Should I Marry A Murderer? (2026) s01e02 Episode Script
Episode Two
1
[grim music plays]
[man 1] The time is 13:45 hours
on Wednesday, the 30th of December.
[grim music continues]
You've been arrested
on suspicion of Section 3 RTA 1988.
[Caroline] My mum was going, "Any update?"
None.
So we were just literally
both sitting in the kitchen
watching my mobile phone and house phone,
waiting for the police to call.
[grim music continues]
[man 2] As Procurator
Fiscal Head of Homicide,
I had knowledge of every murder
and suspicious death
that occurred across Scotland.
A huge amount of resource was put in
to try to find Tony Parsons,
and there was not
a single trace of him anywhere.
Dr. Muirhead coming forward was the first
lead the police had had in years.
So I instructed the police
to arrest the McKellar brothers.
[officer] Armed police! Stand still!
[grim music continues]
[Caroline] People started to privately
message me on Facebook
saying, "My gosh,
what happened to the boys? Are they okay?"
[officer] Show your hands!
On the ground!
[Caroline] The boys were taken
by officers in balaclavas
to the police station for questioning.
[man 1] Your name?
Alexander Gardner McKellar.
[man 1] What's your age?
Twenty-nine.
I was thinking, "It's still not too late."
"If you go and confess,
you can do the right thing,
and this ordeal would be over."
[man 1] What is it you do? Self-employed?
Farmer. Anything to do
with the farm, really.
[man 1] Okay.
You didn't show that man any kindness
at the time,
but you can show kindness now.
It might be late,
but it's better late than never.
[man 1] You'll be asked
about your involvement in offenses
under Section 3A
of the Road Traffic Act 1988.
That is causing the death of another
using a vehicle
whilst unfit through drink or drugs.
We understand that he's told Dr. Muirhead
precisely what has happened.
So, potentially,
potentially he might tell the police.
[man 1] You're not bound to answer,
but if you do,
your answers will be recorded,
may be noted and may be used
in evidence, understand?
Yeah.
[Caroline] Two detectives arrived
at my parents' front door.
They said, "We need to sit down
and have a conversation."
[grim music continues]
I had this horrible feeling
in my stomach that this has gone wrong.
[man 1] Have you ever been involved
in a road accident involving a cyclist?
No comment.
[man 1] Have you been involved
in a crime and tried to cover it up?
No comment.
[man 1] Can you tell me
what you were doing
on Friday, the 29th of September, 2017?
No comment.
Caroline Muirhead told us Sandy said
he'd knocked Mr. Parsons down
and that he was buried on the estate.
[man 1] Do you know
where Anthony Parsons is?
[David] But until the body of Tony Parsons
is found and then recovered,
there is nothing whatsoever to show
that that was a truthful statement.
[man 1] Did you see
Anthony Parsons at all?
No comment.
[man 1] Were you the last person
to see him alive?
No comment.
There was no basis
at that time to charge them.
[grim music continues]
The detective said, "We didn't have enough
to hold them, we had to release them."
And my brain's just going,
"Fuck."
[grim music continues]
Then she went, "Don't worry,
we maintained your anonymity."
And I was like,
"Who else do they think it's gonna be?"
[grim music continues]
"We seized the estate,
so the boys won't be allowed back there."
I said, "Where will they go?"
"That's none of your concern, Caroline."
It is when he's obviously
gonna get in touch with me.
If you've just released him,
he's gonna get in touch.
"Well, you tell him that
you've just heard that he's been arrested,
and you've got your job,
and you don't wanna deal with him."
That's not gonna fly.
I've told this guy I wanna marry him.
"What if he turns up
at my parents' house?"
"You call the police."
Well, then it's a bit too late, isn't it?
[David] Witness protection
is all about a risk assessment
of the level of threat
that the individual poses.
This isn't a serious
and organized crime group
who are about to go
and shoot other rivals.
[grim music continues]
The police advised Dr. Muirhead
to stay with her parents,
to call them if she had
any contact from the McKellar brothers.
They plainly felt that that was sufficient
in the circumstances to ensure her safety.
Caroline said,
"You've gotta get alarms for the house."
"You've gotta get door locks,
you've gotta get window locks."
And she was totally panicking.
She was frightened.
[grim music continues]
[Caroline] What's to stop him
turning up at my mum and dad's front door?
What is he thinking?
Does he think this was me?
What have the police said to him?
[grim music swells]
Would he harm me?
This man was trained
to kill professionally.
And so I felt fucking terrified.
[grim music fades out]
[dramatic string music plays]
[David] The police were told
by Dr. Muirhead she left a Red Bull can
at the spot that
Sandy McKellar said he'd buried the body.
So we followed
the directions provided by Dr. Muirhead.
You drive down
into the estate onto a rough track,
crossing a ford and up into a hilly area.
It's exceptionally remote.
We were being kept abreast of matters
as they were happening.
[shutters click]
The first thing the police did
was to go search the area
to see whether there was a Red Bull can.
And lo and behold, there was.
[dramatic string music continues]
If the body of Tony Parsons isn't
underneath or near to the Red Bull can…
[shutters click]
…the chances of us finding it
are negligible to zero.
You couldn't possibly search
the whole estate.
If we don't find the body,
there is no case.
There's no basis upon which the McKellars
can be re-arrested and re-questioned.
[dramatic string music continues]
I said to my mum I was gonna go stay
at a friend's, but I lied.
I didn't want to put them in danger
or put them to any harm.
[dramatic string music continues]
I went back to my flat
'cause I just wanted to be on my own.
When I arrived back,
there was a parcel waiting for me.
[dramatic string music continues]
And I knew it was gonna be one thing.
Inside the box was the wedding dress
that his mum and I had ordered online,
there in all its glory.
I thought, "Do you know what?"
"Fuck it, let's wear it."
["Clair de Lune" plays]
[chuckles, sniffles]
[exhales]
Too big.
Heh. [sucks teeth]
Oh, well.
And I was just spiraling.
And I think in my, sort of,
pathetic way,
I wanted to see
what it would've felt like…
to wear it.
Stupid as that sounds.
["Clair de Lune" continues]
You kind of have those moments
where you think, you know,
"I wonder,
if this was an alternate timeline,
what may have been
and what could've happened."
You know it's not your reality,
but you like to daydream
because just for those few minutes,
it just takes you to a nicer,
happier place.
["Clair de Lune" continues]
[grim music plays]
[mobile phone chimes]
Suddenly, I get a message
pop up in my inbox
from Robert and Sandy's friend.
Click on it…
And the message says, "Hi, Caroline,
Robert and Sandy are with me."
"They've come to stay with me
and my family an hour from Glasgow."
They've seen that I've read the messages.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit."
They were clearly on their phone
the same time I was on my phone.
[grim music continues]
And they're waiting on you to reply.
If I don't answer
that message immediately,
and immediately say,
"I miss you, I love you,"
it'd be so obvious
that I'd been the one to betray him.
[grim music continues]
[Caroline] Before I knew it,
the phone is ringing.
And they'll know
that the phone is in my hand ringing.
You have to answer it.
You just go,
"Fuck."
"Hi."
[grim music continues]
I said, "I got messages from your friends
saying that you've been arrested."
"What the hell is going on?"
"Caroline, I've been trying to reach you.
I'm so worried about you."
[grim music continues]
He went, "I think we've been
under surveillance for ages."
"Robert's definitely opened
his stupid mouth when he's been drinking."
"But, end of the day, Robert and I said,
'No comment' to everything, so it's fine."
So I'm actually getting
this sense of hope, in some ways,
that maybe the police kept me anonymous.
[grim music continues]
Unless he's playing
a really, really dark, twisted game here,
he can't know that
it was me who went to the police.
And he was like,
"You've got your flat in Glasgow."
And he was like, "When can we head over?"
I'd resigned myself
to never hear from him again.
