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00:16It 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.
00:31Everything you could think of was extensively searched and there was not a single trace of Tony Parsons or the
00:37bike, any of his possessions, nothing.
00:41Initially, 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
00:54happened?
00:56There was an image that I'll never forget, an image of him on his bike, and it was the last
00:59sighting of him, just near to a petrol station, and then he was never seen again.
01:04It was as if Tony Parsons had just disappeared off the face of the earth.
01:09You 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.
01:22So 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?
01:31...flipped everything upside down.
01:34It was quite a moment.
01:37We're actually going to get this family some answers here.
01:40Lord!
01:41My Lord, this case commenced as a missing person inquiry before evolving into an investigation.
01:49It seemed to me that an argument could be made out for murder.
02:20We played rugby together.
02:22He also coached kids rugby.
02:24He refereed.
02:26He was quite a stubborn fellow, but generally just a nice guy.
02:30I knew he'd had the 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.
02:40So, we're all getting some cash to go towards this chatty thing.
02:45He 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.
02:50So, I bribed my way out of it.
02:52I said, if you do that ride, I'll give you some money towards your charity.
03:13I was nervous about him going out.
03:16As a family, we'd all voiced our concerns.
03:20But he had raised money, so 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, he was going
03:34to do it.
03:35Once he'd started it, he was going to finish it.
03:41He got up to Fort William where he got off the train.
03:50And then started the bike ride.
04:00When my dad left on the Friday, I didn't have any contact with him.
04:05But that's not unusual.
04:10On the Saturday, he hadn't phoned in or checked in with anybody.
04:16The phone went straight to answer the machine.
04:21I got a message from my sister telling me that he hadn't been in contact.
04:28My sister and my mum and I had the conversation as to what my dad's exact plans were.
04:35It 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'd 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.
05:02On 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.
05:19And I went, this must be bad.
05:22For her to do it, it must be bad.
05:39Tony was deemed as a high-risk missing person right from the word go.
05:45We 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.
06:02Could have taken on well and either sought shelter or pulled in inside the road somewhere
06:08and not been able to seek assistance or help.
06:12The terrain that we were looking at was very mixed.
06:17It's mountainous, rivers, moorland.
06:23Could have been hit by a car or a lorry.
06:27If he'd been involved in a collision with a car or he'd come off his bike,
06:31he'd expect to find some damaged parts of the bike or some clothing.
06:35We weren't getting anything.
06:37It 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.
06:52The 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.
07:19I kind of said, well, hey, 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.
07:38To 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
07:50and you've got no answers to answer any of them.
08:03We understood from Tony's family that he had got the train with his bike up to Fort William.
08:09His intention was to cycle down the A82 back towards Stirling direction.
08:16When 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.
08:40Because we knew to start the cycle in Fort William, we went up there first and got CCTV from the
08:44train 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 Balahulish and down into Glencoe village.
08:59We're really looking for checkpoints then along that route to try and confirm that that was where he went.
09:04And it's quite an exposed and uninhabited area, this.
09:07So in terms of trying to get some evidence of his route from CCTV, etc., it's very difficult.
09:15The next piece of CCTV that we established was at this petrol station.
09:27That was able to confirm for us that he had actually continued on his intended route.
09:33But 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
09:49of Orca Hotel.
09:57He 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.
10:08We got statements from them confirming that this guy had been in.
10:12That 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.
10:24But Tony was determined to continue the journey.
10:34The next place we would expect to see him was at Tyndrum Village.
10:43CCTV they had didn't show Tony arriving.
10:45So that immediately gets us concerned because naturally 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 Bridge of
10:58Orca and Tyndrum.
10:59What's happened to him between those two points and what could have happened to him.
11:05Somewhere on that stretch of road.
11:08Tony passes and vanished off the face of the earth.
11:16There's different stages to this story.
11:19The first part is a missing person and that is not unusual.
11:23People 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 the questions begin to grow and
11:41change.
11:43From where is he what happened to him to why isn't he found.
11:50Between the Bridge of Orca Hotel where he was last seen and Tyndrum where he was heading towards.
11:56It's only a distance of about seven miles.
12:02Imagine a low wide valley flanked by bare mountain sides that are scoured by rivulets.
