They went to a gym connected to the crime gang and spoke to management, and also interviewed the underworld enforcer who had been linked to Donovan. At the time police said he had been reported missing from his home the weekend before his body was found, and they were baffled by the remote location more than 40 miles north of Aberdeen.ĭetectives from Grampian CID also travelled to London, where they found Donovan’s widow to be “upset but quite pleasant”. Police were also puzzled by the dead man’s last movements. We even had to get the mountain rescue team in to get the body out.”Īppeals were made in local newspapers about three vehicles – a silver saloon, a red VW Golf and a blue Rover – sighted at different times in the layby near Donovan’s car. The conditions were so bad on that slope we were doing risk assessments to let people down. The ex-detective said: “My recollection is that there was absolutely no evidence, physical or forensic. One former senior officer at Grampian Police said the wintry weather at the time wiped out any forensic evidence at the scene. There was no note and there were no fingerprints on the gun, not even Donovan’s. The grim discovery in February 2001 sparked an investigation shrouded in secrecy that touched upon the police in both England and Scotland, and involved some of the most feared gangsters in the UK.ĭetectives at Grampian CID would eventually conclude the man had driven his 2.9-litre red Ford Scorpio nearly 600 miles from his home in East London to Cairnie, Aberdeenshire, and had taken his own life.īut it is only now The Sunday Post can reveal the full story – and the explosive claims from his family that he would never have taken his own life.Ī secret report by police intelligence revealed the dead man was John Donovan, a 37-year-old gangster said to be involved in delivering cocaine from London to Scotland and who had close links to a notorious underworld crime syndicate.īut he was also, according to those closest to him, a happy family man who would never have contemplated suicide.Ī cherished family photograph shows him beaming for the camera alongside his beloved wife Deana, who described her time with him as the “best time of my life”. He had a gunshot wound to the head and nearby was the weapon that had killed him. Skip MenuĪt the bottom of an embankment beside a bleak stretch of the A96 in Aberdeenshire, the man’s body lay undiscovered beneath a blanket of snow for nearly a week. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Information An icon of an information logo. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across.
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