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Original poster

Which news stories have stuck with you?

278 replies

PepperSteaks · 08/12/2018 18:05

When I was a little girl there was a story in the news that I vaguely remember about a little girl standing on the Christmas tree lights barefoot and dying. I can picture what I thought the girl looked like so clearly all these years later and think about it often.
Do you have any news stories that you still think about?

OP posts:
StealthPolarBear · 08/12/2018 18:10

Holly and Jessica

PatchworkElmer · 08/12/2018 18:27

There were 2 children who drowned on a Norfolk beach- there were searches for a couple of days. I was about 6 at the time, and I remember crying when they were found.

TeaAddict235 · 08/12/2018 18:30

Daniel Pelka,
Elsie mae,
Natasha Kampuch,
Russian story about a student from Cameroon (?) being butchered by some racist losers,

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News
GingerInAJam · 08/12/2018 18:43

This wasn't 'just' a news story as I knew her Mother who worked in my then school, but the murder of Diane Watson who was stabbed to death in the playground of her high school that was practically adjacent to our school. I didn't know her daughter and I was just a child but I remember her mother very well and she was the loveliest woman. 18 months after losing her daughter and his sister her son Alan took his own life. I often think of her and the children she lost.

Ivegotthree · 08/12/2018 19:02

The faeces on all the touchscreens in McDonalds. I don't go there anyway but YUK

GingerInAJam · 08/12/2018 19:09

I just a Googled that story, OP as it rang a bell. There's quite a few articles on it. How terrible for that poor family.

crosser62 · 08/12/2018 19:10

Awful ones but a lovely recent one about a park bench.
It was one of those memory benches with a plaque.
The man was a photographer, his partner requested that people take a picture of themselves on the bench over the course of a year.
The bench meant so many different things to so many different people that it turned out to be a glorious story resulting in an exhibition of the pictures and the stories of the people in the picture and the reason that the bench was important to them.
It warmed the cockles, it showed the best of humanity, it bought a bench to life, the story was rich and deep and I was transfixed by it.

There is a bench near me that has deep meaning.
We all know of a bench and wonder about the people or person, just bloody lovely.

Luglio · 08/12/2018 19:14

Suzanne Capper. I think of her often and pray to a God I don't believe in that she rests in peace Sad

GingerInAJam · 08/12/2018 19:16

The barbaric murder of Kriss Donald who was only 15. (All murders are barbaric but the details here especially so.) I was very close to where he was abducted, within 40 yards at the time and I had no idea what had happened until the next day. It really made me realise how many terrible things are going on around us everyday. I often think of that poor boy. I don't think that it was a big story beyond Scotland but I'll never forget it.

SuperSange · 08/12/2018 19:18

The first news story I can remember was Bobby Sands dying whilst on hunger strike. I heard it on the news on holiday in a caravan. I'd have been 7-8? It has stuck with me since, I'm nearly 47.

PivotPivotPIVOTTT · 08/12/2018 19:19

Any news story involving child murder.

A less serious one - I remember some family members showing me a story in the paper when I was a small child and there was a photo of a girl holding her top up with hair all over her stomach. I have no idea what the story was really about but they told me it was because she was eating her hair. This was obviously a scare tactic as I used to chew on my hair. Its always bugged me now that I'm older and wonder what the actual story was.

GingerInAJam · 08/12/2018 19:20

Positive ones that I remember are the footage of dozens of people coming together to move a bus in London and also train in Perth to free the people who were trapped under them. I get emotional every time I think of those.

Also the incredible rescue of the trapped Chilean miners.

Jenniferturkington · 08/12/2018 19:21

There was a news story a few years ago about a dance floor collapsing at a Jewish wedding. I found the footage particularly harrowing and have had nightmares about it since.

TitsalinaBumSquash · 08/12/2018 19:21

Holly and Jessica for me too, I remember watching the news everyday on my first family holiday with my kids. So sad.
Also Sara Payne, because I used to drive past that stretch of road frequently and remember the police set up on the grass verge.
The loss of innocent souls leaves me hollow.

