Do you know anyone who did the "I'm just going to the shop to buy a paper" thing and who then disappeared forever?

[AliceAir]

Another thread on here reminded me of a girl I was in school with years ago. Her mother apparently popped to the shop to but some potatoes and never came home, and was never heard of again.

I'm not meaning people who have met with foul play but people who have decided to disappear and then done so.

Family member (then a teen) disappeared to Oz, years ago, she ran off with a much older man
Her parents were frantic, as there was no trace of her (this was back in the 70s) It was years before she contacted them again

@walchesterweasel I remember that case, the son was an adult iirc and physically disabled following an RTA. The weird thing was the mum nipped into the ladies and the son into the gents and then she came out but he never did and so she waited for a bit and then just went home, a no point did she think to go in and check?? I know there's social conventions but you'd think she'd look in the interests of his safety. Very weird.

@McCorona

My best friend's dad, when she was about 12. Parents were separated since she was a baby but he was a devoted dad and came every weekend to take his daughter out. Then one weekend he didn't come, didn't answer the phone and she and her mum never heard from him again, apart from money in a card every birthday and Christmas. He never remarried or had other kids and after he died decades later, she found that she had been left his house and entire estate.

That's so weird. To just decide he doesn't want to see them again but keep sending cards, must have been so confusing

I think this must be much harder to do these days, if you think about your digital footprint.
You would be tracked down when you used your bank card etc. So you'd need to change your name and officially get a whole new identity (which would be recorded) or forever work cash in hand which is rarer if not virtually unheard of.

I imagine there were lots of people in Italy (and elsewhere) at the end of WW2 who weren't able to return to normal life

I'm sure there were, but I wouldn't bother feeling sorry for my grandfather who - by all accounts - was an abusive gambler even before the war.

As well as men who were too traumatised to return to normal life, there must have been lots of others who used the War as a convenient opportunity to disappear for good, with everyone assuming they were dead. My grandmother would have been much better off if my grandfather had done this, as she would have had a widow's pension, instead of being left destitute.

This happened years and years ago, my late DMs friend, husband and young children decided to emigrate to Australia. Lots of planning obviously, they were sailing there. Finally the big day arrived, all on the ship ready to leave, husband went off to do something.......visit bathroom, buy a paper, I don't know.......never fucking came back!!!
According to DM the poor woman had no choice but to sail off without him! DM often spoke about it, I don't think she ever got over it, never mind her poor friend

This man most likely having an affair, but to send them off alone to the other side of the world to get them out the way? Fuck.

I went to school with a boy who arrived home one day to find his parents had moved house. Basically he went to school in the morning and while he was gone they packed up and left. I can't imagine how awful that must have been for him, or how awful you'd have to be to do that to your son

Many years ago my colleague was professionally involved in a case where a 15 year old boy had gone home from school one day and his family had moved house without telling him. His family tried to take legal steps to prevent the disclosure of their new address!

These sound like the same case. That poor poor boy. The fact it was so premeditated seems to make it so much worse, and BOTH parents involved.

The PND ones and mentally ill ones I can understand but cases like this are so cruel.

A female relative supposedly moved abroad and got a really good job, according to her husband. We were close, and I knew she was planning to divorce him after she found out something about him which she wouldn't talk about. She hasn't been heard from since.
I’m afraid this is one where I would be digging up the garden!
I anon bad terms with STBXH and gave tokd friends that if I disappear snd ge tells everyone I’ve buggered off to Oz -dig up the drains! And that I will not break contact with friends!

MIL mum did this. MIL was the youngest at around 5 and when her and her siblings got home from school one day their mum had cleared out her things and disappeared. She showed up about 15 years later with a new partner and wanting contact but they sent her away and she hasnt been heard of since.

Friends dad is a missing person. Not sure if it was foul play or a run away situation. He went on a walk like he did everyday from their holiday home in the French mountains and disappeared. No trace ever found. They suspect though that perhaps he was hit by a drunk driver who panicked and took the body/hid it. The whole area has been thoroughly searched.

Isn’t there a fair few people who used 9/11 to go missing?

I wonder also if there are people who died that day that no one knew about or reported missing. There has to be.

Not disappeared forever, but for a long time.

