Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to The Unseen Podcast, a podcast
Speaker 1: dedicated to missing people, unresolved cases and UK true crime.
Speaker 1: Today we're going to be exploring the nineteen seventy one
Speaker 1: murder case of James Keelty in the area of blair
Speaker 1: Gowery in perthinkin Ross in Scotland. His murder was one
Speaker 1: of the most notorious of the era. However, it remained unsolved,
Speaker 1: with the detectives who worked on it still to this
Speaker 1: day hoping that more information would come out. This episode
Speaker 1: contains descriptions that some listeners may find distressing. Sole listener
Speaker 1: discretion is advised. When he arrived, however, he couldn't find
Speaker 1: the children anywhere and they weren't ready to leave the
Speaker 1: house as he would have expected. The place was a
Speaker 1: little quiet, and so he decided to have a wander
Speaker 1: around the property to try and find someone. After getting
Speaker 1: no luck on his search of the perimeter of the hotel,
Speaker 1: he decided to have a look inside the garage, which
Speaker 1: was located around eighty yards away from the main building.
Speaker 1: It was in here that he discovered something horrific. Inside
Speaker 1: the garage, James Kelty lay on the floor, bound and
Speaker 1: gagged and only wearing a string vest and his underwear.
Speaker 1: He was covered in blood and was severely injured. It
Speaker 1: became apparent that James was still alive, but that he
Speaker 1: was barely clinging on to life. He had some serious
Speaker 1: injuries to his head and he needed medical assistance as
Speaker 1: soon as possible. David Urpey raised the alarm and managed
Speaker 1: to get emergency services out to the area, where they
Speaker 1: then transported James to Dundee Royal Infirmary. Despite receiving this
Speaker 1: assistance and being taken to the hospital for further treatment,
Speaker 1: James Celtis succumbed to his injuries and passed away upon arrival.
Speaker 1: James was only fifty two years old and left behind
Speaker 1: three children and his wife, Agnes. This was a tragedy
Speaker 1: on many levels, but moreover, this was now both a
Speaker 1: murder investigation and a mystery to be solved. It was
Speaker 1: evident from the injuries that James had sustained and the
Speaker 1: manner in which he had been found that he had
Speaker 1: been murdered, and that police now had to launch a
Speaker 1: murder inquiry to find out who could have committed this.
Speaker 1: The investigation began by speaking to those closest to James
Speaker 1: and finding out about his movements and the evening before
Speaker 1: he had been killed, as well as searching the crime scene.
Speaker 1: James's wife, Agnes, explained that the evening before they had
Speaker 1: hosted a supper dance at the hotel in the Silver
Speaker 1: Butterfly Function Room, which was located at the rear. Around
Speaker 1: fifty to sixty people attended the supper dance, however, no
Speaker 1: one chose to stay over that night. At the conclusion
Speaker 1: of the evening, James and Agnes said good night to
Speaker 1: one another, and both them and the children retired to bed,
Speaker 1: James and Agnes sleeping in separate bedrooms. This is the
Speaker 1: last time that Agnes said she saw her husband. At
Speaker 1: this point, everything seemed to be as normal. Analyzing the scene,
Speaker 1: police were able to establish that James had been woken
Speaker 1: up and dragged from his bed in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night, and had been bound, gagged and beaten before
Speaker 1: being hit around the head with something heavy. James had
Speaker 1: a fractured skull and had been bleeding profusely from the
Speaker 1: head wound. It was clear that he had been in
Speaker 1: bed at the time given how he was dressed. The
Speaker 1: question was what was the motive for this brutal murder.
Speaker 1: Police on the investigation quickly began to speculate that robbery
Speaker 1: was probably the motive given what they discovered at the scene.
Speaker 1: The killer or killers appeared to have got into the
Speaker 1: hotel through an unsecured window on the ground floor and
Speaker 1: then made their way up to James's bedroom. One of
Speaker 1: the more troubling pieces of evidence that they recovered was
Speaker 1: that the phone lines to the hotel had been cut,
Speaker 1: suggesting that this could have been a pre planned attack
Speaker 1: and not simply an opportunist. There were more concerning things found.
