When Charlie Kelly first messaged saying he wouldn’t make it residence that night time, his associate wasn’t completely satisfied. It was September 6, 2023, a Wednesday, and the 56-year-old, a eager hillwalker, had left the home that he shared with Emer Kennedy in Tillicoultry, close to the Scottish metropolis of Stirling, earlier than she went to work. His plan was to climb Creise, a 1,100-meter-high peak overlooking Glen Etive, the distant Highland valley made well-known by the James Bond movie Skyfall.
The climate was unusually delicate for the season, and Kelly thought he would possibly even have time to “bag” a second Munro, because the Scottish mountains above 3,000 toes are identified. In his break day work as a forensic psychologist for the Scottish Prisons Service, he had been ticking off the peaks steadily. “He had this e-book he would mark them in,” Kennedy remembers. “However we have been because of go on vacation in two and a half weeks, so this was the final Munro he was going to do earlier than the winter set in.”
Mountaineering wasn’t one thing that Kennedy was notably eager on herself. When the pair had first met 4 and a half years beforehand, 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 information 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 appreciated the truth that she inspired him in passions they didn’t share. “One of many final issues he mentioned to me the night time earlier than was, ‘You let me be me,’” she says.
So when Kelly advised her he wouldn’t make it off the hill earlier than dusk, Kennedy was fearful, however she trusted that he knew what he was doing. “Charlie was a really resourceful particular person,” she says. “At work, he was a educated negotiator, for when prisoners took hostages or went up on the roof. He typically didn’t take dangers.” Kelly reassured her that there wasn’t any must name for assist. He had packed further meals, had loads of water and sufficient heat garments. He’d simply watch for it to get mild and stroll down.
At work on the Thursday, Kennedy checked her cellphone every time she had a break. Kelly had checked in earlier than daybreak and despatched additional cheery messages every time he had reception. At round 8 pm, with the solar beginning to set, he wrote to say his battery was operating low, however she needn’t fear: He might see the lights of the Glencoe Ski Heart, the place he’d parked his automotive. There was nonetheless loads of daylight left to achieve it, he mentioned. “It’ll take me about half an hour.” That was the final anybody heard from Charlie Kelly alive.
Within the days following Kelly disappearance, Glencoe Mountain Rescue launched what they later described as a “Herculean” search effort, utilizing sniffer canines, quad bikes, a number of helicopters, and drones outfitted with infrared and traditional digital camera tools. The search concerned professionals from the Coastguard, Police Scotland, and the Royal Air Drive, in addition to dozens of extremely educated volunteers from 10 completely different Mountain Rescue (MR) groups. Usually, there have been as many as 50 folks on the hill at a time. On Saturday, September 9, they discovered his backpack. However after that, nothing.
