For three years, the disappearance of Tony Parsons haunted his family and baffled Scottish police. The 63-year-old charity cyclist set out from Fort William on September 29, 2017, determined to complete a grueling 104-mile ride to his home in Tillicoultry. He was last seen that night, just before midnight, at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel in Argyll. After that, he simply vanished.
According to BBC Scotland News, Tony’s son Mike Parsons recalled the family’s concern when Tony failed to check in the following day. “I actually texted him myself, with what is my dad and myself’s sense of humour, a simple text: ‘Are you still alive?’ Looking back now, it’s not nice to know that was the very last thing I texted to him, knowing at this point he would have been passed away.”
As the hours turned into days, a major search operation was launched. Police tracked Tony’s route through Glencoe Village and the Bridge of Orchy Hotel, but no trace of him or his bicycle was found. Mike, a former police officer himself, understood the grim odds. “The longer the days went on, I knew in my head that the chances of him being found alive would be pretty slim,” he explained. “But I basically had to convince my mum there was still a chance, and lying to somebody like that is not easy.”
Despite public appeals, including Mike’s appearance on Crimewatch, Tony’s fate remained a mystery. It seemed as if he had vanished into thin air. The family’s anguish was compounded by the lack of answers and the slow passage of time.
Then, in late 2020, a distressed phone call to police finally broke the case wide open. The caller was Dr. Caroline Muirhead, a veterinarian who had recently begun dating Alexander “Sandy” McKellar. As reported by BBC Scotland News, Caroline revealed shocking details: her boyfriend had confessed to killing a man and burying him in a shallow grave. The man was Tony Parsons.
Caroline’s quick thinking proved crucial. When Alexander offered to show her the burial site on the remote Auch Estate in Argyll, she secretly dropped a can of Red Bull at the location to mark the spot. Later, she called police and told them exactly where to look. Without this marker, investigators might never have located Tony’s remains in the vast, rugged landscape.
Mike Parsons expressed the family’s immense gratitude for Caroline’s actions. “She had shown remarkable foresight,” he told BBC Scotland News. “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.”
The story unraveled further as police pieced together the tragic events of that night. Sandy McKellar and his twin brother, Robert, had been at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel with a hunting party. As they drove home, Alexander struck Tony Parsons with his car. Instead of seeking medical help, the brothers left Tony at the roadside. Expert analysis later revealed Tony suffered catastrophic rib, pelvic, and spine fractures—injuries so severe he would have survived only 20 to 30 minutes without assistance. “They killed him by not seeking any medical treatment,” Mike Parsons said. “What they did was inhumane and you wouldn’t do that to animals.”
After initially fleeing the scene, the McKellar twins returned in another car, loaded Tony’s body, and drove him to the Auch Estate. There, they buried him in a shallow grave, taking their secret with them for years. Police had interviewed the brothers twice—once after an anonymous letter in 2018 placed them at the hotel that night, and again in 2020—but both times, the twins denied seeing Tony and gave “no comment” interviews.
It was only Alexander’s confession to Caroline, and her subsequent bravery, that finally brought the truth to light. In January 2021, after a two-day operation by specialist officers, Tony’s body was recovered from the grave marked by the crushed Red Bull can. His funeral was held at Stirling Crematorium in April 2021, bringing a measure of closure to a family that had waited far too long for answers.
The legal process that followed was fraught with tension. With mounting evidence, police charged both brothers with murder. But in July 2023, just before the trial was set to begin at the High Court in Glasgow, Alexander McKellar pled guilty to the reduced charge of culpable homicide. His brother’s not guilty plea to murder was accepted, but both admitted to attempting to defeat the ends of justice by covering up the crime. Sandy McKellar was sentenced to 12 years in prison, and his brother received a sentence of five years and three months.
For Mike Parsons and his family, the sentences offered little comfort. “They have left my mum without a husband and us without a father,” he told reporters. No punishment, he said, could ever truly make up for the pain and loss the family had endured.
Yet amid the tragedy, Mike remains determined that his father be remembered not for the horrific way he died but for the kindness and determination he showed in life. “For me, he was a grumpy old dad who you had your run-ins with every now and then,” Mike said, smiling through the sadness. “But, I’d like people to remember him as just the guy who wanted to help everybody.”
The case has since become the subject of a two-part documentary, offering a detailed look at the twists and turns of the investigation and the Parsons family’s long, agonizing wait for justice. The story is a testament to the enduring power of persistence, the importance of doing the right thing—even when it’s hard—and the unexpected ways in which small acts, like dropping a can of Red Bull in the grass, can change everything.
As the dust settles, the Parsons family continues to grieve, but they are no longer left in the dark. Thanks to Caroline Muirhead’s courage and a community’s refusal to give up, Tony Parsons’ story has finally been told, and a measure of justice, however imperfect, has been served.