Caroline Muirhead and Sandy McKellar

Dr. Caroline Muirhead, a Scottish forensic pathologist, had a whirlwind romance with gamekeeper Alexander "Sandy" McKellar. It took a horrifying turn after he confessed to helping cover up the death of cyclist Tony Parsons. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Carline Muirhead and Sandy McKellar. Caroline was forced to choose between protecting the man she loved and helping bring justice to a grieving family. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetime Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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  Please play responsibly. 21+, physically present in Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia only. Void in Canada. Eligibility restrictions apply. Non-withdrawable spins issued at 50 spins per day for 20 days. Valid for select games only and expire each day after 24 hours. Spin values vary. See terms at casino.draftkings.com/promos. Ends November 22, 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 519 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson, and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Hey, I'm hanging in there, man.

• 1:26Speaker 00

  Okay, hanging in.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  Hanging in.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  It's all you got.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  I could complain.

• 1:32Speaker 00

  Not doing good, not doing bad, just hanging in.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Does it do any good to complain about this damn kidney?

• 1:37Speaker 00

  Nobody cares.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  Nobody cares.

• 1:39Speaker 00

  Nobody cares. All right, buddy, let's jump right in.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 1:42Speaker 00

  Ready for this episode of True Crime All the Time?

• 1:44Speaker 01

  I am.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  We're talking about Caroline Muirhead and Sandy McKellar. When forensic pathologist Caroline Muirhead met gamekeeper Sandy McKellar on Tinder in 2020, she believed she had found the love of her life. Sandy made a shocking confession that forced her to make what felt like an impossible choice.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Tinder, is that where you swipe left or right or something like that?

• 2:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, like you don't know what Tinder is.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  I just, you know, want to confirm with you.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  Now, I don't know what Tinder is because I've been married for 30 years, but I know for a fact you know what. Not now, you don't know what it is now, but you might have known what it was at some point.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Might have heard about it.

• 2:22Speaker 00

  Might have heard of it. In 2020, Dr. Caroline Muirhead was a forensic pathologist working in a mortuary in Glasgow, Scotland.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Ah, your homeland.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. You know what I always say? It's not Scottish, it's crop.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Yes, you do.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  After going through a difficult breakup with a man who was allegedly abusive, she decided to join Tinder in the fall of 2020. Now, I've always heard of Tinder as more of a hookup app.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 2:55Speaker 00

  But I'm sure people have met on Tinder and formed like lasting relationships, right?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  I would think.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  Doesn't mean it has to be like a one-night-stand hookup app. I think maybe by and large, it might be that. I don't know.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  At least that's what I've heard. But this is also around the COVID time, isn't it?

• 3:16Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, actually, right? Fall of 2020, we're just kind of getting into the heart of COVID, right? The start of it. In October, Caroline matched with Alexander Sandy McKellar, marking the start of their whirlwind romance. And I, you know, Sandy McKellar seems like a very Scottish name to me.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  McKellar.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  McKellar.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Sandy was a hunter and gamekeeper on this estate, which was a 68-square-mile farm in the Scottish Highlands near a village called Bridge of Forky, about an hour away from the city.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Sounds like it was probably pretty nice, is what I'm thinking.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  You know, 68 square miles, not small.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Up in the Highlands?

• 4:06Speaker 00

  Are you familiar with the Scottish Highlands?

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Nothing like the Scottish Highlands.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  Spend a lot of time there?

• 4:10Speaker 01

  You know, okay.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  I just feel brave, brave, brave-hearted.

• 4:16Speaker 00

  I've seen Braveheart. That's as much as I know of the Scottish Highlands. On his Tinder profile, Sandy described himself as a six-foot-four Highlander, lonely contractor, looking for someone to keep warm on cold nights on the farm. You ever see the movie Highlander?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Actually, I did. It's been a while, but.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  Me too. It's an older movie. And I think they might have made some other ones, but. All right, so six-foot-four, he's a, he's a big lad. Tall lad. But he's just looking for someone to keep him warm, you know, cold nights on the farm.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Well, if you were to wear something besides the kilt, maybe you wouldn't get so cold, you know?

• 4:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, not great in the cold. From the beginning, Caroline and Sandy had a strong connection. She explained in the docu-series, "Should I marry a murderer? I felt so lonely and wanted to find someone who didn't want to change me and someone who would want to start life together with marriage and the prospect of children." And all right, you know, at a certain age, isn't that what everybody's looking for, right? If you haven't found it by a certain point, most people start to kind of progress out of the party lifestyle and then maybe looking to settle down, start a family, something like that.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Certain things that are important to people at that time.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. She agreed to meet Sandy on the farm for their first date in early October 2020. Caroline recalled an unsettling conversation with a friend ahead of the date. She said, "I phoned my friend Carla. She was like, 'What if he turns out to be a murderer?'" I was like, "Oh, come on, get a grip. That's not going to happen."

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Sounds like the conversation some of our really good listeners would have with some of their friends, like, "Hey, what if..."

• 6:08Speaker 00

  Well, maybe this friend Carla was into true crime. She thought like that, I don't know. But Caroline and Sandy both bonded over their jobs because they dealt with death every day. Sandy seemed relieved to find a partner who understood him, and he seemed interested in her work as a pathologist. I would be very interested in that work, although I feel like it would be, it's not an easy job.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  I would be interested. I'd want to have some conversations, but not before and not right after dinner.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  And not during, for sure.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Definitely not during. Be like, "Hey, we'll have this conversation later."

