Where do all the missing people go?

[Basketofkittens]

I’ve been watching some programmes recently on missing people and reading various sites on the internet. It’s interesting but also really sad.

Where do they go? I suppose some are murdered or commit suicide but everybody else? Do they start new lives or move abroad although with modern technology and IT it seems increasingly harder to do that without being traced.

There’s also a police website with details of 1000 bodies found and nobody knows who they are.

If you are interested in why/how people disappear I'd recommend, 'looking for Mike' on YouTube.

It's a person who's work colleague dies suddenly. When the police look through his things they find out 'Mike' is an assumed identity, the coworker then goes looking for who 'Mike' actually was.

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult I hope your safe and happy now. Ignore posts telling you to contact your birth family. You clearly left for reason.

A reason*

“One thing that jumped out at me was, there are so many Oriental Asians missing. As a race, they are way over-represented in those missing people. I wonder why?”

They’re generally Vietnamese children and young people who are trafficked into the UK for cannabis cultivation (and sometimes for forced labour like working in nail bars or restaurants).

The one that always haunts me is Genette Tate
I think because we are about the same age

@strawberrieshortcake where is your evidence for what you said about East Asian families not cooperating with agencies?

I worked on a very high profile piece of work in this area and can assure you the majority of missing Vietnamese people in the UK do not have families here, in fact they often have very loving families back in Asia who paid thousands to agents thinking they were sending their young people off to better jobs and lives in the West. I feel I have to pick you up on your assertion as I’ve liaised (though not met in person) families who would be absolutely wounded at being portrayed that way.

I suppose a lack of cooperation may be a factor in a small number of cases, particularly given the distrust of authority in a one party state, but I can genuinely say I never came across a single case of that nature when working in this field.

Why would it be illegal to go missing? What would you be arrested for exactly?.

God the website with all the bodies found is heartbreaking - especially the one someone else mentioned with the lady who jumped from Beachy Head. So bloody sad.

I can’t believe I’d never heard a single thing about that 14yr old boy from Doncaster. How could the McCann case get so much publicity and his so little ☹️

There are loads of 13/14/15 year old children who are on the missing website but I recall no media coverage. So sad. Wonder if some have been found now but the website not updated.

One that has stayed with me for many years , since reading about it in a book when I was a teenager .

www.norfolk.police.uk/news/cold-cases/april-fabb

Since becoming a mother I don’t have the emotional strength to deal with missing children cases, whenever I hear anything on the news my heart drops.

It’s not quite the same but I remember the Jamie Buldger case, I was only young at the time and his little face looked just like my younger brother, both blonde and big eyes, that haunted me for years. I would dream that someone took my brother and would wake up screaming.

My mom also used to work with a man who just one day disappeared. Lots of shared Facebook posts, anyway months and months later it was revealed that he was actually transgender and had left because he knew his family wouldn’t accept him being a her. It was incredibly sad.

When I have watched documentaries like this .The presenter always states that nobody "just disappears" with no reason.Many people with a loving family and friends, dont understand how someone can walk away .But there will always be a reason ,happy people wont go missing as they do not have anything to run away from .

Who is the Fred West book by (mentioned by a PP?)

.

Turquoise Tamborine .Apparently the younger and more prettier the child ,the more they pull out all the stops to find them .Especially little girls. Like you, had not heard of Andrew Gosford case until a couple of years ago on a documentary.Wondered if he was being bullied at School ,as he had chosen to walk ,instead of School Bus all that week .Also dressed for School came home and changed ,then caught train to London.Very bright boy ,Gifted and highly intelligent .

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult

I’m sorry for what you have been through, I can’t imagine how hard some parts of your life must have been. I’m glad you have found happiness now.

I wonder if you might think about getting in touch with the missing people charity ? It’s confidential and they can help by doing things like helping you close the police case , assuming one was set up when you went missing.

They could also get a message to the people you did care about, so they know you are alive and well but don’t want to get back in touch. It might help them move on, just as you have done.

www.missingpeople.org.uk/how-we-can-help/missing-adults/what-we-can-do-to-help-you/284-finding-out-youve-been-reported-missing.html

Please think about it. It’s confidential, they won’t trace your call or judge you or persuade you to do anything you don’t want to.

