Do you know anyone who went missing?

[FuckThatBullshit]

Inspired by another poster and it's an internet rabbit hole I regularly go down because I find missing people stories fascinating and spooky and obviously very sad. Do you know anyone who just... vanished?

Friend of a friends father went missing. He was staying in France (I think it was their holiday home but not 100% sure) with his wife and he went for the same afternoon walk he did every day. Never seen again

@FuckThatBullshit

Thank you for the 'missing' posters who have shared their own perspectives, as a pp said it's amazing you've been willing to and I hope you are all at peace living happy lives. You've certainly made me think about not sharing posts in future if it's not been requested by the police.

I guess one of the things I find puzzling (this is just a general wondering about the whole topic in itself I'm not quizzing the missing people on here) is... HOW is it even possible to just disappear? I mean unless you have a lifetimes supply of £50 notes and everything can be paid for in cash, or you're going to just live in a jungle and eat plants forever, how could you not leave a trail? Perhaps years ago it would have been possible but these days with everything being electronic I think it would be so much harder!

I had squirrelled away about £300 over the course of about 3 years.

I literally stuck a pin in a map in the vague area I wanted to be in and made my way to that place by bus.

I slept rough for a couple of nights and then found a bedsit, it was awful, but it was cheap and cash in hand, I had enough for a month there with tiny bit left over for food and electric.

Once I had the rental agreement (of sorts) I had something with my new name and address on and everything else fell into place, each official place thought the last had done the checks and helped me hugely.

I absolutely would not have been able to do this now. I'm not sure how somebody would go about this these days. I was very fortunate that things weren't as restricted as they are now.

Thank you for starting this thread, its given me an insight into the lives of those I left behind, and its been cathartic talking about it, I haven't had that chance before.

Please read @Meidid other posts and show some understanding and respect. They did what they did for very good reasons.

@Gilly12345

I used to work with someone who would talk about her missing Daughter and unfortunately years later her remains were found, she was one of Fred and Rose West’s victims.

Omg!!! Sadly we will never know the full extent of their offending, I should think (and the police believe)there are many more young girls who have been missing for many decades who were also victims of this monstrous couple x

@PainterMummy

Really odd one fairly recently. One of my D.C. childhood friends was reported missing in London was in all the newspapers and many social media appeals sharing the Surrey police website with the official appeal, including cctv photos of last sighting of her purchasing a tube ticket. She was missing for about a week when suddenly all the official appeal police posts disappeared. When you google, the links show up but when you click on it, error message appears. Very strange indeed.

In those circumstances I would assume that the police are now satisfied that she is missing by choice and doesn't want to be found.

You are very welcome, I have massive respect for you and I hope one day you will be able to share your story with at least one person in your second life so someone knows how truly brave and incredible you obviously are x

That was to @meidid x

I wonder if some of these missing were killed and body disposed of and not yet found

Seriously? Fucking genius. And thoughtless.

A school friend of mine flew to Ibiza on a week long holiday in the early 90s and never got in touch with his family again. There have been rumours over the years of friends who have been out there on holiday and supposedly spotted him, but if it was him he denied all knowledge when people approached him. His mum was his only family and she died quite soon after he left home (unrelated) and that was that. Good luck to him, maybe he just found a life he liked better. I think about him, I see old photos occasionally with him in them and I hope he's happy.

Is it healthy to dwell on such things? Why not just thank your lucky stars it’s never happened to you, and get back to living a happy life?

I was a missing person for a short period of time and it's something I massively regret. I don't even know whether to write about it on here. It was when I was quite young. Basically I was unwell and I was made to go into an eating disorder unit. On the first day, as I got there late I only had two very small drinks of squash. I was incredibly thirsty and they would not let me have a drink of water (actually their long term policy - you're not allowed a glass of water if you ask for one, at all). When I went to bed that night, when I stood up everything went black and I felt so, so ill. I never let myself get dehydrated as I used to be so affected by it. I went to bed that night scared I was going to die in the night. I tried everything to get them to just give me some water but they wouldn't. There was no medical reason for them to deny me water. Although I think it was wrong I regret how I handled it after that.