My brain was…
in these two conflicting worlds.
I missed him.
I wanted to see if he was okay.
But also, inviting him over to my flat
means I'm putting myself
in a really precarious situation.
[grim music continues]
But as mental as it sounds,
I said yes.
[telephone rings]
-[anxious music plays]
-[Caroline's footsteps]
[Caroline breathes deeply]
[door buzzes]
You're standing
behind the door thinking,
"This is either the best way to be safe
or the most stupid thing
you've ever done."
"And the most recklessly dangerous thing
you've ever done."
You've got these big six-foot men
walking up a wee small corridor,
looming into the viewfinder.
I remember thinking, "Look happy."
"Because you are happy to see them,
because they were just arrested, released,
so you'll be so happy they weren't held,
so relieved."
"Embrace them, be warm with them,
laugh with them, comfort them."
"'Cause otherwise, you're fucked."
[anxious music continues]
Body language tells you a lot.
And he just seemed
genuinely relieved to see me.
[anxious music continues]
In that moment,
I felt the heat was off.
So you're thinking,
"Good, this is okay,
this is fine, this is not bad."
But then you're also thinking,
"I need to be clever about this
and create a plan in my own head
of how to survive this."
[anxious music swells]
[anxious music crescendos]
[club music plays]
[Caroline] I needed to keep them
in good spirits
as much as I possibly could
until they found the body.
Right, music on,
pass the drink, pass the cigarette,
let's have a party.
We used substances and we drank,
and drugs and alcohol
let you be a separate, different person.
[club music continues]
All the while,
they have no idea that I'm the one
who instigated that entire police arrest.
You're literally living
on the knife's edge.
I don't know
how long this is going to take,
and I'm starting to panic
that maybe Sandy actually got it wrong.
And what if he isn't there?
What if they're searching
and maybe they don't find him?
Please, God, let the body be there.
[intriguing music plays]
[woman] I got a phone call from the senior
investigating officer in this case.
They'd got some witness information
that they might know
where the missing cyclist, Mr. Parsons,
might be located.
[intriguing music continues]
And I was asked, could I go along
to see if there were any clues
from the soil or the vegetation
that might support this witness statement?
[reporter] Cancer survivor, Tony Parsons,
had been crossing Scotland
in a 100-mile charity cycle.
[Lorna] Everyone remembered on the news,
just a few years previously,
Mr. Parsons had been on a charity cycle
from Fort William to Tillicoultry,
and he just vanished without a trace.
[reporter] Here in September 2017,
the Navy veteran was captured on CCTV
weaving through the rural roads.
[shutter clicks]
[Lorna] As we walked over the area,
I could see that there was
an area that was devoid of vegetation.
[intriguing music continues]
What we were finding
was that the older peat,
the amorphous, mushy peat,
was actually very near the surface,
and so this area
had indeed been recently dug up.
[intriguing music continues]
This was the place
where Mr. Parsons might be.
[intriguing music continues]
So at that stage,
the forensic team has to be put together.
[shutter clicks]
So that would involve
an appropriately skilled digger driver,
skilled forensic archaeologists,
the forensic anthropologists.
[shutter clicks]
[David] An exhumation isn't something
that happens quickly.
You have to do it
in a very controlled, measured way,
just as an archaeologist would do
in an ancient site.
[intriguing music continues]
The Auch Estate is extremely remote,
and it was the depths of winter,
so it was plainly something
that was going to take a period of time.
[intriguing music continues]
[Caroline] The days are going by,
waiting for that man to be found.
It was so cold that the canal had frozen
outside my front window,
so everyone was trying to stay indoors
and keep warm.
[intriguing music continues]
You're living with killers,
sleeping alongside killers.
You're having dinner alongside killers.
Killers who think you're on their side.
And you've betrayed them.
[reporter] Searches for a cyclist
who went missing more than three years ago
are continuing in the Highlands.
[Caroline] Their fear was also palpable
about what was gonna happen to them.
Everything's on high alert.
[reporter] Police say
their investigation continues,
and are once again urging
anyone with information to come forward.
[Caroline] Their phone beeped,
you'd jump out your skin.
I didn't know if a message would come
that said, "It was Caroline."
It was exhausting.
[menacing music plays]
At one point, Robert signaled to me
that he wanted to have a chat.
I'm thinking,
"What the hell is this gonna be about?"
He looked so sad
and, like, empty, you know?
[menacing music continues]
He said, "Caroline,
I don't know what Sandy's told you."
"But you have to understand,
when we hit that man…
[menacing music continues]
…it happened very fast,
and he flew over the car."
"We got out,
and when we walked towards him,
he was alive."
I thought he had been killed on impact.
Fuck.
[menacing music continues]
[exhales]
He was saying it as if,
like, unburdening yourself.
And Robert said that he moved him
to the side of the road with the bike,
so they could change vehicles
and come back.
And I was like, "Robert, so you left him
alone on the side of the road?"
He was like, "Of course we did."
And the thought
of that man being in agony,
and you hide them from any passing car
that may come down
that could help them or save them,
that is a cruelty to another
which was so needless.
[menacing music continues]
If you'd called an ambulance,
and he passed away before it arrived,
at least you've tried.
[menacing music continues]
He said, "We went back,
changed cars,
left our SIM cards…
changed our clothes,
put gloves on."
"We went back,
and he was still alive,
but weakening, fading."
They carefully lifted him into a tarpaulin
and then drove him back,
and they kept him
overnight in a wooded area.
And then that same vehicle was used
by the hunting clients the next day.
[menacing music continues]
Then they buried Tony Parsons
once the clients had left.
And so whether it was an accident or not,
all your actions, then, after it
are not accidental.
And they're quite methodical,
and they're well planned out.
And in my head,
this wasn't, then, a hit-and-run.
This was…
potentially a murder.
[dramatic music plays]
Later that night,
Sandy's sitting there,
and he's starting to talk away,
having a cigarette,
clearly in his memories,
and he's pondering things,
and he's being quite open about the case.
[dramatic music continues]
It occurred to me that
if I was able to record
some of the stuff Sandy was saying,
I would be able to help the police,
and I might be able
to even record a confession.
[dramatic music continues]
So that it could be over and finished.
I've got my chess website out, playing,
and to the left it said, "Voice recorder."
He would have zero idea
if I just clicked that record button.
[dramatic music continues]
I'm playing the chess game
whilst it's recording in the background.
What I find slightly weird
with you, Sandy, is, like,
in some ways, you're so compassionate,
so loving, so friendly, so gentle.
I can't imagine it.
But then when I see you
when you've been drinking and stuff,
I can see you guys doing it.
[Sandy] I don't know.
I don't know about anything anymore.
[Caroline] It was a huge risk.
Any point, he could've come
and put his arm around you
and been like, "How's your game going?"
[Sandy] The fact that
they're still questioning folk,
and they're still trying
to divvy off everybody…
It's not a clear-cut case.
[Caroline] The thing that I think
you're going to get into trouble for…
is the lack of empathy.
[Sandy] Fucking hell, it's warm in here.
[Caroline] I was starting to think,
"This won't work. This is going nowhere."
So I tried to be more confrontational.
How could you go out hunting
the next day and not be bothered?
Like you must have been.
[Sandy exhales]
[Caroline] How could you not be, though?
[Sandy] It was either my life or his.
[Caroline] My brain went,
"You've got it on recording,
but stop now."
[dramatic music continues]
I saw him walking over and I think,
"This is now, potentially,
really not a safe situation."
[phone rings]
[dramatic music fades out]
[Caroline] Can you get that?
-[Sandy] What is it?
-[Caroline] It's my Deliveroo.
I've got Red Bull and some cans.
Healthy diet, yeah?
When someone says,
"It's my life or theirs,"
it was the admission I was so relieved
I had the voice recorder on for.
But equally you're thinking,
"But then why is he not saying,
'And I regret it,' or, 'I'm upset by it,'
or, 'I think about it'?"
