The disturbing death of Helen Fiona Torbet in the Scottish Highlands
Helen Fiona Torbet disappeared July 7, 1993. Body Found March 1994, The Grianan Guest House, Inverinate, Lochalsh, Western Scotland
Revised August 2024
62-year-old Helen Fiona Torbet, known as Fiona to her friends, was one of Scotland’s foremost experts on its hills and mountains. On July 7, 1993, she went missing while on a walking holiday around Inverinate, a small village on the north shore of Loch Duich, located in Kyle of Lochalsh in the Western Highlands of Scotland near Kintail.
This had been Fiona’s sixth stay in a small Bed and breakfast called the Grianan Guest House, which she used as a base during her trips into the Scottish hills.
Her husband, who had been away on a sailing trip, reported her missing when she failed to return from her holiday. She was presumed lost on one of her many hiking trips or was alleged to have disappeared with a mysterious man.
Nine months later, Fiona’s body was found within the grounds of the B&B, and the cause of her death shocked the inhabitants of Loch Duich, and it remains one of Scotland’s most infamous murders.
Who was Helen Fiona Torbet?
Fiona Torbet, maiden name Graham, lived in Busby, East Renfrewshire, near Glasgow, at the time of her disappearance. She was famous for co-authoring the list of Scottish hills, "The Grahams," also known as “Lesser Corbetts,” and more recently, “The Fionas,” with fellow hiking enthusiast Alan Dawson. It should be noted that some articles about the case name her Fiona and others Helen, but given that the Scottish hills that she classified are now called Fiona’s, this article will use that name.
She married the gynaecology consultant Dr Thomas Torbet on August 12, 1960. Thomas was retired but had worked at Glasgow's Southern General Hospital and was a district court magistrate. She had been trained as a musician in her younger days, and like her husband, she was also interested in sailing and was a recognized yacht master.
Fiona went on many solo walking trips to the Scottish hills without her husband. She wrote articles for magazines like “The Great Outdoors” and kept a detailed diary of all the climbs she made and what she saw. She even corrected Ordnance Survey (OS) maps of the areas she walked to notify them of errors she had found while covering the ground.
The classification of Scottish hills and mountains
There are many lists of Scotland's hills and mountains - Munros, Corbetts, Furths, Grahams, Donalds and more recently Fionas.
The Munros were first recorded in the late 19th century by Sir Hugh Munro and are classified as Scottish mountains with summits over 3,000 feet (914m). The Scottish Mountaineering Club publishes a list of 282 Munros in Scotland, and those engaged in the sport climb or “bag” as many peaks as possible.
John Rooke Corbett defined the 222 Corbetts in the 1920s. They are between 2,500 feet (762m) and 2,999 feet (914m) high, with a prominence of at least 500 feet (152m).
The Furths are British mountains ‘furth’ (outside) Scotland that would otherwise qualify as Munros or Munro Tops (a top being a subsidiary summit of a Munro).
Donalds are named after Percy Donald and are a list of Scottish Lowland hills over 2,000 feet (610m).
Alan Dawson’s book “The Relative Hills of Britain: Mountains, Munros and Marilyns” was published in January 1992. It included Lesser Corbetts, also known as LCs or Elsies, which range in height from 2,000 feet (610m) to 2,499 feet (762m).
Dawson defined the prominence of each hill as at least 492 feet (150m) on all sides, thus introducing a metric element to hill classifications.
The relative height of hills, known as prominence and drop, is important in hill classifications. The relative height of a hill is the height difference between the top and bottom and a measure of the independence of a summit. It can be described as the vertical distance between the top and the col next to the lowest contour line encircling the hill.
Alan Dawson said, “For people like me who make lists of Relative Hills, locating the bottom of a hill, on a map or on the ground, is quite good fun, although it is not as much fun as reaching the top.’ Survey maps have shown spot heights metrically. So, isn’t it logical that the newer hill lists should be based on metric heights?” Relative Hills is not a new term, but using only metric measurements is more modern. For example, Corbetts are Relative Hills, but only in Scotland. Dawson said, “I based the list of Marilyns, there are currently 1,556, on the Corbett criteria, but extended it to cover hills of any height in any part of Britain, and used 150m as the key relative height criterion, not 500 feet.”
Fiona Torbet (Graham) compiled her list of 244 hills in the Scottish Highlands, which was published by The Great Outdoors (TGO) magazine in November 1992. The list covered hills between 2000 and 2500 feet high, with at least 150 metres of descent on all sides.
