Twin brothers who left a cyclist to die on a remote Highland roadside after hitting him with their pickup truck and hiding his body in a pit used for animal carcasses have finally been brought to justice after one confessed to his new girlfriend.
The disappearance of the “much-loved” grandfather and passionate fisher Tony Parsons in the middle of a 100-mile charity fundraiser in September 2017 left his close family “heartbroken” and the authorities baffled. He had vanished seemingly “into thin air”, according to the police who searched for him.
Parsons, who was 63 and lived in Tillicoultry, had been struck by an Isuzu D-Max pickup on the A82 near Bridge of Orchy. Alexander McKellar was driving the vehicle while drunk and his twin brother, Robert, was a passenger.
On Friday, the high court in Glasgow heard that three years later Alexander began a relationship with a woman who asked if there was anything in his past that could affect their future. He disclosed details of the crash to her.
He also drove her to the desolate peat bog on the 9,000-acre Auch estate, in Argyll and Bute, where he and his brother had disposed of Parson’s body and his belongings. The woman, who was not named in court, left a can of Red Bull there as a marker to lead police to the burial site.
Police arrested the McKellars on 20 December 2020 and Parsons’ body was recovered for forensic examination in January 2021.
The two men had been due to stand trial accused of murder, but Alexander, now 31, pleaded guilty earlier this week to the reduced charge of culpable homicide. Robert had his not guilty plea to murder accepted and the pair both admitted attempting to defeat the ends of justice by burying Parsons and his belongings.
At the high court in Glasgow on Friday, the advocate depute Alex Prentice KC read out an agreed narrative.
The court heard that the brothers, who were farm workers, had been out drinking with a German hunting group in Bridge of Orchy that evening. Alexander was also a deer stalker.
Parsons had stopped at the same village, drinking a coffee in the local hotel, but decided to continue cycling rather than stay the night.
Prentice told the court that Alexander said he had been distracted by oncoming headlights and had struck something at the side of the road, which he discovered was a cyclist. “He said he was panicking.”
He and Robert left Parsons alone in the dark, aware that he was still alive, to dump their damaged truck, before returning in another vehicle and moving his now-deceased body to the Auch estate.
A pathologist determined that Parsons, a former submariner who had previously recovered from prostate cancer, had sustained “extensive injuries” and would have been unlikely to survive.
Despite extensive searches of remote and inhospitable terrain by police, the mountain rescue service and the local community, no trace of Parsons was found at the time.
The court was shown a clip of a Crimewatch appeal in 2019 when Parsons’ son, Mike, appealed for information on his father’s whereabouts.
His family said this week that years of not knowing what had happened to their loved one had “taken its toll on all of us as a family”.
In a statement, the family said: “Tony was a much-loved husband, dad and grandad. When he said goodbye and set off on his charity cycle from Fort William that Friday, none of us expected it to be the last time we would be able to see or speak to him.”
DI Fraser Spence, of Police Scotland’s major investigation team, said: “The brutal and uncaring actions of these men left the family of Mr Parsons distraught, not knowing what had happened to him for many years. It appeared that he had just disappeared into thin air.”
The judge Lord Armstrong said he was adjourning the case for reports. A further hearing will take place on 25 August.
