When Charlie Kelly first messaged announcing he wouldn’t make it house that evening, his spouse wasn’t glad. It used to be September 6, 2023, a Wednesday, and the 56-year-old, a willing hillwalker, had left the home that he shared with Emer Kennedy in Tillicoultry, close to the Scottish town of Stirling, sooner than she went to paintings. His plan used to be to climb Creise, a 1,100-meter-high height overlooking Glen Etive, the far flung Highland valley made well-known through the James Bond movie Skyfall.
The elements used to be strangely gentle for the season, and Kelly idea he would possibly also have time to “bag” a 2d Munro, because the Scottish mountains above 3,000 toes are recognized. In his day off paintings as a forensic psychologist for the Scottish Prisons Provider, he have been ticking off the peaks regularly. “He had this guide he would mark them in,” Kennedy recalls. “However we have been because of pass on vacation in two and a part weeks, so this used to be the final Munro he used to be going to do sooner than the wintry weather set in.”
Mountaineering wasn’t one thing that Kennedy used to be in particular considering herself. When the pair had first met 4 and a part years in the past, they’d bonded over a shared love of Celtic Soccer Membership, and their “extraordinarily quirky” humorousness. She’d fallen in love with Kelly’s mind—his encyclopedic wisdom of all issues soccer, Robert the Bruce, and Physician Who. He liked the truth that she laughed at “his horrible jokes,” she says. However he additionally preferred the truth that she inspired him in passions they didn’t percentage. “Probably the most final issues he mentioned to me the evening sooner than used to be, ‘You let me be me,’” she says.
So when Kelly informed her he wouldn’t make it off the hill sooner than dusk, Kennedy used to be fearful, however she depended on that he knew what he used to be doing. “Charlie used to be an excessively resourceful individual,” she says. “At paintings, he used to be a skilled negotiator, for when prisoners took hostages or went up at the roof. He typically didn’t take dangers.” Kelly reassured her that there wasn’t any want to name for assist. He had packed further meals, had quite a lot of water and sufficient heat garments. He’d simply look ahead to it to get gentle and stroll down.
At paintings at the Thursday, Kennedy checked her telephone each time she had a smash. Kelly had checked in sooner than morning time and despatched additional cheery messages each time he had reception. At round 8 pm, with the solar beginning to set, he wrote to mention his battery used to be working low, however she needn’t fear: He may just see the lighting of the Glencoe Ski Middle, the place he’d parked his automotive. There used to be nonetheless quite a lot of sunlight left to succeed in it, he mentioned. “It’ll take me about part an hour.” That used to be the final somebody heard from Charlie Kelly alive.
Within the days following Kelly disappearance, Glencoe Mountain Rescue introduced what they later described as a “Herculean” seek effort, the usage of sniffer canine, quad motorcycles, more than one helicopters, and drones provided with infrared and traditional digital camera apparatus. The quest concerned pros from the Coastguard, Police Scotland, and the Royal Air Power, in addition to dozens of extremely skilled volunteers from 10 other Mountain Rescue (MR) groups. Steadily, there have been as many as 50 other people at the hill at a time. On Saturday, September 9, they discovered his backpack. However after that, not anything.