Great Uncle went out to get a loaf of bread and a pint of milk, and no one heard from him again for decades I think. He ended up never reaching the shop but went for a drink with some friends he met on the way, raucous time was had by all and they ended up in a port city on also the the other side of the country and he somehow signed up for the navy or some sort of expedition. Details obviously patchy due to the drink. But we now have an entire family branch in New Zealand thanks to that 'just a quick pint then'.

There are so many heartbreaking stories on this thread 😢
Seems it happens more often than I thought.

Before social media/when more transactions were in cash I expect it would have been easier to disappear without much trace.

My father tried to do it to us when I was 12. We were moving back to Oz from the UK - which was his idea, and alarm bells should have rung for my mother as the reason we'd ended up in the UK was because he didn't like Oz!

As my father had refused Australian citizenship when it was offered, he needed a visa to re-enter the country. He deliberately left applying for it as late as possible, when our plane tickets had already been booked. Turns out his plan was to send my mother and myself and two brothers back first, he would have then told my mother he wasn't joining us. He'd even gone as far as finding somewhere new for himself to live, and hadn't given notice at his job...

His plans were scuppered when his visa arrived the morning we were due to fly...he admitted his plans to my mother at the time. She was stupid enough to stay with him for nearly 20 more years...he finally left her for another woman (he'd had affairs all during their marriage) when I was 21. That was 31 years ago and I've not seen him since.

My ex boyfriends dad did this. He said he was going to the supermarket and never returned. Turned out he was having an affair with a married man and decided to leave his wife and 2 kids to be with him.

He had cleared some stuff but when they were getting rid of the rest, they found letters they had written to one another and how he was going to leave. The married man was in the car at the supermarket.

My mother only admitted all the above to me last year. I'd often wondered why he was so angry and pissed off that morning when his visa arrived...

@Newname12

My GF was a Major in the army. He left the army and his next job, a few weeks later, was a Headmaster in a Prep school in the North West followed by a school in London.

This was in the late 50s/ early 60s. In those days you didn't need to be a teacher etc to get a headship!

@bluebluezoo

*Nopreservatives This has made me think of the boy who it was believed may have set off to walk to his gf's. Was he found?*

The one at the beginning of lockdown? If I remember rightly the working theory is he fell/jumped off a cliff into the sea, as belongings were found near there and there is no other proof of life.

That was in the village I live in, and no, he hasn’t been found unfortunately ☹️

I know of a case (not personally) where a young man went missing, the mum continues to consider him missing/alive whereas dad has accepted he took his own life. Mum and dad no longer together because of their different views.

Very sad for all.

After my great-uncles’s wife had given birth to her third child, she found out her husband was the father the baby of the woman in the next bed, so she walked out of hospital and was gone for good.

Great Uncle was a inveterate womaniser. His obituary stated he had “at least 17 known children”! One of his grandchildren found fame co-starring in an iconic US TV cop show.

My grandad's dad disappeared back in the 1930s, leaving my great grandmother to raise my grandad and his older brother alone. He did get in contact to arrange a divorce but that was it.

They didn't know where he was and life was very hard for them growing up. My grandad was refused the option to go to university because he was from a fatherless family and too poor. His brother went to fight in the war and was killed, and my grandad says he remembered coming home from school one day and finding his mum sitting on the rubble of their house which had been bombed, just waiting for him!

Years later, a woman messaged me on Facebook and said she believes she is related to my dad and named him. She explained that her grandfather had had a family before hers and that she'd only discovered this from clearing out the house after her mother had died (her grandfather, my biological GGF, had died years earlier). She'd found paperwork from her grandfather's divorce with my GGM and used an ancestry website to find out more. My dad isn't on Facebook so I was the first relative she could get in touch with.

I told my dad who spoke to her via email and she explained that her grandfather had been living in Canada and had met her grandmother there and come back to the UK where her mum and her siblings were born. My grandad's half siblings had all died before she got in touch. She remembered her grandfather being very stern and cold and knows now that her mum must have found out about his first divorce when he died but had kept the paperwork and not said anything.

She wanted to meet my grandad but he didn't want to. My dad and his sister met with her and her family and are still in touch now. My grandad died in 2018 and never got over his dad leaving. I think knowing (for certain - he'd always assumed it was probably the case) that he'd had a second family was very hurtful to him and he resented the new family, despite them not knowing about him. So much loss and heartache.