• 6:46Speaker 00

  But you would think, right? Some of these pathologists, they have to have the most amazing stories. Now, some of them, they probably can't share with everybody, but you know, things being found in places that you wouldn't expect to find things, matchbox cars. I don't know, you know? I've heard of different things found in X-rays, so.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  There's two people you want to be really close to at a party. A pathologist and a proctologist.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  I knew that was going to be your second one. Sandy and his twin brother, Robert, who was also a farm worker, they often hosted parties in a barn on Acker State, where they went out to local pubs. And again, I don't know if I'm saying all these places correctly, you know? We go, I can't even say all the places in the States correctly, but the more international we get, the more I normally mess up.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  If you need my help, let me know.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  Because again, you've seen Braveheart.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  I've seen Braveheart. I see Braveheart the movie and also Braveheart the Disney or cartoon one. Maybe that wasn't Disney, maybe that was.

• 7:54Speaker 00

  I don't think that was Braveheart, was it?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's called Brave, just brave.

• 7:59Speaker 00

  That is not the same thing as Braveheart, is it?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  No, but she's, it's a Scottish princess.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Hey, I got some Scottish knowledge.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  I'm assuming there's a lot less killing in that one.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot less.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  It was during one of these parties that Robert pulled Caroline aside and told her Sandy was, quote, "not right in the head." All right, so this is your twin brother or your boyfriend's twin brother.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, saying this.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  Saying, "Oh, by the way, my brother, your boyfriend, is not right in the head."

• 8:36Speaker 01

  And you need to know this.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  I don't know what you do with that information. Caroline was so smitten that she kind of dismissed Robert's remark. You know, maybe it's, maybe she thought, well, he's jealous or of our relationship. But she did notice some red flags with Sandy. He often became loud and belligerent when he drank too much, and she suspected he drank and used drugs as a crutch during their relationship.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  Which is a problem.

• 9:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, but a lot of people do.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  Right? Why do people drink? Why do they use drugs? Well, for a number of reasons, but some people use them as a crutch, right? To get through things or during stressful times or whatever.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Nerves.

• 9:19Speaker 00

  Nerves. Weeks after meeting on November 28, 2020, Sandy proposed to Caroline. She accepted and was looking forward to starting the next phase of their life together.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  So it was a pretty short period of time there.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  It was, and again, did she see some red flags? Yeah, she even admitted that. But she also said, right? She was looking for someone to settle down with. She was smitten with this guy, and she thought he was the one. Caroline's family invited the couple to spend Christmas with them at their home in Glasgow. Shortly after the engagement, as Caroline was preparing for the trip, she asked Sandy if there was anything from his past that might affect their future together.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  I mean, it's always a good question to ask.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  Is it? I guess it is, but you might not want to find out what somebody's getting ready to tell you.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we, you've probably been asked that question. I know I've been asked that question and.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  Why would I be asked that question? I've been married for over 30 years.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:24Speaker 00

  I didn't even have a past, really, when I got married.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  You were just too young.

• 10:28Speaker 00

  I was like 22 years old.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Your closet was still very empty.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  It was. There was no skeletons, very few skeletons. But he made a chilling confession to her. He said, three years earlier, he killed a man. Sandy confessed that he was driving under the influence with Robert in the passenger seat. When he accidentally hit a man with a bicycle. That man was 63 year old Tony Parsons. Tony was a Navy veteran who lived in Tillicultry in Clackmeninshire, Scotland.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, nice area.

• 11:04Speaker 00

  You like it? Tony had a wife and two kids and he was a beloved grandfather. He had also survived prostate cancer. Tony was an outdoorsman who enjoyed fishing with his grandchildren. He also loved golf and rugby and was involved with coaching and refereeing mini and midi leagues. Whatever those are.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:26Speaker 00

  In Scotland, I'm assuming it's like Pee Wee or Say Soccer here, or whatever you call it.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  I don't know. I'm gonna believe.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Oh, that one you don't know nothing about.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  I'm thinking maybe.

• 11:37Speaker 00

  But Clackmeninshire, Clackmeninshire, you know all about. Mini and midi leagues out of your.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Out of my range of.

• 11:47Speaker 00

  Out of your range. Another one of Tony's hobbies was cycling. Because he survived cancer, he decided he wanted to give something back. On September 29th, 2017, he joined a 204 mile prostate cancer charity ride from Fort William back to Tillicultry. The accident happened late that evening on the A82 highway near Bridge of Orky. When confessing to Caroline, Sandy said that after hitting the man, they stopped to check on him. But there was no chance he would survive. He and Robert argued about calling the police, but they feared they would be arrested.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  So they buried the body on Auck Estate and tried to move on with their lives. I mean, can you imagine that you were in love with someone? You're now engaged.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  You're planning to get married and this person drops this revelation that three years ago, they killed someone. Now, according to them, it was accidental.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  But they still covered it up and they buried this body.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Which would be so shocking to hear.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  Yeah. I don't know what you do with that information.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Well, I know what you should do with that information, but what do you actually do when it's the person that you are in love with telling you?

• 13:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, when it's the love of your life, is that something that you say, well, you shouldn't have done that, but I'm not going to tell on you.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  We're gonna find out.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  What would you do?

• 13:24Speaker 00

  We're gonna find out what, well. I actually don't know. I would love to say that I would terminate the relationship immediately and I would march straight to the police. That's what I would love to say, and I would kind of like to hope I would do.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  But I don't know, I don't know how my heart would react.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:45Speaker 00

  Cause you know, everybody can think back about like being engaged. I mean, oh my gosh, you're in kind of la la land, right?

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  Or even just after you get married, being a newlywed, like that, that part of the relationship is always kind of magical.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  This is the kind of stuff that will come out like five years after you've been married. Like, you know what? I don't even like you anymore and I'm gonna go tell the police what you told me five years ago.