[grim music plays]
Was he actually someone
who cared that he'd done this?
The extremes of the kindness
and the cruelty
that both these twin boys had shown
made me really wonder,
what could have possibly happened
in their lifetime to make them that way?
[grim music continues]
[man] From 1999 to 2011,
I was a community police officer
responsible for 79 square miles
of Argyll and Bute.
It was community policing
in its original sense,
back in the old days, you know,
the cop responsible for an area.
And I fell in love with it.
I had left the police,
and I was aware of a missing person case.
I think I was watching a local news story,
and one mentioned the Bridge of Orchy,
and I'm like, "Well, that's my beat."
[reporter] Tony Parsons
was cycling from Fort William
back to his hometown of Tillicoultry
when he went missing.
[Greg] So I'm interested.
So I'm like, "Whoa. Stop, rewind, play.
What've we got here?"
[reporter] Police arrested
two 29-year-old men
in connection
with Mr. Parsons' disappearance.
They were released
pending further inquiries.
"Oh! They've arrested somebody."
"That's good.
Arrested two people. Interesting."
"I wonder who that is.
I wonder if it's who I think it is."
[dramatic music plays]
I knew the McKellar brothers as boys.
I would spend a lot of time
in the schools.
Community policing,
stranger danger, cycling proficiency…
I'd like to think
I meant something to them.
I've certainly got the pictures
I think Robert drew of me, you know?
I kept it. I had it on my office wall.
I've still got it. I'll show you.
They were rough and ready.
And I remember
having discussions in the school
about maybe what the boys
were exposed to at home.
It was enough
for the teacher to be concerned.
I felt that that influence on the boys
came from the father,
Tom McKellar.
There was a couple of serious allegations.
And the intelligence was enough for us
to get a warrant to search Auch Estate.
And we found firearms
throughout the house.
[dark music plays]
[clicking]
We found pistols.
Now, pistols are illegal to own.
And we found a firearm
within Sandy's bedroom.
[dark music continues]
Having firearms strewed about your house,
lying about
in your primary school kid's bedroom,
this is serious now.
And that resulted
in Tom McKellar getting prosecuted.
From the age of 7,
the familiarity with firearms…
-[fires shot]
-[Sandy] Holy shit!
[dark music continues]
…the slaughtering of animals
and the disposal of animals…
There seemed to be an acceptance
of that at too young an age.
If you're exposed to it day and daily,
it's gonna desensitize you
to taking a life.
[dark music continues]
My thought at the time
when I was watching that newsreel was,
"It is a good place to conceal a person."
There's still bodies missing
here in Argyll that we haven't found.
[dark music plays]
[Lorna] The priority
was to take each zone,
each layer of the soil,
centimeter by centimeter.
Peat is dark.
It's very dark brown.
It's also, near the surface,
quite fibrous.
So it hides things in it.
We were looking for material
that had come from human origins,
such as hair, fingernails,
any human-introduced material.
When the archaeologists got further down,
there were bones appearing.
And what the anthropologists said was,
"These look like deer bones."
[flash snaps]
[shutter clicks]
And what it turned out to be
was what is called a… a kill pit.
Gamekeepers on that estate,
the McKellars, would have used this area
to dispose of parts of the animals
that were not required.
[dark music continues]
There had to be
a veterinary surgeon brought along
to confirm that these were,
indeed, relatively fresh.
These were consistent
with having been put in
from the same time
that Mr. Parsons disappeared.
But also, we were seeing an awful lot
of these little bits of wood chip.
You wouldn't find wood chippings there.
It's not natural.
They wouldn't be there
unless they'd been introduced.
The question is, where did they come from?
So we drove down
to the Auch Estate farmyard.
[mysterious music plays]
As we were walking through that,
we saw a digger truck.
When we looked at the bucket, within it,
there was these wood chips.
Those chippings were the same
as the wood chips
that were found at the scene.
What was particularly significant
was the dimensions
between the teeth on the bucket.
It was the same dimensions
that were measured
between the marks
that were left at the peat bog.
[flashbulb pops]
But only a few people would have
access to that particular vehicle.
And two of those people
were the McKellar twins.
[mysterious music continues]
[David] We can trace the evidence
at the kill pit back to Robert and Sandy,
but it's not enough to prove their guilt
because we had not found the body yet.
[intriguing music plays]
[Caroline] Every day going past,
I'm thinking,
"Surely they've got him by now."
I have not heard
anything from the police, so…
I was so at a loss
as to what was happening.
[intriguing music continues]
And I felt like
I was in a state of permanent fear.
And I'm lying in bed,
and I'm tossing and turning.
[intriguing music continues]
And Sandy's snoring beside me.
And then there was just this pounding.
[knocking at door]
Like bang, bang, bang on the front door.
"Shit! Shit! Fuck! Fuck!"
I'm thinking, "The only people
who do that is the police."
[knocking continues]
I'm like, jump out of the bed,
close my bedroom door as fast as I can.
And I go down the… go down my hall.
There is the same female detective
who had been at my parents' house.
Open the door ever so slightly.
I'm like… [whispers]
"Can I speak to you downstairs?"
[tense music plays]
"Who do you have in there?"
"I need to speak to you
in the car, outside."
"Why?"
"Who's in there?"
"Friends."
"You're lying."
Bang.
[tense music continues]
And she opens up the door
where Robert was sleeping.
She goes, "What the fuck, Caroline?!
You're our witness."
And I'm thinking, "Did he hear that?"
And the man goes in
and grabs Robert from the bed.
She's storming into the bedroom
at the top, grabbing Sandy out of the bed.
And they go,
"You're not supposed to be here,
you're supposed to be
in care of friends in Aberfoyle."
And Sandy goes, "I'm allowed to stay here.
This is my partner's house."
I'm going, "Of course you're allowed
to stay here, Sandy, if you want to."
And they went, "Right, you two,
you need to be out of here ASAP."
And like that, they left.
The police were checking on Caroline
to see if she was safe.
I have no doubt they were astonished
to discover the McKellars
were with her in the flat.
Had she cut all contact with them,
which she could readily have done,
then, plainly,
she would have been rather safer.
Personally, I'd have run a mile
to the nearest police station,
and then I'd have kept on going
to a place of safety,
and I would not have seen him again.
[mysterious music plays]
[Caroline] I'm standing in my living room,
and Robert goes…
"Caroline,
how did she know your name?"
[grim music plays]
"Have you met her before?
Does she know you?"
"Have you spoken to the police?"
"No, no. No, no, no, no."
And Sandy, thankfully,
intervened and went, "Robert, back off."
"Caroline would not do that to us."
"She loves us. I trust her."
And I could see, like,
Robert was so angry.
Sandy's comforting Robert,
and they're hugging each other.
Robert's like, "What'll we do?"
[grim music continues]
Sandy's like, "Look, Robert,
it was three years ago."
"If they had anything,
they'd have got us by now."
"They're not gonna find him."
"Even if they could
dig up that entire place,
they're not gonna find him."
[grim music continues]
Robert was like,
"Right, we need to get out of here now."
And Sandy's then like,
"I'm legally allowed
to stay with my fiancée."
"They can't argue with that."
Robert leaves to stay
with family friends outside of Glasgow,
and Sandy and I are then left in the flat.
He's like, "No, Caroline,
I know you would never, ever betray me."
The way Sandy was defending me was so…
weirdly comforting. [cries]
To survive in that moment,
I genuinely started to believe my own lie.
[grim music continues]
I was the supportive girlfriend there,
who'd also been treated badly
by the police.
I was lying.
I was betraying.
Yes, it was for a really good reason.
But lying erodes a part of your soul.
It was such a toxic entanglement.
[grim music continues]
[Margaret] Caroline said,
"Mum, he thinks we're still a couple."
"What do I do? He has a key."
