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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:
Jaimx86 · 08/12/2018 21:20

The gay/blind Everest story Grin m.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Y6PchDYfw

WTFIsAGleepglorp · 08/12/2018 21:22

Genette Tate
Carl Bridgewater
The Omagh bombing
Susie Lamplugh
Victoria Climbe
The sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise at Zeebrugge

Piggywaspushed · 08/12/2018 21:24

Dunblane

Hillsborough

Heysel

Lockerbie

Saddam Hussein's statue being pulled down

The Berlin Wall coming down

And the whole awful Joanna Yates and the Christopher Jefferies thing

The mass shooting in Cumbria

And 9/11 : it's my birthday and my DM is a New Yorker. It was an awful time as I could no get through to her on the phone. Wacthing it all unfold on TV was horrific.

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News
GingerInAJam · 08/12/2018 21:26

The little boy 'Adam' whose torso was found in the Thames.

Piggywaspushed · 08/12/2018 21:28

soubriquet that was Beslan (Chechnya?). And, yes , that sticks dreafully with me, too.

Chocolategirl79 · 08/12/2018 21:31

Many of these stick in the mind although there are some I wasn't aware of.
For me, Suzy Lamplugh and the strength of her mother Diana (I think she ended up with dementia before she died ) and how she was so determined to find her body.
Ben Needham - again as a mum, I don't know how his mum keeps it together with the uncertainty.
Hillsborough, Dumblane, Lockerbie, Holly and Jessica, Shannon Matthews, 911, the Boxing Day tsunami. God there are so many terrible stories.

shartsi · 08/12/2018 21:31

Madeleine McCann. It is my worst nightmare. I haven't relaxed on holidays since then.

Woohoo1 · 08/12/2018 21:33

Shartsi - you an relax on holiday if you don’t leave your children alone to go out drinking

Unevenbeard · 08/12/2018 21:34

The Chilean miners who were trapped

meditrina · 08/12/2018 21:36

Suzy Lamplugh - because he was my cohort IYSWIM, also Rachel Nickell.

The Yorkshire Ripper cast quite a shadow too.

And I can remember exactly where I was standing when I first heard a plane was down over Lockerbie

Hassled · 08/12/2018 21:40

The disappearance of Genette Tate. It wasn't long after we'd moved to the UK, it wasn't that far from us, she looked not dissimilar to me at that age, we were similar in age. And it's never been solved. It's odd how so many years later she still pops into my head from time to time - it haunted me.

PforPhoebeHforhoebe · 08/12/2018 21:40

Lisa Irwin en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Lisa_Irwin
Grenfell
9/11
7/7

PforPhoebeHforhoebe · 08/12/2018 21:42

Oh jonbent Ramsey

CheddarIsNotTheOnlyCheese · 08/12/2018 21:44

Does anyone remember the little boy Jamie Lavis who went missing in Manchester? Probably 15-20 years ago. The bus driver of the bus he was last seen on moved in with the family and made public pleas for information. A few months later the boys jawbone was discovered. It turned out it was the bus driver. There are pictures of him sat topless with his arms around the parents.

Which news stories have stuck with you?
Woohoo1 · 08/12/2018 21:45

Yes Jonbenet. Poor little girl- the interview with her brother was chilling

PineapplePen07 · 08/12/2018 21:45

The Boxing Day tsunami and particularly the story of the father trying desperately to hold his 6 month old baby out of the water when it hit, the baby died and I remember sobbing while holding my 2 day old baby ds in my hospital bed.

NutCrackerSuite · 08/12/2018 21:45

Fred and Rose West
Jamie Bulger (same age as my ds)
911
7/7
Holly and Jessica

Sweepington · 08/12/2018 21:48

I remember being in the back seat on the way back from the airport listening to a radio report about Alexander Litvinenko. The thought of him knowing he was dying and the world watching (though looking back I don’t think anything is as revealed until he was dead) made me feel really weird. The stuff that happened in Salisbury brought it all back.

weebarra · 08/12/2018 21:48

James Bulger
Dunblane
Lockerbie

Changeymcchangechange · 08/12/2018 21:49

Daniel Handley. A terrible crime, early 90s, but not a 'famous' one. His cousin went to my school. Whenever there is a similar news story I always think of him. I don't know why, it's just always stuck in my mind, that poor little boy.

todayandtomorrow · 08/12/2018 21:55

Many of these sad stories have stayed with me too. Daniel Pelka was such an angelic looking child, it was horrific that he suffered so much.

The two that really chilled me were Millie Dowler and Sarah Payne. I grew up in the same town as both of them. I didn't know them but Millie was taken very close to the station I used every day to travel to and from school. There are shops nearby and that bastard Levi Bellfield lived in a flat just a stones throw away, across a green. He also drank in a pub that we all went to, and a friend had worked at. It is highly likely she served him as the dates are the same. He apparently sought out Sarah Payne's father to talk to, as he also drank there. How sick is that? I saw Michael Payne a couple of times in the years following Sarah's death; he always looked utterly haunted.

Some time later, I also crossed paths with one of Bellfield's former employers, in the context of my job at the time.

It all brought home to me that these psychopathic, sick bastards are not 'out there somewhere' but can be right under our noses, walking past us on the street. Two families in a fairly small town devastated by two separate killers. I have a baby daughter now and don't know how I am ever going to let her out of my sight.

Fairylea · 08/12/2018 21:55

Andrea Yates who drowned her 5 children in the bath in 2001 whilst suffering from postpartum psychosis. One of the most heart wrenching cases I’ve ever heard in so many ways.

theaudacity · 08/12/2018 21:56

And I can remember exactly where I was standing when I first heard a plane was down over Lockerbie

So can I. I remember whatever was on TV being interrupted for a news flash and the idea of a plane crashing in the UK was just unbelievable to me because that seemed like something that happened 'elsewhere'.

Original poster
PepperSteaks · 08/12/2018 22:00

I often think about this young lad who got his foot caught in a during flooding around 10 years ago. The fact that he was holding his dad’s hand and talking to the fireman with everyone knowing he was about to suffer an awful death is so haunting and I think about that a lot. I’ve developed a real fear of dying publically.

OP posts:
CheddarIsNotTheOnlyCheese · 08/12/2018 22:02

After James had died the tabloids tried ruining the lives of a supposed group of people who could have prevented James death (The Liverpool 15). These were passers by who had seen him with his abductors and presumed he was their little brother. I felt for these people. The papers were trying to invent bad characters for the public to fixate on. In fact some of these people had intervened and offered to help but the boys were convincing. I often think of the times I might have seen a crying child.and trusted that they were with family.