Mystery of car on farm days before he was slain

A MYSTERIOUS car spotted outside Sandy Drummond’s house in the days before his murder was traced years later by cops during a cold case review.

But its driver - a person of interest in the case - had died.

The motor - a red hatchback - was also seen reversing at the farm road 45 minutes before Sandy was found.

Around the same time, two men leapt out of a silver Renault 5 or Volkswagen at a bridge near where Sandy lay, jumped over a wall and ran in the direction of the farm track. There has never been an explanation for this, nor has it been revealed if the occupants or the car were traced.

A source said: “The red car was traced years later but the driver was dead. This led police to believe there had been an accomplice or accomplices to the murder of Sandy.

“It has been a flawed investigation from the very start, when police ruled Sandy’s death a suicide for several months. They were playing catch-up and by then it was probably too late. I doubt this murder will ever be solved.”

A former detective - who worked on the original murder inquiry- said the case was poorly handled and vital evidence was lost forever when they initially ruled Sandy’s death a suicide.

When found, he was lying face down with his arms underneath him. Officers believed he’d died clutching his stomach and although the post mortem showed he had been strangled, police refused to class it as a murder.

A few months before his death, Sandy’s manner changed, according to his family. His life was being made hell by some men at work.

The night before he died, he’d written down their names. For a man trained in hand-to-hand combat, it seemed inconceivable that someone would be able to take him down.

A family friend said: “His mum Effie was determined to get justice.

“She wanted to know who’d made his life difficult and why. He’d gone from happy to troubled and refused to tell his mother why. The day before his death, he seemed in high spirits again.

“He didn’t tell her he’d quit his job, or tell her he’d gone around banks in St Andrew’s withdrawing his life savings.

“He told James, his brother, the day before he died that he was going to travel. Effie always felt he was being blackmailed or persecuted but she couldn’t prove it.

“She reported weird phone calls to police and people breaking into her home. Someone used to come around her house banging on all the walls and when she went outside nobody was there. She was shouting from the rooftops about justice for Sandy and clearly someone didn’t like it.”

They added: “Sandy had a secret and it upset him. But I doubt we’ll ever know if it was this secret that killed him or not.”