12:15And 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.
12:27Why has no one seen him?
12:31Isn't it strange that they haven't found a body?
12:34They haven't found a bike.
12:35They haven't found any trace of him.
12:47At 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.
12:57It was a bizarre feeling, you know, at the end not finding him after all the search activity.
13:03He had literally vanished.
13:05Mountain rescue teams are searching for a man who's been missing for more than a week after setting out on
13:10a cycling trip from Fort William to Tillacoutree.
13:1263-year-old Tony Parsons was seen at the Bridge of Orchie Hotel.
13:17He left that area and headed south.
13:20It 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,
13:33Is this our Tony? Is this Tony Parsons?
13:35This doesn't happen to somebody you know.
13:37Somebody disappears.
13:38It's just, it's unimaginable.
13:43One of the hardest things going through all of this was the fact that we are from a policing background.
13:50Being in the police, you know what comes next.
13:55I 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.
14:24The main focus was, how is mum going to deal with this?
14:27How are we going to get her through?
14:31I kept thinking he would just walk in.
14:34He would just walk in.
14:36I didn't want to think about it being bad.
14:42He could come round that corner.
14:44I tried not to think about him not coming up.
15:00The resources were committed to that as long as he possibly could.
15:03You can't continue to commit resources endlessly to it because there's a new missing person every day.
15:08There's no evidence that 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 on the side of
15:13the road either because there was no debris.
15:15You do have to have that conversation with my family to say the realistic chance is that we're not going
15:20to have the outcome that we all want to find that person still alive.
15:27There was no sign of my dad, therefore 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
15:44not been in contact or he potentially could be found by a dog walker.
15:52These are the ones I like.
15:56Nice 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.
16:17He was on submarines, so we moved up to Scotland because that's where he was based.
16:24I 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, this is HMS Resolution,
16:39the oldest of Britain's four Pilaris missile submarines.
16:49Tony and I, we were on two submarines together.
16:56This is the beach in Helmsborough.
16:58Up to the north is Fas Lane, the submarine base.
17:03The submarine, as they leave, will sail down here.
17:07Families would wave goodbye to the departing submarine.
17:11The submarine can go round the corner and head out down the cloud to the open sea where he'll dive
17:15and head off on his patrol.
17:24We disappeared.
17:32We were both on the same submarine for quite a while.
17:35Tony was a great guy for me.
17:37He 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.
17:47You'll get to see for anything from probably four to 16 weeks is the longest I did.
17:51And you've got to be able to get on with people.
17:54Action stations, action stations.
17:56He was a good guy. If 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, you had to be mum and dad.
18:10Seeing him coming back from a tour with the submarine coming up the Clyde with the people on top of
18:15the Conning Tower waving.
18:16It was always something that I looked forward to.
18:20Then we'd have to come back to reality of knowing that the dad was going to go away again.
18:28When we'd go on patrol, your wife knew that you were gone and you'd be gone for two or three
18:33months or whatever.
18:35They knew you were probably in the Atlantic somewhere, but they knew we were coming home.
18:40But 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.
19:02On the 29th of September 2017, father of two, Tony Parsons, set off from his home near Alloa in Scotland
19:08to 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.
19:17Duke and Sinclair, Chief Inspector, you're leading this investigation.
19:20Tell 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.
19:29We then know that he was seen on CCTV passing a garage in Glencoe just after six o'clock the
19:35same evening.
19:36It was then about 20 past 11 that night that he entered a hotel on the bridge of Orkey where
19:42he 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 and we're appealing for anyone who may have seen Tony, his
19:53clothing 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.
20:10Initially, you've got that emotion that, yeah, you want to find them.
20:13It then turns into disbelief. It's like, well, surely they're going to come back. They're not going to be away
20:20for so long.
20:21Then you turn to anger because it's like, where the hell are you? Why are you not home? What has
20:28happened?
20:34It is unusual. It's pretty unique. There aren't that many long term missing persons that we have going on.
20:42We're intrigued. We want to know what happened to people.
20:45So to have an unanswered mystery like this, we just want to know, we want to know for the family,
20:52we want to know ourselves what happened to them.
