Found Deceased UK - Susan McLean, 61, U.S. tourist, Aberfeldy, Scotland, 17 May 2015

[Queen Bee]

It's entirely possible that the cctv camera is on someone's private property - and they're not always easy to spot. All I can see in reference to it is that it is "outside of the resort" which is vague to say the least!

Interesting to note a US Senator is asking to be kept informed of developments.

thank you for that link sarah, very interesting and good to know that he's checking.......

i also wanted to welcome you as it seems you are relatively new and i've not yet had the pleasure of meeting you.....:welcome6::welcome::greetings: ........here's your welcome basket of honey as well!

i also have to tell you i LOVE your avatar as i'm a big fan of longhair tuxedo kitties and have had several that could be the one in your pic, what a cutie and LOVE the ears LOL........

again welcome and hope to see you around the boards :seeya:

 

[Ironside]

Hi Portabella
How do you go about checking past weather reports online? I've tried everything! I also want to know exact time of sundown.

http://www.sunrise-and-sunset.com/en/sun/united-kingdom/aberfeldy/2015/may

 

[hippy hippy]

Here is a question: if your loved one goes missing in a foreign country early evening, and does not return for a lengthy period, at what point would you call police? How long would you wait to make that call? Just fishing for a general consensus...

Sunset at 9:30 so fully dark outside of town at 10:00 that night.

Still looking for info on how long it was raining. Found a hikers blog, someone who was walking our area that weekend who complains about the damp weather that Sunday, but I was out with dogs and family that evening, about 5 ish and we had to rush home because rain and wind came on very suddenly.

 

[hippy hippy]

Hi antibarbie
Please could you empty some of your pm inbox. My message cannot get through to you unless there's enough space. Or pm me your email

 

[hippy hippy]

Just curious, but has it been confirmed that the time stamp on the CCTV is accurate? Also, speaking of the rain the evening she disappeared ... Was it raining all evening, as in at Six Thirty when she was reported to have last been seen, or did it start to chuck down a bit later? I have reason for asking..

Steady rain Sunday evening then all day Monday, but chucking down? Not so much just very gusty nasty winds so rain felt harder. I went to bed that night around 11 and it was raining still

 

[antibarbie]

Think you have if from before Happy hippy. Will email you again.

 

[Missing Susan]

It looks similar to the public streets in the vicinity. Are the streets curbed inside the resort?

Just got back from Moness and walked all over the place again, little daschhund trotting ahead. The CCTV image is most definitely nowhere on Crieff road, so I am not going insane after all. Cannot understand why we have been mislead by this. I only found one camera and that is at the door of the main hotel/reception area. I could not find where that image was taken.
Missing Susan: your google street view image is out of date. There is now a high wooden fence at the back of the resort with a small door to allow you out to the town. Always staff here, at least each time I have been, because they can't smoke on the resort. And again, I couldn't match the CCTV with this back gate either.

 

[hippy hippy]

Hi MSusan
Thanks for the sketch. What time is it for you right now!?
Yes, that is not a street, it is the holiday village road which has speed bumps and all traffic is 10mph I believe. The black lamppost is an imitation faux retro thing attempting to give the resort old time style. That is a tree in the foreground. There are only little curbs like the one in the image where there are shrub or flower beds, and in this image it is a grass slope so in theory it should be easy to find that exact spot. Same with the dashed white lines but I just cannot locat it. Going back up today with brainy son....hope he can do better than me. This is why I think I am going insane but a kind WSer assured me I am not.

 

[pinklilies]

View attachment 76857

It looks similar to the public streets in the vicinity. Are the streets curbed inside the resort?

It does MS. The Google view I have used is dated 2009 and 2014, but both are the same images with the person walking out the back of the hotel grounds with a dog so it seems it hasn't been updated in 6 years.

The CCTV image on Tayside Police Facebook is a tiny bit bigger than the BBC image. There is a black rectangular shape in the bottom left hand corner. It looks like it could be a gatepost. Which, as a poster said earlier, it is possible the cctv is from a private residence. The wording on the Tayside Police Facebook site is slightly different too.
It states Susan was seen "outside the grounds of Moness Resort, Crieff Road, Aberfeldy"
But doesn't state exactly where.
Whereas the BBC report states "she was on Crieff Road outside the grounds of Moness Resort"
I feel the police report is just giving the address of the Moness resort, not stating she was on Crieff Road, in my opinion anyway so I feel she could be on the streets behind the hotel, Moness Cresent, Moness Avenue. There are no road markings in the middle of these roads there either, as there isn't on the CCTV image.

I wonder if those wooden garages are still there, just outside the back of the hotel, at the top of Moness Cresent. I hope Susan didn't take shelter in one and then became ill anything is possible.

Good luck to HHippy and her son on her searches again today.

Edited to add: have just seen HHippys most recent post and how you don't feel it's on the streets behind. I really hope you can find that image in the resort, it's a big area to walk round though then we can put an end to the Moness streets as I've been of the opinion it could be there.

 

[hippy hippy]

Heading up there now with camera and CCTV image...

 

[pinklilies]

I've found an image on trip advisor but struggling to copy it here through iPad.

There are 237 traveller photos. Clicked on them and it showed Hotel and Grounds. Number 8 of them looks like it could be where the cctv is. The tree with the pale green shrub in front. Not certain of course. Arghhh. Flitting from outside resort to in!

