Man found guilty of murdering his lover and their son in 1976

An 80-year-old man has been found guilty of murdering of his secret lover and their three-year-old son almost half a century after the pair vanished from a layby on the A9 near Inverness, concluding one of Scotland's most extensive and longest-running missing persons investigations.

- Libby Brooks

Although the bodies of Renee MacRae, who was 36 when she disappeared in 1976, and her younger son, Andrew, have never been found, William MacDowell, now 80, was convicted by a "compelling and classic case of circumstantial evidence", as Alex Prentice KC, prosecuting, described it.

That case built on accounts from witnesses who described a woman "deeply in love" with her married lover, who had promised her a new life in Shetland.

The jury heard testimony from MacRae's best friend, Valerie Steventon, who was too ill to appear in person. Steventon said MacRae had told her MacDowell had asked that Andrew come along to their final assignation "because he wanted to get to know him better".

MacRae and Andrew vanished on 12 November 1976 after dropping off her eldest son, Gordon Jr, with her estranged husband, also called Gordon, in Inverness, telling him she was visiting her sister in Kilmarnock.