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The Death of Willie McRae
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Willie McRae, a Scottish lawyer, politician and activist, died on April 7 1985 - this much is agreed on. Conspiracy theories persist to this day around exactly how and why he died (although, to be fair those closest to him really wish they wouldn't). This episode, we take a look into the claims and counterclaims around his death, to see what people think really happened and who was behind it.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Edison and Ian Denteth.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy in Auckland, New Zealand. I
Josh's Upcoming Conference Trip
00:00:32
Speaker
am Josh Addison in Guangzhou, China. They are Dr. MRX Dentist. ah You're heading my way soon and I am, yes, I am attending the AAP, the Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, the New Zealand Division, down at the University of Waikato in very early July. so I am sweeping into Auckland, basically for one night only, then going to the conference and then returning back to China because my university, like many universities these days, has decided that there's absolutely no way...
00:01:08
Speaker
anyone is allowed to have even the smidgen of a holiday when they go overseas for a conference. It's straight and then straight out.
00:01:20
Speaker
Efficient. And also annoying, in part because the last thing you want do is arrive at a conference basically on the day it starts and then leave the conference the very night it finishes. It's just not good policy. But universities are concerned that, and I believe rightly, academics have used trips overseas in the past for jaunts.
00:01:42
Speaker
Well, I'm sure you would never do such a thing, but yes. Oh, no, never. I would never. i've Josh, I have never been jaunty in my entire life. is there Is there any advantage to sticking? Like, are there those sort of conversations that happen after the conference that it it would be good to stick around for another day? Oh, yeah. and I mean, as most people will admit, it's the dinner and drinks after the talks where the most productive work is done, in part because certain academics only come up with the good questions after they've got several hours ruminating on the talk you've given. And also, and this is an unfortunate fact, but alcohol does loosen lips.
00:02:21
Speaker
e And I've got some of the loosest lips in the business. it's It's a well-attested two-fact. ah
Who was Willie McRae?
00:02:29
Speaker
So we have ah we we have a new topic today. it's one that came up a few episodes ago when we decided to have a hunt through social medias and see if there were any new conspiracy theories out there. This was one of the few that popped up that we hadn't actually heard of before and seemed like ah an interesting enough topic to devote an entire episode to.
00:02:48
Speaker
Indeed. Now, Josh, there is a bit of a problem with this topic. And that topic is we're talking about someone from Scotland. And there is a temptation to want to do a bad Scottish accent. Now, so of course, we want want to avoid that. But the problem is this person might have the most Scottish name possible.
00:03:09
Speaker
I have been thinking the exact same thing. and i will be It's very, very dangerous. So we need to tread very carefully because this is a serious story about a serious situation. and The last thing we'll to do is go, OK, my haggis.
00:03:26
Speaker
Yes, no, no, no. Let's let's leave out the haggis, put in a chime, get on with it.
00:03:38
Speaker
Because today we want to talk to you about the death of Willie McRae, Scottish politician who died in 1985. On the 7th of April, under mysterious circumstances.
00:03:51
Speaker
Well, yes, as we will see. So Willie McRae was a very interesting person from the sounds of things. He was born in 1923, served in the Royal Indian Navy during World War II, where he became a lieutenant commander and aide-de-camp to Admiral Lord Mountbatten.
00:04:08
Speaker
And possibly as a consequence, became a fervent supporter of Indian independence. Yes, he did he was he was a supporter of many causes, I think. But after the war, he became a solicitor. and an activist for the Scottish National Party, the SNP.
00:04:27
Speaker
He, at one point, I believe, challenged for leadership of the party, but didn't quite give believe he actually challenged more than once, I believe, yeah. But he originally was the vice chairman of the SNP, So he was high up in it. He also stood for election a couple of times as as an SNP candidate, but also didn't get in. ah But nevertheless, he he did have quite an impact um in his in his life. he was a big um he he had close ties to the state of Israel and had done a bunch legal work there. If you go to his Wikipedia page they'll say that he fashioned Israel's maritime law and was emeritus professor at the University of Haifa. Now this gets mentioned in a variety of places but as everyone seems to note there's no citation as to where this information comes from. So it may well all be true but Wikipedia does note citation is needed and you would think
00:05:26
Speaker
that if he was indeed the architect of Israel's maritime law, there would be a lot of supporting evidence for that available. And it does seem hard to come by. But it is a noted thing about him, not just on Wikipedia, but in a variety of articles about his death, that he was the person who fashioned Israel's maritime law.
