This week, Tay Munroe tells the story of Allan Bryant Jr — a fun-loving young man from Glenrothes in Fife who vanished on a night out in November 2013, and has never been found.

Allan was 23, weeks from his 24th birthday. He lived with his mum, dad and two sisters. His father remembers a son so polite he’d stop to say hello to an elderly stranger walking their dog. On the night of 2 November 2013, Allan went to an engagement party, then on to Styx nightclub with friends. At 2.02am he walked out alone, and the CCTV that had followed him all night simply… stopped.

What followed became one of the largest missing-person searches in Scotland’s history — divers, dogs, air support, marches through the town, an aerial search, searches of woodland and farmland that go on to this day. And it became something else, too: a father’s decade-long refusal to stop asking what happened to his boy.

This is a victim-first episode. It’s about who Allan was, the night he disappeared, the investigation and its frustrations, and a family living with what they call ‘ambiguous loss.’ It holds the police position — a missing-person case with nothing to suggest criminality — alongside the family’s belief that Allan came to harm. And it ends, as this case must, with an appeal.

In this episode:

• Who Allan was — in the words of the people who love him

• Glenrothes, and the one-mile walk that should have taken minutes

• The last night: the party, the club, and 2.02am

• The silence that follows — and the CCTV that was lost

• One of Scotland’s biggest missing-person searches

• A father who has never stopped looking

• The police position, the family’s belief, and what separates them

• ‘Ambiguous loss’ — and how you can help

If You Have Information

If you know anything about what happened to Allan Bryant Jr — no matter how small — please come forward:

• Police Scotland — call 101, quote Operation Toner, or email OperationToner@scotland.police.uk

• Crimestoppers — 0800 555 111, completely anonymous

• Missing People — call or text 116 000 (free, confidential)

Content / Trigger Warnings

This episode discusses the unexplained disappearance of a young man and the long-term grief of a missing person’s family. It refers to the possibility that Allan came to harm. Listener discretion is advised.

Sensitive-topic note: if this episode is difficult, support is available — Samaritans on 116 123, and Missing People on 116 000. Details in the show notes.

Connect

Follow Caledonian Crime on TikTok and Instagram @caledoniancrime. If this episode moved you, the kindest thing you can do is share it — it keeps Allan’s name out there, and that’s exactly what his family ask for.

*music by leberch from pixabay

At five o'clock in the morning on the 13th of February 1692, soldiers who had been sheltered, fed and entertained by the MacDonalds of Glencoe for twelve days rose in the dark and began killing their hosts. Around 38 men died, including the elderly chief MacIain — shot rising from his bed — and an estimated 40 more women and children perished fleeing into a blizzard.

In this episode, Tay strips three centuries of myth off Scotland's most infamous betrayal: the oath sworn six days late after a sixty-mile winter journey to the wrong office; the Edinburgh officials who deleted the proof of it; the Secretary of State who called the slaughter a work of charity; the order signed — top and bottom — by King William; the surviving written command to "put all under seventy to the sword"; the two junior officers who refused; and the 1695 inquiry that officially declared it murder under trust… before prosecuting precisely no one.

Conversational, opinion-led, and ruthlessly clear about what's documented versus what's folklore — including why "the Campbells did it" is the cover story, not the history.

Content warnings: mass killing, deaths of women and children from exposure. Historical case; no graphic dwelling.

Visit: the Glencoe massacre memorial, Glencoe village (annual commemoration each 13 February); National Trust for Scotland Glencoe Visitor Centre.

Key sources for this episode: the Report of the Commission of Inquiry, 1695, and associated Scottish Parliament proceedings; the surviving order of Major Robert Duncanson to Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, 12 February 1692; the correspondence of Sir John Dalrymple, Master of Stair; the royal instructions of January 1692; standard academic histories of the massacre and of Jacobite-era Scotland (e.g. John Prebble's "Glencoe" and more recent scholarship).

Companion listening: our Emma Caldwell episode — for the modern version of the question Glencoe asked first: what happens when the state investigates itself, finds the truth, and stops there?

*music by leberch from pixabay

Boarhills, June 1991 — a tiny hamlet in the East Neuk of Fife, just along the coast from St Andrews, and only a few miles from where this episode was recorded. Sandy Drummond, 33, a former Black Watch soldier with no enemies, was found face down on a farm track yards from his door — no wounds, no struggle, no blood. Everyone assumed natural causes. The post mortem revealed a strangulation so controlled it left no external mark at all. This week, Tay unpicks Fife's only unsolved murder on file: the spring that changed Sandy, the resignation and the emptied bank account, the blue bag that vanished, the red Morris Marina nobody has explained, the bandaged man on the 2:30 bus — and the journalist's claim that police once found their suspect, too late.

THIS CASE IS UNSOLVED. If you have any information: Police Scotland 101, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Sources

• The Courier — 25th anniversary reporting (February & June 2016), including DCI Maxine Martin's statement and Michael Mulford's cold-case-review claims

• STV News, June 2016 — Mulford interview ('ju-jitsu stranglehold' characterisation)

• The Courier — 30th anniversary feature, April 2021 (timeline, Effie Drummond's 1993 interview, Crimewatch 1998 detail)

• BBC Crimewatch reconstruction, 1998; David Wilson's Crime Files (case overview)

Appeal

Police Scotland: 101 | Crimestoppers (anonymous): 0800 555 111

*music by leberch from pixabay