The Missing Horse Emblem: Key to Solving David McMenigall’s Unsolved Murder?

This episode focuses on the unsolved 1966 murder of David McMenigall in Edinburgh, exploring the case details, David McMenigall’s lifestyle, the night of his murder, and subsequent police investigations. The episode highlights the focus being on David McMenigall’s personal life in media coverage and discusses the potential murder weapon - a Ford Mustang horse emblem. The episode also touches on the broader context of unsolved murders in Scotland and the advancements in cold case investigations. Listeners are encouraged to come forward with any information that might help solve this decades-old case.

SOURCES:
Unsolved: Vintage motor horse mascot could be the key piece of evidence to solving businessman's grisly murder case - Daily Record
1966 Ford Mustang Parts | 8213B | 1966 Mustang; Grill Emblem; Horse And Corral | Classic Industries

Please see our website for all source material and photos at scottishmurders.com/episodes/davidmcmenigall

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CREDITS:
Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn
Hosted by Dawn Young
Researched and Written by Dawn Young
Edited and Produced by Erin Ferguson
Production Company Name by Granny Robertson

MUSIC:
ES_Battle of Aonach Mor - Deskant - epidemicsound

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Welcome to another episode of Scottish Murders. Now, I know
that not everyone enjoys hearing an unsolved murder case because
there is no resolution. However, unsolved murders do deserve to
be told too, and so in this episode, I'm going
to tell you a short unsolved murder case from nineteen
sixty six. And while this case does remain unsolved, there

(00:47):
has been one possible motive put forward and one potential
suspect was questioned. Now we've all noticed at some point
or another that murder victims, usually women, have their lifestyles
focused on more as being to blame for their murder,
or their occupation such as being sex workers, or sometimes
just because they are women and should know better than
to go out at night and have fun, or walk

(01:09):
back home alone after night out that sort of thing. However,
it's rarer for a man's life still to be overly
focused on it's being to blame for their murder and
not something else. But that was exactly how the newspapers
reported the murder of fifty five, fifty four or fifty
two year old David Martin mcmenigal when his body was
found at his home in Edinburgh on Thursday, the twenty

(01:31):
fourth of February nineteen sixty six. While details about David's murder,
subsequent investigation, or any leads were few and far between,
journalists were quick to dig up as much about as
personal life as possible, with articles in the Daily Record
and Edinburgh Live spread over a three week period reporting
that David was a twice married, well known man about town.

(01:53):
But what exactly did this mean? Well, don't worry. The
articles went on to describe exactly what this meant, why
this was relevant to David's murder and needed reporting, while
such things as reporting his correct age was not deemed
important is not clear. But because of this I am
not able to report his exact age either. David Martin
mcmenegal was born in either nineteen eleven, nineteen twelve or

(02:16):
nineteen fourteen in Edinburgh and was the son of a blacksmith.
David did not want to follow in his father's footsteps, though,
instead wanting to work in sales, specifically refrigeration, and so
he began his career as a fridge salesman, working his
way up to company director before starting his own successful
refrigeration business, which was located at George Street in Edinburgh

(02:37):
called Central Refrigeration Services. While David climbed through the ranks
of the refrigeration business, he became very well known, visiting
and befriending hotel and bar managers around the UK, before
in August nineteen thirty seven, when he was either twenty six,
twenty five or twenty three, meeting and marrying a music teacher,
Catherine Gardner from Edinburgh. The pair welcomed their only child,

(03:00):
son Martin, eleven months later, and the couple and their
son lived in a bungalow on hill House Road, black
Hall in Edinburgh, where it was said that David would
regularly have lived up parties, inviting both men and women,
publicans and restaurant owners to his home for dinner parties,
where waiters were brought in to serve, with one friend
and attendee saying that David was the type of man

(03:22):
who enjoyed life to the fool and another attendee and
wine and spirit merchants saying that mister mcmenegal entertained well
and always bought the best. David and Catherine divorced in
February nineteen fifty nine, following twenty two years of marriage,
but David wouldn't be alone for long, as a month
later he married again, this time to a hotel owner

(03:45):
living in Leicester in England. It's not known if David
moved to Leicester to be with his new wife, May,
or whether he split his time between Leicester in England
and Edinburgh for the duration of their marriage. David and
May split up and divorced in nineteen sixty two, and
at this point David began renting a bungalow in Glasgow
Road Forristorphin in Edinburgh and carried on. According to friends

(04:07):
of David's living life up, David's last few hours consisted
of dining alone at the well known glamorous restaurant Lay
Upper Teeth, which was a favorite of David's and writers
and artists and was located in Frederick Street in Edinburgh,
arriving around seven thirty pm and leaving again alone between
nine and nine thirty pm. According to a staff member,

(04:30):
David seemed to be in good form and upon leaving
he said to the staff member he would see them
sometime next week, before driving his recently purchased new Jaguar
Mark ten back to was rented but apparently luxury six
thousand pound bungalow on Glasgow Road, parking it in the
driveway and heading inside the bungalow where he lived alone.