I know that she was very, very afraid.
And she would lie there thinking,
"How do I get out of this?"
[grim music continues]
I honestly thought
I was going to have a heart attack.
Was he gonna hurt her?
Would-- would he kill her?
[grim music continues]
[Caroline] The police had said,
"You cannot tell anyone about this."
"Otherwise, you could compromise
this entire investigation."
[grim music continues]
But I needed to talk to someone about it.
The next opportunity when Sandy left,
I reached out to someone
who wouldn't judge me for the state
I was in and would understand.
[melancholy music plays]
[James] "You may have noticed
I've been unusually quiet of late."
"Don't know how I've managed it,
but I've been witness to a crime."
"I can even hear you in my head
saying, 'Oh my days.'"
And so I decided
to drive to her flat to see her.
And she opened the door,
and she looked absolutely shocking.
I was like,
"What the hell has happened here?"
[melancholy music continues]
Caroline is like anally clean,
OCD-level clean.
And this house was disgusting.
She was just word-vomiting
this information at me
in no coherent structure or order.
It took me about 20 minutes to work out
what she was trying to tell me.
[melancholy music continues]
Sandy had been involved
in the death of this guy.
She's now spying on Sandy.
Sandy, who we've just found out
has murdered somebody,
was living in the flat,
which I didn't know,
and had actually just popped out
for some beers
and was coming back.
[melancholy music continues]
And I was like,
"What the fuck is going on here?"
And my wife's heavily pregnant,
and I just need to…
I need to leave the situation.
And as I was leaving,
Sandy just arrived back.
He put out, uh, like, a hand
to shake his hand.
And I just kind of
awkwardly shook his hand
and said, "Nice to meet you,"
and then walked straight away.
[melancholy music turns dramatic]
I was devastated.
Her life was falling to pieces.
And I think it's one of the few times
I've cried in about the last 20 years.
I just-- It was all too much.
[Caroline] I'll be honest,
I was so manic at that point,
I don't really think I had
any control over what I was doing.
I think, in some ways,
my life was becoming so surreal,
my grasp on reality was weakening.
[dark music plays]
[reporter] Police have been scouring
this estate near Bridge of Orchy
for around two weeks.
It's understood specialist search officers
and forensic teams
are excavating the area.
[dark music continues]
[Caroline] Sandy gets a message
from a friend
that said the police
are looking at the carcass pits.
We've been, I don't know,
listening to music or something,
and he just slammed the radio off,
and he just started smashing his fists
off the sideboard.
Being like, "How do they know?
How do they know?"
"Fuck! Fuck!
How do they know where he is?"
[dark music continues]
I said, "You're fine.
They don't know where he is."
And he was like,
"How could they be in that area?"
"The place is so huge."
I was like, "Someone else must know,
or someone on the farm told them."
[dark music continues]
He had warped into, like, a crazed mania.
He was convinced there were spy devices
or taps for the police
to listen to the flat.
And he gutted the-- I mean,
every light fitting, everything,
essentially starting to trash it.
There was just this inhuman desire
to try and find
whatever device the police left.
I was just thinking,
"I've told the police where he is."
"I've marked the site
to make this as fast as possible
for you guys."
"This can't take forever."
But it felt like absolute forever.
[melancholy string music plays]
[Lorna] It was a Thursday in January.
It was a cold, cold day.
It was a day that I'll remember
for the rest of my life.
We were digging down
to about 30, 35 centimeters.
And the forensic archaeologist
took her trowel
and carefully was removing down,
millimeter by millimeter.
And she said,
"There's something red here.
There's red material here."
[melancholy string music continues]
And we could see that
it looked like fabric
that Mr. Parsons was last seen wearing
when he was cycling his bike.
[melancholy string music continues]
And you could see that there were
the fingerless gloves of a cyclist.
And indeed, she discovered that
there was a ring on his wedding finger.
He was lifted onto the stretcher,
and… as he was carried out,
the sun came out between the clouds.
We all stood with our heads bowed.
[melancholy string music turns poignant]
And we all said a little silent prayer
for Mr. Parsons and his family.
I think not knowing what has happened
to your loved one is…
Is a form of torture, really.
To be able to bring that,
at least, to an end
by saying, "We have recovered his body."
"We will, in the fullness of time,
give you back the body
to allow you to have a funeral,"
gives them something to hold on to.
[string music fades out]
Now, human remains have been found
in a remote part of Argyll.
Police have been carrying out
extensive searches in the area
as part of their investigation
into the disappearance
of cyclist Tony Parsons.
The 63-year-old was last seen
more than three years ago.
Sasha Spratt reports.
[electronic music plays]
[Caroline] The news broke out
to say human remains had been found
on the Auch Estate.
Sandy sat down,
and I'm expecting
him to scream and shout or kick off,
and he actually just sat in silence
for quite a while.
I think, in that moment,
he was a bit broken.
But he had this idea or this notion
that perhaps there'd been
another farmworker on the estate
who maybe had seen something
or who had leaked something.
And he, thankfully,
never thought at any moment
that, you know, one, it'd be me,
or two, that there'd been,
like, an actual marker.
[electronic music continues]
Sandy and his brother
were allowed to return to the estate.
So I dropped him home
and waved him goodbye.
It was a mix of heartbreak
and genuine relief.
I drove as fast as I could
to the police station
because Robert had told me
Tony Parsons was potentially still alive
at the time of the accident,
and I also had
a confession of sorts on my laptop,
and I wanted the police to hear it.
[electronic music continues]
[Caroline] How could you go out hunting
the next day and not be bothered?
[Sandy] It was either my life or his.
[electronic music continues]
[Caroline] I remember messaging
my mum and dad.
They were like, "We're so proud of you."
It was like, "Oh!"
I was like,
"I've done some good in the world."
[David] Dr. Muirhead had provided
the police with information
that Robert McKellar had confirmed to her
that Tony Parsons was alive at the time
they removed him to the estate.
That information changed it
because it altered what we were looking at
from a potential charge
of causing death by dangerous driving
into the most serious crime it could be,
namely one of murder.
[electronic music continues]
But in Scotland,
we have what's known as corroboration.
So that all relevant facts
must be proved by two sources of evidence.
[electronic music continues]
Mr. Parsons' body would not be capable
of being examined immediately
because of the fact it was frozen.
There's a delay of seven days or so
before it can be examined.
So until a full postmortem
has been conducted
and the pathologists have come
to a conclusion as to the cause of death,
and in this case, very particularly,
whether that death was instantaneous,
there's still no basis to arrest them
because we don't know
what the appropriate charges might be.
[pulsing music plays]
[Caroline] Arriving back at my flat,
for the first time in, like, two weeks
I didn't feel manic or frenetic.
And the sun was shining, it was starting
to feel lighter and happier.
[phone buzzes]
[Caroline breathes deeply]
And my phone rings, and it's Sandy.
I can hear he's driving the pickup truck.
He's on the loudspeaker.
And, you know, I was like, "Hi."
He was screaming,
"You fucking little bitch,
you fucking did this!"
I said, "I've not done anything."
[pulsing music continues]
He said that Police Scotland
used a local farming lad
to help with the grave-digging.
"There was
a sugar-free Red Bull can left there."
"You're the only person who drinks
sugar-free Red Bull, so you left it."
[pulsing music continues]
And he's just like, "You fucking did this,
and I have defended you to everyone."
"I said it wasn't you,
and you fucking did this!"
"You've handed me in. You've fucked me
and Robert over. You've fucked our lives."
He was like, "I need to see you right now,
and we need to do this face-to-face."
And he hangs up the phone,
and I swear to God, I started screaming.
[pulsing music continues]
My brain was like,
"You are going to get extremely hurt now."
[pulsing music continues]
He's got the spare keys to my flat
on the car keys.
And I was like,
"I'm gonna die. He is going to kill me."
