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| Police Scotland photo |
Of all the cases I have ever read about that are unsolved this is one of the ones that has haunted me. A teenage girl with her whole life ahead of love and a baby daughter she adored at home, Mary Duncan would have lived a full life by now.
But instead, it seems likely that she was murdered at the young age of 17 in 1976 although her body is still to be found and nobody has been arrested for her murder.
The young mum who became pregnant at 15 would not have gone quietly. She would have fought to stay with her child.
I recently read on the news that police were searching the grounds of Vale of Leven hospital in Dunbartonshire in Scotland for the remains of the missing young mum.
The double tragedy of the disappearance of young Mary 44 years ago, is that soon after she went missing, Laura, the young daughter she loved to bits died of natural causes. The bairn hadn't yet reached her second birthday.
When Mary was last seen she told her family she was going to meet a friend. Of course, being a teenager it has been suggested that Mary upped sticks and left, but this doesn't appear to be in character.
According to Chief Superindent Calum Young: "Extensive inquiries continue in an attempt to find any indication of where Mary could be. However, due to the fact that she has not been seen or heard from in 44 years, we must consider the option that she may have come to harm."
Looking at pictures of Mary, you see a bright and happy young woman and a loving mum who would never have left her baby. It would have taken something awful to pull her away from her child.
Hopefully, the police search will finally get some answers so that Mary and her beautiful baby will finally be able to rest in peace together.
Footnote - Mary and her three sisters'stepfather, Norman Duncan, was jailed for 5 years for historical sexual offences against girls and was spoken to as one of a number of lines of inquiry.
