- 2 weeks ago
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00It was just over a hundred miles, he was adamant that he was going to get this done.
00:23The last text message I sent him would have been asking him if he was still alive.
00:30Everything you could think of was extensively searched and there was not a single trace of Tony Parsons or the bike, any of his possessions, nothing.
00:40Initially, you've got that emotion, it's like, well, surely he was going to come back.
00:47Then you turn to anger, because it's like, where the hell are you? Why are you not home? What has happened?
00:55There was an image that I'll never forget, an image of him on his bike and it was the last sighting of him just near to a petrol station and then he was never seen again.
01:03It was as if Tony Parsons had just disappeared off the face of the earth.
01:08You want to give the family answers, you want to give them peace of mind, but you can't.
01:15I'd spent three years coming to terms with the fact that my dad wasn't coming home.
01:21So I was at peace in myself that that was the way that it was going to be.
01:26And then all of a sudden, one phone call.
01:29We've scrapped them. Can I help you?
01:31Flipped everything upside down.
01:34It was quite a moment.
01:37We're actually going to get this family some answers here.
01:41My Lord, this case commenced as a missing person inquiry before evolving into an investigation.
01:50It seemed to me that an argument could be made out for murder.
02:20We played rugby together. He also coached kids rugby. He refereed.
02:26He was quite a stubborn fellow, but generally just a nice guy.
02:30I knew he'd had cancer.
02:32He decided he was going to do this ride from Fort William to Sturring,
02:35get the train up to Fort William and then cycle back to Sturring.
02:39So we're all getting some cash to go towards this charity thing.
02:43He asked me if I was interested.
02:47And I said, I've not ridden a push bike since I was about 15 years old, you know.
02:51So I bribed my way out of it.
02:52I said, if you do that ride, I'll give you some money towards your charity.
02:55I was nervous about him going out.
03:00As a family, we'd all voiced our concerns.
03:05But he had raised money.
03:08So that's why he stuck by him.
03:10I was nervous about him going out.
03:14As a family, we'd all voiced our concerns.
03:17But he had raised money.
03:19So that's why he stuck by it.
03:28That was just his sort of stubborn nature that when he set his mind to do something,
03:33he was going to do it.
03:35Once he'd started it, he was going to finish it.
03:40He got up to Fort William where he got off the train.
03:43And then started the bike ride.
04:00When my dad left on the Friday, I didn't have any contact with him.
04:04But that's not unusual.
04:07On the Saturday, he hadn't phoned in or checked in with anybody.
04:15The phone went straight to answer the machine.
04:19I got a message from my sister telling me that he hadn't been in contact.
04:26My sister and my mum and I had the conversation as to what my dad's exact plans were.
04:36It might have taken a bit longer than he anticipated.
04:40On the Sunday, I decided, right, I'm going to take a drive up, see how he's getting on.
04:46He'll either continue or I'll bring him home.
04:49I saw absolutely no sign of my dad at that point.
04:54It got to the Sunday evening and we were really starting to get concerned about it.
05:00On the Monday morning, I reported him as a missing person.
05:08I heard the front door go.
05:10First, I thought it was Tony, but it wasn't, it was Vicky.
05:13She just went, Mum, I've reported my dad missing.
05:17And I went, this must be bad. For her to do it, it must be bad.
05:24Tony was deemed as a high risk missing person right from the word go.
05:43We had no idea where he was.
05:47So my advice at that point was to start searching the Roads Network from Fort William South.
05:58He's 63, so it's a big cycle to take on for anyone, really.
06:02He could have taken on well and either sought shelter or pulled into the side of the road somewhere
06:09and not been able to seek assistance or help.
06:13The terrain that we were looking at was very mixed.
06:17It's mountainous, rivers, moorland.
06:23He could have been hit by a car or a lorry.
06:25If he'd been involved in a collision with a car or he'd come off his bike,
06:32he'd expect to find some damaged parts of the bike or some clothing.
06:36We weren't getting anything.
06:38It was absolutely no trace of Tony, his bike or his property.
06:42We're all frustrated because we knew time was ticking
06:47and if Tony was lying there injured, he wouldn't have survived indefinitely.
06:51The pressure was on, where is he?
06:59The search was brought to a halt on the evening of the Monday night
07:03and the intention was to reconvene at first light the next morning with extra resources.
07:14Margaret phoned me to say Tony had gone on the bike ride and he's not come home.
07:18I kind of said, well, he's out there somewhere.
07:22Maybe his bike's broke down or something and he'll be a bit late getting back.
07:26But you know Tony, he all turns up.
07:28I never said nothing to Margaret because I didn't want to upset her in any way whatsoever.
07:32But my personal thoughts were something's not right here.
07:35To have somebody go missing is a strange feeling because you don't know anything.
07:45You have 101 different questions that are going on in your head
07:51and you've got no answers to answer any of them.