(04:51):
David mcmenegal was found dead on the morning of Thursday,
the twenty fourth of February nineteen sixty six by his
housekeeper in his rented bungalow, having received severe and fatal
injuries to his head, including a fractured skull. Edinburgh SEID
arrived on the scene and quickly began a murder inquiry,
with a thirty strong team of police officers interviewing David's friends,

(05:13):
searching the bungalow, nearby gardens and hedges Street rents, a
caravan sight playing fields and farm land near the bungalow,
with a tractor reportedly being used to plow the nearby
fields and farm lands to try and discover any evidence
of who David's murderer may be or indeed find a
murder weapon. The police also issued an appeal within twenty

(05:34):
four hours asking for any persons who saw any suspicious
individual in the vicinity of Glasgow Road between Drumbray and
Maybury Road from ten p m On Wednesday to nine
a m or Thursday to contact the CID or any
police station immediately on a Saturday, two days after David's
body had been found, with detectives telling journalists that there

(05:57):
are no further developments, David's friends and publicans and restaurant
owners he worked with or knew began to be questioned
by the police, who were, according to the Daily Record,
probing the death of high living company boss David mcmenigal.
Now on the Monday, the police would put out another appeal,
a double appeal, as they had received information from the public,

(06:18):
but first, over the weekend, journalists did their best to
track down and speak to David's family. They traced David's
now adult son Martin, who still lived in Edinburgh, about
a five minute drive away from where his dad lived,
and was married with two children, but he didn't want
to speak to the journalists. It was too soon, too painful.
Journalists did manage to get their quote though, by tracking

(06:41):
down David's second wife, May in Lincoln in England, where
she said, I still can hardly believe this has happened.
It's such a shock, but I would rather not talk
about it. And then focus was back on the murder
inquiry when on Monday Edinburgh City Police made an appeal
anxious to trace a man who had asked a man
walking his dog in a park located a few hundred

(07:04):
yards or meters from David's bungalow for directions to sight Hell,
a suburb about a thirty seven minute walk from where
David's bungalow was situated between eleven and eleven thirty p m.
On Wednesday night. Some one had also come forward to
say that about midnight they had seen a black Helme
and Minks saloon car and nineteen forty seven to nineteen

(07:24):
forty nine model with no front bumper traveling along Glasgow Road.
On the Wednesday night, David was murdered and police were
appealing for anyone who knew who this car may belong
to to come forward. An article in the Daily Record
on Monday, the twenty eighth of February went on to
say that this car traveled along Glasgow Road on to
the A nine road to Stirling. According to Wikipedia, the

(07:47):
original route back in nineteen sixty six of the A
nine began in Edinburgh at the Kersdorphin junction in the
west of the city, going through Kirkliston and onwards to
Polmont and then continued as it still does to this
day onto Falkirk, Sterling, Perth and up to Inverness, with
the original A nine section between Edinburgh and Polmont now

(08:08):
being the modern M nine motorway. So the particular section
of the A nine as it was then would be
where the sighting of the Hillman Minks saloon car had
been after leaving Glasgow Road. Were you living in or
in this area back on the twenty third and twenty
fourth of February nineteen sixty six or knew someone who
was and maybe have information on who the owner of

(08:29):
the Hillman Minks saloon car with no front bumper was
or who the man asking for directions to Cite Hill was.
As to date, neither the car owner or the man
asking for directions have been identified, despite Place receiving a
few leads. As none of the leads given to the
place could help with the investigation into David's murder, the

(08:49):
case began to go cold extremely quickly, and the next
newspaper article not being until three months later on the
fifth of May nineteen sixty six, when Edinburgh City Police
were again appealing for information, but this time it appeared
that a motive might have been established robbery. It was
revealed by police that David's bungle had been robbed sometime

(09:11):
between the twenty third of December and Christmas Day nineteen
sixty five, two months before David was murdered, with clothing
and spirit bottles being taken. The robber was found to
be eighteen year old John Wills, who lived in the
South Side, and he was found guilty of this crime.
In March nineteen sixty six, three months after David's murder,
it was reveiled in The Scotsman newspaper that police were