The next day I ran away. I went and got several cans of diet coke and bottles of water. I felt so much better it was unreal, but as I was sitting there I simply didn't want to go back. It had frightened me the amount of control they had.

I withdrew £1000 from the bank via the counter. I'd already switched my phone off when I left, after I'd called a taxi. I stayed in B&Bs and youth hostels. I travelled from the midlands to the north of England and stayed around there. Thankfully it was August so the weather was warm. I tried very very hard to eat and put weight on, which I managed to do. Unfortunately then I ended up in hospital with refeeding syndrome. I was in a hospital in Manchester but I gave them a fake name. I think they assumed I was homeless to be honest. Once I felt better I walked out. I felt bad about doing that but was worried the police would turn up. One downside was I couldn't get my phosphate tablets that I was meant to take with me. I went to the MIND office to ask for advice. The woman phoned them. She told me that they'd asked her to trap me in a room until they could come. She told me to leave and to stay away from those people. She didn't feel it was right either.

I stayed away for about a month. Ultimately I wish I hadn't run away because of the worry to people and the risk to my health but at the time it felt like the only option. I felt it was more dangerous in the hospital than out of it.

To many, happens too often, not people I've been close too, but people who I've known through school or work. Most recently, my dad's friend, he's been found now, suicide.
There's a child in a nearby town who goes 'missing' quite often, usually found by the police hiding in sheds or garages or friends houses, I do wonder why the family doesn't get more support.
Usually people turn up after a few days, but several have ended in suicide, the most tragic being a local young teen, because of bullies.

A woman I worked with briefly in the early 80's told me the story of her elder brother who disappeared for a decade. He turned up again eventually. Apparantly he decided initially to take some sheep shearing work (NZ) which kept him off grid for a while then followed the work to Australia. Turns out he didn't intend to go missing, he was just a really callow youth who simply didn't think to tell his parents or family he was leaving. By the time he grew up enough to realise it was probably a bad idea, he was a bit embarassed to get back in contact. He was finally spotted in an outback town by one of his cousins and convinced to write to his mother.

Two. One turned up dead in his car a week later having commit suicide. The other one was found by police having had some kind of amnesia episode. He couldn’t remember who he was, what he was doing in the city, where his car was etc. This was before mobile phones so no one could contact him either. Not sure exactly what happened but he’s fine now.

My stepdad was missing for nearly a week before he was found, having taken his life. It was awful but at least we could begin to grieve, those days waiting were a white knuckle ride of fear and anxiety and I don’t think my mum or anyone else could have lived like that long term. I have so much sympathy and respect for families who have to go through this.

Matthew Choyce, a medic from Newcastle, clothes found on a beach, never to be seen again

Yes, my brother's friend. Police were useless.

His remains were found in a river 4 months later when they were looking for another missing person. It's assumed that he was just drunk and fell in while walking home.

Someone I know was working very closely with the mom and also knew the dad, when the twins disappeared. The Mom still hopes they will be found alive.

www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/06/police-search-missing-swiss-twins

Yes. Absolutely tragic story. A younger person with dementia. Younger than 65. I worked for a group that supported her. We all knew she didn't have the capacity to go on holiday to New York.

GP refused to stop her.

She went and never came back. No one knows what happened to her.

That was in 2002.

I vaguely knew Claudia Lawrence, as in a friend of a friend and had seen her around. I used to see her poor dad for years after handing out leaflets in York city centre and it always broke my heart. It must be beyond painful for families to not have closure.

@RomeoOscarXrayIndigoEcho that is awful!

[quote SpikeySmooth]@Meidid When I see appeals from Missing People it's difficult to understand the person at the centre's POV. Why did that person disappear? The family might be putting up a positive front (We love you/We're worried about you/ Please come home) but I don't know what's really gone on for someone to get to that point where going missing is preferable to staying.

Your post reminds me there are two sides to every story.

I'm glad you have found peace. [/quote]
When I very nearly became a missing person my mother side would have been very different to what was going on.

