The police have searched endlessly for the body of Mary Duncan…
Gardens across Helensburgh and Vale of Leven have been dug up.
Heavy, earth moving machinery has been brought in as officers followed up lead after lead.
Mary vanished 50 years ago and one theory put forward by her family is that her remains were incinerated at Vale of Leven Hospital in Alexandria.
The family now believe that their step father, who worked in the hospital grounds, killed Mary before burning her body.
Mandy Duncan was just 11 when her big sister Mary went missing aged 17 in Bonhill and her body has never been found.
Mandy, pictured right, who is now 61, has told a newspaper: “There’s only one monster to blame for everything.“I don’t like the words ‘missing Mary Duncan’ because Mary is dead. We wanted her back to say bye properly as a family but we were never given that chance.
Mary’s mum Ruby was a single mum-of-six when she met Norman Duncan, who had a job as a gardener across the road from the chip shop where she worked.
When they married, Mandy and her sisters thought they would be looked after.
She said: “At first he was a dad, the only dad we had. We thought he was there to care for us and look after us all.”
But soon Duncan began controlling the family and abusing Ruby.
“My mum had lots of friends until he became involved in our lives. Slowly but surely everyone dwindled away and he controlled everything. We didn’t have friends and weren’t allowed to play out the front.
“He was a horrible, horrible man. If he said jump, we’d jump. We didn’t have other family to say this wasn’t normal. He tore the family apart in a matter of six or seven years and look at the damage he’s still causing.”
When Mary was 15 she fell pregnant and gave birth to a baby, Laura – who she doted on – when she was 16. Mandy said: “Mary would go to work and take baby Laura to nursery in the morning and pick her up when she came home.
“She was a happy mum. Because we were younger we didn’t understand who the baby’s dad was.”
“When we got up in the morning it was chaos and Mary wasn’t there,” Mandy said. “Me and my other two sisters were sent away at the time to Greenock while it was all going on. After a few months we were brought back home to my mum.”
Norman Duncan left the family home that same year. Mandy said: “After he left, my mum was a mess and told me what he did to Mary.
“She said Mary was pregnant again and it was an abortion that went wrong, so Norman burned her in the incinerator in the hospital.”
In court it was heard that he had also impregnated a 15-year-old girl, now known to be Mary. Though the baby, Laura, later died, DNA evidence taken from a blood sample after birth was produced at court, confirming Duncan was the father.
He was convicted of a series of historical sexual offences against Mandy and other young girls aged between eight and 15, between 1968 and 1976. When he was jailed for more than five years at Dumbarton Sheriff Court.
Shocking sad story. My heart goes out to Mary & Mandy and the family. I remember reading about the story at the time.