Summerisdone · 08/12/2018 19:25

Holly and Jessica always stuck with me, I think because I was only a year older than them both and then they were found on my birthday and I remember so desperately hoping prior to that, that they'll turn up safe and sound.

DumptonPark · 08/12/2018 19:28

I remember a news story when I was young, maybe 25 years ago now. Someone in South America (I think) was kidnapped and a bomb collar was placed around their neck with a demand for a ransom. The news showed a clip of the person stood in the middle of a road with a bomb disposal expert trying desperately to disconnect the collar. The bomb was detonated and they both died.
I hope my memory is incorrect and I made the whole thing up but I remember feeling traumatised for a long time.

emelsie · 08/12/2018 19:28

Sally Anne Bowman, she was murdered only 5 minutes from my house at the time , and I was only 2 years younger than her at the time , she is also buried at the same cemetery as all my relatives that have passed away, as well as the fact that it was an unbelievably sickening animal that murdered her .

delilabell · 08/12/2018 19:30

@jenniferturkington I was going to say the same one.
Daniel pelka
The little girl who was abducted from the tent and murderers in llandudno. We went on holiday there every year and walked past all the flowers.
Katie piper
A girl who was murdered in Sutton goldfield (near me) there is a sculpture nearby she had drawn. I think it was Christmas eve it happened

exLtEveDallas · 08/12/2018 19:32

Hillsborough.

My mum and I used to have a Saturday 'thing' where my dad and brother would go off to the Rugby and me and mum would have chocolate bars watching old movies/musicals on BBC 2.

I suppose it must have been a news flash or something, or maybe mum had turned over, but suddenly there was this report from the football. I remember mum thinking it was a fire, but then as we watched it became more obvious.

Awful.

DeloresJaneUmbridge · 08/12/2018 19:33

Ellie Butler. For the life of me I will never ever understand how a judge placed her back with the parents. I will equally never understand the mother being so totally denial about what an abusive and abusing arsehole Ben Butler was. And the fact that she sat with him and the body of the dead child and concocted a cover story is beyond belief.

I won’t ever forget the footage of Ellie which was taken accidentally where Ben Butler was being verbally abusive and aggressive. Ellie looked like she had a black eye but even more than that it was her closed eyes as she attempted to disassociated from the situation she was in. She was so utterly traumatised and it was so apparent from that video.

I could cry for her grandfather who with his wife raised Ellie until she was removed from them and placed back with her parents.

SquirrelShit · 08/12/2018 19:33

When the Bosnian war was going on, I read about the people fleeing and the hideous violence. At one checkpoint, a family with twins was stopped by the Serb soldiers. They were told to choose which one of their twins would be allowed out alive with them. That story has always haunted me. (As it happens, I have twins now. Jeez, I can't even imagine the horror.)

Grumpbum123 · 08/12/2018 19:39

Lockerbie and dunblane

whiteroseredrose · 08/12/2018 19:40

Marc Dutroux (sp?) in Belgium. I'd just had DS so was hormonal. I kept weeping because the police had searched the house while two girls were there in a cage but didn't find them till too late.

And the little Syrian boy washed up on the beach, face down like litter. Haunts me.

mumsiedarlingrevolta · 08/12/2018 19:41

holly and jessica for me as well @StealthPolarBear

Madeline Mccann

MrsMartinRohde · 08/12/2018 19:42

The murders of Susan Maxwell, Caroline Hogg and Sarah Harper. I was 8 when Susan disappeared in 1982, and I knew the area she lived in/went missing from as we drove that way a few times a year en route to visit my grandparents for the school holidays. I read about it every day they were looking for her, and her photo haunted me. a year later Caroline went missing. she was known to a cousin of my mother, her daughter was in Caroline's class at school. again I'd travelled through the part of Edinburgh she lived in. I have never ever forgotten anything about those stories. I used to think I would be next. those poor little girls. so glad they did eventually find their murderer

I have loads of other awful stories that stuck - Bradford football fire, Kings Cross fire, Zeebrugge, Lockerbie, Hillsborough - but nothing that still gets me in the heart in that way 36 years on

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