[pulsing music swells]
[dramatic string music plays]
[dramatic string music fades out]
[grim music plays]
[man 1] The time is 13:45 hours
on Wednesday, the 30th of December.
[grim music continues]
You've been arrested
on suspicion of Section 3 RTA 1988.
[Caroline] My mum was going, "Any update?"
None.
So we were just literally
both sitting in the kitchen
watching my mobile phone and house phone,
waiting for the police to call.
[grim music continues]
[man 2] As Procurator
Fiscal Head of Homicide,
I had knowledge of every murder
and suspicious death
that occurred across Scotland.
A huge amount of resource was put in
to try to find Tony Parsons,
and there was not
a single trace of him anywhere.
Dr. Muirhead coming forward was the first
lead the police had had in years.
So I instructed the police
to arrest the McKellar brothers.
[officer] Armed police! Stand still!
[grim music continues]
[Caroline] People started to privately
message me on Facebook
saying, "My gosh,
what happened to the boys? Are they okay?"
[officer] Show your hands!
On the ground!
[Caroline] The boys were taken
by officers in balaclavas
to the police station for questioning.
[man 1] Your name?
Alexander Gardner McKellar.
[man 1] What's your age?
Twenty-nine.
I was thinking, "It's still not too late."
"If you go and confess,
you can do the right thing,
and this ordeal would be over."
[man 1] What is it you do? Self-employed?
Farmer. Anything to do
with the farm, really.
[man 1] Okay.
You didn't show that man any kindness
at the time,
but you can show kindness now.
It might be late,
but it's better late than never.
[man 1] You'll be asked
about your involvement in offenses
under Section 3A
of the Road Traffic Act 1988.
That is causing the death of another
using a vehicle
whilst unfit through drink or drugs.
We understand that he's told Dr. Muirhead
precisely what has happened.
So, potentially,
potentially he might tell the police.
[man 1] You're not bound to answer,
but if you do,
your answers will be recorded,
may be noted and may be used
in evidence, understand?
Yeah.
[Caroline] Two detectives arrived
at my parents' front door.
They said, "We need to sit down
and have a conversation."
[grim music continues]
I had this horrible feeling
in my stomach that this has gone wrong.
[man 1] Have you ever been involved
in a road accident involving a cyclist?
No comment.
[man 1] Have you been involved
in a crime and tried to cover it up?
No comment.
[man 1] Can you tell me
what you were doing
on Friday, the 29th of September, 2017?
No comment.
Caroline Muirhead told us Sandy said
he'd knocked Mr. Parsons down
and that he was buried on the estate.
[man 1] Do you know
where Anthony Parsons is?
[David] But until the body of Tony Parsons
is found and then recovered,
there is nothing whatsoever to show
that that was a truthful statement.
[man 1] Did you see
Anthony Parsons at all?
No comment.
[man 1] Were you the last person
to see him alive?
No comment.
There was no basis
at that time to charge them.
[grim music continues]
The detective said, "We didn't have enough
to hold them, we had to release them."
And my brain's just going,
"Fuck."
[grim music continues]
Then she went, "Don't worry,
we maintained your anonymity."
And I was like,
"Who else do they think it's gonna be?"
[grim music continues]
"We seized the estate,
so the boys won't be allowed back there."
I said, "Where will they go?"
"That's none of your concern, Caroline."
It is when he's obviously
gonna get in touch with me.
If you've just released him,
he's gonna get in touch.
"Well, you tell him that
you've just heard that he's been arrested,
and you've got your job,
and you don't wanna deal with him."
That's not gonna fly.
I've told this guy I wanna marry him.
"What if he turns up
at my parents' house?"
"You call the police."
Well, then it's a bit too late, isn't it?
[David] Witness protection
is all about a risk assessment
of the level of threat
that the individual poses.
This isn't a serious
and organized crime group
who are about to go
and shoot other rivals.
[grim music continues]
The police advised Dr. Muirhead
to stay with her parents,
to call them if she had
any contact from the McKellar brothers.
They plainly felt that that was sufficient
in the circumstances to ensure her safety.
Caroline said,
"You've gotta get alarms for the house."
"You've gotta get door locks,
you've gotta get window locks."
And she was totally panicking.
She was frightened.
[grim music continues]
[Caroline] What's to stop him
turning up at my mum and dad's front door?
What is he thinking?
Does he think this was me?
What have the police said to him?
[grim music swells]
Would he harm me?
This man was trained
to kill professionally.
And so I felt fucking terrified.
[grim music fades out]
[dramatic string music plays]
[David] The police were told
by Dr. Muirhead she left a Red Bull can
at the spot that
Sandy McKellar said he'd buried the body.
So we followed
the directions provided by Dr. Muirhead.
You drive down
into the estate onto a rough track,
crossing a ford and up into a hilly area.
It's exceptionally remote.
We were being kept abreast of matters
as they were happening.
[shutters click]
The first thing the police did
was to go search the area
to see whether there was a Red Bull can.
And lo and behold, there was.
[dramatic string music continues]
If the body of Tony Parsons isn't
underneath or near to the Red Bull can…
[shutters click]
…the chances of us finding it
are negligible to zero.
You couldn't possibly search
the whole estate.
If we don't find the body,
there is no case.
There's no basis upon which the McKellars
can be re-arrested and re-questioned.
[dramatic string music continues]
I said to my mum I was gonna go stay
at a friend's, but I lied.
I didn't want to put them in danger
or put them to any harm.
[dramatic string music continues]
I went back to my flat
'cause I just wanted to be on my own.
When I arrived back,
there was a parcel waiting for me.
[dramatic string music continues]
And I knew it was gonna be one thing.
Inside the box was the wedding dress
that his mum and I had ordered online,
there in all its glory.
I thought, "Do you know what?"
"Fuck it, let's wear it."
["Clair de Lune" plays]
[chuckles, sniffles]
[exhales]
Too big.
Heh. [sucks teeth]
Oh, well.
And I was just spiraling.
And I think in my, sort of,
pathetic way,
I wanted to see
what it would've felt like…
to wear it.
Stupid as that sounds.
["Clair de Lune" continues]
You kind of have those moments
where you think, you know,
"I wonder,
if this was an alternate timeline,
what may have been
and what could've happened."
You know it's not your reality,
but you like to daydream
because just for those few minutes,
it just takes you to a nicer,
happier place.
["Clair de Lune" continues]
[grim music plays]
[mobile phone chimes]
Suddenly, I get a message
pop up in my inbox
from Robert and Sandy's friend.
Click on it…
And the message says, "Hi, Caroline,
Robert and Sandy are with me."
"They've come to stay with me
and my family an hour from Glasgow."
They've seen that I've read the messages.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit."
They were clearly on their phone
the same time I was on my phone.
[grim music continues]
And they're waiting on you to reply.
If I don't answer
that message immediately,
and immediately say,
"I miss you, I love you,"
it'd be so obvious
that I'd been the one to betray him.
[grim music continues]
[Caroline] Before I knew it,
the phone is ringing.
And they'll know
that the phone is in my hand ringing.
You have to answer it.
You just go,
"Fuck."
"Hi."
[grim music continues]
I said, "I got messages from your friends
saying that you've been arrested."
"What the hell is going on?"
"Caroline, I've been trying to reach you.
I'm so worried about you."
[grim music continues]
He went, "I think we've been
under surveillance for ages."
"Robert's definitely opened
his stupid mouth when he's been drinking."
"But, end of the day, Robert and I said,
'No comment' to everything, so it's fine."
So I'm actually getting
this sense of hope, in some ways,
that maybe the police kept me anonymous.
[grim music continues]
Unless he's playing
a really, really dark, twisted game here,
he can't know that
it was me who went to the police.
And he was like,
"You've got your flat in Glasgow."
And he was like, "When can we head over?"
I'd resigned myself
to never hear from him again.
My brain was…
in these two conflicting worlds.
I missed him.