07:54We understood from Tony's family that he had got the train with his bike up to Fort William.
08:10His intention was to cycle down the A82 back towards Stirling direction.
08:15When he was first reported missing, it was crucial to try and understand that timeline
08:22and get some evidence as to his movements.
08:28For a missing person in an urban area, we've got good opportunities around the CCTV.
08:33If you move into the Highland area, you've got much less foot traffic, you've got less CCTV opportunities.
08:38Because we knew he started the cycle in Fort William, we went up there first and got CCTV from the train station.
08:45So that confirmed for us that he got to Fort William to start the cycle.
08:52His route would be down through here towards Ballahoolish and down into Glencoe village.
08:58We're really looking for checkpoints then along that route to try and confirm that that was where he went.
09:03And it's quite an exposed and uninhabited area, this.
09:08So in terms of trying to get some evidence of his route from CCTV, et cetera, it's very difficult.
09:16The next piece of CCTV that we established was at this petrol station.
09:28That was able to confirm for us that he had actually continued on his intended route.
09:31But there's no further CCTV for probably another 20 miles or so.
09:44That was the last CCTV sign we had of him before witnesses that speak to him being at the Bridge of Orca Hotel.
09:49He had reached the Bridge of Orca Hotel by which time it was quite late at night.
10:03The weather was adverse and he had stopped in there for a refreshment and a break.
10:06We got statements from them confirming that this guy had been in.
10:12It matters Tony's description.
10:15So we're pretty confident it was Tony that he'd been in.
10:18The staff in there actually had suggested he maybe should stay given the weather conditions.
10:22Tony was determined to continue the journey.
10:23The next place we would expect to see him was at Tyndrum Village.
10:25The CCTV they had didn't show Tony arriving.
10:27So that immediately gets us concerned because naturally he would come through Tyndrum coming down to 82.
10:33The fact he didn't appear on CCTV in Tyndrum made us start to look at that journey between Bridge of Orca and Tyndrum.
10:39What's happened to him between those two points and what could have happened to him?
10:41Somewhere on that stretch of road,
10:42CCTV they had didn't show Tony arriving, so that immediately gets us concerned because
10:48naturally he would come through Tyndrum, coming down to 82.
10:52The fact he didn't appear on CCTV in Tyndrum made us start to look at that journey between
10:58Brise of Orca and Tyndrum, what's happened to him between those two points and what could
11:02have happened to him.
11:04There's different stages to this story.
11:19The first part is a missing person and that is not unusual.
11:24People go missing in the Highlands a lot for many different reasons.
11:29Usually people are found pretty soon, but the longer that Tony Parsons stays missing,
11:39the questions begin to grow and change from where is he, what happened to him to why isn't
11:47he found.
11:51Between the Bridge of Orca Hotel where he was last seen and Tyndrum where he was heading
11:55towards, it's only a distance of about seven miles.
12:02Imagine a low, wide valley flanked by bare mountainsides that are scoured by rivulets.
12:16And in the middle you've got a road and you've got a railway line going through that pass.
12:24It's a busy route.
12:25Why has no one seen him?
12:29Isn't it strange that they haven't found a body, they haven't found a bike, they haven't
12:35found any trace of him?
12:39At the end of that week we'd pretty much exhausted all the physical searching we could do.
12:52There was nothing found at all that pertained to Tony or his property.
12:58It was a bizarre feeling, you know, at the end not finding him after all the search activity.
13:03He'd literally vanished.
13:05Mount and rescue teams are searching for a man who's been missing for more than a week
13:09after setting out on a cycling trip from Fort William to Tillicoutry.
13:1363 year old Tony Parsons was seen at the Bridge of Orca Hotel.
13:17He left that area and headed south.
13:21It came up in the news that a cyclist had disappeared and then we realised it was Tony.
13:26It was a hell of a shock.
13:29I got messages from other friends and former colleagues of Tony saying, is this our Tony?
13:34Is this Tony Parsons?
13:35This doesn't happen to somebody you know.
13:37Somebody disappears.
13:38It's just, it's unimaginable.
13:40One of the hardest things going through all of this was the fact that we are from a policing
13:48background.
13:49Being in the police, you know what comes next.
13:52I spent round about 13 years as a member of the police search team.
14:00So when it came to a week, there was a definite change in mindset.
14:07Because of the length of time that he would have been without water or without food.
14:12That became really difficult.
14:15My sister is obviously, she's a serving officer as well.
14:19So she was aware of where my mind was going.
14:23The main focus was, how is mum going to deal with this?
14:27How are we going to get her through?
14:29I kept thinking he would just walk in.
14:34He would just walk in.
14:36I didn't want to think about it being bad.
14:41He could come round that corner.
14:44I tried not to think about him not coming home.
14:49The resources were committed to that as long as he possibly could.
15:03You can't continue to commit resources endlessly to it.
