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Crime & Courts

‘Doting’ Skye dad unmasked as ‘menacing’ anti-authority conspiracy theorist who always played the victim

Skye killer Finlay MacDonald blamed petty grudges and even his own wife for his murderous shotgun rampage, writes
Bryan Rutherford
Finlay MacDonald with three of his four children in the kitchen where he knifed his wife Rowena. Image: Facebook
Finlay MacDonald with three of his four children in the kitchen where he knifed his wife Rowena. Image: Facebook

If you asked convicted murderer Finlay MacDonald how many people suffered on the day of his vengeful spree of violence, he would tell you there was only one victim – himself.

Throughout his trial at the High Court in Edinburgh, it was argued that MacDonald’s autism spectrum disorder (ASD) had caused a “catastrophic reaction” to discovering “mildly flirty” texts on his wife Rowena’s phone.

But one expert found evidence that the 41-year-old may have been a malingerer – someone who exaggerates or completely fabricates difficulties to either escape justice or minimise culpability.

In public and throughout Facebook photos, the father-of-four portrayed himself as a devoted family man – but beneath the facade lurked nothing more than a hot-headed abusive husband.

A childhood obsession with collecting boxes and boxes of particular toys had morphed into weaponry in adulthood – and on the day of his violent outburst he had enough ammunition “to start a small war”.

Huge weapons cache uncovered at gunman’s home

The police found at least 28 knives, four hatchets, and one axe at MacDonald’s home, including in his gym, an office and even a bathroom.

He was also a licensed holder of six shotguns – all bought in the space of just over a year – and the owner of an air rifle that he inherited.

Spending £3,618 on the guns and 1,000 cartridges of ammunition – partly while on sick leave from work – offers an insight into his priorities.

He purchased the cartridges and the final two guns including the murder weapon, a Mossberg Pump Action .410 gauge shotgun, just nine days before his employer was due to stop paying their absent employee altogether, having already cut his salary by 40%.

Finlay MacDonald used a Mossberg Pump Action .410 gauge shotgun to kill his brother-in-law. Image: John Linton/PA Wire/Facebook/Mossberg/Roddie Reid/DC Thomson

Giving evidence against him, MacDonald’s wife Rowena, who grew up in the English county of Somerset, spoke of her husband’s threats to kill the osteopath.

He claimed his back was in agony.

MacDonald told his partner: “I am going to kill him, bloody kill him for ruining my life.”

He later explained to detectives that Mr MacKenzie had subjected him to “a really brutal manipulation” like he was being “butchered”.

MacDonald added: “He just rag-dolled me. He injured me very badly.”

He went on to claim that he “couldn’t drive” because he was in “such pain”.

However, on the day of his revenge attacks, the pain had apparently subsided enough for him to drive 34 miles, for about an hour, between the three crime scenes.

Finlay MacDonald and his wife Rowena smiling for the camera. Image: Facebook

Rowena’s testimony painted a typical picture of a domestic abuser.

She said MacDonald was “quick to anger” over “everything”.

The long-suffering wife described her concerns about “a risk to try and leave” her oppressor who would go to great lengths to prevent her from escaping him – even disconnecting her car battery after arguments, and there were many.

MacDonald turned ‘horrible’ a month after tying the knot with abused wife

The couple married in a humanist ceremony at the Skeabost House Hotel in Skye on September 20 2015.

It was the same year as the death of MacDonald’s beloved granny whose passing he “struggled to deal with” because she had been his “main source of love and support”.

His dependence on his grandmother was transferred onto Rowena.

“He started to become horrible to me only a month after our wedding,” she told the court.

In May 2016 she became truly scared of her other half, later meeting with his GP in secret on October 17 of that year to discuss “his angry outbursts”.

A medical record noted the purpose of the appointment was for “anger management control”.

Finlay and Rowena MacDonald on their wedding day. Image: Facebook

Discovering “mildly flirty” messages on Rowena’s phone was identified as the flashpoint for MacDonald’s knife and gun violence, the court heard.

On the witness stand, Rowena, 34, admitted swapping “a handful” of text messages – some after midnight into the early hours – with a colleague at the hotel where she worked.

MacDonald had broken into his spouse’s mobile, discovered 69 WhatsApp exchanges spanning May 2021 to the day of his violence, and then spent 14 minutes photographing them with his phone.

Some correspondence from Rowena to the man read: ” … you are an amazing person and I feel like the days I get to spend time with you are better than the days I don’t x.”

Newlyweds Finlay and Rowena MacDonald’s love story descended into a nightmare. Image: Facebook

Rowena told the jury: “It probably does come across as a little bit flirty but I wasn’t looking for a relationship with him” – adding: “[He] had his own girlfriend.”

The WhatsApp messages also confirmed MacDonald’s suspicions that, as his defence counsel Donald Findlay KC put it, she was “plotting” to leave him.

An example of WhatsApp messages between Rowena MacDonald, now Fellows, and her colleague. Image: Roddie Reid/DC Thomson
An example of WhatsApp messages between Rowena MacDonald, now Fellows, and her colleague. Image: Roddie Reid/DC Thomson

MacDonald appeared to have a selectively loose relationship with the truth – or at least a feeble grasp of reality.