I wanted to see if he was okay.
But also, inviting him over to my flat
means I'm putting myself
in a really precarious situation.
[grim music continues]
But as mental as it sounds,
I said yes.
[telephone rings]
-[anxious music plays]
-[Caroline's footsteps]
[Caroline breathes deeply]
[door buzzes]
You're standing
behind the door thinking,
"This is either the best way to be safe
or the most stupid thing
you've ever done."
"And the most recklessly dangerous thing
you've ever done."
You've got these big six-foot men
walking up a wee small corridor,
looming into the viewfinder.
I remember thinking, "Look happy."
"Because you are happy to see them,
because they were just arrested, released,
so you'll be so happy they weren't held,
so relieved."
"Embrace them, be warm with them,
laugh with them, comfort them."
"'Cause otherwise, you're fucked."
[anxious music continues]
Body language tells you a lot.
And he just seemed
genuinely relieved to see me.
[anxious music continues]
In that moment,
I felt the heat was off.
So you're thinking,
"Good, this is okay,
this is fine, this is not bad."
But then you're also thinking,
"I need to be clever about this
and create a plan in my own head
of how to survive this."
[anxious music swells]
[anxious music crescendos]
[club music plays]
[Caroline] I needed to keep them
in good spirits
as much as I possibly could
until they found the body.
Right, music on,
pass the drink, pass the cigarette,
let's have a party.
We used substances and we drank,
and drugs and alcohol
let you be a separate, different person.
[club music continues]
All the while,
they have no idea that I'm the one
who instigated that entire police arrest.
You're literally living
on the knife's edge.
I don't know
how long this is going to take,
and I'm starting to panic
that maybe Sandy actually got it wrong.
And what if he isn't there?
What if they're searching
and maybe they don't find him?
Please, God, let the body be there.
[intriguing music plays]
[woman] I got a phone call from the senior
investigating officer in this case.
They'd got some witness information
that they might know
where the missing cyclist, Mr. Parsons,
might be located.
[intriguing music continues]
And I was asked, could I go along
to see if there were any clues
from the soil or the vegetation
that might support this witness statement?
[reporter] Cancer survivor, Tony Parsons,
had been crossing Scotland
in a 100-mile charity cycle.
[Lorna] Everyone remembered on the news,
just a few years previously,
Mr. Parsons had been on a charity cycle
from Fort William to Tillicoultry,
and he just vanished without a trace.
[reporter] Here in September 2017,
the Navy veteran was captured on CCTV
weaving through the rural roads.
[shutter clicks]
[Lorna] As we walked over the area,
I could see that there was
an area that was devoid of vegetation.
[intriguing music continues]
What we were finding
was that the older peat,
the amorphous, mushy peat,
was actually very near the surface,
and so this area
had indeed been recently dug up.
[intriguing music continues]
This was the place
where Mr. Parsons might be.
[intriguing music continues]
So at that stage,
the forensic team has to be put together.
[shutter clicks]
So that would involve
an appropriately skilled digger driver,
skilled forensic archaeologists,
the forensic anthropologists.
[shutter clicks]
[David] An exhumation isn't something
that happens quickly.
You have to do it
in a very controlled, measured way,
just as an archaeologist would do
in an ancient site.
[intriguing music continues]
The Auch Estate is extremely remote,
and it was the depths of winter,
so it was plainly something
that was going to take a period of time.
[intriguing music continues]
[Caroline] The days are going by,
waiting for that man to be found.
It was so cold that the canal had frozen
outside my front window,
so everyone was trying to stay indoors
and keep warm.
[intriguing music continues]
You're living with killers,
sleeping alongside killers.
You're having dinner alongside killers.
Killers who think you're on their side.
And you've betrayed them.
[reporter] Searches for a cyclist
who went missing more than three years ago
are continuing in the Highlands.
[Caroline] Their fear was also palpable
about what was gonna happen to them.
Everything's on high alert.
[reporter] Police say
their investigation continues,
and are once again urging
anyone with information to come forward.
[Caroline] Their phone beeped,
you'd jump out your skin.
I didn't know if a message would come
that said, "It was Caroline."
It was exhausting.
[menacing music plays]
At one point, Robert signaled to me
that he wanted to have a chat.
I'm thinking,
"What the hell is this gonna be about?"
He looked so sad
and, like, empty, you know?
[menacing music continues]
He said, "Caroline,
I don't know what Sandy's told you."
"But you have to understand,
when we hit that man…
[menacing music continues]
…it happened very fast,
and he flew over the car."
"We got out,
and when we walked towards him,
he was alive."
I thought he had been killed on impact.
Fuck.
[menacing music continues]
[exhales]
He was saying it as if,
like, unburdening yourself.
And Robert said that he moved him
to the side of the road with the bike,
so they could change vehicles
and come back.
And I was like, "Robert, so you left him
alone on the side of the road?"
He was like, "Of course we did."
And the thought
of that man being in agony,
and you hide them from any passing car
that may come down
that could help them or save them,
that is a cruelty to another
which was so needless.
[menacing music continues]
If you'd called an ambulance,
and he passed away before it arrived,
at least you've tried.
[menacing music continues]
He said, "We went back,
changed cars,
left our SIM cards…
changed our clothes,
put gloves on."
"We went back,
and he was still alive,
but weakening, fading."
They carefully lifted him into a tarpaulin
and then drove him back,
and they kept him
overnight in a wooded area.
And then that same vehicle was used
by the hunting clients the next day.
[menacing music continues]
Then they buried Tony Parsons
once the clients had left.
And so whether it was an accident or not,
all your actions, then, after it
are not accidental.
And they're quite methodical,
and they're well planned out.
And in my head,
this wasn't, then, a hit-and-run.
This was…
potentially a murder.
[dramatic music plays]
Later that night,
Sandy's sitting there,
and he's starting to talk away,
having a cigarette,
clearly in his memories,
and he's pondering things,
and he's being quite open about the case.
[dramatic music continues]
It occurred to me that
if I was able to record
some of the stuff Sandy was saying,
I would be able to help the police,
and I might be able
to even record a confession.
[dramatic music continues]
So that it could be over and finished.
I've got my chess website out, playing,
and to the left it said, "Voice recorder."
He would have zero idea
if I just clicked that record button.
[dramatic music continues]
I'm playing the chess game
whilst it's recording in the background.
What I find slightly weird
with you, Sandy, is, like,
in some ways, you're so compassionate,
so loving, so friendly, so gentle.
I can't imagine it.
But then when I see you
when you've been drinking and stuff,
I can see you guys doing it.
[Sandy] I don't know.
I don't know about anything anymore.
[Caroline] It was a huge risk.
Any point, he could've come
and put his arm around you
and been like, "How's your game going?"
[Sandy] The fact that
they're still questioning folk,
and they're still trying
to divvy off everybody…
It's not a clear-cut case.
[Caroline] The thing that I think
you're going to get into trouble for…
is the lack of empathy.
[Sandy] Fucking hell, it's warm in here.
[Caroline] I was starting to think,
"This won't work. This is going nowhere."
So I tried to be more confrontational.
How could you go out hunting
the next day and not be bothered?
Like you must have been.
[Sandy exhales]
[Caroline] How could you not be, though?
[Sandy] It was either my life or his.
[Caroline] My brain went,
"You've got it on recording,
but stop now."
[dramatic music continues]
I saw him walking over and I think,
"This is now, potentially,
really not a safe situation."
[phone rings]
[dramatic music fades out]
[Caroline] Can you get that?
-[Sandy] What is it?
-[Caroline] It's my Deliveroo.
I've got Red Bull and some cans.
Healthy diet, yeah?
When someone says,
"It's my life or theirs,"
it was the admission I was so relieved
I had the voice recorder on for.
But equally you're thinking,
"But then why is he not saying,
'And I regret it,' or, 'I'm upset by it,'
or, 'I think about it'?"