00:05:47
Speaker
ah one He definitely, though, um did a bunch of campaigning and activism as a member of the SNP. And his his big thing that gets mentioned a lot in all the profiles of him is that with his successfully campaigning against the dumping of nuclear waste at the Galloway Hills, um I've heard several times he was referred to as he he single-handedly stopped this dumping from happening. He appeared to be the key figure in that campaign, not being a fan of nuclear waste and I think possibly the nuclear power industry in general.
00:06:18
Speaker
He once claimed that nuclear waste should be stored where Guy Fawkes put his gunpowder, which I think also indicate he was probably also a Scottish nationalist, not just a member of the Scottish National Party, but someone who probably believed that Scotland and England would be better off apart rather than together.
00:06:38
Speaker
Now, his death has been discussed and dramatised. I know of at least one book, two plays that coincidentally came out the same year, despite having no no knowledge of each other, and I think had the same name as well, which is a phrase to do with a... case there's been at least one BBC documentary, possibly more. I've seen him described as Scotland's Dr David Kelly, although given that David Kelly died died afterwards, it really should be that he is England's Willie McRae. Yeah. If you recall, we we we talked about Dr David Kelly's death in October of 2022, Well, I should point out his death was on the 17th of July 2003. We discussed it in 2022. Yes, yes. So he if if you recall, he was a UN chief inspector who was involved in the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
00:07:27
Speaker
And he died, yes, as you say, 17th of July 2003, apparently by suicide. But there are conspiracy theories that say he was murdered and staged to look like a suicide. And the reason why people talk about Millie... Millie? Millie? I mean, the reason why people talk about Millie is actually a side issue to the discussion in this podcast. The reason why people talk about Willie McRae is that also this is a man who apparently died by suicide, and there are conspiracy theories that say that the suicide was staged, and actually what happened was a murder.
The Mysterious Death of Willie McRae
00:08:01
Speaker
Yeah, so...
00:08:02
Speaker
The basic details of his death, before we get into the into the claims and counterclaims and conspiracy theories, what, ah as far as I'm aware, is not disputed is that on the evening of the 5th of April 1985, he left his flat in Glasgow by car, headed for his cottage at Ardelve by Loch Alsh.
00:08:21
Speaker
He never made it there. Around 10am the next morning, so the 6th of April, his car was spotted off the road, off of of whatever motorway he'd been going up, straddling aburn a burn, little stream next to the road. It was, i believe, a pair of Australian tourists were driving along and so know somebody noted, hey, is that a a car over there?
00:08:43
Speaker
And so they stopped, they they found the car, they found him inside it alive, but unconscious and unresponsive with with blood on his temple. Apparently his seatbelt's still on.
00:08:54
Speaker
So that pair of tourists then flagged down the next car to come past, and as luck would have it, it was being driven by a doctor, Dr. Dorothy Messer. And more than that, one of the passengers in that car was a man called David Cootes, who was an SMP counsellor who actually knew William McRae. when he got down to the car, he was like, hang on, I know that guy.
00:09:12
Speaker
So Dr. Mesa, her examination on the scene, noticed that one of his pupils was dilated, which generally means brain brain damage of some kind. Her estimate was that he'd been in that state for about 10 hours, which would be, yeah so it's so midnight, presumably. And she, at the time, noted a strong smell of alcohol.
00:09:32
Speaker
the Emergency services were called. He was taken to one hospital and then transferred to another, and there's a bit of a bit of a bit of disagreement over like what scans were done, when and but which hospital and what have you. But the complicating factor came when a nurse was cleaning the the dried blood off of his head and found that and underneath the blood was what appeared to be a gunshot wound.