After the list in TGO was published, Alan and Helen got together to discuss the matter. They agreed that it would be unhelpful and confusing for hillwalkers to have two lists with similar lists of Scottish peaks. After some debate, they decided to use Alan Dawson's list with minor revisions. After that, the Lesser Corbetts became known as the Grahams. After Fiona’s death in July 1993, Dawson continued to use the name Grahams and a book by Andrew Dempster, called “The Grahams: A Guide to Scotland's 2,000ft Peaks”, covers them in detail.
The Fionas is now the new name for the traditional Grahams since a registered trademark has been obtained for that name. Since 2022, using the term requires abandoning the historic 2000 criterion and splitting it into ten specified regions. To keep with the traditional criteria, the hills between 2000 and 2500 feet on several resource websites like Walkhighlands are now known as the Fionas.
The 219 Grahams / Fionas could be considered the ultimate challenge for those who love Scotland's hills. These smaller hills may not be as famous as the Munros, but they can be more challenging. They're likely to be below the cloud line and frequently give panoramic summit views of their taller neighbors. Click here for a LIST OF GRAHAMS
Helen Torbet’s trip to Inverinate and the Loch Duich area in 1993
The Grianan Guest House, Inverinate
Fiona Torbet began staying in a Bed and breakfast (B&B) guest house in Inverinate in the late 1980s. The Grianan Guest House had spectacular views of Loch Duich. She used it as a base for her regular hillwalking expeditions in the hills above Wester Ross and the Kyle of Lochalsh. Inverinate is a small village on the north shore of Loch Duich in the Kyle of Lochalsh, and she returned there time and again.
At the time, the B&B was run by Zena and Donald McMillan Senior, with their son, Donald Junior, helping around the house and garden. Donald Jr. stayed in a caravan on the property's grounds.
14-mile-long Loch Duich holds a special place in the history of Scotland's West Highlands as it featured prominently in the 1719 Battle of Glen Shiel between British government troops and an alliance of Jacobites and Spaniards, resulting in a victory for the British government forces. The small mountain range called the "Five Sisters of Kintail", three of which are Munros, frames the Loch.
Loch Duich with Eilean Donan Castle
Loch Duich with Eilean Donan Castle
Eilean Donan, a small island on the loch, was one of the main strongholds of rebel forces; the British destroyed the castle of the same name as a result. Built in the 13th century, Eilean Donan Castle was the stronghold of the Clan Mackenzie and their allies, the Clan Macrae. Lieutenant-Colonel John Macrae-Gilstrap reconstructed the castle in the 20th century, and it has become one of the most photographed monuments in Scotland.
Fishing is a popular pastime at Loch Duich, with salmon being the main catch and a variety of typical northern sea species. It has little shallow water, with the depth dropping off quite close to the shore. Porpoises and otters are often seen on the loch.
The Search for Fiona Torbet
When Fiona failed to return home as planned from Inverinate, her husband, Thomas, contacted the authorities to report her missing. She was last seen alive on July 7, 1993.
In one of the most extensive searches mounted in the Highlands of Scotland, a helicopter was hired to take aerial photographs of the entire area and the Royal Navy and a team of police divers were called in to search Loch Duich. Mountain Rescue, the local Kintail team Search and Rescue Dogs (SARDA), and the RAF Kinloss Mountain Rescue Team were also involved.
Teams completed over 400 hours of searches in the area around Inverinate, Glen Affric, and Loch Mullardoch. There were considerable areas to search in remote areas, which continued for several months after Fiona went missing. However, despite this extensive effort, the search team failed to find her and were baffled when not a single clue was uncovered.
Police had been told by the B&B owners’ son, Donald McMillan, that she had left to start a new life. Many of her friends who knew her said this scenario was hard to believe. Donald told how Mrs Torbet had driven from the guesthouse with another man, leaving her car behind. She told him she would return to collect her VW Golf in a few days. She gave him some cash for her stay. When her room in the guest house was searched, all Fiona’s possessions were missing.
When Fiona vanished, Donald Jr. had been looking after the guest house alone as his parents had gone away for a family engagement. His cousin’s family stayed in the caravan he usually lived in, so it was just Fiona and Donald in the house. Locals considered him to be a “bit of a weirdo”, and there were rumours in the village that he was a peeping tom and stole items of lingerie. He did not have a relationship with anyone.
