Pal of Skye 'shooting' suspect tells court he wanted to go out in 'blaze of glory'

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A murder accused told a friend that he was going to "sort out" an osteopath and was then going to go out "in a blaze of glory", a court heard today. Finlay MacDonald had sought treatment from John Donald MacKenzie but when he came back he "did seem a little bit worse than he had been", Shain Westerman told the High Court in Edinburgh.

Mr Westerman added: "Whether that were acting or genuine I don't know. He just seemed to get more and more irritated by his condition."

Advocate depute Liam Ewing KC asked if MacDonald said anything about the osteopath that stuck in his mind and Mr Westerman said: "I can't remember the exact time when it was. He said he was going to sort out John Don and when he did he was going to go out in a blaze of glory."

The prosecutor asked him what his reaction to that was and he replied: "My first reaction was 'he has been watching too many cowboy films'. I thought he was talking a lot of sh***. You hear people say things like that all the time and you just think it is talk," he told the court.

Mr Westerman accepted that he did not mention the "blaze of glory" remark to police in an initial statement. He said he had not been on the Isle of Skye long and did not really want to get involved.

He said: "But the main reason was there were so many witnesses to what happened so what difference does my statement make, I just thought it was an open and shut case."

Mr Westerman, 58, a builder, moved to Skye from Yorkshire in 2020 where he met marine engineer Mr MacDonald as he was building a home on nearby land.

He said: "I tried so hard to help him, asking him to go get help numerous times for his mental condition. He would constantly say to myself 'you are lucky, you have got a wife and kids'."

Mr Westerman said that MacDonald showed him a YouTube video of a Mossberg shotgun being fired at a model of a human head created out of ballistic gel. He told police: "I think the video he showed me is called 'Mossberg 410 v ballistic gel human head'.

MacDonald, 41, is accused of murdering his brother-in-law John MacKinnon at his home in the Isle of Skye village of Teangue on August 10 in 2022 by repeatedly firing a shotgun at him. He is also accused of attempting to murder his wife Rowena ,34, on the same day at the family home in the village of Tarskavaig on Skye by repeatedly stabbing her on the body.

He is further accused of attempting to murder retired osteopath John MacKenzie and his wife Fay, both 65, at their home in Dornie, in Ross-shire on the same day by repeatedly discharging a shotgun at them.

MacDonald, a marine engineer, has pleaded not guilty to the charges and lodged a special defence to the murder charge maintaining that at the time his ability to determine or control his conduct was substantially impaired by abnormality of mind.

The trial before judge Lady Drummond continues.

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