering resources elsewhere with no results.

CC News desks
www.brianmacgregor.com
Professor John Hunter

Follow-up Letter

Copy of Latimers Reply

Copy of Letter of David Stewart MP

Letter to Brian Munro

This is the track at the enterance to the quarry, where diggers and dozers were landscaping at the time the BMW was burnt-out in 1976.
Why has this area of interest been ignored by Northern Con?

This is the area with a depression in the forest floor, beside the access track.
Why, or how was such a depression formed?

Schematic Plan of Dalmagarry Quarry showing access track in 1976 and the track that exists today.

Starting at the top of the plan sat a concrete mixing plant where a lot of peat was removed to prepare the foundations of the plant.

The red line going clockwise represents the track that connected the plant to the A9 and the quarry. The line of the track above point B is still quite visible beside the new A 9 while the red track going down past B&C has been covered and mounded to provide a screen for the existing track from A9 traffic.

The blue lines represent the present access tracks around the quarry.

The D8 represents the bulldozer that had started landscaping the area as police commenced their investigation in 76.

The yellow lines represent the ravines that had carried hill water down to the Funtack burn before they were destroyed by road making in and around the quarry.

This evidence suggests that areas of infilled material comprising of gravel, peat, and general overburden might be found in the areas to the left of B&C.

As two people motored out the Ruthven road at around 7-30 PM on the night that the BMW was later found ablaze a small saloon car believed to be a VW Golf or a Volvo 343 sat in the lay-by beside the fire break. A male person was observed pulling something that appeared to be covered, up the firebreak on the hillside towards the North edge of the redundant quarry, a short distance of only 75 yards.

If this was the killer is it not reasonable to suggest that he abandoned this location as a suitable burial spot assuming that the area would come in for a great deal of scrutiny in the weeks to follow or maybe 28 years later when Northern Con might get around to acting on evidence.

The next handy spot for a bit of cover up lay just a short car journey round and across the old and new A9 roads. Around where the D8 is parked up on the plan there is ample evidence of deep hollow areas being filled in during a landscaping operation.

Today  22-9-04. A newspaper reported that I knew the area around the quarry in1976 but that is not quite correct. Something must have gone wrong in the translation.

 The facts that I have recorded have come from a great deal of statements that I have taken from workmen who were employed at the quarry or the concrete plant at that time and drivers who worked with NOSTA

The North Of Scotland Tipper Association.

 Willie Hay Ardersier who remembers his low loader bottoming in the deep pot holes on the track into the quarry.  Davie Ritchie Carrbridge and others who carted from the quarry    The Matheson brothers from my school days who lived in Farr, Albert who worked in the concrete plant and drove the workers bus back from Inverness and George who worked a 977 Shovel at the quarry face.

Thanks also to MacKay The Shop Tomatin.Donnie MacAskill, our local archaeologist who lives next to the quarry. Pat Coyne,Percy Philips and John Cathcart.

Probably the biggest aspect of the whole mystery is why did Northern Con conduct the investigation in the way that they did?

	On the night that Mrs MacRae and her son Andrew went missing, a male was seen pulling something covered up the hill above the fence in the foreground. The male was never eliminated from the investigation.
	This is the lay-by where the Police were informed at the start of their investigation, that just 75 yards up the hill sat the edge of the redundant Dalmagarry quarry; where a digger was busy landscaping the area.
	This is the start of a scale model of the quarry, that is being put together at bogbain farm, for anyone interested to view.

Latest Developments in 27yr old Mystery

Is This Latimer's Specific Reason?

On 9-8-04. News broke that Northern Constabulary was about to start digging Dalmagarry Quarry and the next day the Press and Journal reported an interview with Chief Constable Mr Ian Latimer in which the Police Chief stated that he now had a “specific reason” to carry out a further search of Dalmagarry Quarry.

He did not say that he had any new evidence.

