MURDER CASE: THE VANISHING CYCLIST
12 August 2025
MURDER CASE: THE VANISHING CYCLIST
In September 2017, Tony Parsons set off on a charity cycle ride through the Scottish Highlands. Within hours the 63-year-old former navy officer vanished without a trace.
Three years later, one phone call would change everything.
Award-winning documentary series, Murder Case looks at the astonishing police investigation which unravelled in ways no one could predict.
Tony’s solo charity bike ride should have been a memorable journey from Fort William in the Scottish Highlands, to his home in Tillicoultry. Tragically, his adventure came to an end when he was killed by a drink driver and buried in a shallow grave. For three years Tony’s body went undiscovered, ultimately leading to a six-year pursuit for justice.
From the moment Tony disappeared, a huge missing person’s search was launched, with extensive police investigations and media appeals hoping to find him safe. Years passed with no sign or clues of his whereabouts, leaving police with no trail to follow and his family devastated.
Then, out of the blue in 2020, a woman calls 999 to reveal something truly astonishing - she knows the truth about what happened to Tony Parsons.
“I had spent three years coming to terms with the fact that my dad wasn’t coming home” recalls Mike Parsons, Tony’s son. “So, I was at peace with myself that that was the way it was going to be. And then, all of a sudden, one phonecall flipped everything upside down.”
As Murder Case: The Vanishing Cyclist highlights, what began as a baffling missing person case would unfold into a gripping, unprecedented investigation, exposing surprising secrets and lies, a shocking confession and a cover-up involving twin brothers.
Offering intimate access to Police Scotland’s elite Major Investigations Teams and Tony’s loved ones including his wife Margaret, son Mike and daughter Vicky, this episode of Murder Case reveals the devastating human cost of crime and the resolute pursuit of justice.
The Vanishing Cyclist is nominated for Best Multichannel programme at the 2026 Broadcast Awards.
Murder Case and its sister series Murder Trial don’t do ordinary. Made by Firecrest Films for BBC Scotland, the award-winning true crime documentaries attract big audiences in Scotland and across the UK, with three million streaming requests on iPlayer alone. It’s a television success story, and a Clyde-built one at that.
The Herald
Murder Case: The Vanishing Cyclist proves only the BBC can do true crime right This is true crime without any of the tawdry embellishments that give the genre such a bad name - and proper respect for the victim's family
The i
With cameras allowed into Glasgow’s High Court, viewers of this Murder Case – the Scottish TV series accounts for the three most-watched BBC crime documentaries of 2025 – are able to get exceptional access to the hearings, with close-ups of all involved.
Daily Telegraph
On October 28, 2017, Tony Parsons set out alone on a 100-mile charity bike-ride across the Scottish Highlands. The former Royal Navy officer and cancer survivor was last seen riding past a service station near Fort William, captured in CCTV footage that is touched with that haunting quality that comes with the final glimpse of a missing person. This two-part documentary is a sombre, meticulous examination of what happened after he passed from the camera's view, from the response of Parsons's family - his children are police officers, and therefore had a bleak sense of what might have happened to their father - to the complex investigation into his disappearance. As the truth begins to emerge with a startling 999 call in 2020, the narrative takes a turn into cold rural gothic, full of secrets, lies and confessions.
The Times
A desperately sad real-life crime story that, full of twists, turns and secrets, gets its hooks in early and never lets go. At its heart is the pain of a family who, one weekend in 2017, said goodbye to 63-year-old husband and father Tony Parsons as he set off from Fort William, in Scotland, to complete a 100-mile solo charity cycle ride, only for him to vanish without a trace. The story of the massive search that took place along the A82 main route near Glencoe, and the challenge of locating any missing person in the vast emptiness of the Highlands, is minutely told. The hurt and bafflement, even anger, of family and friends as the search yielded nothing and three long years went by with no new developments is captured in interviews with family members and the police involved in the stalled investigation. Then, a single phone call changed everything. To say more might spoil what is a finely balanced story, which only gets more complex from that point onwards.
Sunday Telegraph
We see the lies, the cover-up, the years of silence – and the sheer, grinding pain his loved ones endured as they searched for a man they would never find alive. The programme doesn’t just tell the story of a crime; it shows the cruelty of keeping the truth hidden, of letting hope bleed away day by day.
Press and Journal
Pick of the Week
Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, The Times
Pick of the Day
Sunday Times, The Sun, Sunday Mail, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, The i