[grim music plays]
Was he actually someone
who cared that he'd done this?
The extremes of the kindness
and the cruelty
that both these twin boys had shown
made me really wonder,
what could have possibly happened
in their lifetime to make them that way?
[grim music continues]
[man] From 1999 to 2011,
I was a community police officer
responsible for 79 square miles
of Argyll and Bute.
It was community policing
in its original sense,
back in the old days, you know,
the cop responsible for an area.
And I fell in love with it.
I had left the police,
and I was aware of a missing person case.
I think I was watching a local news story,
and one mentioned the Bridge of Orchy,
and I'm like, "Well, that's my beat."
[reporter] Tony Parsons
was cycling from Fort William
back to his hometown of Tillicoultry
when he went missing.
[Greg] So I'm interested.
So I'm like, "Whoa. Stop, rewind, play.
What've we got here?"
[reporter] Police arrested
two 29-year-old men
in connection
with Mr. Parsons' disappearance.
They were released
pending further inquiries.
"Oh! They've arrested somebody."
"That's good.
Arrested two people. Interesting."
"I wonder who that is.
I wonder if it's who I think it is."
[dramatic music plays]
I knew the McKellar brothers as boys.
I would spend a lot of time
in the schools.
Community policing,
stranger danger, cycling proficiency…
I'd like to think
I meant something to them.
I've certainly got the pictures
I think Robert drew of me, you know?
I kept it. I had it on my office wall.
I've still got it. I'll show you.
They were rough and ready.
And I remember
having discussions in the school
about maybe what the boys
were exposed to at home.
It was enough
for the teacher to be concerned.
I felt that that influence on the boys
came from the father,
Tom McKellar.
There was a couple of serious allegations.
And the intelligence was enough for us
to get a warrant to search Auch Estate.
And we found firearms
throughout the house.
[dark music plays]
[clicking]
We found pistols.
Now, pistols are illegal to own.
And we found a firearm
within Sandy's bedroom.
[dark music continues]
Having firearms strewed about your house,
lying about
in your primary school kid's bedroom,
this is serious now.
And that resulted
in Tom McKellar getting prosecuted.
From the age of 7,
the familiarity with firearms…
-[fires shot]
-[Sandy] Holy shit!
[dark music continues]
…the slaughtering of animals
and the disposal of animals…
There seemed to be an acceptance
of that at too young an age.
If you're exposed to it day and daily,
it's gonna desensitize you
to taking a life.
[dark music continues]
My thought at the time
when I was watching that newsreel was,
"It is a good place to conceal a person."
There's still bodies missing
here in Argyll that we haven't found.
[dark music plays]
[Lorna] The priority
was to take each zone,
each layer of the soil,
centimeter by centimeter.
Peat is dark.
It's very dark brown.
It's also, near the surface,
quite fibrous.
So it hides things in it.
We were looking for material
that had come from human origins,
such as hair, fingernails,
any human-introduced material.
When the archaeologists got further down,
there were bones appearing.
And what the anthropologists said was,
"These look like deer bones."
[flash snaps]
[shutter clicks]
And what it turned out to be
was what is called a… a kill pit.
Gamekeepers on that estate,
the McKellars, would have used this area
to dispose of parts of the animals
that were not required.
[dark music continues]
There had to be
a veterinary surgeon brought along
to confirm that these were,
indeed, relatively fresh.
These were consistent
with having been put in
from the same time
that Mr. Parsons disappeared.
But also, we were seeing an awful lot
of these little bits of wood chip.
You wouldn't find wood chippings there.
It's not natural.
They wouldn't be there
unless they'd been introduced.
The question is, where did they come from?
So we drove down
to the Auch Estate farmyard.
[mysterious music plays]
As we were walking through that,
we saw a digger truck.
When we looked at the bucket, within it,
there was these wood chips.
Those chippings were the same
as the wood chips
that were found at the scene.
What was particularly significant
was the dimensions
between the teeth on the bucket.
It was the same dimensions
that were measured
between the marks
that were left at the peat bog.
[flashbulb pops]
But only a few people would have
access to that particular vehicle.
And two of those people
were the McKellar twins.
[mysterious music continues]
[David] We can trace the evidence
at the kill pit back to Robert and Sandy,
but it's not enough to prove their guilt
because we had not found the body yet.
[intriguing music plays]
[Caroline] Every day going past,
I'm thinking,
"Surely they've got him by now."
I have not heard
anything from the police, so…
I was so at a loss
as to what was happening.
[intriguing music continues]
And I felt like
I was in a state of permanent fear.
And I'm lying in bed,
and I'm tossing and turning.
[intriguing music continues]
And Sandy's snoring beside me.
And then there was just this pounding.
[knocking at door]
Like bang, bang, bang on the front door.
"Shit! Shit! Fuck! Fuck!"
I'm thinking, "The only people
who do that is the police."
[knocking continues]
I'm like, jump out of the bed,
close my bedroom door as fast as I can.
And I go down the… go down my hall.
There is the same female detective
who had been at my parents' house.
Open the door ever so slightly.
I'm like… [whispers]
"Can I speak to you downstairs?"
[tense music plays]
"Who do you have in there?"
"I need to speak to you
in the car, outside."
"Why?"
"Who's in there?"
"Friends."
"You're lying."
Bang.
[tense music continues]
And she opens up the door
where Robert was sleeping.
She goes, "What the fuck, Caroline?!
You're our witness."
And I'm thinking, "Did he hear that?"
And the man goes in
and grabs Robert from the bed.
She's storming into the bedroom
at the top, grabbing Sandy out of the bed.
And they go,
"You're not supposed to be here,
you're supposed to be
in care of friends in Aberfoyle."
And Sandy goes, "I'm allowed to stay here.
This is my partner's house."
I'm going, "Of course you're allowed
to stay here, Sandy, if you want to."
And they went, "Right, you two,
you need to be out of here ASAP."
And like that, they left.
The police were checking on Caroline
to see if she was safe.
I have no doubt they were astonished
to discover the McKellars
were with her in the flat.
Had she cut all contact with them,
which she could readily have done,
then, plainly,
she would have been rather safer.
Personally, I'd have run a mile
to the nearest police station,
and then I'd have kept on going
to a place of safety,
and I would not have seen him again.
[mysterious music plays]
[Caroline] I'm standing in my living room,
and Robert goes…
"Caroline,
how did she know your name?"
[grim music plays]
"Have you met her before?
Does she know you?"
"Have you spoken to the police?"
"No, no. No, no, no, no."
And Sandy, thankfully,
intervened and went, "Robert, back off."
"Caroline would not do that to us."
"She loves us. I trust her."
And I could see, like,
Robert was so angry.
Sandy's comforting Robert,
and they're hugging each other.
Robert's like, "What'll we do?"
[grim music continues]
Sandy's like, "Look, Robert,
it was three years ago."
"If they had anything,
they'd have got us by now."
"They're not gonna find him."
"Even if they could
dig up that entire place,
they're not gonna find him."
[grim music continues]
Robert was like,
"Right, we need to get out of here now."
And Sandy's then like,
"I'm legally allowed
to stay with my fiancée."
"They can't argue with that."
Robert leaves to stay
with family friends outside of Glasgow,
and Sandy and I are then left in the flat.
He's like, "No, Caroline,
I know you would never, ever betray me."
The way Sandy was defending me was so…
weirdly comforting. [cries]
To survive in that moment,
I genuinely started to believe my own lie.
[grim music continues]
I was the supportive girlfriend there,
who'd also been treated badly
by the police.
I was lying.
I was betraying.
Yes, it was for a really good reason.
But lying erodes a part of your soul.
It was such a toxic entanglement.
[grim music continues]
[Margaret] Caroline said,
"Mum, he thinks we're still a couple."
"What do I do? He has a key."
I know that she was very, very afraid.
