Assynt Murder

In 1830 a murder took place in Assynt that was to become famous not only for its brutal nature but due to the trial being the last time evidence based on supposed second sight was admitted in a Scottish court. On the 20th April a body was discovered floating in Loch Torr na h-Èiginn, two miles inland from Drumbeg. A crowd from Drumbeg gathered to see the body of Murdoch Grant, a travelling merchant from Lochbroom, brought ashore.

 Although the location seems remote it was next to the track connecting all the way to Assynt Manse in Inchnadamph. Despite the Assynt clearances having commenced in 1812 there were still inland settlements such as the neighbouring Glenlearaig and the tiny township of Loinn Mheadhonach just along the road, not far from where the body was discovered.

At first the prevailing opinion was that it was suicide, however a simple post mortem at the loch side revealed the likely cause of death to be blows to the head with a heavy blunt edged implement. Initially there were a number of suspects but as the authorities pieced together Grant’s movements by extensive interviews with the local Gaelic speaking people the list narrowed. It transpired that he had last been seen alive in the vicinity of Drumbeg on the 20th March. He had been travelling for a month and having dispensed of most of his wares was carrying an estimated £40 cash which would have been a small fortune in 1830.

Eventually suspicion fell on Hugh Macleod, a young resident of Loinn Mheadhonach. Apparently he was a young man living in poor circumstances who had developed a taste for women, drink and fancy clothes that had already led him into debt. Shortly after the murder he had been able to clear his debts and gone on a spending spree buying copious amounts of whisky. Macleod was duly arrested and sent to Dornoch jail to await trial. Next spring a month before the trial a young man called Kenneth Fraser said that in a dream it had been revealed to him that Grant’s belongings were buried under rocks near the loch where the body had been found. The ensuing search uncovered some of the peddler’s goods.

A belief in second sight was not uncommon in the Highlands at that time. However it later transpired that Macleod had entertained Fraser on a drinking spree with his new found wealth, where it’s likely he revealed the whereabouts of the peddler’s belongings. Macleod was tried and convicted of murder. A crowd of over 7000 gathered to witness his public hanging on a scaffold erected by the beach at the Longman, Inverness. It was the penultimate public execution to take place in Inverness and his body was passed to the Professor of Anatomy at Edinburgh University for public dissection.