The wife of a man accused of going on a shooting spree on the Isle of Skye has told a court how he repeatedly stabbed her in front of their young children on the same day.
Rowena MacDonald, 34, told a judge how she was drenched in her own blood and feared husband Finlay MacDonald, 41, was going to run her over during the alleged attack in August 2022.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard how the couple’s children – now aged 11, eight, six and four – helped to keep their mother conscious until emergency services arrived and airlifted her to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.
MacDonald has been accused of murdering brother-in-law John MacKinnon, 47, at his home in Teangue, Skye, on 10 August 2022 with a shotgun.
John MacKinnon. Pic: Police Scotland
He is also accused of attempting to murder his wife by repeatedly stabbing her on the same day in the village of Tarskavaig, on the opposite side of the Sleat peninsula from Teangue.
MacDonald is further accused of attempting to murder a married couple, Fay and John MacKenzie, during an alleged shooting spree in the village of Dornie, Wester Ross, on the mainland in the Highlands.
He has also been accused of possessing a shotgun with intent to “endanger life” and travelling between the different properties while armed with the reported firearm and ammunition.
MacDonald denies all the charges and has lodged a special defence against the murder charge, claiming his “ability to determine or control his conduct was substantially impaired by reason of abnormality of mind”, and a judge said he could be convicted of an alternative charge of culpable homicide if the jury believed his defence of diminished responsibility.
Police pictured in Tarskavaig. Pic: PA
Giving evidence on Wednesday, Mrs MacDonald, originally from Somerset, said the couple married in 2015 and moved to Skye where her husband’s family lived, however, she was planning to move out at the time of the alleged attack.
She agreed their relationship “was not in a good place” and said MacDonald was off work with a back injury, and had not been involved in a family holiday to England in the July of that year.
Mrs MacDonald said that at the time of the alleged attacks, she had contacted support services and was on the housing list.
She claimed on 9 August her husband “attempted intimacy with me, having not been for a long time”, but she did not reciprocate and felt he was “disappointed”.
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On the morning of the alleged attacks, an “upset and angry” MacDonald showed his wife pictures he had taken of messages from her phone with his mobile.
One message from Mrs MacDonald to a male friend at work read: “Major blow up with Finlay he knows it’s coming and wants to do anything he can to stop it. This can’t come soon enough now.”
She replied to another message saying she liked a “tall dark and handsome man”.
Mrs MacDonald told the court: “When I tried to explain that I wasn’t in a relationship with anyone else, he did seem to momentarily settle.”
MacDonald then reportedly “took a knife from his pocket” and launched a frenzied attack on her with it.
Mrs MacDonald told the court: “Both lungs had been punctured – with every breath I took I was openly squelching blood.”
She said she dialled 999 and rapidly became weaker, adding: “My daughter had followed me outside. When she approached me the last movement I could make was pushing my phone towards her on the ground.
“I remember telling them it was him but I don’t remember if I told them or they asked.”
She said her eight-year-old daughter was on speakerphone to emergency services, while her youngest child, who had just turned two, pulled at her hair, reportedly saying “mummy, mummy, stop it”.
Mrs MacDonald told the court she saw her husband walk towards a car carrying a “tall box” and feared that he would run her over as she lay on the edge of the driveway.
The trial continues in front of Judge Lady Drummond.