Skye murder accused ‘arrived at sister’s home with gun’

A woman has told a court her brother arrived at her home with a gun and murdered her husband.

Finlay MacDonald, 41, is accused of murdering dad-of-six John MacKinnon at Teangue on Skye and attempting to murder three other people on 10 August 2022.

Lyn Anne MacKinnon told the High Court in Edinburgh she heard what sounded like shots and then found her husband standing in the kitchen, before he collapsed into her arms.

Mr MacDonald denies all the charges and has lodged a special defence to the murder charge claiming he was suffering from abnormality of mind.

Mrs MacKinnon gave her evidence in a pre-recorded session which was played to the jury.

She said her family had earlier spent a few fun days away in Glasgow and she was unpacking a car on the morning of 10 August.

She said she heard a noisy car come up the drive and park near the house. She recognised it as Mr MacDonald’s.

Mrs MacKinnon told the court she saw her brother walking up the property’s back steps.

She said: “I could see he was holding a gun at his side.

“I said: ‘Finlay, what do you think you’re doing?’

“It was four or five steps and he was into the house.

“I did four or five steps to the door from the car and I already heard bangs.”

Mrs MacKinnon said her brother walked past her and went back to the car.

She said: “I went in to find John still upright but groaning.

“I caught John in my arms. He was collapsing and groaning and I lowered him to the ground.”

Prosecutor, advocate depute Liam Ewing KC, asked Mrs MacKinnon what she had said to her brother.

She said: “I just froze and I said ‘Finlay what do you think you are doing?’ as soon as I saw the gun. Three or four steps and he had done it.”

Mrs MacKinnon was asked about the bangs. She said she thought there were two, but believed there were three shots.

She said her husband was standing in front of the kitchen sink.

Mrs MacKinnon broke down in tears before continuing her evidence.

She told Mr Ewing her brother had not said a word to her and had brushed past her.

Asked again about her husband, she said his eyes rolled back and she believed he lost consciousness.

The court heard the MacKinnons’ children came in and Mrs MacKinnon asked them to get help.

Two GPs arrived, but Mrs MacKinnon said: “They were trying to tend to the wounds, but there was too much blood.”

The court heard paramedics who arrived on the scene told Mrs MacKinnon nothing could be done to save her husband.

Earlier, Mr MacDonald’s wife told the court that her husband threatened to kill an osteopath he claimed had ruined his life by making a back injury worse.

Rowena MacDonald said Mr MacDonald made the threat weeks before allegedly shooting and seriously injuring the man, John MacKenzie, and his wife Fay.

Mr MacDonald is accused of attempting to murder the couple at a property in Dornie, Wester Ross, and attempting to murder his wife at their home in Tarskavaig on Skye.

Mrs MacDonald was giving evidence for a second day having earlier told the jury that her husband had left her drenched in blood after attacking her in front of their children as he suspected she was having an affair.

She told the court Mr MacDonald, a marine engineer, was on sick leave after suffering a back injury in spring 2022 when he visited osteopath Mr MacKenzie.

She said her husband was “very, very upset” for a long time afterwards and wanted to sue Mr MacKenzie, claiming the treatment had made his injury worse.

Mrs MacDonald told the court: “He would say I’m going to kill him, I’m going to bloody kill him for ruining my life”.

She described her husband as being “quite a ranty person” and that at the time said she had thought it was just talk.

Mrs MacDonald was also asked about a physical altercation between her husband and Mr MacKinnon in 2013 – nine years before he is accused of murdering him.

She said she was eight months pregnant at the time and was hiding in the bathroom, from where she could hear a commotion.

She told the court that when her husband came back into the house afterwards he was angry and breathless “with some sort of facial cut”.

Mr Ewing said Mr MacDonald had been seen by psychologists and psychiatrists since August 2022 and has an autism disorder.

Defence counsel Donald Findlay KC asked Mrs MacDonald about her saying she did not know he was autistic and she replied: “No, not for sure.

“I knew there was something different. I didn’t know whether it was depression, anxiety, autism or something different.”

Mr Findlay said to Mrs MacDonald that her husband thought his back condition had been made worse by the osteopath.

The defence counsel said: “He could not get away from this fixation that the osteopath caused him permanent damage.”

Mrs MacDonald agreed that her husband had become fixated about it.

The trial continues.