20:56Once we've done everything we can in terms of the usual inquiries, it moves into an annual review phase.
21:02I did the annual review in 2020. By this point, he's been missing for three years.
21:07And we looked at everything. Because it's so remote, there was very few people that were there that might have
21:12seen him.
21:14It became a hope that one day, as part of the clearing of the woods on the sides of the
21:19road, that 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.
21:34One possible explanation was he's been struck by a vehicle travelling on the road on his bike between the Bridge
21:39of Oracle Hotel and Tyne Drum.
21:41It's because we haven't recovered the bike, because there's no obvious debris on the road between those points.
21:46We had to look at, could somebody have taken him into a vehicle?
21:50It's been taken into a car, a van, a lorry that's hit him and moved from that point.
21:58One of the things we looked at was the CCTV from Glencoe.
22:03As cars were going through Glencoe, the next thing we picked up would be at Tyne Drum.
22:09We looked at every car that came through Glencoe to Tyne Drum, through that period that we knew Tony was
22:15cycling that area, to see the time scale of them travelling between the two points.
22:20What we were looking for was any cars or lorries that were taking longer than they should have taken.
22:26Have they stopped? Have they hit him? Have they picked him up from the side of the road and then
22:31continued their journey?
22:33They didn't give us anything.
22:35We could see that the vehicles that did travel along that road were all travelling in the timeframe we'd expect.
22:43Without any other information that we had that was going to come forward, there was nothing else really for us
22:47to do.
23:00For three years we had a void, Tony Parsons disappears without a trace.
23:09Nothing.
23:13Loads of questions, unanswered.
23:18When he went missing there was a feeling of strangeness.
23:25It's that mysterious thing about, where did he go?
23:32Where on earth could he have gone?
23:38People never give up hope of finding people in this part of the world.
23:43So it becomes part of local knowledge.
23:48You'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
23:57five minutes, you'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.
24:16One of the key parts of the investigation is the witnesses that have been spoken to initially, and what they
24:21told us at that time, and what they know now, has there been any change in that?
24:26So we review all the witness statements.
24:29One of the things we picked up on was a letter that had been received by the police shortly after
24:33the missing person report was received.
24:35It was anonymous.
24:37It was about twins from Tyne Drum that were repeatedly driving under the influence of alcohol.
24:44Tens to the Bridge of Orchie Hotel the night that Tony went missing.
24:49We identified the twins, looked at had they been spoken to at the time, and yes they have.
24:56They were known to be involved in deer stalking on that estate.
25:00There's a suggestion of taking clients back and forth between the Orch Estate and the Bridge of Orchie Hotel,
25:07which would involve driving up and down that only road that connected those two locations,
25:13which 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, and they were able to confirm that yes,
25:30they were in the Bridge of Orchie Hotel that night.
25:33Having dinner with one of the stalking parties, and they were going out the next morning to take them out
25:36stalking deer.
25:38So they recalled it, remember that night, they'd left the hotel, and they were away early,
25:43because they were up early the next day.
25:47I didn't get a flavour from them at that point that they were holding something back.
25:55The letters are anonymous, so we can't go back to the source to say,
25:57well, how do you know this information, and how can we build on that?
26:01It doesn't put any light of suspicion on them.
26:04There 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 a crime or not,
26:13so nobody was being approached as a suspect at that point.
26:18It comes back to people. People are critical.
26:21So witnesses, an eyewitness, or somebody that can give you information you didn't know before.
26:26What the review does often do is prompt people to start coming forward.
26:32People have maybe not spoken to us for their own reasons.
26:35They decide they want to come in and tell us the truth.
26:44Good morning. If there's police scope on time, can I help you?
26:47I used to report information about a crime that happened three years ago in Bridge of Oakley.
27:18Right, and is there any reason why you've left it three years, ma'am?
27:21Well, I've only just had a relationship with this man. I'm only for about a week, two days ago.
27:26And do you believe that this man's genuine in what he was telling you?
27:30Absolutely.
27:33What's his name, please?
27:46What's your name, please, ma'am?
27:48What's your name, please, ma'am?
27:56What's your name, ma'am?
28:01Hello?