• 14:14Speaker 00

  Right, yeah. Man, he's really trusting her.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:19Speaker 00

  He could have just said, no, there's nothing in my past.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Nope, I'm good.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  Just let it go on, but I mean, at the very least, you gotta give it up to him that he was on.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  Now, he did something kind of horrific, but he was honest about it. My other thought is you're really putting a lot on that other person. Cause now they, you can't take that back.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:41Speaker 00

  Right? Once that information is out there, once that person knows, they gotta do something with it. They have no choice.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  Cause now they can get in trouble too.

• 14:50Speaker 00

  Absolutely. So Tony's family became worried when he hadn't called them by the evening of September 30th, 2017. Tony's son, Mike, recalled to the BBC years later, actually texted him myself with what is my dad and myself sense of humor. It was a simple text that said, are you still alive?

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Oh man.

• 15:13Speaker 00

  Looking back now, it's not nice to know that was the very last thing I texted him, knowing at this point, he would have been passed away. But who hasn't done that?

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Oh, of course, yeah.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  You're joking around. Like if somebody's late, you're like, are you still alive?

• 15:29Speaker 01

  I think you've said that to me before.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Many times back when I worked with you.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  Well, some of those, some of those were legitimate concerns.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  Because of your lifestyle. Are you still alive?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  It's true. But I mean, this Tony guy sounds like an amazing guy.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  Oh, absolutely.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  And everything he overcame for this to happen to him.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  And he's killed on this charity bike ride for prostate cancer.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Oh man.

• 15:55Speaker 00

  Tony was reported missing on October 2nd, 2017, after his daughter searched the highway and failed to find him. Police determined that Tony passed through Glenco Village at 6:00 PM on September 29th, before biking to the Bridge of Orky Hotel. It's either Orky or Orchi. I'm going with Orky.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Careful how you say Orchi.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  Orchi. I was careful to put the CH on there.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  But, and maybe that's why I went with the other one, just cause, but people are going right in, obviously, and tell me if I'm wrong, they always do. He was last seen at the hotel at 11:30 PM and headed south on the A82 towards Tinder. The police searched remote and inhospitable terrain surrounding his last known location, but no trace of Tony was found. The police searched extensively and made national appeals, asking the public for help. Tony's son, Mike, a former police officer, knew that the more time passed, the less likely it was that Tony would be found alive. Still, he lied to his mother to convince her that there was still a chance.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  And I don't think you have to be a police officer, right? To, to understand that.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:14Speaker 00

  If somebody's missing, obviously the more time that passes without them being found, the greater the likelihood that something bad has happened to them.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he doesn't want to break his mom's heart right now.

• 17:28Speaker 00

  No, and I could see where, you know, maybe a little white lie in that situation might not be a bad thing.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  You're trying to keep that hope alive, even though in your heart, you as a former police officer are thinking, oh, this isn't good.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  This is not good, yeah.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  Tony's case had been cold for years when Sandy confessed to Caroline. According to the BBC, the police had actually spoken to the McKellar brothers previously. They were interviewed in August, 2018, after the police received an anonymous letter stating they were in the Bridge of Orky Hotel, the night Tony went missing, but no further action was taken. So again, okay, a lot of people are gonna be questioned.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:13Speaker 00

  But what are they gonna say? Obviously they're not gonna say, yeah, we ran over this guy and we buried his body. So if they don't give you anything, you don't really have any more to go on than you had before you started talking to them.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  I mean, they're both each other's alibi.

• 18:27Speaker 00

  That's true as well. That's very true. In June, 2020, they were questioned again and confirmed they were in the hotel with a hunting party, but they said they hadn't seen Tony. After he was done tearing, telling Caroline this horrific story, he insisted he wasn't a bad person.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  I mean, there's an argument there, obviously. I think in his mind, he's probably thinking, look, I'm a good guy. I just, something terrible happened that night and I didn't know what else to do and we did what we did.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you can make a case that he, he's not a serial killer. He didn't set out to murder someone.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:06Speaker 00

  But he did cover up an accident, if it was an accident, and he did bury the body. On top of that, this information that he's kept quiet has kept the family from knowing what happened to their loved one.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  I think that's almost not as bad as killing the guy, but it's, it's up there, right? I mean, you're putting this family in distress because they don't know what happened to their dad, their husband, they have no clue.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  Well, some people could argue that it's worse.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you could, I guess.

• 19:38Speaker 00

  Because if it truly was an accident, okay, a family might understand that.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  You know, maybe it's dark. Maybe these Scottish roads are not that wide or they're, they're twisty. There's all kinds of different things that could happen and accidents do occur. What would be hard to explain is that you decided to bury this guy.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:04Speaker 00

  And completely never talk about it again.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  And there's probably some conversation there, why you were at the hotel? Did you drink too much? Did you drive drunk?

• 20:13Speaker 00

  Right.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  And is that why you struck him?

• 20:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a great point because that would maybe be a reason why you would do the cover up.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  Because then you would be looking at much more serious charges than what would, than what you would be for, let's just say, an accident or something like that. But what happened was, you know, as we kind of mentioned earlier, Caroline was kind of suddenly thrust into a murder case.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Yes, she was.

• 20:44Speaker 00

  Right? She didn't call the police right away and still decided to visit her family for the holidays with Sandy.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Boy, that'd be so hard, cause it would just be back here the whole time, you know?

• 20:56Speaker 00

  On the back of your head or in the back of your mind?

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Back of your mind.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  And you're doing a thing where you're going around and around like that. I don't know. Caroline said in the docu-series, my brain wasn't in a position to go to the police. My brain still wasn't accepting what I'd been told. The underlying sense of panic was so massive, actually couldn't address it in that moment. And I actually kind of understand what she's saying.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:23Speaker 00

  Oh, I've never been in that position, but I can't imagine that you're hearing something that is so wild and shocking that you're actually not processing it maybe completely right away.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  You kind of need some time to step back to put it all in place.