00:09:58
Speaker
And so they took him for an x-ray and sure enough showed a bullet lodged inside his head. Once they knew to look for one, investigators found a revolver in the water under where his car had been, or possibly near. That's one of the things that's... that's um Yeah, we'll get on to the funny business around the crime scene very soon.
00:10:18
Speaker
but But nevertheless, the end result is his brain was severely damaged, his vitals were weak. and The following day, the 7th of April, his life support was switched off following consultation with his next of kin.
00:10:30
Speaker
So that's that's the story. So what's the official version then? Well, the official finding was that it was death by suicide. He'd shot himself in the head after crashing his car. Now, we should also point out that the official theory is the theory that the family and friends accept and really would wish that other people would accept as well. Now, as we've both seen kind of going through what surviving media reports we have of the time versus the kind of
00:11:04
Speaker
post-facto analyses of the death of Willie McRae, which are the kind of the predominant narrative you find online these days. His brother Fergus is mentioned a lot. It's not quite clear whether he's the only surviving member or the only person who's willing to talk to the press about his brother's death. But his brother Fergus keeps on saying, we accept it was suicide. It was a suicide. People need to stop with the conspiracy theories about my brother's death.
00:11:31
Speaker
Now, this is not one of those cases of someone committing suicide and it being a surprise. Willie McRae had suffered from depression, he was an alcoholic, and had threatened suicide before, and notably...
00:11:50
Speaker
He had multiple drink-driving offenses, and if he'd been caught behind the wheel of a car trunk, which he would have been done if he'd been found after a car crash, his license would have been taken away from him, but even worse, he would have been jailed for his behavior. So we have a kind of motivation here. He crashes his car, realizes that basically this is it. It's jail time for me if I'm caught.
00:12:21
Speaker
And suffering from depression decides to kill himself rather than suffer the consequence of his actions. So that is the official theory. And this is the theory that the family takes to be true and really wishes that people like us wouldn't bring up rival hypotheses in a podcast.
00:12:37
Speaker
Nevertheless, we are a conspiracy theory podcast, and this is interesting to look through the the conspiracy theory just to see how how it's similar and different, I guess, from similar cases.
00:12:49
Speaker
So there was the the there was the official finding, as we'll see later, there was never a a fatal accident inquiry, which is what you would expect when someone dies as a result of a car crash. I don't know...
00:13:07
Speaker
I don't know that the specifics there, whether it's because, well, he actually died due to the self-inflicted gunshot wound, so therefore, you know, the fact that he had crashed his car beforehand means we don't need an FAI, but I don't know. The SMP apparently ran their own inquiry, and...
00:13:23
Speaker
They faced faced institutional resistance and and they weren't happy with the official inquiry's results. But people, since since his death, people have suggested that, yes, as as with um Dr David Kelly, that he...
00:13:40
Speaker
was actually murdered and then his death had been staged to look like a suicide. Now, why would people think this in the first place? it's He was not without enemies.
00:13:52
Speaker
Obviously, he'd he made no friends with the nuclear power industry with his campaigning against the nuclear waste dumping. He'd apparently also gone after drug traffickers in his in his area and as as part of his sort of activism.
00:14:08
Speaker
um Apparently his flat in Glasgow had been broken into several times before his death, although I don't Yeah, and this is one of these things where some people take this to be evidence that he had enemies who were actively plotting against him. So maybe the drug traffickers or members of the nuclear power industry were breaking into the flat either to scare him or to get compromise.