However. The Inverness Courier reported saying that Mr Latimer would not reveal whether there was a specific reason for ordering a new search, but told reporters; “I would not be undertaking an excavation of Dalmagarry Quarry if I were not convinced there were specific lines of inquiry. This is not a speculative search”.

All reports now suggest that Northern Constabulary are not working on any new evidence but evidence that they have sat on for twenty seven years.

This leaves us to deduct that the best “ specific reason “ that the Chief has for taking action at long last is contained in the fact that John Cathcart was offered my digger so that members of the public could do what his force had failed to do for twenty seven years.

Added to this strong motivating force is the fact that HM Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland has just carried out a thorough investigation into my complaints against members of his force

On Thursday evening 19-2-04 Grampian TV featured their Unsolved. Getting Away With Murder programme.
This was a look back at all the unsolved murders featured on their earlier programmes.

Viewers who saw the original programme of the series will remember how it revealed some very startling police evidence of the Renee MacRae mystery. It was very old evidence that appears to have been neglected by Northern Constabulary for around twenty seven years.

On Thursday our local press was flooded with news that Northern Constabulary was now in touch with a top archaeologist and also a world-renowned forensic anthropologist to give Northern Constabulary assistance in a proposal to dig up Dalmagarry quarry near Tomatin where the twenty seven year old evidence suggests that answers to the MacRae mystery may be found.

When the veneer of spin is lifted to scrutinise the facts many readers may get the distinct impression that Chief Constable Mr Ian Latimer is simply bending to blackmail from the threat that a digger machine has now been offered to retired Detective Sgt John Cathcart to dig up and investigate the Dalmagarry quarry unless the Chief responds to public pressure and gets his team digging.

If the Dalmagarry quarry yields a conclusion to the twenty-seven year old murder investigation then perhaps it should be remembered that it was as a result of the combined efforts of TV investigative journalism, a retired policeman, and an old peat digger that did not even have to turn its tracks towards Dalmagarry.

Letter to The Editor of The Highland News

17-3-04
Dear Editor

Your report suggesting that Northern Constabulary are dragging their heels in the Reene MacRae murder investigation must have come as little surprise to most of your readers.

After all. What would the discovery of any remains prove apart from the fact that Northern Constabulary has been sitting neglecting some pretty strong evidence for twenty-seven years?

When Grampian TV featured a resume of their Unsolved. Getting Away With Murder programme, on 19-2-04 the Northern Constabulary spin-doctors flooded our local press with news that they were about to involve world-renowned experts to help them conduct a search of Dalmagarry quarry. Now the experts are unavailable.

Cynics like myself felt it was a PR exercise to divert media attention from the fact that the evidence at hand was not some major break through but that the evidence was twenty-seven years old.

Into the bargain the TV report seemed to suggest that Chief Constable Mr Ian Latimer was being blackmailed into taking action to save embarrassment if the offer of the free use of a digger to retired policeman Mr John Cathcart should yield a result with a quarry dig.

My offer of a digger is still open to Mr Cathcart and is ready to start digging whenever Mr Latimer runs out of excuses for doing nothing and can give us the all clear.

If Mr Cathcart was trusted with the capability for the job in the past there seems no reason why he cannot take command again.

I would welcome other views on this matter or an opportunity to speak to others who were involved in the quarry at that time.

It all started on Friday afternoon 6-7-01. Myself and the wife were heading down the dual carriageway at Inshes going to Inverness when we heard a police car siren and noticed a police car heading south in the opposite direction as it overtook our Transit pick-up truck which was being driven home to Bogbain by our son Neil. Mrs MacGregor went into a bout of stress, nothing unusual in that, but I assured her that the police would have been overtaking Neil to get to somebody else. I was wrong, and next morning Neil presented me with a fixed penalty ticket that he had received from Northern Con after they had stopped him at Beechwood for not wearing a seat belt. Without any ado, I drew three tenners from my wallet and gave the cash to Neil, saying that it looked as if the law on seat belts must have changed at some time.

