Sandy Drummond (Unsolved Murder)

Sandy Drummond was a down to earth, bright and likeable former British soldier. The 33 year old worked at a paper mill and shared an isolated cottage with his brother just outside St Andrews in Fife, eastern Scotland. In the spring of 1991 Sandy’s relaxed demeanour suddenly altered and a cloud of sadness seemed to descend on him. A few months later Sandy abruptly resigned from his job and a few days later he was found dead, laying face down on a farm track close to his home. With no sign of violence it was believed Sandy had died of natural causes. The post mortem showed this theory could not have been further from the truth.

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Transcript

Sandy Drummond

Alexander Lack Drummond or “Sandy” as he was commonly known, was born in Scotland on August 13th 1957. As a child, quiet and reserved Sandy wanted to become an engineer and after finishing school he embarked upon an engineering apprenticeship with the British army. During his stint in the forces Sandy spent 18 months stationed with Black Watch, the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, in Northern Ireland. At the time this was an extremely volatile and dangerous place to be a British soldier. Sandy made it out of the province unscathed and  was honourably discharged from the army in or around 1984. He then moved back home to be near his parents and brother in Fife, a peninsula in the east of Scotland. 

Sandy shared a bungalow with his brother James, also known as Jimmy, and they lived in number 2 cottage on Falside Farm just outside the village of Boarhills. The property stood alongside the A917, the main road between St Andrews and Kingsbarns. While the road sees a fair bit of traffic the location is remote and surrounded by green fields separated by hedgerows. Sandy’s parents, Alexander and Effie, who by the early 1990s were both in their sixties, lived just a mile away. Sandy got a job at the Guardbridge paper mill situated near Leuchars in north-east Fife. This was a 20 minute drive from home. By June 1991 Sandy had been working there for seven years and was 33 years of age.

Sandy was described by his family as being a happy, pleasant person. He was a loving son, often taking care of his father who suffered from Alzehimers disease, allowing his mother to have some respite. He often paid for breaks and holidays for his mother so she could get away for a few days. Sandy had a kind and gentle character and for the most part was a private person. Though he was shy, contrary to descriptions in the media, his mother Effie said Sandy was not a loner and would open up to you once you got to know him. Sandy had numerous interests including astronomy, photography and wildlife. He also enjoyed being out and about in nature and liked to keep fit by jogging. He was an avid reader and very intelligent.

Like his mother Effie, Sandy is described as a person of faith. He was also generous with his money and gave to charity regularly. According to an article in the Mirror from April 2001 he once donated a whole week's wages to Cancer Research. Sandy was known as a good employee at the Guardbridge paper mill. He was a diligent worker, who was reliable and always on time. From the outside it appeared that Sandy was content and enjoying his life. This perception changed dramatically in the spring of 1991. 

Around March that year a dark cloud seemed to descend upon Sandy. He stopped being his usual self and constantly looked troubled, as though something was weighing on his mind. This change in character seemed to coincide with his transfer to another department at work. A transfer that Sandy himself had requested. A short time later he was moved again to a different area within Guardbridge paper mill where he became a labourer. However, this did nothing to improve Sandy’s mood or demeanour. Then, on Thursday June 20th 1991 (a crimewatch reconstruction aired in 1998 says it was Friday the 21st), Sandy contacted the personnel department of the paper mill and informed them he was quitting his job. The personnel manager informed Sandy that he needed to give at least one week's notice. He replied that he would not be doing that and would be leaving immediately. He gave no explanation for his decision. Sandy did not immediately tell anyone in his family about this.

On Sunday June 23rd Sandy visited his parents’ house as normal for Sunday dinner. According to reports he was much more his normal self and seemed in a better mood than he had been for some while. After the meal his mother kissed him goodbye and a smiling Sandy put on his crash helmet, sat atop his motorbike and revved the engine. He was due to visit again the following evening for a meal. As it turned out this meal would never take place and as Sandy rode off down the road it was the last time Effie would see her son alive. 

That evening Sandy returned to his cottage at Falside farm. There he sat down with his brother in the kitchen and over a beer told James that he had quit his job. James asked him if he had another job to go to as this was very out of character for his brother. Sandy said he did not. He just wanted a break. Sandy told James that he was thinking about going off somewhere on the bike. Before retiring for the night Sandy asked his brother if he could wake him up at 7.00am. 