• 21:40Speaker 00

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• 22:22Speaker 00

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• 23:04Speaker 00

  And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was true crime all the time. It's the best way to support the show. Further explaining her thoughts after the confession, Caroline said, imagine you fell in love with someone who made you feel accepted, wanted, seen, whole and loved and just special. Then they said to you, they did this horrible thing, something so vile, it flips your world upside down. To remain in love, you have to keep the secret, even though you know it will destroy you. But if you reveal it, you destroy everything too. And doing the right thing, I knew I had to hand in the man I loved. You can't help who you fall in love with.

• 23:48Speaker 00

  It sounds so twisted and dysfunctional, but in some ways he was putting all this trust in me when I'd been lied to before and really hurt. There was this weird sense of someone trusting me with such a big secret that it felt special, even though, even though I knew it was so poisonously wrong. My brain couldn't fathom the idea that the man I'd fallen in love with was a murderer. I hated myself. I felt like a rat and I felt like a liar.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  But you also have to say, shame on him for putting that on me. Like, you know, he decided to tell me about all that. Yeah. Did I ask?

• 24:28Speaker 00

  She did ask.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Did ask, but I never would have thought that would have came out of somebody's mouth, right? You probably, he's probably thinking, maybe he's, he's going to mention like, well, I used to, you know, date this one girl, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Not that, well, I killed somebody, but to put that on her, now she has to harbor that. And I don't, that's not fair.

• 24:51Speaker 00

  She got to figure out what to do with it, right?

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, if he was like, hey, I'm going to go to the police, don't worry. That's one thing, but.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  But he's not.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  He's not saying that.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  No. But I also get where she's coming from, right? She's been lied to. She's had bad relationships. Nobody's ever made her feel special. And now in some way, he's making her feel more special than anybody ever has because he's trusting her so much.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  With this massive secret, even though she knows it's going to rip them apart. It's kind of fascinating, really.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  It is.

• 25:29Speaker 00

  You know, when you break it down. It was during that holiday trip that Sandy shocked Caroline further by asking her to help him move the body.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  Now that's, you went too far to begin with, but now you've really gone too far.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  I mean, that's, that's crossing the line. If you could say.

• 25:49Speaker 00

  That he didn't already.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 00

  I mean, it's one thing to want to be completely honest in a relationship. You feel like you can trust this person so much. You tell them this awful secret, but then you're like, oh, by the way, I need you to help me move this body. Tough.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  It is. I mean, I get it. There's a lot of people out there to say they're ride and die, you know, their best friend, we do anything for each other. Would you, would you actually go and move a body that your friend?

• 26:22Speaker 00

  Well, I think a lot of people say it, but you know, sometimes when it comes to the, the actual part, they don't, they don't live up to it. So what he explained to her was that the estate owner was going to build housing on the land where Tony was buried. Sandy knew she had expertise in autopsies and asked how long it would take to burn a body and if she could help move it. Caroline recalled, you're thinking to yourself, am I being used for my skillset?

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  She said she had pathologist on her Tinder profile. So she was like, did he choose me specifically because he wanted someone to help him with this?

• 27:09Speaker 01

  How heartbreaking would that be?

• 27:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, because if he did, this is a pretty long con.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 00

  Right? They're like three years in or however long, so. But it's not out of the question.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  No, it's not.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  Caroline wanted to end the relationship, but she knew she had to be careful. On December 27th, 2020, Caroline called the police and began secretly helping with the investigation. On December 30th, Sandy and Robert were arrested and brought in for questioning. They refused to talk and because the police didn't have a body or any other evidence linking them to the crime, they were released without charges. But Sandy had no idea Caroline was the one who reported it.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Man, wouldn't you be like all nervous if you're Caroline?

• 27:57Speaker 00

  Well, you know, she said she had to be careful. And I would say, yes, you do, because this is a person who allegedly didn't kill this man on purpose.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:09Speaker 00

  But did purposefully cover it up. So in my mind, what links are they willing to go to, to make sure that this secret is not uncovered?

• 28:20Speaker 01

  It's kind of like that poker match, right? You're either all in or you're not. What are you going to do?

• 28:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. So now that she knows about it, if he thinks that she's not going to keep his secret, could he potentially harm her? I think it's a very valid thought.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  I think so too. Especially if he really never loved her because he played her.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  Oh, absolutely.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Through the Tinder thing because of her profession.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. I still think that's a long con. Do you wait three years? Maybe. Ooh, long con. So Caroline was afraid for herself, her family, but she continued seeing Sandy and trying to gather evidence. She secretly recorded her conversations with him in hopes of getting a confession. It was around this time that Robert revealed a new piece of information. He revealed that the cyclist didn't immediately die after the crash. He was alive and the brothers hit him on the side of the road and drove home, changed clothes and even switched vehicles before returning to the scene.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  So that changes everything.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  Everything.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  I mean, even if you were like, uh, that was just bad luck. You hit, you know, I mean, oh, so tragic. Uh, I, I kind of see why you, maybe you did what you did, but now you hear this and you're like, what are you guys, monsters?

• 29:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  You couldn't have called 911 or whatever they have out there and get help? Maybe save this guy's life?

• 29:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, it goes from you accidentally killed someone and then you did something horrible by covering it up to you possibly accidentally hit someone, but then you intentionally did not call for help and you left them on the side of the road. You did essentially kill them.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  In my way of thinking, then if, if it happened like that. So they returned to the scene. They took the body to the estate and left it in the woods before burying it elsewhere on the ground.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  How do you sleep at night?

• 30:30Speaker 00

  I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know how some of these murderers do. Now I kind of understand serial killers because they don't have that thing that the rest of us have, right? Where we feel bad about things. I think a lot of serial killers just don't have that.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  So they, they probably sleep pretty good. Doesn't bother them.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  You know, I was thinking, Robert told Caroline that Sandy's a little.