Back in the eighties when seat belt regulations were introduced I ran a little garage business and we had a very conscientious old gent employed to run around town with a mini pick up collecting and delivering spares etc. Hughie was our gofor- man.Hughie experienced many bouts of consternation when he had to gofor the thing again because some store had supplied Hughie with the wrong thing. We studied the exemption terms of the regulations and concluded that our gofor was exempt from wearing a seat belt.

For around a couple of decades, myself, members of my family, and my staff all ran around in pick-up trucks without wearing a seat belt and were never once challenged or warned by Northern Con. After parting with cash to Neil, because I felt that it was my complete fault and that I had misled him on the seatbelt regulations, intrigue set in and while passing near Burnett Road police station I took a spur of the moment decision to check out the regulation. The lass at reception hadn’t a clue but phoned upstairs and quickly informed me that, according to “upstairs” Transit drivers were exempt from wearing seatbelts. I then intimated that those were my understandings of the matter but my son had just been issued with a £30 fixed penalty ticket so I was wondering what could be done about the matter. I was advised that I would need to take the matter up with the issuing officer.

I suggested that it was hardly worth the effort and thanked her for her assistance. There was no point in making a song and dance over the matter and anyway when would I have the time to pursue a police officer. They never seem to be on duty when needed. If it’s not night shift, it’s leave, or training. No. It would cost more than thirty quid to run him to ground, so why bother?. Still intrigued with the issue while I drove home, I spotted a Traffic Police car sitting tucked into the junction of the Longman Tip, at the roundabout, and again, on the spur of the moment I continued all the way round the roundabout and pulled in behind the police car. I tapped a knuckle on the driver’s window and asked the policeman sitting in the driving seat if he could help me with my enquiries. I then asked him for his opinion on seatbelts in relation to Transit trucks.

He assured me that everyone must use a seatbelt and that even the post-man driving his Royal Mail van from the likes of Aviemore to Inverness, must use a seat belt. I asked him if he had ever been challenged on the issue and he seemed surprised, but simply repeated the postman Pat theory. I then intimated that there seemed to be some conflict of opinion because I had just come from Burnett Rd where I had been told that Transit drivers were exempt.

The officer then assured me that whoever told me that was talking rubbish. Total rubbish. He assured me. I then produced the fixed penalty ticket that Neil had given to me and was surprised to learn that this was the very officer who had given it to Neil He then suggested that I should seek the assistance of a solicitor. This suggestion I accepted as some sort of wind-up because it was very common knowledge in our kneck of the woods that I had just spent around six years exposing some very serious shortcomings with some Inverness solicitors. I did not rise to the bait but simply assured the officers that I would have to make further enquiries, but that I would not be bothering with the service of a solicitor. Home at the farm I wrote a letter to the Chief Constable outlining brief details and the fact that since the incident I had observed many Transit drivers running around the Industrial estate without wearing a seatbelt. I concluded my letter by saying. .” Perhaps you and I could do some good for society if you can give me your interpretation of the regulation”. I had long forgotten what the terms of the regulations were and I sure was not going to waste time and money on a solicitor to find out, so I suppose I was simply fishing for information from the Chief Constable. I faxed my little letter to the Chief and then as an after thought faxed it to the Sun newspaper and our local Highland News. That was around 3-30 PM on a Monday, and by 5 PM on the Wednesday the Highland News ran headlines: DAVIOT MAN IN BATTLE WITH CHIEF CONSTABLE.

