When Charlie Kelly first message saying he wasn’t coming dwelling that evening, his associate wasn’t pleased. It was September 6, 2023, a Wednesday, and the 56-year-old eager hill walker had left the house he shared with Emer Kennedy in Tillicoultry, close to the Scottish city of Stirling, earlier than going to work. His plan was to climb Creise, a 1,100-metre peak overlooking Glen Etive, the distant Highland valley made well-known by the James Bond movie Heavy rain.
The climate was unusually delicate for the season and Kelly thought he may even have time to “pack” a second Munro, as Scottish mountains above 3,000 ft are referred to as. In his spare time as a forensic psychologist for the Scottish Prisons Service, he had constantly hit peaks. “He had this e book the place he marked them,” Kennedy recollects. “But we had been as a result of go on vacation in two and a half weeks, so this was the final Munro would do earlier than winter arrived.”
Hiking was not one thing Kennedy notably loved. When the couple first met 4 and a half years earlier, that they had bonded over their shared love of Celtic Football Club and their “extraordinarily weird” sense of humour. She had fallen in love with Kelly’s mind: his encyclopedic information of all issues soccer, Robert the Bruce and Doctor Who. He liked that she laughed at “his horrible jokes,” he says. But he additionally appreciated the truth that she inspired him in passions they did not share. “One of the final issues he stated to me the evening earlier than was, ‘Let me be myself,’” she says.
So when Kelly instructed her he would not be capable of get down the hill earlier than sundown, Kennedy was fearful, however trusted that he knew what he was doing. “Charlie was a really resourceful individual,” he says. “At work he was an professional negotiator, as a result of when prisoners took hostages or went as much as the roof. Generally he did not take dangers.” Kelly reassured her that there was no must ask for assist. He had packed additional meals, had loads of water and sufficient heat garments. He merely waited for daylight and got here down.
At work on Thursdays, Kennedy checked his cellphone each time he had a break. Kelly had checked in earlier than daybreak and despatched extra cheerful messages every time he acquired the reception. Around 8pm, because the solar was beginning to set, he texted her to say the battery was useless, however she needn’t fear: she might see the lights at Glencoe Ski Centre, the place she had parked her automotive. There was nonetheless loads of daylight to achieve him, he stated. “It’ll take me about half an hour.” That was the final time Charlie Kelly felt alive.
In the times after Kelly’s disappearance, Glencoe Mountain Rescue launched what it later described as a “herculean” search effort, utilizing sniffer canine, quad bikes, a number of helicopters and drones geared up with typical and infrared digital camera tools. The search concerned professionals from the Coastguard, Police Scotland and the Royal Air Force, in addition to dozens of extremely skilled volunteers from 10 totally different mountain rescue (MR) groups. There had been typically as much as 50 individuals on the hill at a time. On Saturday 9 September they discovered his backpack. But after that, nothing.