And she would lie there thinking,
"How do I get out of this?"
[grim music continues]
I honestly thought
I was going to have a heart attack.
Was he gonna hurt her?
Would-- would he kill her?
[grim music continues]
[Caroline] The police had said,
"You cannot tell anyone about this."
"Otherwise, you could compromise
this entire investigation."
[grim music continues]
But I needed to talk to someone about it.
The next opportunity when Sandy left,
I reached out to someone
who wouldn't judge me for the state
I was in and would understand.
[melancholy music plays]
[James] "You may have noticed
I've been unusually quiet of late."
"Don't know how I've managed it,
but I've been witness to a crime."
"I can even hear you in my head
saying, 'Oh my days.'"
And so I decided
to drive to her flat to see her.
And she opened the door,
and she looked absolutely shocking.
I was like,
"What the hell has happened here?"
[melancholy music continues]
Caroline is like anally clean,
OCD-level clean.
And this house was disgusting.
She was just word-vomiting
this information at me
in no coherent structure or order.
It took me about 20 minutes to work out
what she was trying to tell me.
[melancholy music continues]
Sandy had been involved
in the death of this guy.
She's now spying on Sandy.
Sandy, who we've just found out
has murdered somebody,
was living in the flat,
which I didn't know,
and had actually just popped out
for some beers
and was coming back.
[melancholy music continues]
And I was like,
"What the fuck is going on here?"
And my wife's heavily pregnant,
and I just need to…
I need to leave the situation.
And as I was leaving,
Sandy just arrived back.
He put out, uh, like, a hand
to shake his hand.
And I just kind of
awkwardly shook his hand
and said, "Nice to meet you,"
and then walked straight away.
[melancholy music turns dramatic]
I was devastated.
Her life was falling to pieces.
And I think it's one of the few times
I've cried in about the last 20 years.
I just-- It was all too much.
[Caroline] I'll be honest,
I was so manic at that point,
I don't really think I had
any control over what I was doing.
I think, in some ways,
my life was becoming so surreal,
my grasp on reality was weakening.
[dark music plays]
[reporter] Police have been scouring
this estate near Bridge of Orchy
for around two weeks.
It's understood specialist search officers
and forensic teams
are excavating the area.
[dark music continues]
[Caroline] Sandy gets a message
from a friend
that said the police
are looking at the carcass pits.
We've been, I don't know,
listening to music or something,
and he just slammed the radio off,
and he just started smashing his fists
off the sideboard.
Being like, "How do they know?
How do they know?"
"Fuck! Fuck!
How do they know where he is?"
[dark music continues]
I said, "You're fine.
They don't know where he is."
And he was like,
"How could they be in that area?"
"The place is so huge."
I was like, "Someone else must know,
or someone on the farm told them."
[dark music continues]
He had warped into, like, a crazed mania.
He was convinced there were spy devices
or taps for the police
to listen to the flat.
And he gutted the-- I mean,
every light fitting, everything,
essentially starting to trash it.
There was just this inhuman desire
to try and find
whatever device the police left.
I was just thinking,
"I've told the police where he is."
"I've marked the site
to make this as fast as possible
for you guys."
"This can't take forever."
But it felt like absolute forever.
[melancholy string music plays]
[Lorna] It was a Thursday in January.
It was a cold, cold day.
It was a day that I'll remember
for the rest of my life.
We were digging down
to about 30, 35 centimeters.
And the forensic archaeologist
took her trowel
and carefully was removing down,
millimeter by millimeter.
And she said,
"There's something red here.
There's red material here."
[melancholy string music continues]
And we could see that
it looked like fabric
that Mr. Parsons was last seen wearing
when he was cycling his bike.
[melancholy string music continues]
And you could see that there were
the fingerless gloves of a cyclist.
And indeed, she discovered that
there was a ring on his wedding finger.
He was lifted onto the stretcher,
and… as he was carried out,
the sun came out between the clouds.
We all stood with our heads bowed.
[melancholy string music turns poignant]
And we all said a little silent prayer
for Mr. Parsons and his family.
I think not knowing what has happened
to your loved one is…
Is a form of torture, really.
To be able to bring that,
at least, to an end
by saying, "We have recovered his body."
"We will, in the fullness of time,
give you back the body
to allow you to have a funeral,"
gives them something to hold on to.
[string music fades out]
Now, human remains have been found
in a remote part of Argyll.
Police have been carrying out
extensive searches in the area
as part of their investigation
into the disappearance
of cyclist Tony Parsons.
The 63-year-old was last seen
more than three years ago.
Sasha Spratt reports.
[electronic music plays]
[Caroline] The news broke out
to say human remains had been found
on the Auch Estate.
Sandy sat down,
and I'm expecting
him to scream and shout or kick off,
and he actually just sat in silence
for quite a while.
I think, in that moment,
he was a bit broken.
But he had this idea or this notion
that perhaps there'd been
another farmworker on the estate
who maybe had seen something
or who had leaked something.
And he, thankfully,
never thought at any moment
that, you know, one, it'd be me,
or two, that there'd been,
like, an actual marker.
[electronic music continues]
Sandy and his brother
were allowed to return to the estate.
So I dropped him home
and waved him goodbye.
It was a mix of heartbreak
and genuine relief.
I drove as fast as I could
to the police station
because Robert had told me
Tony Parsons was potentially still alive
at the time of the accident,
and I also had
a confession of sorts on my laptop,
and I wanted the police to hear it.
[electronic music continues]
[Caroline] How could you go out hunting
the next day and not be bothered?
[Sandy] It was either my life or his.
[electronic music continues]
[Caroline] I remember messaging
my mum and dad.
They were like, "We're so proud of you."
It was like, "Oh!"
I was like,
"I've done some good in the world."
[David] Dr. Muirhead had provided
the police with information
that Robert McKellar had confirmed to her
that Tony Parsons was alive at the time
they removed him to the estate.
That information changed it
because it altered what we were looking at
from a potential charge
of causing death by dangerous driving
into the most serious crime it could be,
namely one of murder.
[electronic music continues]
But in Scotland,
we have what's known as corroboration.
So that all relevant facts
must be proved by two sources of evidence.
[electronic music continues]
Mr. Parsons' body would not be capable
of being examined immediately
because of the fact it was frozen.
There's a delay of seven days or so
before it can be examined.
So until a full postmortem
has been conducted
and the pathologists have come
to a conclusion as to the cause of death,
and in this case, very particularly,
whether that death was instantaneous,
there's still no basis to arrest them
because we don't know
what the appropriate charges might be.
[pulsing music plays]
[Caroline] Arriving back at my flat,
for the first time in, like, two weeks
I didn't feel manic or frenetic.
And the sun was shining, it was starting
to feel lighter and happier.
[phone buzzes]
[Caroline breathes deeply]
And my phone rings, and it's Sandy.
I can hear he's driving the pickup truck.
He's on the loudspeaker.
And, you know, I was like, "Hi."
He was screaming,
"You fucking little bitch,
you fucking did this!"
I said, "I've not done anything."
[pulsing music continues]
He said that Police Scotland
used a local farming lad
to help with the grave-digging.
"There was
a sugar-free Red Bull can left there."
"You're the only person who drinks
sugar-free Red Bull, so you left it."
[pulsing music continues]
And he's just like, "You fucking did this,
and I have defended you to everyone."
"I said it wasn't you,
and you fucking did this!"
"You've handed me in. You've fucked me
and Robert over. You've fucked our lives."
He was like, "I need to see you right now,
and we need to do this face-to-face."
And he hangs up the phone,
and I swear to God, I started screaming.
[pulsing music continues]
My brain was like,
"You are going to get extremely hurt now."
[pulsing music continues]
He's got the spare keys to my flat
on the car keys.
And I was like,
"I'm gonna die. He is going to kill me."
[pulsing music swells]
[dramatic string music plays]
[dramatic string music fades out]