Other theories suggested she may have gotten disorientated or injured on one of her hill walks and failed to return. But the fact that her overnight bag and other items were missing puzzled detectives, and they quickly had suspicions that Donald Jr. was somehow involved in the disappearance.
Helen’s husband and family wondered what had happened to her, especially as she was so experienced in the great Scottish outdoors. For nine months, their questions remained unanswered.
Further investigations
In March 1994, Muriel MacKenzie, from Glasgow, was on holiday in the area and came across a plastic bag in the undergrowth. Intrigued and not realizing its importance, she persuaded someone else to retrieve and investigate the bag. Within it were several items, including the diary belonging to Fiona Torbet. Subsequently, she alerted a forestry worker, who immediately contacted the police when the bag's contents were thoroughly searched.
The items had been concealed beneath willow trees near the Kyle to Inverinate road. Over the winter months, they had been covered by snow but exposed in the spring. The location was within 200 yards of the guesthouse. It was a mystery why someone would have concealed the bag so close to the guesthouse, but it added to the detective's suspicions about Donald Jr.
The items included Helen’s handbag, diary, purse, bank cards, hillwalking bag, and a single slipper. Still missing, however, was her large canvas holdall, which was to prove significant later.
The discovery changed the case from a missing-person inquiry into the hunt for a body and a potential murderer.
Hunt for the body and the arrest of Donald McMillan
Donald McMillan Junior
Police began using ground-penetrating radar equipment to search the area around the Bed and Breakfast near Inverinate and examined the property in detail for clues.
On entering the guesthouse, investigators were shocked to see it had been recently extensively redecorated and re-carpeted. Twelve hours into the search, during which time the team had even opened blocked-up chimneys, they had still found nothing.
In the meantime, Donald McMillan had been detained by the police for questioning about Fiona’s disappearance. He continued to deny any involvement but appeared shifty and evasive to detectives.
Police quickly suspected Donald following Fiona’s disappearance. Still, he was always able to maintain the deceit over the nine months, repeating the same story repeatedly that she had gone with another mystery man to start a new life. He even complained in the press about police harassment when they returned to question him. His lies were sufficiently credible to convince his parents and temporarily throw the police off his scent between July 1993 and March 1994.
McMillan served first with the Royal Armoured Corps in the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and saw service in Germany and Northern Ireland. His career in the service was undistinguished, and he left after serving six months in Army detention after going absent without leave. He struggled to hold down a job after he left the army.
©TripAdvisor - The Bed & Breakfast in Inverinate
After questioning Donald, detectives returned him to the guesthouse. Just as this happened, officers lifted floorboards in a cupboard in a downstairs shower room and found the missing holdall with Fiona’s name printed on the handles. Other materials in a plastic bag included a slipper that matched the one found on the roadside.
At this point, Donald McMillan was detained on suspicion of murder. But still, he kept the police guessing as to how he disposed of her body.
Eventually, Donald’s devastated parents, unable to take the strain any longer, pleaded with him to cooperate. The following day, he drew a diagram pinpointing the spot in the back garden where she was buried in a shallow grave, only yards from the B&B. But he refused to confess to the murder,
Detectives and forensic experts quickly headed to the area that Donald had described, and after some time, they found the remains of a body wrapped in plastic bags. It had been covered with firewood, coal, and metal sheets near a woodpile. The body was trussed up, a bandage was stuffed into the mouth, and the face was covered with bandages and parcel tape. A plastic bag had been put over the head. The remains were subsequently identified as Helen Fiona Torbet using dental records.
In a strange twist to the tale, police photographed the guest house from a helicopter as they carried out extensive sweeps of the area while the Torbet case was still being treated as a missing person inquiry. In the picture, Donald McMillan is seen standing in the garden beside a pile of logs on the very spot where he had buried his innocent victim.
It was a mystery how Fiona’s grave had been dug without the family members in the nearby Caravan hearing the commotion, as the wood storage area would have had to have been taken down and rebuilt over the body. The fact that Zena and Donald McMillan Sr. were absent at the time was undoubtedly helpful.
On further questioning, Donald McMillan's motive for the murder was found to be sexually related. The 33-year-old former soldier said he wore women's underwear and was fascinated with older women, which proved fatal for Helen. He also admitted he was the voyeur who had been spying on local women.