In what would be the first of many times when he would try to downplay his own murderous actions, he told detectives during his police interview that Rowena was stabbed after she tried to grab his mobile phone.

“We were wrestling and then the knife got picked up,” MacDonald explained, adding: ” … if she had not started physically fighting with me, (the stabbing) would never have happened”.

“She’s really quite physically strong so I was struggling … 100% she started the fight.”

‘She let me down’

Giving his twisted version of events, he lied to investigators when he told them that he’d picked up a knife from the top of the kitchen microwave and only stabbed his partner “in the stomach … that was it”.

The knife was actually in his pocket and he inflicted nine knife wounds to her left arm, chest, abdomen and back.

Ever the victim blamer, MacDonald later told consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Suraj Shenoy: “She let me down”.

One of the prosecution’s expert witnesses, Dr Alastair Morris, 48, also a consultant forensic psychiatrist, told the court that MacDonald “viewed himself as the victim in all this”.

The gun just ‘went off’

As his two-hour-long questioning by the police progressed, MacDonald repeatedly spoke of how his gun just “went off” during the shootings – but resisted taking responsibility for repeatedly pulling the trigger.

The gunman claimed he was defending himself against his unarmed brother-in-law, 47-year-old dad-of-six John MacKinnon.

He told another lie that his shotgun just “went off” and struck Dornie osteopath John Donald MacKenzie as the pair struggled to take charge of the lethal weapon.

But, Mr MacKenzie’s account of first being deliberately shot in the back before trying to wrestle the firearm off the intruder was corroborated by his already stricken wife Fay.

John Donald Mackenzie, 65, and his 65-year-old wife Fay both survived a shooting spree at their home on the mainland in Dornie. Images: Facebook

When one detective charged MacDonald with multiple offences, he replied on more than one occasion with “I don’t agree with that”.

It was while he was on remand that psychiatrists and psychologists were able to interview and examine his claims that ASD and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) had played a significant part in making him act the way he did.

A key argument by MacDonald’s defence team was that their client suffered from PTSD caused by an encounter with his brother-in-law John MacKinnon more than a decade ago.

In July 2013 Mr MacKinnon, a local distillery worker, drove the approximately 20-minute journey from his home in Saasaig, near Teangue, to MacDonald’s croft at Tarskavaig.

Rowena MacDonald, now Fellows, was stabbed by her then-husband Finlay at their home in Tarskavaig, Skye. Images: Facebook/DC Thomson

There, Mr MacKinnon rowed with MacDonald, who had earlier angrily thrown a birthday present from his sister, Mr MacKinnon’s wife Lyn-Anne, back at her.

MacDonald would go on to tell Police Scotland that the pair physically fought each other and Mr MacKinnon tried to gouge his eyes out.

The alleged assault, which took place in front of MacDonald’s father – a man in his 70s who was forced to rescue his son – left him feeling humiliated and with low self-esteem, MacDonald claimed.

‘The beginning of all my problems was John MacKinnon attacking me in 2013’

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that MacDonald told a psychiatrist: “That was the start of all of this. Something happened in my mind that day.”

However, the Crown witness Dr Lorraine Johnstone, 52, a consultant forensic psychologist, appeared to poke many holes in MacDonald’s defence.

She said confronting instead of avoiding Mr MacKinnon was the opposite action of what she’d expect in someone with PTSD.

John MacKinnon died from a fatal shotgun chest wound. Image: Facebook

The clinician also noticed that the voice he used was different to the one she had heard in the two-hour recording of his police custody interview.

Prof Johnstone said: “Mr MacDonald’s voice and presentation was striking. He presented in a very immature and childlike way”, which he claimed was “a consequence of his anxiety” –  although his motive may have just been to seek sympathy.

Malingering MacDonald was ‘implausible’ and ‘must be approached with caution’

The malingering expert also told the court that MacDonald “adopted new and implausible behaviours” not previously documented in his history and warned that, in the absence of corroborating evidence, his “self-report must be approached with caution”.

Finlay MacDonald did not make it easy to know what to believe.

HMP Grampian officers were sceptical of MacDonald’s engagement with the chaplaincy, believing the Bible he carried around was nothing more than a “prop”.

MacDonald was also an attention-seeking hypochondriac whose excessive use of the NHS spanned 386 pages of medical records.

‘Needy’ and ‘always whinging’

His multiple health complaints were followed by medical investigations that repeatedly could not find any problems, conclusions the paranoid patient refused to accept.

Once he was apprehended and in custody, mental health nurses described the Peterhead prisoner as “needy” – far beyond what was normally expected from an inmate with any mental condition or collection of disorders.

MacDonald’s neighbour and perhaps only friend in the world, Shain Westerman, 58, said “he always had muck on” with the Yorkshireman explaining he was “always whinging”.