My mum disappeared for almost 2 years when I was 7. Just stopped turning up for visitation (my dad already had custody of us following the divorce), her flat was abandoned and she stopped claiming her benefits. Reported missing to the police and turns out her mother knew she was in Scotland so no case to answer there. She had left to be with her boyfriend and didn't want anything more to do with us. She came back when she caught him in bed with another woman.

I worked with a woman who made herself invisible to everyone she knew in our local area but didn't go missing as such.
She handed in her notice (assistant management position so had a long notice period) and not long after she left her long term partner turned up asking where she was. She had managed to sell up,.move, change her number and leave her job without telling him (didn't live together). She didn't tell any of her friends, deleted people off social media, changed her number and email.
She told work she was changing jobs to another establishment but they hadn't heard of her. Stopped being friends with the manager even though they were besties.
It later transpired that she went back to her ex husband and to her home town and they wernt even going to tell their mutual children until after the wedding. Was all rather strange.

Such a tragic thread, a close family friend disappeared overnight around 10 years ago, failed to turn up to pick his much loved young daughter up from his ex partner. His ex partner, knowing he would never let his daughter down, reported him missing to the police. The police, in their wisdom only started looking for him three months later, by which time the trail of evidence was stone cold. After searches of his workplace, arrests were made based on evidence found, and someone was found guilty of his murder. His body has never been found despite searches by police and divers in 28 different areas. Absolutely tragic, fortunately the police managed to get a conviction without a body, which are notoriously much harder than with a body.

Yes my uncle was well known for disappearing for months or years at a time.He had no kids or wife though.

He would come back now and again.And a few times they got the Salvation Army to look for him. This was way before i was born.

But the last time he came home,he had cancer and he came home to die.I do vaguely remember but i was only about 7.

The family used to call him teh Wanderer.

About 15 years ago, a young nurse disappeared with her car after finishing late shift in a Cambridge hospital. There was no sign of her. Many months later a fishing lake revealed her car with her inside it. Theory goes that she fell asleep at the wheel, drove through a hedge which closed back up afterwards, and the car went into the deep water. Such a sad story.

@carringtonm

My grandad's dad disappeared back in the 1930s, leaving my great grandmother to raise my grandad and his older brother alone. He did get in contact to arrange a divorce but that was it.

They didn't know where he was and life was very hard for them growing up. My grandad was refused the option to go to university because he was from a fatherless family and too poor. His brother went to fight in the war and was killed, and my grandad says he remembered coming home from school one day and finding his mum sitting on the rubble of their house which had been bombed, just waiting for him!

Years later, a woman messaged me on Facebook and said she believes she is related to my dad and named him. She explained that her grandfather had had a family before hers and that she'd only discovered this from clearing out the house after her mother had died (her grandfather, my biological GGF, had died years earlier). She'd found paperwork from her grandfather's divorce with my GGM and used an ancestry website to find out more. My dad isn't on Facebook so I was the first relative she could get in touch with.

I told my dad who spoke to her via email and she explained that her grandfather had been living in Canada and had met her grandmother there and come back to the UK where her mum and her siblings were born. My grandad's half siblings had all died before she got in touch. She remembered her grandfather being very stern and cold and knows now that her mum must have found out about his first divorce when he died but had kept the paperwork and not said anything.

She wanted to meet my grandad but he didn't want to. My dad and his sister met with her and her family and are still in touch now. My grandad died in 2018 and never got over his dad leaving. I think knowing (for certain - he'd always assumed it was probably the case) that he'd had a second family was very hurtful to him and he resented the new family, despite them not knowing about him. So much loss and heartache.

That made me cry. For all the parents in this thread there is always parents like your Granddad’s mum.

She’d lost everything yet she was still there, staying and waiting for her sons to come home. How easy it would have been to disappear into the dust of the bombings and start a new life like her husband but no, she stayed.

Puts the two polar opposites into perspective. I hope everyone on this thread finds peace, especially the frantic husbands/wives and children left behind.

In a way, I did.
My ex died, we’d been together for years and lived together with his family. The minute he died I went for a walk, and I walked for 3 days, stopping at hotels and coffee shops until I decided I couldn’t go back. I went to the nearest embassy, applied for an emergency passport and went to live with my family that I hadn’t seen for 3 years. I left our son newborn son with ex’s parents and haven’t seen or heard off him since, he’s 8 now.

It’s easier than you’d think.