00:14:31
Speaker
on him although it has also been pointed out by some sources that we're talking about glasgow in the 1980s and glasgow was not exactly the best city in scotland to be living in due to a high crime rate so his flat being broken into may just have indicated he was a man living in glasgow And then there there are also claims that he he had he had evidence on on someone about something. So there are claims, for instance, there's an article in The Scotsman by Paul Delamore and Stephen Semple, which says, stories emerged that McRae had been privy to secret papers relating to Doon Ray, which is a nuclear site,
00:15:14
Speaker
And that he was being followed by special branch officers. It was also claimed he'd uncovered information about a high-profile pedophile ring dubbed the Untouchables. And I'd seen in another other articles he claims that he he was investigating reports of sort of pedophile rings involving politicians or judges or other people in people in power. Another article from the Herald in Scotland included the claim, before leaving, he showed a briefcase of documents to a friend, PC Donald Morrison, and told him, I've definitely got them this time.
00:15:46
Speaker
That article is the only place I've seen that particular claim. Yes, I haven't seen that being made elsewhere either. No, no. but And we don't really know who the them is.
00:15:57
Speaker
Yes. So that's the thing. There are these claims that that he had enemies, possibly he had evidence against these enemies that they would like to to to remain secret or something like that, but it's always a little bit vague.
00:16:11
Speaker
But then we get, then when it comes to the question of actual sort of evidence for a conspiracy, there There is, again, a lot of claim and counterclaim.
00:16:21
Speaker
that That Herald in Scotland article also says, "...the problem with Willie McRae's death is that it wasn't clean. It was a shot to the head. But who pulled the trigger? Official version, he did. Skeptics' version, the state did. Or the nuclear industry. Or high-profile pedophiles fearing public exposure.
00:16:37
Speaker
Or drug smugglers. These days, with conspiracy theories prospering on social media, it's wise to be sceptical of sceptics." but skeptics and conspiracy theorists have much ammunition in this case two bullets fired no finger-prints on the gun found sixty feet from the body deceased previously under surveillance a supposed suicide phoning ahead to have a fire lit at his holiday cottage his crashed car pointing the wrong way for his intended journey And the yeah the the these are the sorts of things that pop up. And as we'll see, it's not 100% clear in all these cases where these claims are coming from and and and how well they're supported.
00:17:15
Speaker
Yes, and sometimes the claims are based on evidence, but they're based on evidence after some event has occurred that has changed the nature of what the evidence would have been before the event. So one of the main irregularities that people like to point around Point around? Point to. I mean, they could also be pointing around. I mean, i mean people can gesture their heart's content up, down, sideways, what it should.
00:17:43
Speaker
But one of the main irregularities that people like to focus on that... one of the main irregularities that people like to focus on is that Because it was treated initially as a car accident and not the scene of a suicide, the investigation kind of went skewer from the very beginning.
00:18:07
Speaker
So people point out that there are claims that the car was taken away because it was simply an accident. So once you take the person who's had the accident away, you remove the car from the scene to make it clear for other road traffic, et cetera, et cetera. But that once they realized that actually there was more to it than just a car accident, that a gun had been shot, the car was apparently returned back to the scene in order to either allow the investigation to take place properly or to put on a show that an investigation was being done according to regulations.
00:18:46
Speaker
Yes, and that um Paul Delamore, the guy who wrote the article in The Scotsman, that seems to be his his big thing, the idea that the car had been taken away and then moved back. And I've seen he he put online...
00:18:59
Speaker
ah mountains of his research. he He did lots of correspondence, conducted his own interviews by email with with various people involved. And in particular, the Australian tourists who first found Willie McRae's car. He has ah has a long sort of chain of of emails with with the guy there who says that he he lost He left a glove or something at the crime scene on on the day. And so then he went back the next day to see if he could find find his lost glove and saw that the the the car was there with a bunch of police police officers around. Now, that was the next day, 7th.
00:19:36
Speaker
Whereas the official version is that the car was taken away on the 6th, the day that Willie McRae was found. And so this article, it sort of he thinks he thinks there's plenty of evidence to show that the car was taken away on the 6th, but it was definitely there on the 7th. Which might then account for the car being pointing pointing in the wrong direction if it's been put back in the wrong place, which is then crucial for the claims about the gun.
00:20:06
Speaker
Because people claim that the gun was found an unreasonable distance from the car. So if Willie McRae shot himself in the head, died, and then threw the gun away, that seems like a bit of an anomaly.