Speaker 1: Despite the police's initial theory that the murder had been
Speaker 1: motivated by a robbery, nothing of value seemed to have
Speaker 1: been taken. The only thing that police could find that
Speaker 1: had been taken was a few bottles of whiskey. Money
Speaker 1: was left in the home and was not taken by
Speaker 1: the murder or murderers. If robbery was the motive, then
Speaker 1: why had none of this been taken. This was certainly
Speaker 1: a confusing part of the case, and the brutal nature
Speaker 1: of the killing seemed at odds with the trivial things
Speaker 1: that had been stolen. Police began going house to house
Speaker 1: interviewing people in the area of Blair Gowery and further
Speaker 1: afield to try and establish if they knew anything. They
Speaker 1: were interested in finding out if anyone had seen anything
Speaker 1: of interest or out for the ordinary around the time
Speaker 1: that James had been murdered. They also carried out a
Speaker 1: search of the area to try and locate the murder weapon,
Speaker 1: which they believed must have been something heavy. The door
Speaker 1: to door investigation did yield some information. They were given
Speaker 1: information that a man aged between twenty six and twenty
Speaker 1: eight was seen walking near the hotel at around four
Speaker 1: forty a m. On the morning of the murder. He
Speaker 1: had been seen wearing a khaki jacket. Of course, this
Speaker 1: was of interest given that there weren't many people who
Speaker 1: would have had reason to be walking around the area
Speaker 1: at the time of the morning in that area. Police
Speaker 1: appealed for this person to come forward and distributed it
Speaker 1: to the public. They had also received a tip about
Speaker 1: a cream colored car which had been spotted in the
Speaker 1: area around the time of the murder, and police also
Speaker 1: appealed for the driver of this vehicle to come forward.
Speaker 1: They received no response about either of these two tips.
Speaker 1: A search of the hotel and its grounds did recover
Speaker 1: a blood stained sheet, which they believed came from the hotel,
Speaker 1: indicating the possible way in which the killer or killers
Speaker 1: had escaped the scene. A big discovery was the two
Speaker 1: iron bars which were recovered by officers. It had been
Speaker 1: described that these two bars had been found in a
Speaker 1: plowed field on the adjoining road to the hotel. This
Speaker 1: fit with the description that Detective Chief Inspector John Lamonde
Speaker 1: had given about the weapon, saying that they were looking
Speaker 1: for something like a narrow and heavy bar. He explained
Speaker 1: to the press not long after the murder that this
Speaker 1: was a particularly brutal attack, one in which the victim
Speaker 1: was struck numerous times. He said that the perpetrator or
Speaker 1: perpetrators would have had blood stained clothing and surely would
Speaker 1: have stood out to the public at large. He also
Speaker 1: indicated that he believed that more than one person was involved,
Speaker 1: and that most likely two people were behind the attack.
Speaker 1: No information was given as to why he believed that
Speaker 1: to be the case. However, it could have been looked
Speaker 1: at in the evidence that James had been dragged to
Speaker 1: the garage that this may have needed more than one
Speaker 1: person to drag someone unconscious eighty yards. The police investigation
Speaker 1: was intense in the couple of months following James's murder,
Speaker 1: and they appealed many times for people in the local
Speaker 1: area to come forward to give them any information or
Speaker 1: evidence that they may know. They also stepped up the
Speaker 1: investigation by asking all males over the age of sixteen
Speaker 1: from the surrounding areas to come forward to be fingerprinted.
Speaker 1: It was hoped that they would find a fingerprint match
Speaker 1: to any of the fingerprints that had been recovered from
Speaker 1: the scene. They got quite a good response from this
Speaker 1: appeal was many people coming forward to have their fingerprints taken,
Speaker 1: but police stated that there was still quite a lot
Speaker 1: of people who had not presented themselves to police. One
Speaker 1: of these people was the man who had been spotted
Speaker 1: near the hotel at four forty am. Police explained that
Speaker 1: they believed that this was a local man given where
Speaker 1: he was seen walking, but though they were concerned that
Speaker 1: this person had not come forward to them. As a
Speaker 1: result of this, they asked for assistance from the English
Speaker 1: police as they speculated that this person may no longer
Speaker 1: be in the area or may have gone into England instead.
Speaker 1: The English Police distributed this man's description in the hope
Speaker 1: that someone south of the border had seen him. This, however,
Speaker 1: seemed to go nowhere. Perth and Kinros's police were clearly
Speaker 1: dedicated to trying to find James Kelty's killer or killers
Speaker 1: and appealed many times to try and track them down.