15:06Because there's a new missing person every day.
15:08There's no evidence he had been a victim of criminality.
15:10There wasn't any evidence that he'd been struck by a car or a lorry or anything inside the road either.
15:13Because there was no debris.
15:15You do have to have that conversation with my family to say,
15:17the realistic chance is that we're not going to have the outcome that we all want,
15:22to find that person still alive.
15:24There was no sign of my dad.
15:29Therefore, he would be treated as a long-term missing person.
15:36We now know that he'll either walk through the door one day with a miraculous reason as to why he's not been in contact.
15:45Or he potentially could be found by a dog walker.
15:52These are the ones I like.
15:55Nice photos.
15:58I met Tony when I was working on Saturday Job on the Market.
16:05I got married at 17.
16:08Tony was in the Navy.
16:11I loved him in uniform.
16:13Honestly, you'd see him in uniform and you'd just light up.
16:18He was on submarines.
16:19So we moved up to Scotland.
16:22Because that's where he was based.
16:25I was very proud of Tony.
16:27Very proud of what he did.
16:32Powering through a Scottish lock, warming up for another patrol, dwarfing the men who run it,
16:37this is HMS Resolution, the oldest of Britain's four Polaris missile submarines.
16:43Tony and I, we were on two submarines together.
16:52This is the beach in Helmsborough.
16:57Up to the north is Fas Lane, the submarine base.
17:02The submarine, as they leave, will sail down here.
17:06Families would wave goodbye to the departed submarine.
17:09The submarine, we can go round the corner and head out down the clay to the open sea where it'll dive and head off on his patrol.
17:17We disappeared.
17:20We were both on the same submarine for quite a while.
17:35Tony was a great guy for me.
17:36He is single-minded at times.
17:39If he sets his mind to do something, he's going to do it by hook or by crook.
17:43But he's such a generous bloke.
17:45You'll get to see for anything from probably four to 16 weeks is the longest I did.
17:52And you've got to be able to get on with people.
17:54Action stations, action stations.
17:56He was a good guy.
17:57If Tony could do you a favour, he would do you a favour.
18:00Tony was away quite a bit.
18:02That was difficult.
18:04Because you were at home with children.
18:07You had to be mum and dad.
18:09Seeing him coming back from a tour with the submarine coming up the Clyde with the people on top of the Conning Tower waving.
18:16It was always something that I looked forward to.
18:19Then we'd have to come back to reality of knowing that the dad was going to go away again.
18:24When we'd go on patrol, your wife knew that you were gone and you'd be gone for two or three months or whatever.
18:34They knew you were probably in the Atlantic somewhere, but they knew we were coming home.
18:39But when Tony then disappeared on the bike ride, that was a completely different kettle of fish.
18:46Margaret would have no clue what was going on.
18:49He was due home the next day and he didn't come home.
18:54On the 29th of September 2017, father of two, Tony Parsons, set off from his home near Alloa in Scotland to take part in a charity bike ride.
19:11But he went missing and hasn't been seen since.
19:14This morning his family and police are appealing for your help to find him.
19:18Dukas Sinclair, Chief Inspector, you're leading this investigation.
19:21Tell us about what we last know about Tony's movements.
19:23Yes, on Friday the 29th of September 2017, Tony boarded a train in Alloa to Fort William.
19:30We then know that he was seen on CCTV passing a garage in Glencoe just after six o'clock the same evening.
19:36It was then about 20 past 11 that night that he entered a hotel on the bridge of Orkey where he stopped for a coffee before carrying on again southbound on the 82 on his journey towards Tindrum.
19:48That's the last confirmed sighting we have of Tony.
19:50And we're appealing for anyone who may have seen Tony, his clothing or his bright yellow bike after the bridge of Orkey to come forward.
20:04You have people that go missing short term, medium term and long term.
20:09Initially, you've got that emotion that, yeah, you want to find them.
20:14It then turns into disbelief.
20:17It's like, well, surely they're going to come back.
20:19They're not going to be away for so long.
20:21Then you turn to anger because it's like, where the hell are you?
20:26Why are you not home?
20:28What has happened?
20:34It is unusual. It's pretty unique.
20:37There aren't that many long term missing persons that we have going on.
20:40We're intrigued. We want to know what happened to people.
20:45So to have an unanswered mystery like this, we just want to know.
20:51We want to know for the family. We want to know ourselves. What happened to them?
20:54Once we've done everything we can in terms of the usual inquiries, it moves into an annual review phase.
21:01I did annual review in 2020. By this point, we've been missing for three years.
21:06We looked at everything. Because it's so remote, there was very few people that were there that might have seen him.
21:14It became a hope that one day, as part of the clearing of the woods on the sides of the road,
21:19that maybe we would get some answer for Tony's family.
21:24But as those woods were being cleared, we still weren't getting anything.