00:20:20
Speaker
But of course, if the car was put back in the wrong location, a gun which dropped from his hand in one location may look like it's an unreasonable distance away from where the car was reparked after the event.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yes, so that's that's an interesting one because you have, yeah, the claim that the gun was too far from the car, but then that's sort of answered by the claim that the car had been taken away and put back.
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah. yeah So then there's the business about the ri the revolver. The revolver was found with two spent cartridges inside it. It had been fired twice. Now...
00:20:55
Speaker
I don't no i don't know guns, but I'm not sure if it was shown that both of those shots had been fired at around the same time, or whether whether it's possible that the gun had been fired a while ago, and then for the second time on that day.
00:21:17
Speaker
um or Even then people have sort of said, you know, even if they had been fired twice, it's it's It's not impossible that he could have fired it fire fired a test shot and in frustration to to check that the gun was working because he twitched on the trigger. you know There are possibilities. But it definitely it is it is the case that he was, as far as ah as far as the official version goes, shot once, and yet the gun appeared to have been fired twice.
00:21:42
Speaker
And then there's the business of no fingerprints supposedly being found on the gun, which, given that it was supposedly fished out of the burn, i yeah i also don't know much about fingerprints. They are oily, but it's actually... They are, but don't know how long they survive in in water for.
00:22:00
Speaker
mean it's also, this is something which I found in one of the articles. Once again, you have to keep saying, we found these things in reports. These reports are, in many cases, 20 years after the event. And there's very little in the way of X and Y with the citation. But it is claimed that 20 yards away from the car, and once again, we don't know whether it's 20 yards away from where the car was originally or 20 yards away from where the car was put back,
00:22:29
Speaker
It is claimed they found a heap of other papers that had been meticulously ripped up and formed into a pyramid which had his smash watch and a garage bill on top of.
00:22:42
Speaker
Yes, I believe that claim was made by David Coots, the MP who was at the crash site. Yes, yes, that's correct. And as far as I'm aware, he's the only person who's made that claim. think other yeah people said, you know, i don't recall I don't recall seeing that at all.
00:22:57
Speaker
So that's that's an interesting detail to to bring up. but And again, it's just very unclear exactly who who we should be listening to and what the what the what the real facts of the case are there.
00:23:10
Speaker
And indeed, going back to the gun, one of the attending nurses, and it's not clear which hospital this was at, given he went to two hospitals after being rescued from the roadside, one of the attending nurses claimed that the finding that the bullet wound was in his right temple is false because it was located at the back of his neck, which would make the suicide verdict be at least somewhat suspect.
00:23:36
Speaker
Yes, and again, i mean, presumably that is the sort of thing you could check. If they took x-rays, you'd think there would be medical records. but Yes, yeah. I don't know. Certainly in the case of the gun, I believe William McRae's brother Fergus had said, yes, that is a gun that was owned by William McRae, although it was unlicensed.
00:23:56
Speaker
So there wasn't a record of him owning it, but it was apparently ah like ah like ah what one had kept from the war or something like that. And then it also, as well as that, apparently some of the statements of the Northern Constabulary from the time of the investigation are apparently missing as well.
00:24:12
Speaker
So we have we have a whole lot of um a whole lot of claims, all complicated by the fact that, as you say, it was initially investigated as a car accident and and then only as ah as a shooting a day or so later, once it was found that the he had actually been shot, and then the fact that a fatal and accident inquiry was never carried out.
00:24:37
Speaker
So
Conspiracy Theories and Skepticism
00:24:38
Speaker
the fact the fact that an FAI was never carried out doesn't prove there's a conspiracy, but perhaps if one had been carried out, it might disprove one, which is why I think people are still calling for an inquiry of that kind to this very day.
00:24:53
Speaker
And indeed, the SNP ran their own inquiry into the death of Willie McRae because they were not satisfied with the official inquiry's results, in part because of the lack of an FAI. And they faced institutional resistance to their own investigation.
