‘He didn’t just kill Mary... he killed me too’

Tenth anniversary of brutal Mary McLaren murder sees her mother, 63, share her pain

The grieving mother of Dundee murder victim Mary McLaren has told how the heartbreak suffered by her family has not lessened in the decade since her death.

On the tenth anniversary of Mary McLaren’s murder, Margaret McIntosh said time had not dulled the devastation left by her passing.

Mary McLaren went missing on a night out with her sister and 14 days later her body was discovered in undergrowth near the Ladywell roundabout in the city centre.

The mum-of-three had been raped and strangled by Patrick Rae, who was convicted of killing her on June 3 2011.

Speaking to the Evening Telegraph, 63-year-old Mary, from Kirkton, said: “If I could get my hands on that man I would torture him for what he did to my beautiful girl.

“He didn’t just kill Mary that day, he effectively killed me too.

“I will never get over what he did to Mary and I will never ever forgive him.”

The 34-year-old and her sister Michelle Rodger had been in Fat Sams when Mary met Rae.

CCTV images showed him dancing with Mary and then leaving the nightclub. Mary apparently left with him and was never seen alive again.

Margaret said: “What that man did that night has also changed Michelle’s life forever. She still blames herself for what happened to her sister.

“She was my beloved daughter and this man had hurt her so badly. “That still makes me so very angry.” Margaret said: “I have pictures of her all over the house and I think about her constantly.

“I don’t go out much any more but if I’m in town I avoid the spot where she was found.

“One time a taxi driver took me that way and it was unbearable.

“I couldn’t bear to look at the spot where she was left to rot.”

Margaret said that the family wouldn’t be visiting Mary’s grave today.

She said: “I find it difficult to go there. Instead, a few of us will just gather at home and light candles and quietly remember Mary in our own individual ways.”

Rae was convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Dundee mother-of-three Mary McLaren was 34 when she was killed.

Rapist and killer Patrick Rae.