21:29I was more and more concerned that maybe he had been the victim of crime.
21:32One possible explanation was he's been struck by a vehicle travelling on the road on his bike between the Bridgewater Hotel and Tyne Drum.
21:41Because we haven't recovered the bike, because there's no obvious debris on the road between those points.
21:46But to look at, could somebody have taken him into a vehicle?
21:49He's been taken into a car, a van, a lorry that's hit him and moved from that point.
21:54One of the things we looked at was the CCTV from Glencoe.
22:02As cars were coming through Glencoe, the next thing we'd be picked up would be at Tyne Drum.
22:07We looked at every car that came through Glencoe to Tyne Drum, through that period that we knew Tony was cycling in that area,
22:13to see the time scale of them travelling between the two points.
22:19What we were looking for is any cars or lorries that were taking longer than they should have taken.
22:25Have they stopped? Have they hit him? Have they picked him up from the side of the road and then continued their journey?
22:32They didn't give us anything.
22:33We could see that the vehicles that did travel along that road were all travelling in the timeframe we'd expect.
22:42Without any other information that we had that was going to come forward, there was nothing else really for us to do.
22:47The three years we had a void, Tony Parsons disappears without a trace.
23:09Nothing.
23:10Loads of questions, unanswered.
23:19When he went missing, there was a feeling of strangeness.
23:25It's that mysterious thing about, where did he go?
23:33Where on earth could he have gone?
23:35People never give up hope of finding people in this part of the world.
23:44So it becomes part of local knowledge.
23:49You're aware that Tony Parsons is missing.
23:52So when you go a walk, or even if you are just stopping by the side of the road for five minutes,
23:57you're always thinking, is he here?
24:05There were lots of rumours from people in this part of the world about what had happened to him.
24:11One of the key parts of the investigation is the witnesses that have been spoken to initially, and what they told us at that time, and what they know now, has there been any change in that?
24:25So we review all the witness statements.
24:28One of the things they picked up on was a letter that had been received by the police shortly after the missing person report was received.
24:35It was anonymous.
24:37It was about twins from Tyne Drum that were repeatedly driving under influence of alcohol.
24:42It tends to the Bridge of Orkey Hotel the night that Tony went missing.
24:47We identified the twins, looked at, had they been spoken to at the time, and yes they have.
24:54They were known to be involved in deerstalking on that estate.
24:59There's a suggestion of taking clients back and forth between the Orca estate and the Bridge of Orkey Hotel, which would involve driving up and down that only road that connected those two locations, which also happens to be the road that Tony Parsons has been cycling on.
25:18I wanted to know more from them about where they were in the hotel.
25:23Did they see Tony that night?
25:27I took a decision to go and see them.
25:29And they were able to confirm that yes, they were in the Bridge of Orkey Hotel that night.
25:33Having done it with one of the stalking parties, and they were going out the next one to take them out stalking deer.
25:38So they recalled it, remembered that night, they'd left the hotel, and they were away early, because they were up early the next day.
25:46I didn't get a flavour from them at that point that they were holding something back.
25:52The letter's anonymous, so we can't go back to the source to say, well, how do you know this information, and how can we build on that?
26:01It doesn't put any light of suspicion on them. There was a lot of people in the hotel, so we can't say they had any direct involvement.
26:08And also, they had no clarity about whether Tony had been the victim of crime or not, so nobody was being approached as a suspect at that point.
26:15It comes back to people. People are critical. So witnesses, an eyewitness, or somebody can give you information you didn't know before.
26:25What the review does often do is prompt people to start coming forward.
26:29People who have maybe not spoken to us for their own reasons, they decide they want to come in and tell us the truth.
26:39Good morning. If there's police scope on, how can I help you?
26:47I wish to report information about a crime that happened three years ago in Bridge of Oki.
26:53They hit a lot. They spent a lot of dollars in their lives again.
26:58The man's there was Tony Parsons.
27:01It was a recent partner who disclosed it to me.
27:09And I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it.
27:18Right, and is there any reason why you've left it three years, ma'am?
27:22No, I've only just had a relationship with him. I've only heard about a week, two days ago.
27:26And do you believe that this man's genuine in what he was telling you?
27:29Absolutely.
27:33What's his name, please?
27:38Alex Bader McKellar. I'm his true brother. Bader McKellar.
27:45What's your name, please, ma'am?
27:47Dr. Carole into your head.
27:51And you're the fourth thing I'm up there?
27:54Yeah.
27:55Hello?
27:57Hello?
28:01Hello?
28:09Nothing to me, Parsons.
28:12It's on the BBC website.
28:15It's the biggest unsolved crime area.
28:18It was only 29 September 2017.
28:22There's a lot of mysteries unsolved deaths where people phone up and provide information to the police to suggest that they hold the key to solving it.
28:33And you know when you listen to it in the first instance that the person's not credible.