MacDonald’s neighbour and close friend Shain Westerman gave evidence in the trial. Image: DC Thomson

The self-employed builder visited MacDonald in prison, spoke with him over the phone while remanded, and maintained his property for a period of time before the accused’s murder trial.

However, Mr Westerman later sent MacDonald a handwritten letter scribbled while, as he told the court, he was “half drunk” after “far too many drams”.

It read: “It looks like you’re wanting it to go to trial. Don’t you think you have put your whole family through enough, especially your kids who you’re supposed to love?

“What a load of b*****ks. Just man up and admit what you have done and say that you hated the people you have hurt. I can’t believe you won’t admit you did wrong.

An example of the handwritten letter sent by Shain Westerman to Finlay MacDonald in prison

The letter went on: “I know you won’t f***ing man up for once and admit what you done instead of playing mental health card.

“Not much of a blaze of glory you have gone out with now is it?”

‘Odd personality traits about him’

Islanders awaiting news of MacDonald finally being brought to justice over two years on from his deadly rampage spoke of the killer having at least two completely different sides to him.

Some who knew MacDonald told The Press and Journal he appeared to be a model father, despite being socially awkward or having an “odd” personality.

One fellow school parent explained: “I always thought he loved his children. He was quite doting over them any time I saw him.

“When I saw him picking up his children from school, I thought he was quite a doting dad but had what you would call odd personality traits about him.”

Finlay and Rowena MacDonald celebrate the birth of their son in January 2016 – one of their four children – at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. Image: DC Thomson

MacDonald was born in England but moved to Skye when he was six or seven months old – accompanying his dad, older brother and eldest sister.

They lived with the father’s parents – MacDonald’s grandparents – at their home in Tarskavaig.

When he was 12, the Sleat Primary and later Broadford Primary pupil went to live with his father and his new partner, having separated from MacDonald’s mother.

“It was very disruptive,” Dr Shenoy told the court, adding that MacDonald “felt his mother had never loved him”.

MacDonald travelled world on QM2

MacDonald went on to work in the hotel and fishing industries before moving to Glasgow where he first joined a music course before embarking on studies at a nautical college.

In his spare time, he worked as a bouncer in Glasgow.

After qualifying as a maritime engineer, he started working for an international cargo shipping company called Maersk.

He later climbed aboard Cunard’s flagship ocean liner Queen Mary 2 and travelled the world.

But, just like his school days, MacDonald had no friends and would spend his free time alone in his cabin.

Finlay MacDonald was in the merchant navy and served on board the QM2. Images: Facebook

His last job before being locked up began on June 4 2018, when he started as a chief engineer for the contractor Serco.

The company delivers services at the high-security British Underwater Test and Evaluation Centre (BUTEC), a military test range in Kyle of Lochalsh.

Former colleagues revealed he was “strongly opinionated” and often spouted conspiracy theories.

Their claims were corroborated by MacDonald’s wife Rowena, who said that he was “obsessed with conspiracy theories,” adding “his other interests were guns and blades”.

Shocking public outburst at school

MacDonald’s mask slipped in an unpleasant public outburst at the school of one of his children during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Parents and pupils were shocked when he brazenly disregarded Covid safety rules after lockdown.

Instead of obediently joining the one-way socially distanced queue into the nursery school, MacDonald defiantly marched his child through the front door.

When challenged by staff, who told him he couldn’t do that, the anti-authority Covid denier responded: “I don’t believe in that s**** anyway.”

‘Someone with his type of character shouldn’t have had shotguns’

The High Court in Edinburgh would later hear evidence of his internet searches that included the terms “Covid scam” and “anti-lockdown protests”.

In December 2010, while MacDonald was working as a marine engineer in the merchant navy, he posted on his Facebook that he “Hates the Caribbean”.

A follow-up post explained: “My trip away at sea didn’t last long all of 2 days!! Had to get emergency surgery to get my appendix out which was f****** terrible.

“Worst of all i had to get this operation done on a tiny carribean island full of filthy savages in a third world hospital…”

Social media post by Finlay MacDonald. Image: Facebook

One community figure, who did not want to be named, said: “I got an air of menace off him,” adding: “He seemed to have things going on in his head.

“People were quite surprised to hear he had a gun licence.”

The resident explained that some locals thought “someone with his type of character shouldn’t have had shotguns” because some acquaintances felt “he might be a danger to himself” at the very least.

Killer was a heavy metal music fan

Among his Facebook posts, MacDonald – a heavy metal music fan – posted a link to a YouTube video featuring a song by American heavy metal band Slipknot called Wait and Bleed, which includes the lyrics “I’ve felt the hate rise up in me”.

In July 2012, lead vocalist Corey Taylor in an interview with the British music magazine Kerrang! said: “The song’s about that switch in your head that can go at any moment.

“You go from being a civilised human being to someone who can commit terrible acts. I’ve always been fascinated by the fact we represent ourselves as civilised when, at any moment, we can become animals.”

For Finlay MacDonald, that moment came on August 10 2022.


Read more:

Policing expert – Why didn’t gun licensing system disarm Skye shooter Finlay MacDonald before rampage?


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