28:22There's a lot of Mysteries Unsolved Deaths
28:25where people phone up and provide information to the police
28:29to suggest that they hold the key to solving it.
28:33And you know when you listen to it in the first instance
28:36that the person's not credible.
28:40But there's a lot of detail in that initial call
28:43that starts to make you think
28:44this one could actually be genuine.
28:48It's a brief call to make.
28:50That gives you an indication
28:51of what the person is potentially like as well
28:54because there's compassion there
28:55and that you need to recover this body
28:59and the family need to be reunited with her loved one.
29:04From the moment Caroline first spoke to us
29:07and all the checks we did in relation to the information
29:10she was providing, the background of her,
29:13the background of Sandy and Robert, the location,
29:17all 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
29:32there were so many twists and turns and so many complexities to it.
29:36It was a missing person enquiry that had ran for three years.
29:39We had this information from a credible source
29:41but from one source and it was how we go about that,
29:44how do we do this, is there a body up in the state in Orkey?
29:47And if there is, how did it happen?
29:49What was the cause of death? Was it a murder?
29:53I got told I was going to speak to Caroline Muirhead
29:55and I was going to go take a statement from her.
29:59We got an agreement that she would come meet us
30:01at Dunbarton Police Office.
30:04I think I knew how important that statement would be
30:07because it was probably one of the most interesting
30:10and 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 winter catalogue
30:26and she just came up and she just started crying
30:28and then it was like, right, let's get you in
30:30and let's talk to you.
30:34Caroline's a pathologist and when I speak to her,
30:37she's upset but she is articulate, she speaks really well.
30:41Her ex-partner, Sandy McKellar, had told her
30:44that he and his brother Robert had been involved
30:46with a serious crime.
30:50Sandy and Robert were gamekeepers, deerstalkers.
30:53It's an estate working farm.
30:56Sandy and Robert live there.
31:08It just gives an idea of the kind of life they had.
31:12They're just a couple of hard-working,
31:13kind of jack-o-lad type guys, aren't they?
31:16Shearing sheep.
31:18Somewhere up in the mountains,
31:20they were both into hunting.
31:22Totally different to the type of person, routinely,
31:25that, you know, we would encounter.
31:30Caroline and Sandy, I would never put the two of them together.
31:34You have Caroline, who's from the city, from Glasgow,
31:37been to university.
31:39And then you had Sandy,
31:41who was from a working farm environment,
31:44lived in an estate.
31:48It was a whirlwind relationship.
31:55I actually think that Caroline didn't just fall in love with Sandy,
31:59she fell in love with the Bridge of Worky.
32:01She loved the outdoors, who would take her shooting.
32:09Caroline had said, I had a bit of a realisation that I don't really know this guy too well.
32:14I would quite like to know if there's any skeletons in the closet,
32:16was how she described it, that 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,
32:28we need to know everything about each other,
32:29so let's tell each other our deepest, darkest secrets.
32:43Sandy tells her everything.
32:46He drives her onto the estate.
32:52She says he actually asked her for her phone.
32:56Drives her to somewhere really, really remote,
32:59where nobody else can overhear them.
33:04She says she was a bit scared and she thought,
33:07what 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.
33:22And then he says, the biggest secret I have
33:27is that I've killed somebody.
33:35I mean, my brother and Robert were drunk.
33:38We were on the Bridge of Warkie Hotel.
33:41We left in the car, I was driving.
34:07We had a cyclist.
34:10We didn't even see him.
34:14We stopped, we got out of the car.
34:18He was in the lay-by at the side of the road.
34:26We panicked, we 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.
34:47And then we put him at the back of the house wrapped in the tarpaulin.
34:52We left him there till it was clear the next night,
34:54and then we decided to go bury him.
35:07Sandy confesses everything to her.
35:09He leaves nothing out.
35:12He also implicates his brother.
35:15By telling Caroline everything and confessing that secret that probably him and his brother
35:19have agreed to take to the grave with them,
35:22he's putting his future and his brother's future in jeopardy.
35:27And his parents as well, because they live in that state, that's all they know.
35:31Their jobs are there.
35:35He jeopardises his whole family to confess this secret to a girl he's known for four months.