00:25:11
Speaker
So there was an attempt at a second investigation, but it didn't go particularly well. So here's here's one thing that is a matter of record. um In 2015, there was a petition to hold a fatal accident inquiry. That petition failed, and the campaign Justice for Willie was set up by a man called Mark McNichol. Now, he is a Scottish writer and a director. He had been brought on to work on one of the plays based on Willie McRae's death. Remember I said they were just purely by coincidence in, I think, 2014 or sometime around then,
00:25:46
Speaker
two different plays came out that that but were based on the death of Willie McRae. And Mark McMickle was sort of brought on. he he hadn't he didn't write the play. He was brought on about it, not knowing who Willie McRae was at the time.
00:25:58
Speaker
And then the more he heard of the story, the more he thought, geez, we really this this this this is we really need to check this out. ah So he said at the Justice Foley campaign, the campaign hired private investigators to do their own investigation. But the conclusion of that investigation did not turn up anything that undermined the official verdict.
00:26:17
Speaker
So Mark McNichol has his own website and via the Internet Archive. We should point out he used to have his own website. Well, he he still has his own website, but it doesn't have anything about the Justice Foley campaign. It's just about his his work as ah as a director and ah a writer.
00:26:34
Speaker
But but yeah on on an old version of his website, there was a statement about about the whole campaign and it sort of goes through so how how we got into it, how the campaign was run and so on and so forth.
00:26:46
Speaker
But it includes bits like this. My conclusion, along with the majority of people on our campaign committee, is that there is no evidence that undermines the official Willie McRae suicide verdict. In fact, we believe when considered collectively, our new evidence reinforces it.
00:27:03
Speaker
When I first heard of Willie in 2014, I couldn't believe what I was hearing relating to the circumstances surrounding his death. I've learned a valuable lesson. Like so many others, I was taking what I was being told as facts and then passing them on. Those facts were the result of over 30 years of the Scottish equivalent of Chinese whispers. I don't think we call it that anymore.
00:27:23
Speaker
No, do we not. I in the bureaucrats was the telephone game anyway. but and But actually, the telephone game predates the derogatory term Chinese whispers anyway. ah but so So, I mean, the implication there seems to be that a lot of these claims around conspiracy, and presumably many of the ones we've talked about already,
00:27:41
Speaker
are just sort of things that have been repeated over the years, have been passed on from one person to another without really reference to any actual sort of source or evidence to back them up. Which why we have been quite carefully throughout this podcast going, well, look, it has been claimed online that. We're not asserting it to be the case because we are also doubtful that some of these modern retellings of the death of Willie McRae may well be working with bits of misinformation which have just become standard wisdom over time.
00:28:12
Speaker
So further on on that page, it said, at the end of our and investigation, we couldn't prove it was suicide. Though taking into consideration all of the witness statements, it was clear to the majority of the campaign committee that it was likely to have been a suicide. Though I suspect even if we had produced video footage of Willie shooting himself along with the suicide note, some people will simply refuse to accept it.
00:28:32
Speaker
That's why I went into detail around the coincidental nature of the investigator selection, which Kate came earlier. He talked about how I'd chosen investigators and and the methods by all that.
00:28:43
Speaker
It continues, because I have already been contacted by people who signed the petition or supported the campaign, they expressed concern that the investigators were special branch or MI5 plants. Some even intimated that I may have been got at and was steering the conclusion towards suicide. Those of you who know me will have a chuckle at that suggestion.
00:29:02
Speaker
I believe it is likely that Willie McRae committed suicide, and I feel the time has come for his family, friends, and also the witnesses to be left in peace. The authorities didn't do the public or themselves any favors with their wall of silence. For me, though, the real point here isn't Willie's suicide, it's the way his death was used by people with his specific agenda. Despite the absence of facts and proof, people, myself included, relayed conspiratorial theories and they became a national myth of tsunami proportions. For many, their enthusiasm was everything to do with being pro-independence and anti-establishment and little to do with holding UK security services to account.
