What happened to Renee and Andrew MacRae? Timeline of events revealed
IT was one of Scotland’s longest unsolved murder cases.
But last year a pensioner accused of murdering Renee MacRae and her toddler son in 1976 was found guilty.
William MacDowell, 80, was found guilty of killing Renee, 36, and Andrew, three, in November 1976, before trying to defeat justice by dumping their bodies.
It was a long quest for justice, but MacDowell will now die behind bars after he was sentenced to life in prison in September 2022.
Cops never found the body of the missing Inverness-shire woman and her young son, with officers now urging the killer to tell them what he did to them so they are “provided with the dignity they deserve”.
At its peak, the search involved interviewing thousands of people with hundreds of cops looking for the pair.
A two-part BBC documentary on the pair’s death called Murder Trial: The Disappearance of Renee and Andrew MacRae will air on BBC Two on Monday, August 28 at 9pm.
Renee and Andrew MacRae Murder Timeline
1972 – Renee started her affair with MacDowell, her husband Gordon MacRae’s company secretary.
November 1976 – Renee told her friends she was going to meet MacDowell as they had planned to spend a weekend together in the days running up to her disappearance.
November 12 1976 – Renee and three year old Andrew MacRae were last seen. They left Inverness for a trip in her blue BMW. Gordon Jnr stayed in Inverness.
Her car was later found on fire on the road’s layby at Dalmagarry, south of Inverness.
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Summer 1977 – A nearby quarry at Dalmagarry was drained and searched after a young policeman reported an unusual smell at the site but funds to continue the search ran out before a source could be found.
That same summer near Culloden, Italian divers, who were visiting Scotland to hunt the Loch Ness Monster, joined the search by diving in the abandoned and flooded Leanach quarry.
Police praised the volunteers for carrying out dangerous work as the water was considered a fly-tipping hotspot by locals.
November 1977 – Police had spoken to thousands of people, but had the operation scaled back from 100 officers to a hand-picked team of ten.
1979 – The case was wound down when leads dried up.
2004 – Dalmagarry quarry was excavated again in 2004, removing 35,0000 tonnes of earth and 2,000 trees removed at a cost of more than £100,000.
2006 – Police filed a report naming a suspect but prosecutors decided there was insufficient evidence to take action.
2017 – The investigation was reopened. Decades of files were transcribed into three large log-books for detectives to examine.
October 2018 – On Andrew’s 45th birthday, police made a new appeal for help and released an image of the pram that his mother would push him around in as a baby.
May 2019 – Leanach quarry was drained of an estimated 13 million litres of water and over 100,000 tonnes of earth, silt and other materials were removed.
Investigators found 50 vehicles dumped at the site. Parts of a parm found were sent for forensic examination.
September 2019 – MacDowell was arrested and appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court denying he killed the mother and son.
OCTOBER 2022 – MacDowell was convicted after trial and sentenced to 30 years.
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