SHE posted her last Facebook message around 45 minutes before the ambulance was called to remote Blairnamarrow Cottage in Moray after a shooting incident which claimed her life and that of her boyfriend.
Schoolgirl Sophie Taylor, 16, wrote that she was playing “gamekeepers wives” with her friend Leanne, with burgers and sausages cooking in anticipation of their male friends returning from a day on the land.
But the previous evening something had appeared to concern her. On the social networking site, she wrote: “If somebody doesn’t wise up they are going to lose me for good!
“This weekend showed me a lot and if I am nae happy I am nae going to stick in a place that upsets me.”
What happened when her boyfriend, trainee gamekeeper Calum Murray, and a colleague walked in the door of the cottage on the Glenavon estate near Tomintoul on Tuesday night is now subject of a police investigation involving 30 detectives.
Less than an hour after updating Facebook, Sophie and Mr Murray were dead. Days earlier Sophie had celebrated her 16th birthday with friends.
Earlier reports that police were dealing with a murder and a suicide following a row between the young couple are thought to be baseless.
Last night, it was understood police believed Sophie was accidentally shot by her boyfriend, who then fled from the cottage before shooting himself in front of his colleague.
Both teenagers were lifeless by the time their friends were able to call for the emergency services.
The young couple had been seeing each other for less than a year. Ms Taylor’s own father David is a gamekeeper on the nearby Delnabo estate.
Dru McPherson, 50, who employs Ms Taylor’s mother Katie at the Clockhouse restaurant on the main square in nearby Tomintoul, said: “The feeling is shock and just disbelief that this has happened here.
“She would have finished school in about a year and gone on to college.
“There are about five kids in the village who have all grown up together, my son Connor being one of them. This is a big blow to them.”
An elderly man who didn’t want to be named said: “I have just heard what has happened and I can’t believe it. Sophie was a beautiful girl. I can’t take it in. It is awful.”
Tributes from friends of Sophie flooded the internet last night. One said: “RIP. Cannot believe this has happened. Ur so pretty and young.”
Another wrote: “Sophie Taylor, you’re an amazement. A girl that can’t be described, a beautiful smile, and beautiful attitude.”
As part of the investigation Grampian Police closed the A939 road where the house is situated, between the ski gates at Tomintoul and Corgarff.
Detective Inspector Stewart Mackie said: “This incident will shock the community both within Tomintoul and Grampian as a whole.”
A spokeswoman for the estate extended its “deepest condolences to the families of those involved”.
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