The following morning James did as he was asked and knocked on Sandy's bedroom door at 7.00 sharp. Sandy got up and soon afterwards James went to work in the car, leaving the motorcycle for Sandy. What happened over the next 13 hours was slowly pieced together over the course of the following police investigation. I will be scrutinising this timeline shortly. Suffice to say for now that at 8pm on Monday June 24th an elderly walker found the body of 33 year old Sandy Drummond on an overgrown and disused farm track just 180m from Sandy’s front door. The body was lying face down with the legs straight out. Both hands were clenching the stomach. The first police at the scene were suspicious of what they found and initially believed the body had been moved to the location.  After further inspection and seeing no visible signs of violence, coupled with the position of the hands holding the stomach, they concluded the death was likely of natural causes. Police went to the nearby cottage and Sandy’s brother James came out to the field to identify the body. 

While it was undoubtedly a tragedy and somewhat of a mystery that a young man should die in these circumstances, initially Sandy’s death did not appear to be sinister in nature. This assumption could not have been further from the truth.

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A postmortem was held within 24 hours and by 6pm on Tuesday June 25th it had been surmised that Sandy had not suffered a natural death. On the contrary, he had been the victim of a murder. It was determined that Sandy had died of asphyxiation by strangulation. There were, however, no finger imprints or nail marks on the neck. Neither was there any obvious bruising or signs that a ligature had been used.

Years later in 2016 an investigative journalist Michael Mulford claimed to have seen the pathology report. He revealed that the pathologist concluded that the perpetrator had used a Japanese martial arts move on Sandy. It was likely a Jiu Jitsu style hit or stranglehold to the neck which caused extensive damage to the muscles causing them to contract and block his airway. Essentially it was like he was being strangled and he suffocated to death. 

Time of death was given as anywhere between 11am and 8pm on Monday June 24th. From what I have read, the police do not think Sandy was killed where he was found, but rather moved to that location.

Despite the findings of the post-mortem a week after the murder the police informed the media that they were not treating the death as a murder case. The Fife police did not reveal that Sandy’s death was a homicide to the public or even the family for many months. 117 days passed  before Sandy’s mother Effie was finally told that her son had indeed been the victim of a murder.  Effie herself had never doubted that another person or persons were involved in her son's untimely death. The slow pace of the police investigation infuriated Effie.Following the family being informed of the news Sheriff Charles Smith then announced  publicly that Sandy’s death was now being treated as a homicide and that he had been strangled. 

The fact that it took so long for the death to be investigated as a homicide is difficult to explain. The Courier and Advertiser reported in May 2016 that at the time of the original investigation a senior officer in the Fife constabulary  believed Sandy had died of natural causes. Perhaps early on there had been disagreement amongst police about the postmortem findings. 

Investigators from the Fife constabulary were now playing catch up but pleas for people to come forward with any pertinent information did produce some significant clues. Many of these details were not made public until 1998, when Sandy’s tragic story was covered by BBC’s Crimewatch during an episode focusing on cold cases.

Gradually the following timeline for the day Sandy died, Monday 24th of June, was put together, including both confirmed and speculated events, incidents and sightings. 

At 7.25 on Monday morning a local man was driving past Sandy’s cottage on the way to his place of work in St Andrews. This was estimated to be a matter of minutes after Sandy’s brother James left for work in his car. As the local man was approaching Forsyth bend, which is just before number 2 cottage on Falside Farm, he saw Sandy run out of his front door very quickly and dart across the main road. He headed into the field opposite the cottage. The man said Sandy was carrying a blue holdall under his arm. The witness added that from his body language it looked like Sandy did not want to be seen. Shortly after this Sandy was seen heading to St Andrews on his motorbike, which is just a ten minute drive from his cottage.

From CCTV footage it was discovered that later that morning, at approximately 11 o'clock, Sandy went to the Dunfermline Building society in St Andrews, and withdrew almost all his savings from the account. It also came to light that he had visited other building societies over the previous few days and withdrawn all his money from these accounts too. In total he took out about £850. Adjusted for inflation it is the equivalent of nearly £1900 today. This was just about all the money Sandy had.  A witness in the town saw Sandy putting some of the cash into a blue holdall.

There is then a reported sighting of Sandy at Kinkell Braes caravan park at 2pm. This location is on the A917 on the outskirts of St Andrews. It’s about a 4 minute drive from the centre of the town and a seven minute drive from Sandy’s cottage.