(09:33):
appealing again, this time in the hope of tracing two
objects which they had since realized had been stolen from
David's home on the night he was murdered, one being
a nine carrit gold cignet ring with the initials d
m Inscribed on it that had apparently been ripped from
his finger, and the second being a six inch long
and tall silver stitchuette of a horse. Upon it being

(09:57):
discovered by police three months later that these items were missing,
a sketch was published based on recollections showing what the
horse mascot, which was believed to have been kept by
David from his previous car as a souvenir, being a
classic car enthusiast looked like, with a theory then being
that David had perhaps disturbed a burglar on the night
of his murder. To date, the horse mascot, along with

(10:20):
a signet ring, have never been traced, and no one
has ever come forward to say they have been sold
them or been passed on by family members or friends.
They just vanished without a trace, although it would later
be revealed that there might be a very good reason
for this. Eighteen year old John Wills was questioned by
detectives in regards to potentially again breaking into and robbing

(10:42):
David's home and murdering him, but he either had an
alibi or there was no evidence to suggest that he'd
turned to David's home a second time, as he was
released without charge. John Wills died in nineteen eighty seven
at the age of forty. Interestingly, despite the case going
cold again soon after the horse stittuette sketch was produced

(11:02):
and the polace receiving no further feedback, it wouldn't be
revealed by Place until nineteen eighty five, almost twenty years later,
that the six inch in length and height motorcar horse
mascot had actually been the murder weapon, with David's murderer
having repeatedly hit him over the head with it fracturing
his skull. I'm not sure why this information had been

(11:23):
kept quiet for almost twenty years, or indeed why it
was revealed when it was now, despite me finding an
article from the Sunday Post on the twenty seventh of
January nineteen eighty five which clearly said that David had
been struck on the head, fracturing his skull with a
six inch high silver stituette of a horse. The Daily
Record in March twenty sixteen, thirty one years later helpfully revealed,

(11:47):
following them carrying out an unsolved investigation into David mcmeningal's murder,
that a metal horse emblem had been the murder weapon.
Maybe the misted article I've found from nineteen eighty five
which actually revealed that fact. However, what their unsolved investigation
did actually reveal for the first time was that they
believed the horse emblem that had been stolen and used

(12:10):
as the murder weapons killed David, which had prompted a
sketch to be produced, had in fact been a classic
metal horse emblem specifically one that had sat on the
front bumper of a Ford Mustang, a car that David
had previously owned before he had bought his brand new
Jaguar Mark ten. So this leads me to the sketch
that was produced back in nineteen sixty six, which looked

(12:33):
absolutely nothing like the distinctive Ford Mustang horse. So if
it indeed was a Ford Mustang emblem that had been
in David's possession and which had been stolen, then publishing
the sketch that they did would not, in my opinion,
have been of much help in assisting witnesses and coming
forward with information about its whereabouts. I've included a link

(12:54):
to the sketch and to the actual Ford Mustang emblem
from back in nineteen sixty six in the show notes
Do you see a likeness? And if someone had sold
or given to you a Ford Mustang's silver horse back
in nineteen sixty six, would you have thought immediately that
this was the same stolen horse that was being appealed
for by police. So did the Ford Mustang horse disappear

(13:16):
never to be seen again, or was it the incorrect
sketch being produced that allowed it to fade into obscurity.
It could still be out there somewhere. So back to
the Daily Record's big reveal in twenty sixteen, and perhaps
the Daily Record had simply just missed the article on
the British newspaper archive that I found which stated that

(13:36):
the horse statuette had been the murder weapon. And to
be fair, there weren't many articles about David's murder and
maybe they just wanted to bring David's murder back into
the spotlight. Okay, great, However, what would have been even
more great is if they had found out for sure
and stated exactly how old David mcmenigal actually was when
he died. In articles back in nineteen sixty six, David

(13:59):
was reported to have either been fifty four or fifty two,
and in the twenty sixteen article he was reported to
have been fifty five. It might only be a few
years of a difference, but didn't David deserve to be
correctly aged? However, alas, what the reporter for the Daily
Record did not miss or incorrectly report was to again
draw attention to David's lifestyle, this time speaking to a

(14:22):
former police officer who had been involved in the murder inquiry,
who said that David was well known in the city
as a man about town, he loved a party and
was quite wealthy, and that he was often seen dining
in the city center after his second marriage broke down,
and sometimes in the company of young women, with it
again being stated that friends of David had said he

(14:43):
enjoyed living it up and lived life to the full.
I'm all for finding out what murder victims lives were like,
what they were like before their murder, but laboring the
fact that David was rich, was a man about town,
like to party and have parties at his house doesn't
really tell us anything about David, the real David, and
not the wealthy, party animal entrepreneur he was betrayed to be.

