Disappearance of Renee MacRae

In September 2019, William MacDowell was charged with the murders of Renee and Andrew MacRae and of attempting to pervert the course of justice. In September 2022 he was found guilty of both murders and was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison.

On 2 October 2018 it was reported that Leanach quarry, near to Culloden Battlefield, was being searched by Police Scotland in relation to the case.

Northern Constabulary named a suspect in a report to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in October 2006, but the Crown Office declared there was insufficient evidence to go to court. MacDowell has always been reluctant to speak to the media in the decades since the disappearance, but broke his silence in a 2004 interview and insisted that he did not kill MacRae. A week after the disappearance, MacDowell walked into Inverness police headquarters to make a voluntary statement, but his wife dragged him out of the building and nothing was said ever again.

The inquiry was wound down two years later. However, a 2004 Grampian Television documentary, Unsolved, screened throughout Scotland, renewed interest in the case and the investigation was reopened. In 2004, Chief Constable Ian Latimer launched a cold case review, which led to £122,000 being spent on an excavation of Dalmagarry quarry in August. Over the course of three weeks, 20,000 tons of earth from the quarry had been excavated and 2,000 trees were removed. All that was found were two crisp packets, some men's clothing and rabbit bones. As of August 2006, £250,000 has been spent re-investigating the case.

Renee MacRae (born Christina Catherine MacDonald, February 1940) was a Scottish woman who disappeared on 12 November 1976, together with her 3-year-old son Andrew. Their case was the United Kingdom's longest-running missing persons case, and within Scotland is as notorious as Glasgow's Bible John murders. In September 2022, William (Bill) MacDowell was found guilty of the murder of MacRae and her son. Their bodies have never been found.

Renee MacRae lived in Inverness and was married to Gordon MacRae, though the couple were separated. She had two sons, 9-year-old Gordon and 3-year-old Andrew. On Friday 12 November 1976 MacRae left her home in Cradlehall with both her sons. She dropped elder son Gordon at her estranged husband's house and turned south on to the A9, in the direction of Perth, apparently to visit her sister in Kilmarnock. Neither MacRae nor Andrew have ever been seen again. Later the same night, twelve miles away, a train driver spotted MacRae's burning BMW in an isolated lay-by. When the police reached the vehicle, it was charred and empty apart from a rug stained with blood matching MacRae's blood type.

As police investigated, it became apparent that MacRae's personal life was not straightforward. Around 1971, unbeknownst to her husband, MacRae began to have an affair with William (Bill) MacDowell, who was married with two children and worked for Gordon MacRae as an accountant and company secretary. Nobody knew about the affair except Valerie Steventon, MacRae's best friend. Steventon revealed that MacRae had not been planning to visit her sister that night, but had intended to travel to Perthshire to visit MacDowell, Andrew's biological father. MacRae had first confided to her friend about her conducting an affair in the spring of 1973, when she had been pregnant with Andrew. According to Steventon, "Renee was completely besotted by Bill", and he had told her that he had a job with Texaco in Shetland and had found a house where they could live. According to Steventon, however, these details "turned out to be a pack of lies." MacDowell admitted their affair but has not spoken about the case since then except to deny any involvement.