At around 2.30pm a bus on its way from Kingsbourgh to St Andrews was flagged down by a man close to Sandy’s cottage. There was no official bus stop at this location but in rural areas in Fife once a bus is outside the 30mph limit zones a person can flag down a bus from any point. The bus would then pull over at the nearest safest place to pick up the passenger. The man asked for a single ticket to St Andrews. The bus driver asked if the man wanted the main station but he said he wanted the stop at Lamond Drive. Lamond Drive is situated in the southern part of the centre of St Andrews. 

The bus driver estimated the man to be in his mid 30’s and he talked with a Fife accent. From the 1998 reconstruction on BBC the man wore non-descriptive clothing, a plain white t-shirt and blue jeans. What made the man instantly stand out was the fact he had a bloodied handkerchief wrapped around his left hand. The man's dark brown hair was slightly damp on the ends which the driver said looked like sweat. The man found a seat and the bus continued along the rest of its journey. 

Just past Sandy’s cottage an old track leads off along the left hand side of a field. When passing this point the bus driver noticed a red/orange, rust coloured Morris Marina parked at the start of the track.

The mystery passenger alighted at Lamond Drive as he had planned and headed into a nearby housing estate. This man has never come forward to the police. Investigators believe he may have been a local or at the very least, knew the area well. 

At 4pm there was a sighting of a man matching Sandy’s description jogging along the A917. This has never been confirmed as being Sandy.

Three quarters of an hour later at 4.45pm a passing motorist noticed the red/orange Morris Marina pull out from beside Sandy’s cottage and join the main road. The Mirror reported in April 2001 that around this time a witness reported seeing two men in the living room of Sandy’s cottage. Presumably this witness was another passing motorist, and they also reported the Morris Marina was parked outside the cottage.

At 6pm Sandy’s brother James Drummund returned from work to find the cottage empty and no indication of where Sandy might be. The Morris Marina was nowhere to be seen at this time. James left the cottage shortly after this and at 7pm another passerby noticed the Morris Marina was once again parked in front of the cottage.

Another sighting of a person resembling Sandy occurred in the village of Boarhills at 7pm. Again this has never been confirmed as being Sandy.

At 7.15pm a red hatchback car was seen reversing down the farm track where Sandy’s body was found just 45 minutes later. At the same time two men were seen jumping out of a silver green Renault 5 or Volkswagen car at a bridge close to where the body was discovered. The men then hurdled over a wall and sprinted in the direction of the farm track. 

What's more a woman named Rosie came forward and gave information about a car she had seen parked outside number 2 cottage at Falside farm over the few months prior to the murder. Rosie rode the bus to St Andrews frequently and would pass Sandy’s  cottage at 11.00am. Around April or May while gazing out of the window, Rosie started noticing a rust coloured car parked on the road right outside the home. She was confident that it was a rust coloured Morris Marina. She noted that on the back window 18.07 there was a yellow and black “Child on board” sticker. 

As far as I'm aware none of the cars seen near Sandy’s cottage on the day he died, including the rust coloured Morris Marina were ever traced. None of the men seen near the location ever came forward.

 As you can see this is a pretty complicated case. Police interviewed every employee of the Guardbridge paper mill as well as Sandy’s former army colleagues. Investigators could find no one who disliked him and he had no known enemies. 

Sandy did not have a criminal record and was not known to police. Police were sure that something was going on in his life that was at the root of the murder but they were unable to discover what it was.

All the money that Sandy had withdrawn from the building societies was found in the cottage. In the eyes of the police this ruled out robbery as a motive for the murder. In October 2022 criminologist David Wilson presented a program for the BBC “David Wilson's Crime files: Cold Cases” which examined some of Scotland's most perplexing and mysterious deaths. In the episode they showed a photograph of a holdall similar to the one Sandy owned. It was blue with the words “GB Papers 1988 safety Award” printed in white. The blue holdall that Sandy was seen carrying on the morning of June 24th has never been found.  As all the money was accounted for, the contents of the bag remain a mystery.  

It seems there are many questions that require answers for this case to be solved. Not least what had happened to cause the change in Sandy’s demeanour in the months before his murder.  Sandy’s  mother Effie was strongly of the belief that whatever was troubling her son was connected with the paper mill where he worked. 