• 30:58Speaker 00

  Off in the head.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. But it kind of sounds like maybe Robert's there too.

• 31:03Speaker 00

  Well, he went, he went along with it.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  Now maybe it was Sandy's idea and all that, but you know, he went along with it. Now, you know, they are twins.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, they are.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  Would you do that for your twin? I don't know, because I never had a twin.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. It'd be an interesting.

• 31:19Speaker 00

  Wouldn't do it for you. I know that.

• 31:23Speaker 00

  Like nine one one, yes, Mike Gibson, come get him, please.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Even if I didn't do it, you would probably call me and say, and I did it. It had to be him.

• 31:32Speaker 00

  If I just had a suspicion, I'd call in on you. Now, what it did, you know, obviously changed Carolyn's view of this whole thing. From what she thought was an accident to now, like this was him committing murder.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Oh, I bet that night when she learned this, I wouldn't think she slept at all. I'm pretty sure she was like, how do I get out of this house? How do I get away from this guy? But I gotta play it cool because the police need my help. And I need the police to do what they're going to do because I need him out of my life. Because otherwise I might be buried out on the farm as well.

• 32:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, she had to be worried about her, you know, her safety also. Caroline told Sandy she would help him move the body. But first she needed to know exactly where it was buried. So, you know, he led her to the spot and she secretly dropped a Red Bull can to serve as a marker for the police.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Very smart.

• 32:36Speaker 00

  Very smart. Now, I think she was a very intelligent person, right? She was a pathologist. She had gone through all that schooling. She called the police and told them where they could find it. Tony Parsons body was found on January 12th, 2021. During the dig investigators found a piece of red material that matched the jacket Tony was last seen wearing. It took two days to uncover his remains.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 33:05Speaker 00

  And prosecutors later acknowledged that the body probably never would have been found without Caroline's help.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Oh, I would have to agree with that.

• 33:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't think Sandy and or Robert, you know, they were going to come forward to police and tell them what they had done. So, you know, if Sandy doesn't tell Caroline and if she doesn't make the decision to do the right thing, right, and go to police and on top of that, continue this relationship to get further information. I mean, there's, if you think about it, she did a lot here.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Yes, she did.

• 33:47Speaker 00

  To help solve this crime.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  I mean, shame on Sandy for putting it all on her, you know, I mean, he did that to himself.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  Well, going back to what you said, it makes it even an even bigger deal.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  Now, right, once you find all of this out, what he put on her, just by that one admission, it must have been like the weight of the world on her shoulders. And it, my thinking is it got heavier and heavier as time went on.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, it kept on getting, didn't get better.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  No, because at first it was like, well, okay, you're telling me this, it doesn't make you look great, but I get it. It was an accident to now it's a murder that you completely covered up. And you want me to help you move the body because you're afraid it's going to be uncovered when they build these houses. And then after the body was found and Caroline had to navigate several days of uncertainty and fear.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Well, I bet, you know, because the body hadn't been found up to this point. He showed her where the body was. So naturally I think he would have to say, only person that knew where this was was you and my brother. And I don't think my brother would have told the police, so.

• 35:09Speaker 00

  No, because he could have done it at any point up to now.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  And he didn't, the body's found right after I kind of share this with you and tell you where it is. So yeah, I'm with you. Sandy had to be suspicious of her. According to Caroline, when the news came out that human remains were found, Sandy called her and screamed at her, you fucking little bitch, you fucking did this. I have defended you to everyone and you have handed me in and fucked our lives. Now, this is according to the Scottish Sun and obviously they left out the expletives, but this is what he said to her.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Well, look, he can say that, but end of the day, he's the one that fucked their lives.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, I always like it when people do something and then they blame it on the other person.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:01Speaker 00

  Because they did the right thing. That, that always, that always kills me. Caroline recalled the fear she felt when Sandy hung up the phone. Sandy had spare keys to her apartment and she worried he was going to kill her. And I would say that's a very real fear to have.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  If you're her.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Clearly, he has it in his system to do that.

• 36:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. And he didn't, now he might've felt guilty about it. I don't know. But it wasn't enough not to do it or to come clean later on.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:34Speaker 00

  So it must have not have been too much of a guilty feeling. And then later Sandy apologized to her. She said, one side of my brain was saying, this is the loving man I fell for. The gentle Sandy, the other side is saying this guy is dangerous.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Dr. Heckle, Dr.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  Go ahead, go ahead. Dr. Heckle.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Dr. Heckle, Mr. Hyde.

• 37:04Speaker 00

  Mr. Hyde, Dr. Heckle and Mr. Hyde. Yeah, I mean, you really get a sense of it from her perspective, right? She's conflicted.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:15Speaker 00

  You know, she loves this guy. She thinks she's going to marry this guy. And then all of a sudden there's the bombshell and then everything that came along after it. And then even after he thinks she's the one who, you know, ratted him out. She's like, you know, he calls her and says, I'm sorry, I love you. She's still conflicted.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, she's in love.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. But on the one hand, on the other hand, she knows this guy is fricking dangerous.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:46Speaker 00

  Nine days later, on January 21st, 2021, Caroline helped the police locate Sandy and Robert, who were both arrested. By this point, she had been through, you know, a great deal of emotional trauma. In that docu-series, she talks about how she turned to alcohol and drugs to cope.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Bet she had to.

• 38:08Speaker 00

  Well, I think she felt she had to, or at least she felt that's what she needed to do.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  I feel like there wouldn't be enough wine in the world or, or, you know, what are you Scotch? You Scotland people drink?

• 38:20Speaker 00

  Scotch?