This was all very surprising, but got us nowhere until a few weeks later when the Highland News did a follow-up with an article that contained comments from the police along with the exemption terms quoted by a Superintendent: Regulation 6(1)(b) lists the exemptions to the requirements to wear belts as: “A person using a vehicle constructed or adapted for the delivery of goods or mail to consumers or addresses, as the case may be, while engaged in making local rounds of deliveries or collections”. The Superintendent said that in his officer’s opinion Neil was not engaged in local rounds of deliveries and collections as his van was unladen and was therefore not complying with regulations. But the vehicle would have been unladen if it was starting to make collections, or carrying small items of goods, and at any rate it was in fact carrying goods in the form of nuts and bolts and a new brake pipe with the old pipe lying on the back after it had been used as a pattern . Perhaps not an excessive load, or significant load, but it was being used to transport goods and not as if Neil was heading to the beech or hunting or fishing. So we guessed that the matter would fizzle out and we would all live happy ever after. Dream on. A summons arrived to go to court. There must be some mistake, we thought. Perhaps the police had simply cleared the matter off their desks and on to the desk of the Procurator Fiscal. That way if and when the Fiscal put the matter in the bin Northern Con could still maintain some dignity and say that they stuck to their principles and if the PF could not be bothered or had not got the time to deal with such petty matters then that was up to the system, but Northern Con would be in the clear. Time went on, and no word from the PF, so a week or two before the court date Neil and myself went into the PF to get copies of the police statements.

We were utterly amazed at the detail on both statements. Both officers wrote the same details in that they had seen the Pick-up pass by their car at the Longman roundabout at about 1455 hours and that they stopped and charged Neil at 1450 hours. Well that was an incompetent statement as anybody reading it could see. But another error was recorded in the fact that the location given for where the vehicle was stopped by the police was the Longman Industrial Estate. Now that was utter nonsence because myself, and the wife, had seen the vehicles overtaking each other just before the Beechwood lay-by. This was intriguing, and after giving the facts a lot of thought we came to the conclusion that the police probably now accepted that they were on a sticky wicket but had to clear the matter off their desks and save face with the media. Yes. They might very well have recorded a deliberate mistake in their reports to entice the PF to put their reports in the bin. Yes that was probably what would happen on the morning of the court as the PF came up to speed.

Well the PF came up to court and up to speed and before the court started informed me in very strict terms that I could not sit around the desk that herself and solicitors used. I would have to sit further back and be sure to speak up so the court could hear me. Then the Clerk to the court wanted to know if I would be giving any evidence, because I could not give evidence if I was conducting the defence. He assured me in very strict tones. I assured him that I did not need to give any evidence and gained the distinct impression that I was far from welcome in their circle. This was what you might call, a hostile environment. I managed to get a little desk and moved it back half way up the side of the court room and spread my paperwork out on it. This action went unchallenged and I ventured up to the solicitors desk to see if I might get a jug of water or a glass but nothing was available. By late morning, my big moment came and I listened to the Sgt swear to tell the truth etc etc. I challenged him on the times that he had recorded in his report to the PF and he dismissed it as a simple typing error. I was not sure if I should try and make a four course meal out of the issue and held back expecting or hoping that the magistrate would attack the point but nobody seemed interested in the misrepresentation in the statement. We argued to a fair degree and then the PF broke into our argument saying that it was not the proper time to settle that issue. Who was I to argue over court etiquette , court rules or codes of conduct?. I then produced copies of Highland Council road maps showing the Longman Industrial Estate and the Beechwood area. I had to abandon the argument about the recorded times so I challenged the officer on the error of the location that he had recorded in his statement. I distributed copies of Highland Council road maps of the area in question to the magistrate,the Fiscal and the Sgt and suggested that he had recorded a false address concerning where the vehicle had been stopped and Neil had been charged. No matter how much I tried he would not concede that his statement was false. I was getting so stressed out with the man standing there on oath making misrepresentations that my voice was going. I don’t know where it was going to, but I felt pretty inaudible.