In the Darren Carley case his body was found not that long after he went missing but it wasn't identified for 15years.
I hate to think of how many bodies there are waiting to be identified.

We had family friends over in Ireland and we knew them because they had lived over here and worked with my grandfather, also Irish. They were all in service on an estate. When they retired, they went back to Ireland where their one other sister lived, who was married with adult children by then. The other three never married and lived together - two brothers, one sister. One of the brothers was a little odd, having suffered brain trauma in a motorbike accident. But they were all lovely people.

After a few years, the married sister died and a week after the funeral the odd brother just disappeared. Searches were put out, but nothing. We never knew what happened until four years later they found a skeleton, well off a road, but in a peaceful place with a beautiful view of the countryside. Dental records verified it was him but his watch was still on his wrist.

There were no signs of any injuries or trauma beyond his head injury of decades earlier. It seems he was so upset after his sister died he just went out for a walk, found an isolated spot, lay down and waited to die. The position of the skeleton showed he was hands were tucked under his head. Dreadfully sad.

The vast majority will have committed suicide. Suicide is still hugely taboo in the UK.

I remember reading the ‘missing persons’ page in the Big Issue years ago, there was a woman for whom it said ‘her car and clothes were found parked next to a river. She is thought to have been going through a hard patch and may have been depressed.” Yeah, I wonder what happened to her 🧐.

Has anyone seen Dreams of a Life I think its called . Joyce Vincent

This one touched me deeply particularly as she had worked a similar job to me in the 80s and some clubs mentioned I had also frequented . She was found, not officially "missing" as such , but it was so so sad. Rest In Peace Joyce.
allthatsinteresting.com/joyce-vincent

Also, please don’t use the term Oriental Asian

www.thoughtco.com/avoid-these-five-racial-terms-2834959

I heard that after 9/11 some people chose to walk away from their lives because they would be assumed dead

Not everyone missing gets to be on the missing persons website.
Lots of people are seen as too likely to have drifted away through choice by the police.

Missing Persons rightly recognize that some people will try to abuse what they do, but the end result of them trying to get the balance right is there are many missing people who aren't on there, but remain loved, feared for, and searched for, for the rest of their relatives lives.*

If police decide to close a reported case based on the chaotic lifestyle of the person and because there's no specific date, NFA, etc, the relatives are just told they must have suddenly successfully cleaned up their act, moved abroad, etc.

In our case family totally respects the missing members right to make a new life, just wants to be told they are actually alive and have made a choice, as too many things don't add up to make it likely.

There's a long term disinterest in investigating if that person is actually alive or if the rumors are true. She ran them a merry dance when young and now doesn't count, but she does to us and always will.

She's thought about, talked about non judgmentally, loved, and missed.
She had a smallish sum of money in trust. This is now likely to be taken by the government as the firm handling it changed their practice and needed to pay it to her, but could find no trace of her either, and her mum's not legally allowed to look after it for her as an adult, so it's viewed as abandoned.

We know the livelihood is she's probably dead, her remains dumped or hidden, but the fear has always been that she was easy to control and she might be alive and suffering. The pain and fears for her never go away.

*If you are a missing person who has no wish to resume contact but doesn't actively wish those you left behind to suffer for the rest of their lives, (I appreciate some people do) then please leave a simple "My name is/was X, I am alive, I don't wish to be found" message with www.missingpeople.org.uk/ and just carry on your the life you've created for yourself unhindered.

The organisation Missing People will not seek to trace you, you have eliminated yourself from their interest, and every time a body turn up your name won't be circulating across police forces as a person of interest.

• Staying missing means the people you say you want no contact with, carry on searching decades later, and making reports trying to make sure you aren't forgotten and keep your case alive. If you honestly don't want this attention there is a simple way deal with it and end it

Whats heartbreaking is how long some of them are missing.

Theres one person in Ireland,i always think about.Philip Cairns.Disappeared in 1986.Same age as me.Only started secondary school.

His bag was found in the alley a week after he disappeared.