Police found pornographic magazines in the caravan where he stayed, and naked models were rated with stars, with the pictures of women over 40 awarded higher marks.
A letter was given to Fiona, with whom he had struck up an innocent relationship during her regular trips to Inverinate and who was old enough to be his mother. The last entry in her diary, written on the night she died and found in the bag discarded on the roadside, read, ''Strange letter awaited me from Donald McMillan. Embarrassing to cope with.'' No trace of the letter was found.
McMillan Jr’s trial and conviction
At his trial in 1994, McMillan was convicted of the murder. He continued to deny his involvement in Fiona Torbet’s death and insisted it was accidental and that he had not intended to murder her. Yet the autopsy and the condition of the body suggested otherwise.
Forensic experts found that her clothing had been cut, indicating an attempt to rape Fiona. Also, her face was wrapped in tape pre-mortem, presumably whilst the sexual assault was happening, which would have resulted in a terrible death.
Aspects like the diary entry referencing the letter that Donald had sent to Fiona the night before she died and fingerprints on the tape used to truss her body made it easy for the jury to convict McMillan quickly.
It was thought that the items kept under the guesthouse floorboards were trophies McMillan would use to relive the crime.
At an appeal hearing in 2003, Lord Cullen, the Lord Justice-General of Scotland, told McMillan: "You had a fixation for older women and had sexual fantasies about them. It was a sexually motivated assault [on Mrs. Torbet], and you must have subjected the victim to a terrifying ordeal. I consider, in your case, the appropriate punishment part to be 15 years."
In prison, he was considered a “snitch” or “grass”, and it is said he had a hard time and had to be segregated from other inmates partly because of the nature of his crime.
Aftermath
Donald McMillan Jr.
McMillan was found dead in his cell on February 12, 2007, at Saughton jail in Edinburgh at the age of 45. He died of natural causes believed to be a heart attack.
The CBS documentary “Murder by the Sea: Donald MacMillan Jnr” aired on January 17, 2023, showcased Fiona’s story. The show was presented by journalist and true crime author Geoffrey Wansell and, in this episode, by crime historian Dr Nell Darby. The series examines strange murders recorded at famous seaside resorts in the United Kingdom.
In an interview published in the Scottish Sun in January 2023, Filmmaker David Howard said:
“It’s very disturbing that the place she felt most safe and comfortable was where she was most at risk. One of the policemen said at the time, it had the feel of almost a Hitchcock Psycho kind drama, a mummy’s boy living on the grounds of the house watching everyone coming and going. It’s fortunate he didn’t commit other series crimes. It’s interesting he chose to bury Helen’s remains on the grounds of the home instead of trying to get them far away. The fact he kept so close to home is probably the reason he felt empowered with the idea of playing a game with the police.”
He added: “We like to feature cases when it reaches the gold standard of policing. One where they were left with so many unanswered questions, but they were persistent, and that persistence brought about all the forensics and evidence needed to convict him. It’s a good lesson to anyone that even if you think you’ve got away with the perfect murder, the police will always find you. He felt he was more clever than the police, and he wasn’t. We’ve covered probably a dozen cases in Scotland over the years, and what they all had in common was that the police were fantastic. In remote areas, the police really apply themselves with their local knowledge and experience of unusual terrains.”
Pictures of the Inverinate guesthouse
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Sources
https://www.lakelubbers.com/loch-duich-2269/
https://www.rhb.org.uk/grahams/ad_grahamsinprint.htm
https://www.rhb.org.uk/grahams/
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12696771.Police_dig_for_body_at_guest_house__10_month_hunt_for_doctor_apos_s_wife_returns_to_quiet_Highland_village/
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12687276.Murderer_bagged_by_hidden_holdall/
https://www.scotsman.com/news/ex-soldier-to-serve-15-years-for-murder-1-546571
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12687596.Hill_walking_claim_by_murder_accused/
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g1776830-d1413761-Reviews-Grianan_House-Inverinate_Lochalsh_Scottish_Highlands_Scotland.html
https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/12820805.notorious-killer-found-dead-in-his-prison-cell/
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/KILLED+BY+PEEPINGTON+CREEP%3B+Innocent+doctor%27s+wife+fell+victim+to+B%26B...-a0179444326
Further Reading
Blood in the Glens: True Crime from the Scottish Highlands Paperback – Illustrated, 22 Oct. 2009 by Jean McLennan