28:39But there's a lot of detail in that initial call that starts to make you think this one could actually be genuine.
28:48It's a brief call to make.
28:50That gives you an indication of what the person is potentially like as well because there's compassion there.
28:55And that you need to recover this body and the family need to be reunited with her loved one.
29:04From the moment Caroline first spoke to us and all the checks we did in relation to the information she was providing, the background of her, the background of Sandy and Robert, the location, all the information tends to tie up.
29:19We really need to speak to this person face to face very soon.
29:26I have worked on a lot of enquiries.
29:29This case sticks out because from start to finish there were so many twists and turns and so many complexities to it.
29:36It was a missing person enquiry that ran for three years.
29:39We had this information from a credible source but from one source and it was how we go about that.
29:43How do we do this?
29:45Is there a body up in the estate in Orkey?
29:47And if there is, how did it happen?
29:49What was the cause of death?
29:50Was it a murder?
29:53I got told I was going to speak to Caroline Muirhead and I was going to go take a statement from her.
29:58We got an agreement that she would come meet us at Dunbarton Police Office.
30:02I think I knew how important that statement would be.
30:07It was probably one of the most interesting and complex statements I've ever taken in my life.
30:17She was in leggings and big winter boots.
30:20Really, really pretty, athletic looking girl.
30:23She actually looked like something out of a, you know, a winter catalogue.
30:26And she just came up and she just started crying and then it was like, right, let's get you in and let's talk to you.
30:34Caroline's a pathologist and when I speak to her, she's upset but she is articulate, she speaks really well.
30:40Her ex-partner, Sandy McKellar, had told her that he and his brother Robert had been involved with a serious crime.
30:47Sandy and Robert were gamekeepers, deer stalkers. It's an estate working farm. Sandy and Robert live there.
30:57It gives an idea of the kind of life they had.
31:11They're just a couple of hard working kind of jack-o-lad type guys, aren't they?
31:16Shearing sheep.
31:18Somewhere up in the mountains, they were both into hunting.
31:21Totally different to the type of person routinely that, you know, we would encounter.
31:29Caroline and Sandy, I would never put the two of them together.
31:33You have Caroline who's from the city, from Glasgow, been to university.
31:38And then you had Sandy who was from a working farm environment, lived in an estate.
31:44It was a whirlwind relationship.
31:45I actually think that Caroline didn't just fall in love with Sandy, she fell in love with the Bridge of Worky.
32:00She loved the outdoors. It would take her shooting.
32:04Caroline had said that I had a bit of a realisation that I don't really know this guy too well.
32:13I would quite like to know if there's any skeletons in the closet, was how she described it,
32:17that are going to impact on our future together.
32:23They both have this discussion, well, if we're going to get engaged after such a short period of time,
32:27we need to know everything about each other, so let's tell each other our deepest, darkest secrets.
32:43Sandy tells her everything.
32:47He drives her onto the estate.
32:52She says he actually asks her for her phone.
32:55He drives her to somewhere really, really remote where nobody else can overhear them.
33:04She says she was a bit scared and she thought, what is he going to tell me here?
33:12She was thinking, well, there might be some child I don't know about,
33:15or some kind of addiction or financial issue.
33:18And then he says, the biggest secret I have, is that I've killed somebody.
33:28Me and my brother, you know, were drunk.
33:29We were in the Bridge of Warky Hotel.
33:30We left in the car I was driving.
33:31I was driving.
33:32I was driving.
33:33I was driving.
33:35I was driving.
34:06I was driving.
34:07We hit a cyclist.
34:08We didn't even see him.
34:09We stopped.
34:10We got out the car.
34:11He was in the lay-by at the side of the road.
34:12We panicked.
34:13We stopped, we got out of the car.
34:18He was in the lay-by at the side of the road.
34:26We panicked.
34:27We drove our truck back to the farm because it was accident-damaged.
34:32We then got the other truck and drove it back up.
34:40We put him in the back of the truck.
34:43And then we put him at the back of the house wrapped in the tarpaulin.
34:51We left him there till it was clear the next night and then we decided to go bury him.
35:06Sandy confesses everything to her.
35:08She leaves nothing out.
35:11He also implicates his brother.
35:15By telling Caroline everything and confessing that secret that probably him and his brother have agreed to take to the grave with them.
35:22He's putting his future and his brother's future in jeopardy.
35:25And his parents as well because they live in that state. That's all they know. Their jobs are there.
35:35He jeopardises his whole family to confess this secret to a girl he's known for four months.
35:41Caroline asked Sandy to show the exact spot he did. He pointed it out.
35:49And she left a red bull can.
35:53She said she deliberately dropped a red bull can at the point where Sandy said Tony was buried.
36:00And then she says these are going to have to move quick with us.
36:12And I said well why? The mood in the room changes.