Will patiently await HHippys shots from her camera. :waiting:

 

[hippy hippy]

Ok we are back. Found the exact spot, no mistake. Should say my boy found it. He had super enhanced the CCTV image on his phone and so we had excellent detail. So the image IS taken from the main resort entrance, CCTV camera on the lodge that is nearest the road, the lodge that had constant police vehicles parked at it while the family were still here, so presuming it was their lodge. I stood in the exact spot she stood. Unfortunately there was a couple sitting on their balcony watching our discussions and replay movements and so it felt very awkward taking a photo. Also we were right in front of the security camera. Just felt a bit unsure as to whether I should be taking photos?
But without doubt she is pictured just a few yards from Crieff road, heading out. If she had turned right, she would eventually find sidewalk into town. If she had turned left, which I believe she did, she would be faced with a very difficult walk with no sidewalk, and a sharp bend to negotiate with no verge to jump on if a car comes. So high risk walking, not embarked upon by anyone thinking straight, that's for sure

 

[hippy hippy]

So the little white lines on the road were non existent and that's what has confused me. We think it must have been a trick of the light on puddles. The curbs are actually tree logs and the little black marker forward of Susan is an old pole that may have originally had a sign attached to it or a security light.

 

[pinklilies]

Well, thanks for clearing that up HHippy. I would probably have felt the same about taking photos and then come and posting them back here. I feel certain that photo on TA is the same spot too, inside the resort and not out.
So, I soppose its back to square one. SM walks out the resort, turns left, up towards the garden centre and then?
Thanks for going back yet again, to clarify this.

 

[hippy hippy]

If I am allowed, I am posting here a picture of resort, highlighting some key areas.

Smaller red circle: holiday lodge where CCTV camera is facing exit onto Crieff Road
Large red circle: dirt track leading from Hospital, past two cottages, to Crieff road
Green line: route I believe SM took out of resort up Crieff Road heading south
Pink line: our walk through resort, out back exit onto Moness crescent and down to Hospital and then along track to Crieff road

 

[Missing Susan]

Ok we are back. Found the exact spot, no mistake. Should say my boy found it. He had super enhanced the CCTV image on his phone and so we had excellent detail. So the image IS taken from the main resort entrance, CCTV camera on the lodge that is nearest the road, the lodge that had constant police vehicles parked at it while the family were still here, so presuming it was their lodge. I stood in the exact spot she stood. Unfortunately there was a couple sitting on their balcony watching our discussions and replay movements and so it felt very awkward taking a photo. Also we were right in front of the security camera. Just felt a bit unsure as to whether I should be taking photos?
But without doubt she is pictured just a few yards from Crieff road, heading out. If she had turned right, she would eventually find sidewalk into town. If she had turned left, which I believe she did, she would be faced with a very difficult walk with no sidewalk, and a sharp bend to negotiate with no verge to jump on if a car comes. So high risk walking, not embarked upon by anyone thinking straight, that's for sure

Ok, thanks so much for the methodical approach. I was worried you might be looking in the wrong places so its good to know you are on the right track using the nursery as your starting point. I wonder if there is somebody in the police department acting as search coordinator, keeping track of what areas have or have not been searched.

Susan is probably pretty fit. We do the equestrian sport of eventing which involves walking (usually twice) the cross country courses prior to riding them. Natural pasture terrain that a horse can run and jump on, 1500-3000 meters in length. 2 miles uphill in the rain might not have been too strenuous since its a paved road.

Is it possible to traverse those open fields in the countryside? You called them moors but I'm not sure if that means waist high grass, swamp etc. Susan obviously elected to stay on that road instead of turning onto the dirt roads.

 

[hippy hippy]

Hi MSusan
Actually what I mean by difficult road is not that it is steep but that there is really nowhere to stand off road if a car comes hurtling round the corner, and as I mentioned up thread, the road has a 60 mph speed limit so those of us who know e road, take it pretty quick. We rarely see pedestrians, but of course Susan may not have known how dodgy the road can be.
My children's father is a professional show jumper, very fit, so I know how much stamina etc sport horse owners must have, so I know she would be very capable of marching up that road. That's why I believe she could make it to the garden centre in about twenty minutes. I know I have done that walk in that time frame several times.

 

[hippy hippy]

My daughter was out with her boyfriend that night after her birthday dinner and he remembers that from 8:30 to 9:30 pm when they were together, it was definitely not raining, the showers had stopped for a bit. They were down by the river in her car and walked a bit outside to smoke. We know the exact time because she came home to watch her tv show. It did rain later that night because I put the dogs out for a pee at 11 and it was raining then.

 

[hippy hippy]

What I shall do, now that my son has shown me how, is I shall post a picture of the area I have concentrated on and then doodle over it in different colours all the routes I have been doing up to today in the nursery area. The open moorland which I did with my son yesterday is in fact several large fields for sheep so short grass, a few rocky patches, a few tree copses, then downhill to more dense trees and a gate to a track that leads almost back to the resort entrance. We honestly went very carefully through that but I am very happy to go again. My son leaves for Indonesia tomorrow so I will have to find another companion (I'm afraid of cattle at bottom of hill)

 

[hippy hippy]

Just one question to those who know Susan: there is a field of horses to the left of the moorland, by the Errichel steading. Do you think she mig have gone over to look at them/ pet them? If so, it is plausible she could head downhill from their field following their fence and into the road too