00:29:37
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, there's a bunch of a bunch of things there. yeah yeah How much of it was simply sort of, you know, pro-Scottish nationalist type wanting to say that this this this hero of Scottish nationalism or the Scottish National Party had been done in by security forces or nefarious elements, possibly English ones,
00:29:58
Speaker
And we have to point out that the bungling by the police of the investigation certainly hasn't helped any. Yes, so the whole the whole car being there and then not being there and what have you, which which um Mr. Delamere reckons he, yeah sorry, Mr. Delamore um reckons that he he has ample evidence of actually happening.
00:30:23
Speaker
It's certainly possible that because they thought it was just an accident and then then later found out, oh hang on, it was there there was there was actually a shooting involved. We need to do ah a bit more of an investigation. And the car was put back.
00:30:37
Speaker
Maybe for show, maybe maybe because maybe maybe they did we were able to get something interesting from from just sort of recreating the scene or something, or maybe it was just to make it look like they were doing a more thorough investigation after they realised that they needed to do a more thorough investigation.
00:30:55
Speaker
We don't really know. Certainly, again, as far as I'm aware, the official version is that that didn't happen, that the the car was taken away and and never brought back at um at a later time. And that sort of all...
00:31:07
Speaker
Even if there is a conspiracy here, it's ah ah possible, as we've seen a million times before, around the wall of science, silent wall of science, I don't think they employed one of those, the wall of silence, though, could could be some form of conspiracy, but merely to cover up an inadequate investigation.
00:31:26
Speaker
no Well, yes, I mean, I think that's actually you the most plausible conspiracy to think of here. The investigation was bungled at some particular stage.
00:31:36
Speaker
And as we saw with the SMP trying to reinvestigate the investigation, The police often don't like people criticizing their work and will go out of their way to stonewall you and go, no, no, we did things properly the first time. ah Ignore the reporter that indicates that we did not. And so that seems like a plausible case of a conspiracy to cover up incompetence. But the problem is...
00:32:04
Speaker
Once you engage in a conspiracy to cover up incompetence, people are quite naturally going to go, well, maybe you're not covering up incompetence. Maybe you're covering up malfeasance instead.
00:32:18
Speaker
Yes, it is interesting where they say it's sort of conspiracy versus cock-up, but then you can also be conspiracy to cover up a cock-up. So yeah the down two aren't mutually exclusive. So, um' yeah, that that that is the unfortunate death of Willie McRae.
00:32:33
Speaker
Again, interesting. i see i see why people would want to compare it to the death of David Kelly. There there are definitely definitely parallels there. But I mean...
00:32:45
Speaker
the The people closest to him are happy to accept the official verdict, and I certainly don't see anything, any your reason not to. um Yes, there they do appear to be irregularities, but I don't i certainly haven't seen anything that says, it's yes, that those irregularities point to a murder any more than they point to ah a bit of a cock-up during the investigation, which people would rather have swept under the rug.
00:33:14
Speaker
Yes, I mean... I guess you do need to at least consider, is it a possibility that Willie McRae was taken out by the forces that he was arraigning himself against? Because he was arraigning himself against fairly powerful forces at the time, the nuclear power industry and drug traffickers. And so when a prominent politician dies, it is reasonable if they die under suspicious circumstances to ask, well, what actually caused this particular death?
00:33:47
Speaker
But because we have a rival hypothesis here, which fits in with what was known of the character of the man at the time, a man suffering from depressive episodes, a man who was an alcoholic, someone who had been disbarred from his legal practice four years prior, and someone who knew that if he was caught drunk behind the wheel of a car, he'd be facing jail time, not simply a slap on the wrist,
00:34:14
Speaker
that is also the kind of thing that goes well in those kind of situations he may well have elected to commit suicide rather than find out what happens next and given he had made suicide attempts in the past this is not an unsurprising thing that he did yes and certainly if alcohol were involved also we can imagine him not not not a lot fully being in his right mind anyway. Which also might explain two bullets being fired as well.