My great grandfather was away fighting in the 1940s in the war. He didn't return and they assumed he had been torpedoed. Great Grandmother raised their 3 children and eventually moved on with a new gentleman and lived a happy life. Mid 90s my grandma received contact from a woman from Asia claiming to be her sister. He hadn't died and had a whole new family. They had found photographs and family details after his death and pieced it together. He had never told his new wife and family about his past so we have no idea if it was planned or how it all played out. They had visited the UK on holiday a few times when the sister was younger though. I always wonder if he had returned to his family area and watched anyone or if a family member knew he was alive and he was visiting them.

Also, lesser scale, my aunt left the family home when she finished school and moved to Australia. She kept in touch with birthday and Christmas cards but we never saw her again. She had children (and now grandchildren). I remember being there when she rang my nan weekly for a chat but, after my nan died I don't recall any of her siblings being in touch with her. They hadn't seen her for more than 30 years by this point. I don't actually even know if she's still alive as contact petered out. She was informed of all family events, parents getting sick, parents dying, funerals etc and kept in contact but didn't visit. Nobody has visited her (even when on holiday in Australia).

*Corrie mckeague - I suspect faked his own disappearance and threw his phone in the bin. Or somebody did.

Claudia Lawrence - Who was the man in dark clothing that was seen on cctv at her property twice when she disappeared ? Why did the high level policeman publicly refer to her complicated personal life ?

Ben needham - was run over by a construction vehicle that was operating at the property ? The driver panicked and disposed of the evidence. It was a deathbed confession, apparently.

Andrew gosden - lured to London on false pretences ?*

In my early 20s my then BF and I were friendly with a couple who lived nearly. The husband worked with my BF and they had a young son.
The three of them disappeared without warning leaving their (mortgaged) home full of their possessions and their car sitting on the drive - after a year or so the house was cleared and sold.
Eventually it turned out that my BF was aware they'd 'done a runner' as they were in lots of debt: the husband had taken a new job with an overseas branch of the same company. This was before it was so easy to track people down.
BF also confessed that his friend had asked him to look after a 'few things' for him in case he ever returned (including a sawn off shotgun) which he sensibly declined.
I heard some years later that things had not worked out overseas (they couldn't settle in the tropical climate) and they'd had to come back but don't know if their past ever caught up with them.

I don’t know any personally, but I’m a search and rescue volunteer and have been out on searches for well publicised missing people, and met families of the missing person. It’s obvious the horrors they are going through, especially those who’ve lost someone many years ago but still not had an answer. As awful and sad as it is when we find someone deceased, we can at least be grateful that we’ve managed to give them some sort of closure.

I’ve never been able to get how people in this country can disappear completely in the same way as it’s possible in USA for example though, we don’t have the empty wilderness space for them to go live in an offgrid survivalist camp and have nothing more ever to do with officialdom of any sort as can do in the US, so it’s something I often wonder about.

Compared to the number of people who go missing each year in the UK (around 250,000) though, those that are missing in the long term is a small %. Always too many still for those involved of course.

Various of the SAR teams run a project called ‘Men missing on a night out’ as there is a worryingly high number of young men who go missing on or after a night out, and are then found drowned close to the place they were last seen. It is enough of a concern that multiple teams now run safety patrols on Friday and Saturday nights, as well as on dates like 23rd Dec / New Year’s Eve on rivers / lochs etc near busy / popular night time venues, in the hopes of preventing such issues. CRS in Belfast for example patrol the Lagan after numerous deaths of young men drunk in a night out, there are multiple bars / clubs that open out onto the banks, and it’s a particularly dangerous body of water, so a proactive patrol has made it far less of an issue than before.

I’m admin for a number of local Facebook groups and have introduced a rule that we will only allow ‘Missing Person’ posts / posters in the group if they are from the Police or the charity Missing People. It’s not foolproof, but it’s to try and limit the opportunity for abusers to find those escaping them by using social media and ‘shares’ of their posts. I always bring this up in other groups I’m in too when people post Missing pleas.

I’m glad those who’ve managed to escape abusers can feel a little safer and wish you all the best, you are amazingly strong and courageous people