Finally, in desperation, I addressed the Magistrate and said in as stable a voice as I could muster. “ Your Honour, It is often said that truth is stranger than fiction, but would you believe me when I tell you that I saw the incident taking place at Beechwood. PF protested, don’t remember her remark, but the Clerk of court was on his feet shouting that I had said that I was not going to give evidence. Magistrate said something, don’t remember what, but somewhere in the heat of it all I muttered another almost inaudible remark in protest saying,” But he said he was going to tell the truth”. The argument turned to asking why the Sgt had not seen the brake pipe sitting on the cab floor of the vehicle. Could he not agree that a rolled up brake pipe was one of the items being collected and delivered in the course of the drivers round trip from the farm to the brake pipe supplier, to the Bank, and the nuts and bolts supplier and back to the farm?. No. He could not agree at all. Now his statement had said that he had checked the seat belt mounting points so if that was true he should have noticed the pipe on the floor. Mind you. With the collection of handy items that are stored at all times in the truck we might at times have difficulty finding what was being fetched ourselves. What else was unusual about the pick-up? Nothing. What then about the dog? “Oh yes”. He agreed that there had been a dog in the cab. So that was that, and it all seemed to have got me nowhere. The Constable then took the stand and we went through the same rigmarole right up until we came to the question about the dog. Now according to Neil the constable had never gone near the Transit during the road stop. Yet his statement said that he had checked the seat belt mounting points and here he was in court saying that he had not seen any goods being carried in the cab. Yes, he was certain there were no goods in the cab. I then asked him what else was unusual about the contents of the cab. He shook his head. I then asked him “ But what about the dog?

The dog was in fact a black and white collie. My car is black and white. Our pick-up truck is black and white. Our farm steading is black and white and the reader might be excused from wondering why we share such a corporate identity with Northern Con. Well, what about the dog?. He was absolutely stuck for a reply and his eyes went wandering round the court room for his Sgt but he had gone. I asked the officer. “ What was the colour of the dog”. But the poor man could not answer. Was I slow on the uptake or maybe did not want to make an all out kill of the situation?. It was maybe a combination and rather than demean the position of the officer any further, I simply added. “ Well if you don’t know the colour of the animal then you won’t know the breed”. Again the officer was left unable to reply. I left matters at that letting the court deduct for themselves that the officer had never inspected the interior of the cab and that his whole testament had lost it’s integrity The PF then produced a large book and read a report of a case where a Glasgow newsagent had been convicted for driving to the wholesalers to collect his daily bundle of papers and had not worn his seat belt. I should have argued that the newsagent was not involved in numerous pick-up stops such as Neil had been but I hoped that the magistrate would see that point and extend us any benefit of doubt. Wrong again. After an adjournment he returned and pronounced Neil GUILTY, but be of good behaviour for three months and return to court for sentencing.

Leaving court we went over the decision and concluded that the trial had resulted in some sort of draw. And there the matter might have rested had it not been for a phone call from a colleague in the mushroom industry. Dr John Burden phoned the next day to say that while “Clunk clicking “ in his car that morning he had thought about the MacGregors and was keen to hear how we had got on. I explained how we had exposed the misrepresentations that had been made by the police in court and that in actual fact it was the dog that had exposed them although she could not give evidence. John saw the humour in the situation, and devil that he is asked me if I had done a poem on the affair. I said I would need to think about it and there the matter rested. Later that day, in fact, by early evening some rain started so I sought the sanctuary of the farmhouse. Wife was busy ironing and it was far too early to settle to watch the rubbish on TV. I poured a fair size dram in the shape of an Old Inverness and sat at the farmhouse desk with a blank A4 and a pen. It seemed as good a time as any to record the courtroom drama and a couple of verses sprang to the pen. I bounced them off the wife and attracted a hint of a smile so guessed that I was on the right track.

Next morning the rain was bucketing down and I landed at the desk again and had a stab at another few verses until around 10-30 AM I had completed the whole thing. Around Tuesday I got a phone call from the Highland News reporter again and the conversation got round to the fact that the story had been committed to rhyme. I gave a rendition down the phone and the listener seemed to be very moved by the thing. Indeed, I sensed that he was sprawled on the floor in a fit of laughter. I agreed to send him a copy. Handy material for the next Northern Con Burns Supper. What next? Six verses appeared on the front page of the Highland News along with a back up story. The Newspaper changed one or two words that they must have felt were too strong for publication but here I publish the original version in the earnest belief in which I was brought up. An honest man fears nobody.

And what happened when we returned to court three months later? It’s in the last verse.