35:45Caroline asked Sandy to show the exact spot he did.
35:48He pointed it out.
35:52And she left a red bull can.
35:55She said she deliberately dropped a red bull can at the point where Sandy said
36:00Tony was buried.
36:09And then she says,
36:10these are going to have to move quick with us.
36:13And I said, well, why?
36:15The mood in the room changes.
36:21What came out of that conversation when he was showing her where the body was,
36:26was telling her about the potential plans to remove the body from its location and dispose of it forever.
36:36What she says is, Sandy says that he's really, really worried about where he's buried the body.
36:47The area where Tony Parsons is buried is peaty.
36:52Bodies preserved better in peat.
36:57This potential work's going to be getting done close to that viaduct.
37:02Water company's been coming in and looking at it.
37:06We're on the 27th of December and what she's telling us is that Sandy's planning to dig the body up
37:12and burn it on the 31st.
37:16It's dark and she's scared and she's just trying to remain calm and trying to make him think that
37:21she's okay with what he's telling her.
37:24As Caroline's telling me this and I'm not in this statement,
37:27I 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
37:34go get him.
37:35We need to act on this and we need to move it now.
37:52I got a phone call early in the morning just after Christmas
37:57saying that the police wanted to come out again.
38:01I was panicking and that's when they said that they were going to restart.
38:08Case because they'd hurt information.
38:14I'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.
38:21We 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.
38:27And then all of a sudden one phone call flipped everything upside down.
38:38It was just after New Year and there was a buzz going around about the office that there was
38:42a potential for a missing person to be recovered in a remote area.
38:47We've got a spot, an actual spot up in the Highlands now.
38:52And 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
39:03we will get quite excited about them because we like puzzles, we like solving cases.
39:10We all knew this is going to be a big inquiry for us.
39:16We've got a warrant to go and take control of the Orca estate.
39:21Search that for the remains of Tony Parsons.
39:25And arrest Sandy and Robert to bring them in for initial questioning.
39:30There was obviously a whole host of work to be done within the Orca estate in terms of how
39:34the 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.
39:41We found the twins and they were arrested and taken into custody
39:46and taken to Helen Street Police Office in Glasgow.
39:56They were suspects here.
39:59We had been given specific information that these two individuals had put the body there
40:04because they had unlawfully killed him on the A82 by running him over
40:10and deciding to dispose of the body.
40:12They need to be asked some questions to account for that.
40:14And that's what we did simultaneously to taking control of the estate where they stayed.
40:21I think when I first encountered them they would have been 28, 29.
40:25They weren't identical twins but they looked very, very, very similar to each other.
40:31Big strong strapping farmers I suppose to be honest with you is how they looked.
40:38We hadn't really had much previous experience with police.
40:42We had this, you know, suspicion might they just unburdened themselves, might they just talk to each.
40:48They're two boys from a small community, you know, they're not criminal masterminds.
40:52We were thinking they're twins which is a really strange dynamic as well.
40:56So, you know, part of that plan was let's interview them at the same time and let's see what they're
41:00saying
41:00and then let's see, you know, if we can use that in each interview.
41:07Caroline had given us the initial information that Robert and Sandy had collided with Tony
41:13and they had disposed of his body.
41:15We didn't have any further evidence at that point.
41:19We haven't yet started to try and locate the body.
41:25We've only got the story that Caroline's told us and we can't give information at that stage
41:32is going to put her in danger.
41:35So the questions they were asked were fairly limited.
41:38They were simply asked, we have information that you are involved in the death of Tony Parsons
41:46and then seek a response in relation to that.
41:52The time is 13.45 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,
42:07who's told you, where it's came from, how much you know.
42:12You must be sitting in that interview thinking, how did that end up here and how do they know so
42:17much?
42:19I was monitoring those interviews in Helen Street Police Office in Glasgow when they were taking place.
42:24They're both quite different in their demeanour.
42:27You've been arrested on suspicion of Section 3 RTA 1988 and attempt to pervert the course of justice.
42:36Do you understand that, Robert?
42:40OK, you're nodding your head, does that mean that you do understand that, yeah?
42:46What's your name?
42:46Alexander Gardner McCarran.
42:49What's your age?
