An expert diving team using specialist sonar equipment will launch a new search for a newlywed who went missing almost 28 years ago. Joiner Kevin McGuire disappeared on Hogmanay 1994 from his remote cottage home in Stronachlachar, near Callander, Perthshire.
The 27-year-old, who was from Glasgow, got into his distinctive green car after a disagreement with wife Lisa and was never seen again. Despite police searches of nearby lochs and attempts to discover if Kevin had started a new life, his disappearance remains one of Scotland’s most baffling and longest-running missing persons cases.
Now, underwater search and recovery team Beneath The Surface, from Chorley in Lancashire, have offered their services free to help the McGuire family. Set up last year, they have already been successful in locating the bodies of two missing persons in Workington, Cumbria.
Founder member Phil Jones, 34, read about Kevin’s disappearance in the Sunday Mail and spoke to the McGuire family last week. They then accepted his offer of help. Phil said: “The fact Kevin was last seen in a car and may have gone into water gives us hope that we can find the vehicle and locate him.
“We want to do whatever we can to help people find their missing loved ones and help bring them some peace and closure.” The seven-strong team carry out searches using state-of-the-art sonar equipment which can scan up to 50 metres under water.
Phil added: “Our plan would be to search any waters within a five-mile radius of the cottage. If we were to find the car, we would immediately alert the police and let them take over.” His crew have also been asked to carry out two recent missing person searches in Scotland by families.
Finn Creaney, 32, from Tain in Inverness-shire, disappeared on March 5 while walking near Loch Naver. And Neil Skinner, 71, from Doncaster, went missing near Loch Dochard in Argyll and Bute two months ago while on a walking trip with pals. Phil and his team recently took part in a search for a missing woman near Carlisle, who was later found by police. And they have also been asked to find a man who went missing in Wales several years ago.
A massive hunt was launched for Kevin and his Saab car, with the private plate F22 RAC, the day after his late-night disappearance. Kevin, who had a new job in the area, was living in the cottage with Lisa, then 24, who he had married in the Seychelles just five months earlier.
Police scoured the area and dive teams carried out searches around nearby Loch Katrine, Loch Ard and Loch Lomond for Kevin and his car but without success. At the time, detectives could find no trace of a vehicle going into the water.
But his family hope the new search and advances in sonar search science mean they can get answers.
Kevin’s younger sister Sharon Garvin, 48, who lives in Ireland with her husband and two children, said: “Anything which can cast fresh light on Kevin’s disappearance is to be welcomed. We have got to believe he is still out there. But if Kevin is in the water, we would like him to be found so we can have closure for the family.
“I would also appeal to anyone who has information on his disappearance to come forward.”
Kevin, who was from Baillieston, near Glasgow, didn’t take his passport, money, tools or clothes with him and his bank accounts were never touched. Seven years ago, police took DNA samples from Sharon and his mum Annette, 76, to put on a national missing persons database and carried out further loch searches.
In 2002, Lisa, using her maiden name of Haney, took out an action at Dumbarton Sheriff Court to have Kevin declared legally dead. Last December, Sharon spoke publicly for the first time about her missing brother to the Sunday Mail.
She said: “No matter where he was in the world, he’d always ring our mother.” Police Scotland said: “Missing person cases are reviewed regularly.
“If anyone has any information regarding the disappearance of Kevin McGuire, they should call 101.”
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