00:34:46
Speaker
Yes, I mean, yes, it certainly does seem like a case where it's it's a good story to imagine a nefarious conspiracy at work, but um the the official version really just does actually seem to be perfectly plausible.
Inconsistencies in the Investigation
00:35:04
Speaker
Little little inconsistencies and irregularities notwithstanding.
00:35:07
Speaker
Well, yes, and that's this is one of those situations where the the errant data, which seems to be unexplained by the official theory here, may well be errant data which is due to police incompetence. It might be errant data due to people inflating their stories over time because most of these tales about the bullet wound being in the back of the neck rather than in the temple are things which emerge... 20 years after the fact as opposed to were reported at the time some of that errant data that suggests a malign conspiracy as opposed to say a conspiracy to cover up a cock up may well just be inventions or elaborations which have taken on a life of their own so there you have it that is the end of an episode but not the end of everything
00:36:03
Speaker
Because of course there will be a bonus episode. Imagine Josh if it were. yeah And that is the end. In fact, we're not even putting this episode out because actually we've just discovered the universe has ended. Fortunately, that is not the case. As far as we know, we do intend to record a bonus episode for our beloved patrons where we'll have an update on that that wacky business with Lego and and police brutality and see what else has been going on in the world.
00:36:30
Speaker
Indeed we will. You might say. might's say And if you want to get in on that goodness, go to patreon.com and look up the podcast's Guide to the Conspiracy for a dollar a month, which is you know basically a currency unit in your country of choice. You can get access to all of that Patreon goodness.
00:36:54
Speaker
So there have it. And I suppose i I've said this before, but I think it was ah i would think it was a filler episode, but possibly not in the main one. But today i attended... what now I believe is the fourth funeral I've been to of a person younger than me. I'm not a fan.
00:37:10
Speaker
And this is the third where the the unfortunate cause of death was bowel cancer. So I've said this before. If you're in your forty s get a colonoscopy. If you can, if it's within your means, if you have if you have whatever health insurance or access to health system that you need, to just go and get one. I've had one. It's fine. It's an inconvenience, but it's fine.
00:37:31
Speaker
and it really does seem to be a very good thing if you can catch this sort of stuff early. So farewell, Isaac. Bloody good English teacher from all from all reports.
00:37:45
Speaker
So with that, slightly less cheery, but I mean, it hasn't been a cheery episode, has it? We've been talking about... No, I mean, yeah, we've we've been discussing a tissue she either a murder or a suicide, and we did rather...
00:38:00
Speaker
conspicuously not use a bad Scottish accent at any point. No, perhaps we'll save those for the bonus episode. ah But for the rest of you, we'll talk to you next time, which actually now your your travels. Well, this is the kind of comp conversation we should probably have outside of the podcast. But yes, recording times are going to be a little bit wacky because even though I'll be in the same country as you, unless you want to drive all the way to the Waikato to record a podcast episode, we won't be doing an in-person recording when I'm back.
00:38:32
Speaker
No, no. And indeed, this episode is a little bit late coming out also, because when we were supposed to be recording, ah there was no power at my house, and it was supposed to come back on at 7 o'clock, which would be before the time we recorded. It did not come on at 7 o'clock. It came on 9 Actually, what time did it come back on? 9. 9 p.m. in the end.
00:38:48
Speaker
Good fun. Good fun. So, barring any sort of of of technological wackiness, we will talk to you later. ah At some point in the future, that's for sure.
00:39:02
Speaker
Goodbye. Yes. Goodbye. Goodbye.
00:39:12
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy features Josh Addison and Associate Professor M.R. Extenteth. Our producers are a mysterious cabal of conspirators known as Tom, Philip, and another who is so mysterious that they remain anonymous.
00:39:26
Speaker
You can contact us electronically via podcastconspiracy at gmail.com or join our Patreon and get access to our Discord server. Or don't, I'm not your mum.
00:39:54
Speaker
And remember, according to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, a stranger is just a friend you haven't met.