(15:06):
He was a son, a father, a grandfather, a friend,
a well liked man who, as one of his friends said,
was the type of man who enjoyed life to the
fool despite his wealth and lavish lifestyle. He didn't deserve
to have his full life cut short, to be murdered
and left alone to die in his six thousand pounds
rented bungalow to be found by his housekeeper the following day,

(15:29):
and for his murderer never to have been brought to justice.
If you lived in or around Edinburgh back in nineteen
sixty six, or no someone who did, ask them if
they knew of David and if they remember his murder.
Do they have a theory about what happened to David
that fateful night? Was there too much focus on his
lifestyle and not enough focus elsewhere? Or if you happen

(15:51):
to have come across through being sold or passed down
by family a nine carrit gold signet ring with the
initials d M inscribed, or a six inch law and
tall silver strituette of a horse or a nineteen sixty
six Ford Mustang's Silver Horse from the front bumper of
a car. Then if you're in the UK, please call
one oh one or phone Crimestoppers Scotland and eight hundred

(16:14):
five five five one one one, where you can remain anonymous.
Since nineteen sixty six, circumstances may have changed, loyalties may
have changed. There is still time to bring fifty two,
fifty three or fifty five year old David mcmenegal's murderer
to justice, as Police Scotland do not consider a case

(16:34):
closed until it is solved, although the number of unsolved
murders in Scotland has continued to rise. In an article
in the Sunday Post on the twenty second of February
nineteen seventy six, it stated that during the period nineteen
sixty five to nineteen seventy five, while there had been
four thousand murders in Scotland, only ten of them had

(16:56):
been left unsolved, one of which was David's. That's quite incredible,
and it was stated that this success rate was one
of the highest in the world. Still extremely heartbreaking though,
for any family member not to see their loved one
received justice. By two thousand and eight, Scotland's unsolved murder
cases had increased to at least forty nine. By twenty twelve,

(17:19):
Scotland's unsolved murder cases had risen again, with at least
ninety three killings across Scotland from nineteen forty two to
twenty twelve being logged on the newly established Crown Office's
Cold Case Unit Unsolved Homicides Database, whose aim was to
prioritize these cases and review them in the hope that
advances in evidence gathering techniques such as DNA profiling could

(17:42):
help identify more murderers, as had been the case, with
the convictions of Malcolm Webster in two thousand and eleven
of the murder of Claire Morris in nineteen ninety four,
Peter Tobin in two thousand and eight for the murder
of Vicky Hamilton in nineteen ninety one, and Peter Tobin
in two thousand and nine nine for the murder of
Dinah mcnicholl in nineteen ninety one, Graham McGill in twenty

(18:05):
twenty one for the murder of Mary McLaughlin in nineteen
eighty four, and Christopher Harrison in twenty twenty three for
the murder of Brenda Page in nineteen seventy eight. In
twenty nineteen, it was reported on STV News that in
Scotland there were at least one thousand, one hundred and
twelve murders in the period nineteen sixty to two thousand

(18:27):
and nineteen that remained unresolved, meaning the police believed they
knew who committed these crimes, but no conviction had been achieved,
and sixty murders remained unsolved, meaning the murderer had not
been identified. David mcmenegal's murder remains open but unsolved to
this day, but cold cash reviews have been carried out

(18:47):
over the years despite there being little forensics to go on.
Police just need that one vital piece of information or evidence,
no matter how insignificant it may seem, that will provide
the breakthrough the need to solve David mcminigal's murder. Do
you hold the key or the mascot in this case?
Next week there will be a Scotland Then episode from

(19:10):
February nineteen sixty six, and the last Scottish Murders episode
of the year will be released on Tuesday, the thirty
first of December and will be an unresolved case from
nineteen eighty five. After that episode, we will be taking
our winter break, returning again in early twenty twenty five.

(19:30):
Thanks for listening to another episode of Scottish Murders, the
twice award shortlisted fortnightly podcast that brings to light the
stories of victims and the relentless pursuit for justice. If
this case has captivated you, then don't forget to tell
a friend to listen or check out Scottish Murders dot
com so together we can share more Scottish murders. Until

(19:53):
next time, I've been your host, Dawn Scottish murduche is

(20:29):
a production of chlorine tone