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Scotch.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  I don't know. Boy, you're on fire today.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, drink some bunch of Scotch.

• 38:34Speaker 00

  What do you Scottish people drink? I don't know. But again, if you've never been in a situation like that, how can you know? Right? How it would affect you, what you would have to deal to cope or what you would have to do to, to cope with it.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  I would have to take something to make myself fall asleep.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. And maybe that was part of the coping process.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:59Speaker 00

  And I can't get to sleep. I need something to, to help me. Prosecutors had to wait for Tony's autopsy results to come in before they could file formal charges. In December 2021, Sandy and Robert McKellar were formally charged with murder. The BBC reported that Tony suffered catastrophic rib, pelvic and spine fractures from the collision. His injuries were so extensive. He would have only survived 20 to 30 minutes without medical care. But it was unlikely he died instantly. His most immediate cause of death was rib injuries and a collapsed lung affecting his breathing.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  But you know what? I'm sure Sandy and his brother didn't know how long he could survive. They were obligated to call rescue, the authorities to see if something could be done.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  Well, there's a couple of things here for me. Number one, yeah, they, they should have called somebody. Could they have gotten there and saved him within 20 to 30 minutes, right? It's if that's how long he had, or maybe they had longer, we don't know.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  But then also I'm thinking, okay, that would be, that must've been a horrible 20 to 30 minutes. If that's how long he survived.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Amount of pain he had to go through.

• 40:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. By himself, nobody helping him. If you're the family, I mean, that's, that's soul crushing.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 40:29Speaker 00

  To think that's how your, your husband, your dad, your grandfather died at the hands of these two guys.

• 40:38Speaker 00

  The brothers were scheduled to go to trial in July 2023. Caroline was summoned to appear as a witness, but she didn't show up to court. She explained in her documentary interview that she panicked and she drove to the Highlands in hopes of finding more evidence. She was later arrested for evading court.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  That's kind of rough, you know?

• 41:01Speaker 00

  It is.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  You wouldn't be where you're at today if it wasn't for her. But then you're going to, because she's nervous and scared. She didn't show up and then you arrest her for evading court. It is the law though, so.

• 41:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, but my thought is, you know, how much did this mess her life up?

• 41:24Speaker 01

  I think it messed it up a lot.

• 41:25Speaker 00

  I mean, she had a great job, right? She had gone through all the schooling. And then she meets this guy who she thinks is the one, and all of a sudden her life is turned upside down.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  She started drinking, she started doing drugs to cope. And then she's ultimately arrested because she's freaked out about having to testify. On July 26, 2023, Sandy McKellar pleaded guilty to culpable homicide and attempting to pervert the court, the course of justice. The court accepted Robert's not guilty plea to murder. And he pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice. In court on July 28th of that year, the prosecutor read out an agreed narrative of the case.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  So on the night of September 29th, 2017, the brothers were out drinking with a German hunting group. Tony stopped at this same village they were in, the Bridge of Orky, and was drinking a coffee in the local hotel, but decided to keep cycling rather than stay the night. Sandy admitted to driving on the A82 highway at excess speed and when he was unfit due to the fact that he was, had been drinking alcohol.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Drunk driving.

• 42:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. He admitted he was distracted by oncoming headlights and hit something on the side of the road, which he discovered was a cyclist. He said he panicked and he said with reckless disregard for the consequences of his actions, he left Tony by the side of the road in a remote location during the hours of darkness and in inclement weather, which caused his death. Sandy and Robert left knowing Tony was still alive to dump their truck. They returned in another vehicle to move the body to Ock Estate. I mean, there's a couple of things that are, you know, all kind of coming together.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:37Speaker 00

  One that you mentioned, which was, you know, had these guys been drinking? It turns out, yeah, they had been.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  And I'm sure that played a large part in their decision to try to cover up this crash or, you know, because they knew that they would be charged with it, right? You can't claim an accident, even if it was an accident, if you've been drinking. I mean, it ceases to be an accident.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:08Speaker 00

  At that point.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  I mean, this is a nightmare. I mean, this is something you would see a made for TV movie about, right? You're out late drinking, you leave, you're, you know, with your best friend or brother, whoever, maybe you're, as they're singing some songs, driving down this road at high speeds. Next thing you know, something is in front of you, you hit it. And at that point, your whole world changes because you have to make decisions at that moment, right? Right then, you have to decide, do we call for help or do we pull the body, put it to the side, come back and get it and bury it? What do we do?

• 44:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. Do we do the right thing or do we cover our own asses?

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:52Speaker 00

  I'm, is what I'm thinking they, they kind of based everything on. And they chose not to do the right thing. They chose to cover themselves because they didn't want to get charged with, you know, whatever it would be in Scotland.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:09Speaker 00

  You know, reckless homicide or vehicular manslaughter. I mean, there's a, a bunch of different things over here. Something related to being drunk, obviously, is what it would be.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Not to get too far ahead, my thought here, but if you're Robert, how pissed are you at Sandy right now for telling Caroline?

• 45:34Speaker 00

  Hmm. Yeah, it's a good point because he obviously did something wrong as well.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  He went along with it, whoever's, let's say it was Sandy's idea. Robert went along with it.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:46Speaker 00

  And he didn't tell anybody. So you're right, he's probably got to be pretty upset at Sandy for running his mouth.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  And saying, hey, you didn't need to ever tell anybody about this and we would have got away with it.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  I thought you said we were taking this to the grave. You didn't hold your bargain.

• 46:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. A pathologist determined that Tony sustained extensive injuries.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Injuries?