42:5129.
42:53Your current occupation?
42:54Well, self-employed.
42:56Sandy, actually, I'd say personality-wise, he's a bit of charm about him.
43:01That's a proper alpha.
43:02We've always thought that Sandy was the sort of one who was more in control,
43:06who would call the shots, who would influence what they were doing.
43:10What is it you do?
43:11Self-employed?
43:12A farmer.
43:14I don't have 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.
43:21You can see that open arms, open shoulders, there's a confidence and arrogance to him.
43:25He's telling us what he does.
43:27He's answering questions about his cell.
43:30You're going to be asked questions about your involvement in offences under Section 3A of
43:34the Road Traffic Act 1988.
43:35That is causing the death of another using a vehicle whilst unfit through drink or drugs
43:41under an attempt to pervert the course of justice.
43:44You're not bound to answer, but if you do, your answers will be recorded,
43:47maybe noted, and maybe used in evidence.
43:49Do you understand that?
43:50Yep.
43:52What does that mean to you?
43:55Well, I've given a statement to the CID already regarding this,
44:00so all of my further answers will be no comments.
44:04OK.
44:04Just so you know.
44:05Right, I understand that.
44:07OK, Sandy, would you be able to tell me what your hobbies are?
44:11No comment.
44:12Hunt time.
44:13What do you do to relax?
44:15No comment.
44:17Do you have time to relax?
44:19No comment.
44:20Do you find yourself quite a busy person?
44:22No comment.
44:24What kind of person would you describe yourself as?
44:26No comment.
44:27Would you describe yourself as an honest person?
44:30No comment.
44:32Would 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
44:40difficult and a lot more into detail but 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
44:50who went missing on the 29th of September 2017?
44:55So, no comment, yeah.
44:59Have you ever been involved in a road accident involving a cyclist?
45:03No comment.
45:04Have you ever been involved in a crime and tried to cover it up?
45:07No comment.
45:09Can you tell me what you were doing on Friday the 29th of September 2017?
45:15No comment.
45:16He'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
45:25Tony 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.
45:34Did you strike Anthony Parsons with your motor vehicle?
45:36No comment, yeah.
45:37And he's presented with the image of Tony here.
45:43That.
45:45And then you can see that change in his full attitude and his demeanour.
45:49This is Anthony Parsons.
45:53It's not nice.
45:56That's him.
45:57That was him when he was alive.
46:05What happened to him?
46:08Where is he?
46:13Was it an accident?
46:15He's a lot more closed off.
46:17His arms are hauled in and he's getting really, really uncomfortable there about what he's been asked.
46:21It's a very serious matter of investigating.
46:24Parsons was a good man with a family who went missing in a charity cycle.
46:32His 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.
46:41What's your relationship like with your brother Sandy?
46:46We always thought Robert was a wee bit more submissive.
46:49Would you describe it as a good relationship?
46:52And we actually did think initially going into the interviews that
46:56Robert 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.
47:04Have 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
47:17of that interview.
47:18Do you know where Anthony Parsons is?
47:24He's not even sitting square to the interview, he sits side on and it's just a total feeling of
47:30I'm not engaging with you at all.
47:33I just think it's marks of arrogance in terms of what's been asked of him,
47:37the 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
47:52and we knew that they were going to be released pending further inquiry.
47:56I think we were a little disappointed that we didn't get a bit more out the interviews,
48:00to be honest with you, because we did think that they would at least give us a bit more.
48:04Are you happy with that?
48:07All time, I'm going to stop the interview.
48:09Okay.
48:10They would be advised that a police investigation is ongoing,
48:14you 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 going through their mind.
48:25The two of them must clearly be thinking that this is not the end for us.
48:31But at this point, we don't have a body. We don't have a cause of death.
48:40We 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.
49:05I 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.
49:12That missing person's never been recovered. Yeah, there's an estate there.
49:16Yeah, there's actually two people now being named who have been part of the inquiry,
49:20part of the missing person inquiry.
49:21So, yeah, the credibility was all there.
49:31The majority of our work is city-based.
49:35It's based in Glasgow.
49:36So you're working in the high-rises, you're working in the estates.
49:41This 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 Highlands.
