The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Farmhouse with dark history up for rent
Millionaire was murdered by wife and her lover at West Cairnbeg
The site of one of the Mearns’ most infamous murders has been put on the rental market.
West Cairnbeg, near Fordoun, was once the home of millionaire Maxwell Garvie, who was murdered by his wife Sheila and her lover Brian Tevendale.
The Garvies’ son Lloyd, who was only two when his father was murdered, still owns the property but has now put the farmhouse up for rent at £1,700 a month after it failed to sell for £749,000.
A home with a bloody history, the fivebedroom farmhouse, originally put up for sale in 2015, was where Mr Garvie was struck over the head and shot while he slept in 1968.
Mr Garvie’s body was then left in an abandoned quarry nearby, where it stayed for 94 days. His wife reported him missing but later confessed to her mother, who tipped off the police.
Officers found the body near St Cyrus and subsequently charged Garvie and Tevendale with the murder.
A third man, Alan Peters, was also charged with the murder, but was later acquitted.
The case captured the imagination after lurid details emerged of Mr Garvie’s sexual habits during the 10-day trial at the High Court in Aberdeen.
Garvie claimed in her evidence that her husband held regular swingers’ parties in a remote house near Alford, which became notorious as the “Kinky Cottage”.
She claimed she was urged to take Tevendale as her lover by Mr Garvie after she discovered her husband was having an affair with Tevendale’s sister.
Mr Garvie tried to come between the two when they fell in love – which led to his murder.
However, she always insisted the only part she had played in the murder was to open the back door of their house to Tevendale and Mr Peters.
Tevendale, in turn, pointed the finger of blame at Mrs Garvie.
Tevendale claimed she told him she accidently shot her husband after the gun went off during a struggle and he had helped her dispose of the body.
The jury returned a guilty verdict for both Mrs Garvie, by a majority, and Tevendale, unanimously, and both were jailed for life.
During the murder trial, Mrs Garvie declared her love for Tevendale and even after their conviction it was reported the two planned to marry in prison. However Mrs Garvie later wrote to Tevendale in Perth Prison and said: “I have decided to have nothing more to do with you ever again.”
Both were released in 1978 but they were never to meet again.
Tevendale became landlord of a pub in Scone but died in 2003.
Garvie, by then Sheila Mitchell, died in 2014 after many years running a bed and breakfast in Stonehaven.