A vengeful father of four was today jailed for life with a minimum term of 28 years for murdering his brother-in-law and attempting to murder three other people during a shotgun rampage.
Finlay MacDonald, 41, repeatedly stabbed his wife Rowena at their home on Skye after discovering ‘flirty’ texts from her boss before getting into his car with a pump-action shotgun, a ‘couple of hundred’ cartridges and a ‘machete-type’ knife.
After the frenzied attack, MacDonald – who had amassed enough weapons ‘to start a small war’ – drove 10 miles to the village of Teangue, where he gunned down his brother-in-law John MacKinnon.
He then went to the Scottish mainland, followed by police in marked cars, where he tried to murder retired osteopath John Donald MacKenzie and his wife Fay, both 65, who despite their injuries managed to wrestle the gun off MacKinnon before he was finally arrested.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard the marine engineer was planning to go out ‘in a blaze of glory’ after he went to ‘sort out’ Mr MacKenzie but was Tasered and struck with a baton by police after he opened fire on August 10, 2022.
The court heard MacDonald had borne a grudge against his brother-in-law since the pair had a violent falling out in 2013.
The killer’s sister Lyn-Anne MacKinnon, who was outside on the driveway, told the court she saw him with the gun as he walked into the house, and said she heard ‘bangs’ as he shot Mr MacKinnon a number of times, leaving him with fatal injuries.
A GP who lived nearby attempted to save Mr MacKinnon but he died at the scene.
Meanwhile, MacDonald decided to target Mr MacKenzie because he had previously given him a treatment session which he said ‘ruined his life’.
After arriving at his house, MacDonald shot Mrs MacKenzie in the face through the windows of the house and then shot Mr MacKenzie twice, in his front and side, before being tasered and arrested by police who had trailed him to the property.
Mrs MacDonald, Mrs MacKenzie and Mr MacKenzie all survived their injuries, and gave evidence in court during the trial.
MacDonald’s lawyer had argued for his client to be convicted of the lesser offence of culpable homicide rather than murder in relation to the killing of Mr MacKinnon, saying his ability to control his actions had been ‘impaired by reason of abnormality of mind’.
However after three-and-a-half hours of deliberation on Friday, the jury found MacDonald guilty of one count of murder, three counts of attempted murder, and one count of possession of a shotgun ‘with intent thereof to endanger life’.
Judge Lady Drummond sentenced MacDonald to life imprisonment and ordered him to spend a minimum of 28 years behind bars.
After murdering Mr MacKinnon, MacDonald then drove to the house in Dornie in Wester Ross, on the mainland, where his osteopath John MacKenzie lived with his wife Fay.
The court was shown footage of a police interview with MacDonald the day after the attacks during which he said he stabbed his wife in a ‘moment of madness’ and he then felt a ‘total darkness come over me’.
A central focus of the 12-day trial was the extent to which MacDonald was in control of his actions when he carried out the attacks.
The court heard evidence about his mental state from two psychiatrists and two psychologists, who all agreed he suffered from autistic spectrum disorder and depressive disorder.
However prosecutor Liam Ewing KC said MacDonald’s actions after he stabbed his wife – including the fact he drove to two different houses, was able to load and use a shotgun, and was able to select his victims – indicated he had been ‘fully in control’ of his actions when he murdered the osteopath.
Defending, solicitor advocate Shahid Latif said of MacDonald: ‘He is sorry for what he did that day.
‘He wishes he could undo and go back in time to try and stop himself.
‘In particular he indicates he has failed his children. He wants them to know he is sorry.’