• 46:09Speaker 00

  Injuries.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:10Speaker 00

  That kind of came out.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 00

  And it was unlikely he would have survived. Using an excavator, the brothers buried the body on the estate in a peat bog where animal carcasses were disposed of.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 46:24Speaker 00

  It's that peat bog, I think, or that peat.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:28Speaker 00

  That they used to make all that good Scotch.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  You gotta have peat.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  Pretty sure that's what makes all that good Scotch over there.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  What you don't know is there was a guy named Pete that works the peat bogs, you know, that way.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  Is his name spelled P E A T?

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Doesn't matter.

• 46:44Speaker 00

  It doesn't matter. So they buried his body, then they hid Tony's body behind a waterfall on the estate. This bike has never been found. After the guilty pleas, Tony's family released a statement that was published by Police Scotland. Tony was a much loved husband, dad and granddad. When he said goodbye and set off on his charity cycle from Fort William that Friday, none of us expected it would be the last time we would be able to see or speak to him.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:20Speaker 00

  Throughout the six years since he went missing and then the subsequent criminal investigation, we had been left with many unanswered questions. And it's been heartbreaking for each and every member of the family being unable to get these answers. As you can imagine, not knowing what has happened to someone. And then the devastating news that we were provided has taken its toll on all of us as a, a family. At last justice has been done and we would like to thank not only the court officials and officers from Police Scotland's major investigation team, Fourth Valley Division and other Police Scotland departments who worked on this case, but all the volunteers

• 48:01Speaker 00

  and mountain rescue teams who tirelessly searched for him in the earlier stages of the inquiry. As a family, we would like to request privacy at this time so that we can finally grieve and come to terms with the outcome of the trial and a life without Tony.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:20Speaker 00

  And your heart goes out to them.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 48:22Speaker 00

  No doubt about it. They went a number of years having no idea what happened to Tony to then finding out that, you know, he was dead and then ultimately finding out that, you know, these, these people had a hand in it.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:41Speaker 00

  And what they, exactly what they did to cover it up. Very tough for them. On August 25th, 2023, Sandy was sentenced to 12 years in prison and Robert received a sentence of five years and three months. Sandy's lawyer, Brian McConaughey, read a, a statement on his behalf in court. He said, he accepts that while catastrophically injured, Mr. Parsons was alive at the time. The only explanation which he offers is simply fear and panic. Using his words, he says he was too much of a coward to come clean. When he met Caroline and she went to the police, he fully accepts that ultimately she made the right decision in doing so.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  It's a fair statement.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  It is. I mean, it's more than we've heard a lot of people say.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:32Speaker 00

  You know, he is basically calling himself a coward.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:37Speaker 00

  And that's what he was.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  He was.

• 49:41Speaker 00

  Right? He gave in to fear and panic and he chose to do the wrong thing because he was a coward. It's interesting to hear him say that Caroline did the right thing in going to the police.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:55Speaker 00

  Sandy wanted to apologize for the trauma he caused to the family. He said, he's not an evil man. And his lawyer said, he acknowledges that he's done a terrible thing, which has caused untold stress to the Parsons family. He would do anything he could to alter to the decision he took in September 2017, but he cannot rewind the clock. And those to me are, I don't know, those could just be words, to be honest with you. Because if he could go back and redo it, would he? I don't know that he would.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:29Speaker 00

  If he could go back and not tell Caroline, would he?

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 50:33Speaker 00

  And I think the answer to that would be yes.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  I think so too.

• 50:36Speaker 00

  And those are two different things.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Very different.

• 50:39Speaker 00

  In my opinion. I mean, to me, some of this stuff is easy to say, once you're caught and you're sentenced, then you know what your fate is. But you, you know, given that, even some people don't do this. They go the other way, right? And they say bad things about the victim.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:58Speaker 00

  The victim's families, they cuss at them and they do all that.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  I mean, in this case here, I mean, I hope he really does feel bad and sorry and regrets what happened and, and.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  You know, there's no way to make him amends for what happened.

• 51:16Speaker 00

  No, but you know, the thing is neither one of these guys got a ton of time.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 51:21Speaker 00

  They're both going to get out and be able to live their lives.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Sure. Yep.

• 51:25Speaker 00

  So they're going to be able to prove, you know, at some point in time, whether or not they can live a good life. And not do anything like this again. Robert's attorney, John Scullion, said his client had misplaced loyalty towards his brother in trying to cover up the death, and he bitterly regrets his callous and cowardly actions. Or he regrets getting caught.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:51Speaker 00

  One or the other.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Regrets his brother.

• 51:53Speaker 00

  Or both.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  Opening his mouth and telling.

• 51:55Speaker 00

  Or that.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:57Speaker 00

  Caroline Muirhead has since moved to the Scottish coast and is seeing a psychiatrist. She has a new partner. She's sober and has a better relationship with her family.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Well, good.

• 52:09Speaker 00

  Now she, go ahead.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, I mean, if it wasn't for her, this case probably would have never been solved.

• 52:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, probably not. I think that's a fair thing to say. Now Caroline has made multiple complaints against Police Scotland. She told the Daily Record in 2023, from the word go, the police, they were saying, if I didn't cooperate with them, I could end up in trouble myself. I put so much trust in them and they promised anonymity, support. Yet the minute you give them what they want, you're hung out to dry. They suggested from the start that I could also end up in trouble with assisting a criminal, wasting police time, aiding and abetting. And that's rough. If that's what they did to her. Now I get it. If she goes through with helping move the body,

• 53:01Speaker 00

  yeah, she's going to get in trouble. But it sounds like to me, she was told something. She went to the police and then she even helped them get the information they needed.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  Sounds like when she went to them to tell them what she learned, they wanted her to do more for them. And because she was scared and also in that weird spot of, I love this guy. I don't know what I should do. It sounds like according to her, they put some pressure on her.

• 53:30Speaker 00

  And maybe even threatened her with possible charges if she didn't help them out further.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Which is not what you should.