True Crime writer Douglas Skelton retells an incident on the aforementioned documentary with David Wilson, saying that Effie Drummond told a story about a conversation she had with her son a couple of months before he died. Effie had sat down with Sandy in her kitchen and the pair started to talk. The fire was on in the corner of the room and Effie's pet cat lay asleep on her lap as the conversation took a disturbing turn.

In the stillness of  the kitchen Sandy broke down and began to weep. Effie, obviously worried, asked her son to tell her what was making him so upset. He refused to tell her, only saying that he felt ashamed and it was too filthy to share with her. 

The use of the term “filthy” has led to much speculation. Crime writer Douglas Skelton suggests that this word implies the secret that Sandy would not divulge was sexual in nature. On BBC's  Crimewatch programme in September 1998 DCI Douglas Potter does mention that there were local rumours that Sandy may have been gay. DCI Potter alludes to other stories that he does not go into. I've come across some of these stories online but they are quite vague in detail and always second hand or third hand. I'm not going to share them here. 

There is rife speculation  that the murder was connected to Sandys private life. Police did thoroughly look into Sandy’s history but found nothing of note. According to an article in the Daily Record from October 2022, one police investigator went as far as saying Sandy was as clean as the “archangel gabriel”. 

Effie Drummond campaigned vociferously on behalf of her son. Thanks to her tenacity officials in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, were persuaded to open a special inquiry into Sandy’s death under the Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths Act. This is a very rare occurrence in the case of an unsolved murder. Proceedings took place in Cupar Sheriff’s Court in September 1992. Unfortunately nothing concrete was established concerning exactly what had happened to Sandy and perhaps just as importantly why he was killed. The Mirror newspaper did report in 2001 that the inquiry found Sandy’s life had been “made hell” by men he had worked with. The article claims that the night before he died Sandy had written down the names of these men on a piece of paper. This was found when the cottage was later searched by police. This is the only source where I have found mention of this detail. As far as I am aware the names written on the paper have not been made public. 

Sadly Effie passed away in 1995 aged 67. It is said she died of a broken heart. Effie died believing that Sandy was being bullied or blackmailed by someone. Speaking on the BBC Crimewatch programme in 1998 DCI Douglas Potter intimated this theory was a possibility. 

Before her death Effie complained that the family home had received numerous strange phone calls and that the property had been broken into on several occasions. Who was behind these incidents and whether they are connected to her son's death has never been established. 

Sandy's ill father passed away in 1999.

In 2016 investigative journalist Michael Mulford made a series of claims in the media about the case. I’ve already mentioned the information he attests to about the method used to kill Sandy. I.e the Japanese, jiu jitsu style stranglehold. 

Mulford professed to have seen some of the casenotes from a review undertaken by Fife police. I believe  this review took place some time in the early 2010s, possibly 2013 as I have read that the case was looked at that time in light of advancements in DNA technology.  

Mulford said that during this review process police identified a prime suspect in the case. By the time investigators had traced this man down he was already deceased. Police Scotland and the crown office would ot confirm or deny this. They would say only that the case was subject to ongoing review. One true crime blog I came across, “Enormous crime”, suggests the suspect had himself been the victim of a murder. There are other rumours that this man had a family member who owned an orange/red Morris Marina. Obviously these last two pints need to be taken with a pinch of salt as there is no evidence to confirm them.

Mulford suggests that the case is being kept open in the hope that any possible accomplices may still be brought to justice. From the various sightings of people and cars near Sandy’s  home on the day he died it certainly seems a logical assumption that more than one person was involved in the murder. 

In the spring of 2016 the Courier and Advertiser ran an article about Sandy’s murder and there was a marked response from the public. Police Scotland’s Specialist Crime Division thanked the public for information that had come into them as a result. At the time DCI Maxine Martin sounded confident that Sandy's murder could still be solved and she believed that it would be information from the local community that would break the case. Crime writer Douglas Skelton does not share this optimism. Speaking in 2022 he said he did not think the case would ever be solved. I’m convinced there are people out there who know exactly what happened to Sandy and why. With this knowledge there is always hope that the person or persons responsible will be identified. 

It is not known what if any forensic evidence exists in the case. As it was not treated as a murder investigation from the start vital clues were likely missed. The murder of Sandy Drummond remains the only unsolved murder on file with the Fife police. 

If you have any information about the case you can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Sources

https://tinyurl.com/3rr2jenk