36:16What came out of that conversation when he was showing her where the body was was telling her about the potential plans to remove the body from its location and dispose of it forever.
36:33What she says is Sandy says that he's really really worried about where he's buried the body.
36:46The area where Tony Parsons is buried is peaty.
36:50The body is preserved better in peat.
36:53There's potential work's going to be getting done close to that viaduct.
37:01Water company's been coming in and looking at it.
37:06On the 27th of December and what she's telling us is that Sandy's planning to dig the body up and burn it on the 31st.
37:14It's dark and she's scared and she's just trying to remain calm and trying to make him think that she's okay with what he's telling her.
37:24As Caroline's telling me this and I'm not in this statement, I believe every word she's telling me.
37:30I know Anthony Parsons is buried in that estate and that we need to get moving and we need to go get him.
37:35We need to act on this and we need to move it now.
37:37I got a phone call early in the morning just after Christmas saying that the police wanted to come out again.
37:59I was panicking and that's when they said that they were going to restart the case because they'd heard information.
38:10I'd spent three years coming to terms with the fact that my dad wasn't coming home.
38:20We weren't ever going to find him. We weren't going to get the answers.
38:23So I was at peace in myself that that was the way that it was going to be.
38:26And then all of a sudden one phone call flipped everything upside down.
38:38It was just after New Year. There was a buzz going around about the office that there was a potential for a missing person to be recovered in a remote area.
38:46We've got a spot, an actual spot up in the Highlands now and it was basically under everybody's nose throughout the whole three years that he'd been a missing person.
38:59We're police officers so rightly or wrongly when these type of inquiries come in we will get quite excited about them because we like puzzles, we like solving cases.
39:09We all knew this is going to be a big inquiry for us.
39:12We've got a warrant to go and take control of the Orca estate, search that for the remains of Tony Parsons and arrest Sandy and Robert to bring them in for initial questioning.
39:29There was obviously a whole host of work to be done within the Orca estate in terms of how the dig for that body would look and would progress.
39:37But on that day one when we executed the warrant we just had to get control.
39:40We found the twins and they were arrested and taken into custody and taken to Helen Street Police Office in Glasgow.
39:48They were suspects here.
39:57We had been given specific information that these two individuals had put the body there because they had unlawfully killed him on the A82 by running him over and deciding to dispose of the body.
40:11They need to be asked some questions to account for that. And that's what we did simultaneously to take control of the estate where they stayed.
40:18I think when I first encountered them they would have been 28-29. They weren't identical twins but they looked very, very, very similar to each other.
40:29Big strong staff and farmers I suppose to be honest with you is how they looked.
40:38They hadn't really had much previous experience with police. We had this you know suspicion might they just unburdened themselves, might they just talk to us.
40:46They're two boys from a small community that they know they're not criminal masterminds.
40:52We were thinking they're twins which is a really strange dynamic as well so you know part of that plan was let's interview them at the same time and let's see what they're saying and then let's see you know if we can use that in each interview.
41:03Caroline had given us the initial information that Robert and Sandy had collided with Tony and they had disposed of his body.
41:16We didn't have any further evidence at that point. We haven't yet started to try and locate the body.
41:23We've only got the story that Caroline's told us and we can't give information at that stage is going to put her in danger.
41:34So the questions they were asked were fairly limited. They were simply asked we have information that you are involved in the death of Tony Parsons and then seek a response in relation to that.
41:49The time is 1345 hours on Wednesday the 30th of December 2020.
42:02When you're bringing someone in for an interview they don't have a clue about what information you hold, who's told you, where it's came from, how much you know.
42:11You must be sitting in that interview thinking how did that end up here and how do they know so much.
42:16I was monitoring those interviews in Helen Street Police Office in Glasgow when they were taking place. They're both quite different in their demeanour.
42:26You've been arrested on suspicion of section 3 RTA 1988 and attempt to pervert the course of justice.
42:34Do you understand that, Robert?
42:35Do you understand that, Robert?
42:37OK, you're nodding your head. Does that mean that you do understand that, yeah?
42:41What's your name?
42:42Alexander Gardner.
42:43What's your age?
42:4429.
42:45Your current occupation?
42:46Well, self-employed.
42:47Sandy actually, I'd say personality-wise, he's a bit of charm about him.
42:51We've always thought that Sandy was the sort of one who was more in control, who would call the shots, who would influence what they were doing.
43:09What is it you do? Self-employed?
43:11Well, a farmer, anything to do with a farmer, really.
43:15OK.
43:16You can see here on the screen from the way Sandy is that his body language is quite open.
43:20You can see that open arms, open shoulders, there's a confidence and arrogance to him.
43:24Telling us what he does, he's answering questions about his cell.
43:28Right, you're going to be asked questions about your involvement in offences under Section 3A of the Road Traffic Act 1988.
43:35That is causing the death of another, using a vehicle whilst unfit through drink or drugs, and an attempt to pervert the course of justice.