Speaker 1: They also conducted another daughter door inquiry in the local
Speaker 1: area and set up a reward five hundred pounds was
Speaker 1: put up by Blair Gowery Town Council to try and
Speaker 1: locate whoever killed James Kelty. They stated that the reward
Speaker 1: spotlights the anxiety we all should feel that this case
Speaker 1: be solved. The community of six thousand people were very
Speaker 1: invested in catching James Kelty's killer or killers, and this
Speaker 1: could be seen by the dedication of everyone to keep
Speaker 1: James's murder in the public eye and push people to
Speaker 1: come forward with information. Despite this pressure from both the
Speaker 1: police and the public, the case started to go cold.
Speaker 1: The recovery of the possible murder weapon and the bloodstained
Speaker 1: sheet were of interest. However, none of this proved who
Speaker 1: could have committed the crime, how many people committed it,
Speaker 1: or why it happened. Police continued to run down leads
Speaker 1: and speculate as to what happened. The lead investigators included
Speaker 1: John R. Jack Lamond as he was known, continued to
Speaker 1: believe that robbery was the main motive for the crime.
Speaker 1: This robbery, they believed, had gone wrong and led to
Speaker 1: the murder of James. It was even speculated that the
Speaker 1: killer or killers might not have been locals, but professional
Speaker 1: criminals who had planned this in advance and were waiting
Speaker 1: for their chance to get in the supper dance the
Speaker 1: night before provided them with this chance, and they could
Speaker 1: have mixed in with the guests that evening, not drawing
Speaker 1: any attention to themselves. This was further speculated as James
Speaker 1: was known as a big spender and someone who would
Speaker 1: buy drinks for other people and sometimes flashed his money around.
Speaker 1: He alone handled the takings, and if anyone had been
Speaker 1: watching him for any length of time, they would have
Speaker 1: known that. In the years that followed, the speculation continued. However,
Speaker 1: the evidence was not forthcoming, and despite a huge investigation,
Speaker 1: it lay unsolved. It has not been forgotten about, however,
Speaker 1: with many people reinvestigating it and taking a look at
Speaker 1: the evidence in the decades that followed. One of these
Speaker 1: people is retired police sergeant Willie McFarlane, who worked for
Speaker 1: Perth and Kinross police after James Kelty's murder. Twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one marked fifty years since James's murder, and Willie McFarland
Speaker 1: spoke to the Korean newspaper, which has been a source
Speaker 1: for this episode. He explained that he still has many
Speaker 1: unanswered questions despite investigating the murder thoroughly. He asked, why
Speaker 1: did the taxi driver have to go raking around to
Speaker 1: find mister Kelty? Where were the children? This was something
Speaker 1: that stood out to me immediately, given that in many
Speaker 1: of the reports there is no mention as to where
Speaker 1: the children or James's wife, Agnes were at the time
Speaker 1: that James was discovered. He also stated, was it really
Speaker 1: a breaking gone wrong? If so, why was mister Kelty
Speaker 1: bound and gagged an outside. He said that he did
Speaker 1: not believe that this was someone local, saying there were
Speaker 1: a few rogues and rascals, but I honestly think if
Speaker 1: it had been local, it would have come out. I
Speaker 1: don't think it was anyone living in blair Gowery was
Speaker 1: the killer? Someone he had upset. Were the two iron
Speaker 1: bars found in the grounds the true murder weapons? I
Speaker 1: don't think that was ever established I'm sure someone knows
Speaker 1: who committed murder, and it would be great if they
Speaker 1: came forward, But in truth, I don't think the Keelty
Speaker 1: murder will be solved unless there's a deathbed confession. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: I'd like to see justice for mister Kelty. It's fair
Speaker 1: to say that this crime did have evidence and physical
Speaker 1: evidence at that the blood stained sheet and the iron
Speaker 1: bars being some good pieces of evidence. However, given that
Speaker 1: this crime took place in nineteen seventy one, there were
Speaker 1: a few options for analyzing it effectively. If this crime
Speaker 1: had occurred today, it may indeed have been solved quite
Speaker 1: quickly using DNA or other technology. James Kelty's murder remains
Speaker 1: a notorious unsolved crime in the area of Perth and
Speaker 1: kin Ross. Whoever killed James was a violent and dangerous person,
Speaker 1: and they got away with murdering a husband and a father.
Speaker 1: Many people, including the community and James's family, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: would love some closure and answer as to what happened
Speaker 1: to him, and they deserve to get them. If you
Speaker 1: know anything about the murder of James Kelty in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one, then please contact police using one oh one.
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Speaker 1: As always, I'm Caprice and this has been unseen from
Speaker 1: the s