• 53:38Speaker 00

  No, it's pretty rough, to be honest with you. In the docu-series, Caroline said she trusted the system would stand by me and keep me safe when I was at my most vulnerable, but that wasn't my experience. I hope by speaking out and sharing what happened to me, we can start an honest conversation about greater protection for victims and witnesses and why a far deeper understanding of mental health within the police and court system is so desperately needed. All too often, the impact of trauma and abuse is overlooked or dismissed entirely. And this means people like me are being left high and dry to pick up the pieces alone. And there's a couple of really good things there. You know, the first one is

• 54:21Speaker 00

  protection for victims and witnesses, right? We, we talk all the time about wanting people to come forward.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:29Speaker 00

  People do not want to come forward if they believe there's a chance they're not going to be protected. And even more so be hung out to dry.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's the worst thing that you could have them think's going to happen to them.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  Which is what Caroline said happened to her. And then, yeah, the, the impact of, of trauma. And you know, what happens to some of these people who, in her case, she did the right thing.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  She did.

• 54:58Speaker 00

  But still experienced such a negative end result that that's kind of heartbreaking. After a five-year investigation, the majority of Caroline's complaints were not upheld. And the police maintained that they offered Caroline appropriate support. Despite everything that happened, she has no regrets about coming forward and reporting Sandy and said, he wasn't convicted of murder, but he did take an innocent man's life. So for me, he is a coward and he is a killer.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:31Speaker 00

  Now, there's a, uh, there's a part of me here, Gibbs, that thinks, what if he never tells her? She ends up marrying a, a guy who killed somebody and covered it up.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And maybe he wouldn't have told her. Maybe he just, whatever reason that she didn't ask that question. Maybe it would never came out.

• 55:52Speaker 00

  And maybe they have a great life and maybe he never does anything bad again. I, I don't know, but it wouldn't have changed the, the fact that he did this and he covered it up. In January 2025, BBC reported that Sandy's insurance company settled a, a civil case out of court and issued a six-figure payment to the Parsons family. And, and that's great that they got some money, but you know, six figures. It doesn't replace a life.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  It doesn't.

• 56:23Speaker 00

  There's no way around it.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  I mean, there's.

• 56:26Speaker 00

  But no amount of money is.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  No, I mean, there, you know, there's no dad, no granddad, no husband anymore, you know?

• 56:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. In August 2025, Tony's son, Mike, sat down for an interview with the BBC. He said about the McKellar brothers, what they did was inhumane and you wouldn't do that to animals. They killed him by not seeking any medical treatment.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  He's right.

• 56:52Speaker 00

  I, I believe that. I, I truly do.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  I mean, that was a, a farm animal, farm animal.

• 56:58Speaker 00

  Animal.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  If it was a farm animal that you hit, he probably would have went back and put it down.

• 57:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  So it wouldn't suffer. They, they didn't even do that.

• 57:06Speaker 00

  They didn't even do that. And even if they did that, that would have been wrong on their part, but what they did was even worse. They left this guy to suffer in agony.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  In the dark and the cold.

• 57:17Speaker 00

  Thirty minutes or maybe even longer. We don't know for sure.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:22Speaker 00

  How long it was. Mike noted that Caroline had remarkable foresight. Being brutally honest, I'm not so sure if I was in the same situation, I would have done and thought the same way. From my perspective, I have nothing but massive amounts of gratitude for that. Because had she not done that and put herself into these positions, then we would never have found my dad's body.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Absolutely. This, this whole thing centers around what Caroline's actions did.

• 57:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. There's no doubt about it. Mike also told the BBC that no sentence would ever be enough. But he would like his father to be remembered for the good things he did, rather than how he died. He said, for me, he was a grumpy old dad who you had your run-ins with every now and then. But I'd like people to remember him as the guy who wanted to help everybody.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, you want him to be remembered for all the good things he did in his life.

• 58:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. Not for, you know, how he died and what ultimately happened for him, but I, I feel for the family because gosh, they, they, for a long time, right? As we wrap this episode up, they didn't know what happened to Tony.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  And then, once they found out, they had to have been unbelievably shocked.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:46Speaker 00

  You know, a lot of thoughts probably go through your head, foul play, maybe, maybe just an accident and he got hurt. And maybe he was attacked by an animal or he got lost in the woods and succumbed to the elements. All kinds of different things. But is one of them that two people willingly let this man die? And then buried his body?

• 59:10Speaker 01

  Never would have thought, right?

• 59:11Speaker 00

  Probably not.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  I mean, this is a guy that fought and beat cancer, right?

• 59:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  How, how tough that had to be. And then he's trying to do some good things for awareness around it.

• 59:22Speaker 00

  Helping out a charity.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. To be hit and left on the side of the road to die. It's just, it's tragic.

• 59:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then, you know, for me, like you said, the, the central character here is, is Caroline and what she did and, and the sacrifices she made. Cause I really do think they were sacrifices.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  They were.

• 59:41Speaker 00

  You know, her life was upended completely. And I think she made the right decision. But even in doing the right thing, she suffered like some really serious consequences.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  She did. She really did.

• 59:55Speaker 00

  She lost this man who she thought was the love of her life.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:01Speaker 00

  I don't know. Her life seemed to crumble a little bit.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  Using drugs and alcohol to cope with everything that was going on. Now it does sound like she's back on track. She's doing well, but.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Which is good.

• 1:00:13Speaker 00

  You just feel bad for her because she, like you said, how selfish for him to put her in that position.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It's really, really was.

• 1:00:23Speaker 00

  But a fascinating story all the way around. But that's it for our episode on Caroline Muirhead and Sandy McKellar. And that's it for another episode of True Crime All The Time. So for Mike.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  And Gabby.

• 1:00:36Speaker 00

  Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.