43:43You're not bound to answer, but if you do, your answers will be recorded, maybe noted, and maybe used in evidence.
43:49Do you understand that?
43:50Yep.
43:51What does that mean to you?
43:53Well, I've given a statement to the CID already regarding this, so all of my further answers will be no comments.
44:04OK.
44:05Just so you know.
44:06Right, I understand that.
44:07OK, Sandy.
44:08Would you be able to tell me what your hobbies are?
44:11No comment.
44:12Hunt time.
44:13What do you do to relax?
44:14No comment.
44:16Do you have time to relax?
44:19No comment.
44:20Do you find yourself quite a busy person?
44:22No comment.
44:23What kind of person would you describe yourself as?
44:26No comment.
44:27Would you describe yourself as an honest person?
44:29No comment.
44:31Would you consider yourself as a reliable person?
44:34No comment.
44:36It's only when his interview progresses and the questions start getting a lot more difficult and a lot more into detail that you see he starts to get a bit more closed off.
44:45What can you tell me about your involvement, if any, in the disappearance of Anthony Parsons who went missing on the 29th of September 2017?
44:54No comment.
44:55No comment.
44:56Have you ever been involved in a road accident involving a cyclist?
45:00No comment.
45:01Have you ever been involved in a crime and tried to cover it up?
45:03No comment.
45:04No comment.
45:05Can you tell me what you were doing on Friday the 29th of September 2017?
45:14No comment.
45:15No comment.
45:16No comment.
45:17He's definitely getting more uncomfortable as the interview moves on.
45:20The interviewer is actually starting to ask him really specific questions about what happened to Tony on the night.
45:26Did you see Anthony Parsons at all?
45:28No comment.
45:29Were you the last person to see in my life?
45:32No comment.
45:33Did you strike Anthony Parsons with your motor vehicle?
45:36No comment.
45:37Yeah.
45:38And he's presented with the image of Tony here.
45:43That.
45:44And then you can see that change in his full attitude and his demeanour.
45:49It's Anthony Parsons.
45:54It's not to nice.
45:56That's him.
45:57That was him when he was alive.
46:02What happened to him?
46:08Where is he?
46:13Was it an accident?
46:15He's a lot more closed off.
46:17His arms are folded in and he's getting really, really uncomfortable there about what he's been asked.
46:21It's a very serious matter we're investigating.
46:24Parsons was a good man with a family who went missing in a charity cycle.
46:31His family don't know where he is.
46:34His family have never seen him again, never heard from him again.
46:37His family still await answers.
46:40What's your relationship like with your brother Sandy?
46:44We always thought Robert was a wee bit more submissive.
46:49Would you describe it as a good relationship?
46:52We actually did think initially going into the interviews that Robert might be the easier one to crack or the easier one to get the truth out of.
47:00As you can see, he didn't really say anything at all.
47:03Have you ever been involved in a crime and tried to cover it up?
47:10He's picked a fixed spot elsewhere in the room and focuses solely on that throughout the whole of that interview.
47:17Do you know what Anthony Parsons is?
47:20He's not even sitting square to the interview. He sits side on and it's just a total feeling of I'm not engaging with you at all.
47:32I just think it's marks of arrogance in terms of what's been asked of him, the magnitude of what's about to potentially happen in their life here.
47:40Robert, I'm bringing this interview to a conclusion but the investigation is far from over.
47:49We knew from the get-go that we weren't going to charge them that day and we knew that they were going to be released pending further inquiry.
47:55I think we were a little disappointed that we didn't get a bit more out the interviews to be honest with you because we did think that they would at least give us a bit more.
48:04I'm happy with that.
48:06Right.
48:07Ultimately, I'm going to stop the interview.
48:08OK.
48:09They would be advised that a police investigation is ongoing and you still remain under suspicion.
48:16The end of this interview is 14.37 hours.
48:20I think they'll be walking out of that police station where a lot of things are going through their mind.
48:24The two of them must clearly be thinking that this is not the end for us.
48:29But at this point, we don't have a body. We don't have a cause of death.
48:39We weren't allowed to return to the farm until we had finished the work we were going to do.
48:54You've just got to follow the facts. You follow the facts and get the evidence.
49:00She said, I've been up here. This is the location. This is the estate. I dropped a can of Red Bull. This is what's happened three years previously.
49:09We were able to check. Yeah, there's a missing persons report. That missing person's never been recovered.
49:14Yeah, there's an estate there. Yeah, there's actually two people now being named who have been part of the inquiry, part of the missing person inquiry.
49:21So, yeah, the credibility was all there.
49:31The majority of our work is city-based. It's based in Glasgow.
49:36So, you're working in high-rises, you're working in the States. This was an alien environment to work in. An alien environment for most of the inquiry team.
49:46You don't expect a crime like this to occur up in the Highlands. We're talking something here that's pretty unique.
