AN UNDERWATER search for a woman began yesterday after evidence emerged that she was murdered and dumped at sea in a container before she was due to testify in court against two paedophiles.
Allison McGarrigle, 40, from Rothesay on the Isle of Bute, disappeared in 1997. She was last seen in the seaside town of Largs, Ayrshire, where she had been living with her teenage son, Robert.
Yesterday divers armed with the same specialist sonar equipment used to locate wreckage of the space shuttle Columbia began searching eight square miles of the Firth of Clyde. They will examine a stretch of seabed known as the Millport Channel that runs between Largs and Millport.
The equipment will produce photographs similar to aerial shots to assist police in their hunt.
It is understood that an anonymous informant told police where to look for Mrs McGarrigle’s body, which was said to have been dumped in 45 metres of water after she was murdered.
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Before the search began, Detective Superintendent Stephen Heath, of Strathclyde Police, said: “Sadly, we believe from our investigations that Allison was murdered a short time after her last sighting, and that her body was dumped at sea in some form of container.
“That is why we have decided to relaunch our investigations and undertake a detailed search.
Mrs McGarrigle’s son, Robert, 21, said he hoped that the search would finally give him the opportunity to lay his mother to rest.
“I want to do whatever I can to help the police to find the body of my mother. Although seven years have passed since she disappeared I have never stopped wondering what happened to her.
“Police now believe that she is dead and it would help myself and the rest of my family if we were given the chance to lay her to rest.”
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Mrs McGarrigle vanished on June 20, 1997, before she was due to give evidence in court against two paedophiles she had been lodging with at their house in Largs.
Charles O’Neill, 42, and William Lauchlan, 28, were cousins who were engaged in a homosexual relationship. In 1998 they were convicted of 31 charges of indecent assault and drug offences. O’Neill was sentenced to eight years in jail and Lauchlan to six.
The court was told that the cousins lured children aged between 9 and 15 to a house in Skelmorlie, Ayrshire, where they fed them drugs and alcohol and then molested them.
O’Neill, a former professional boxer, and Lauchlan were questioned by police about Mrs McGarrigle’s disappearance but her body was never found and they did not face charges.
However, Lauchlan was said to have told inmates in Peterhead jail that Mrs McGarrigle had been “fed to the fishes”.
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In 2002 O’Neill and Lauchlan were released early but both broke the conditions of their parole which forbade them from approaching boys under 17 or visiting public parks, schools and playgrounds.
The men were arrested last year in Alfaz del Pi near Benidorm in Spain after a Spanish teenager was reported missing. They were deported and returned to jail in Scotland for breaching parole.
Mr Heath said yesterday that he believed that the search would locate Mrs McGarrigle’s body. “We believe that there is a very high percentage (chance) of success,” he said.