Cop who caught Renee MacRae and son's killer admits hurt that bodies were never found

dailyrecord.co.uk:

It was one of Scotland's longest unsolved cases - the murder of Renee MacRae and her three-year-old son Andrew, who disappeared near Inverness in November 1976.Last year - 46 years after the mother and son vanished without a trace from a lay-by on the A9 - Renee's lover William MacDowell was found guilty of their murders.But despite getting justice for Renee's family, DCI Brian Geddes - who led the re-investigation into their disappearance - admits he is gutted MacDowell died suddenly a few months after the trial without giving up the location of their bodies.The detective says he is upset and annoyed he hasn't been able to give closure to the victims' loved ones but hasn't given up hope that their remains will one day be found.Speaking to the Record ahead of a new documentary which follows MacDowell's 2022 murder trial, DCI Geddes, 48, said: "I am delighted we were able to give the family justice and get a conviction, but it still rankles that MacDowell died before we could speak to him face to face about the location of the bodies even though deep down I knew he wasn't ever going to engage."I recall a conversation I had a while ago with Renee's sister Morag when she told me if she had the choice of a conviction or recovering the bodies it would always be the latter and that hurts."After the trial ended we employed all methods to establish whether MacDowell would be willing to speak to us.

My final hope was that if I wrote to him he might respond and sit down with us but the letter was never received by him before he died."Our partners in the prison were pretty clear that he would never have engaged and told us where their bodies were but there is a bit of me that hoped that over time that might have changed.