49:54In most circumstances, when investigating a murder in a private place, it's a house. Getting a warrant to then seize and search a house is fairly simple.
50:09Getting a warrant to seize and search an estate in the Highlands. We've got to secure a vast, vast area.
50:19How do you get control of something that big? What does that look like? Where do we even start?
50:26We're heading up to Tyndrum and then the road that takes you up into the gateway to the Highlands.
50:31It's a stunning day just now. When we came up here, this was snow and ice, sub-zero temperatures.
50:40We were sent up in the 4x4s some mornings beforehand to make sure the rest of the crews could get through because of the snow on this road.
50:47Make sure the snow gates were open.
50:48This next bit of the journey as you continue up the 82 towards Fort William, up round the corner up here and it just opens up, up round the front of you.
51:01It still gets me to this day as well, but how small you feel here. This area is huge.
51:17You stand down at the bottom of these glens down here and you're doing nothing but craning your head to look up.
51:22You're just surrounded on either side by mountains.
51:31Personally, for myself, it's tainted, but the beauty of it and the fact that this is where Tony spent his final journey cycling down here is quite a surreal place to be.
51:44This is the state just as we come round the corner here. What you're seeing ahead of is in there. That's all part of the Ochie state. This is all part of what we basically had as part of our warrant for the state.
52:00There's a lot of memories coming back just standing here looking at it.
52:19When we got here, we had the warrant in place and the only people that were allowed in the entrance to that estate were estate workers with permission and police.
52:32We're talking a rural Lower Highland estate with massive glens, lochs, valleys, fields. There was a massive mountain behind the main estate.
52:49There was only one main access road into the estate, so it was easy enough to control entry from the A82 into the estate, but also within the estate itself, there were a number of dwellings, so you've got to control all of them.
53:10There was just so many different elements to consider and challenges that, you know, it's unlike anything I've ever heard of in my service.
53:19It was just as you would expect of a general farm. It was the initial farmhouse.
53:43You went by the estate gardens, estate buildings.
53:46And then you continued out by the river, by some old Derlick cottages.
53:48You had to drive through a river.
53:53Up the other side of the banking.
53:54And that led you up to the viaduct.
54:00When I say breathtaking, it was just silenced and beautiful.
54:07This open ground would be almost impossible to find a body here unless you knew exactly where it was.
54:20Caroline had said Sandy gave her quite specific detail as to where the body was buried.
54:27And she dropped a can of Red Bull, which she'd been drinking from, and stamped it into the ground.
54:32That was effectively her marking the spot so that she could give the police a direction as to exactly where the body would be found.
54:37Without that information, it came to sus searching and a needle in a haystack.
54:44You very rarely get somebody coming forward with as much direct information as that and say, I know that something's gone wrong here and I'm here to report it.
54:51We actually went up to the spot, and yeah, there was a can of Red Bull lying there marking that spot.
55:21It was quite a moment.
55:29It's a once in a career to be involved in something like that.
55:33We're actually going to get this family some answers here.
55:36If you were to tell this story to anybody who doesn't work in our field of work, you would probably think,
55:53well, he's told his girlfriend that this is where the body is, that's enough.
55:57We can't just jump to the conclusion, that must be true.
56:01We've got a story, but we don't have a case.
56:03It's difficult to imagine the agony that the family went through in not knowing where Mr Parsons was and what happened to him.
56:12That just compounded as time went on.
56:17You're looking for somebody's loved one, and they are relying on you for answers.
56:22It's a very heavy burden to carry.
56:26The location was remote.
56:29If someone was trying to dispose of a body, you could be there and no one would see you.
56:37Everything has seemed so surreal.
56:40It's like a story that's going on. You're just part of a story.
56:44Suddenly you get that bad telephone call.
56:48You're now going to be asked questions about your involvement in the murder of Anthony Parsons and attempting to defeat the course of justice.
56:54Do you understand?
56:55I do, yes.
56:56Do you genuinely have no remorse that you killed a man and buried him, leaving his family without any idea who he was for three years?
57:02No comment.
57:03No comment.
57:04This case has been different in every single hour of every single day I've worked on it.
57:09Right to the end.
57:10Forward.
57:13Caroline was the key to this in terms of she was the one who uncovered all of this story through the course of her relationship with Sandy.
57:21Caroline had been cited to attend and she hadn't turned up.
57:29?
57:37?
57:39?
57:48?
57:52?
57:54?
57:57You
Recommended
58:17
|
Up next
46:48
29:03
42:45
57:30
1:08:45
1:06:15
1:22:30
1:12:02
1:14:33
1:37:39
3:24:52
2:18:25
1:34:10
50:32
1:36:08
2:13:17
1:11:21
1:59:51
40:49
1:12:00
15:18
21:33
1:29:11
3:24:52
Be the first to comment