49:51But we're talking something here that's pretty unique.
49:59In most circumstances, when investigating a murder in a private place,
50:04it'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.
50:14We've got to secure a vast, vast area.
50:19How do you get control of something that big?
50:21What 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.
50:33It's a stunning day just now. When we came up here, this was snow and ice,
50:38sub-zero temperatures. We were sent up in the 4x4s some mornings beforehand to make sure
50:44the rest of the crews could get through because of the snow on this road.
50:47To make sure the snow gates were open.
50:53This next bit of the journey, as you continue up the 82 towards Fort William,
50:57I'm up around the corner up here and it just opens up, up around the front of you.
51:11Still gets me to this day as well, 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
51:22look up.
51:25You're just surrounded on either side by mountains.
51:32Personally, for myself, it's tainted but the beauty of it and the fact that this is where Tony
51:40spent his final journey cycling down here is quite a surreal place to be.
51:50This is the state, just as we come round the corner here. What you're seeing ahead of is in there.
51:54That's all part of the Occy state. This is all part of what we basically had as part of our
51:59warrant for the state.
52:17There's a lot of memories coming back just standing here looking at it.
52:24When we got here, we had the warrant in place and the only people that were allowed in the entrance
52:28to that estate were estate workers with permission and police.
52:40We're talking a rural Lower Highland estate with massive glens, lochs, valleys, fields.
52:47There was a massive mountain behind the main estate.
52:52There was only one main access road into the estate, so it was easy enough to control
52:57entry from the A82 into the estate but also within the estate itself.
53:04There 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,
53:14you know, it's unlike anything I've ever heard of in my service.
53:33It was just as you would expect of a general farm.
53:41It was the initial farmhouse.
53:47You went by the estate gardens, estate buildings.
53:57And then you continued out by the river, by some old Derlick cottages.
54:05You had to drive through a river.
54:13Up the other side of the banking.
54:15And that led you up to the viaduct.
54:20When I say breath taken, it was just silenced and beautiful.
54:27This is open ground.
54:29It would be almost impossible to find a body here unless you knew exactly where it was.
54:35Caroline had said Sandy gave her quite specific detail as to where the body was buried.
54:40And she dropped a can of Red Bull that she'd been drinking from and stamped it into the ground.
54:47And that was effectively her marking the spot so that she could give the police a direction as to exactly
54:54where the body would be found.
54:58Without that information, it came to us.
55:01This is searching in a needle in a haystack.
55:04You very rarely get somebody coming forward with as much direct information as that and say,
55:11I know that something's gone wrong here and I'm here to report it.
55:14We actually went up to the spot.
55:16And yeah, there was a can of Red Bull lying there marking that spot.
55:26It was quite a moment.
55:29It's a once in a career to be involved in something like that.
55:34We're actually going to get this family some answers here.
55:48If you were to tell this story to anybody who doesn't work in our field of work,
55:51you would probably think, well, he's told his girlfriend that this is where the body is.
55:56That's enough.
55:57We can't just jump to the conclusion.
55:59That must be true.
56:01We've got a story, but we don't have a case.
56:05It's difficult to imagine the agony that the family went through in not knowing where Mr. Parsons was
56:11and what happened to him that 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.
56:27The location was remote.
56:30If someone was trying to dispose of a body, you could be there and no one would see you.
56:37Everything has seemed so surreal.
56:41It's like a story that's going on. You're just part of a story.
56:45Suddenly you get that bad telephone call.
56:48You're now going to be asked questions about your involvement with the murder of Anthony
56:52Parsons and attempting to defeat the course of justice. Do you understand?
56:56I do, yes.
56:57Do you genuinely have no remorse that you killed a man in Biden, leaving his family without any
57:01idea it really was for three years?
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.
57:13Caroline was the key to this in terms of she was the one who uncovered all of this story
57:19through the course of her relationship with Sandy.
57:24Caroline had been cited to attend and she hadn't turned up.
57:32She had been cried out.
57:38She was made on the call.
57:44She said,
57:44she was killed.
57:45I was wanted to write cover.
57:45She was killed.
57:45She was killed.
57:45She was killed for her, she killed her.
57:45She was killed.
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