Missing RAF Regiment lad mystery

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-38267086

Did a quick search but couldn’t find an existing thread.

Really sad case – my heart goes out to his parents and I can’t help thinking there but for the grace of god (or the assistance of good mates) when I consider some of the post drinking adventures I had at his age. The facts as stated in the linked article really don’t add up; which I suppose is why it’s a “mystery”. Are there any locals on here with any insights?

I think in this kind of a missing person case the more publicity the better…

I was just thinking about this the other day, very sad. Thanks for the link there is more information there than I had read before

On reading it yesterday, cameras record him disappearing into a shop bin yard with no other exit and he doesn’t re appear. I was a bit surprised that the police discounted the sleeping in a bin for warmth / refuse truck / landfill, just based on the refuse trucks recorded weight. However, I guess you have to accept the officers investigating have enough info to make that decision. I guess you also have to be cautious that the author isn’t deliberately putting their armchair investigation conclusion into your mind, for you to come up with the same conclusion.

12 months ago, a lad I knew went out with mates on a night in York, all went back to hotel, probably drunk, he went for a walk in the early hours and has not been seen since. It’s thought he probably ended up in the flooded river Ouse, but no idea how and not been found.

@ B.A.Nana- the lad in York, was he a Welsh guy?

If he drove his car into town why did he not just sleep in that, it would have been more comfortable than a shop entrance?
I suspect, sadly, its properly related to the storage bins.

On a related note: http://www.missingpeople.org.uk/help-us-find.html

I think he got into a skip for a sleep then it was picked up and went to landfill (despite the weight figures not corroborating that). The landfill hasn’t been searched apparently.

It is very very difficult to search a landfill, but I would have thought if there was a decent chance that he would be in one they would have done it.

Most bins go to an intermediate sorting site first so he would have been found there – unusual to go straight to landfill.

It really is a sad story and one with such helplessness, to just disappear without trace is unusual nowadays.

I worked with a bloke about 15 years ago who vanished on a night out. We’d all been in the pub and he went off to meet some friends, had a good night then left to go home. Was found in a canal a week later, no foul play just an unfortunate accident combining a bit too much consumption and an ill advised shortcut over a lock gate. Kind of like the lad who vanished on the way home when I lived in Southampton; he’d taken to swimming from Southampton over the river Test to Marchwood to save on taxi fares. Never seen again. It seems pretty common really, poor decisions when drunk leading to the worst possible outcome.

Hopefully this bloke turns up unharmed.

The area is closed off by buildings and the rooftops have been searched and analysed by police.
It has been proven that an individual cannot leave the area on foot without being seen on CCTV, but Mr Mckeague was not caught on camera again.

Hope hes found as it cant be nice for his family neither.

Assuming the immediate area has been searched, including inside the buildings and any possible falls from roofs, i take it he must have gotten out in a vehicle somehow, be it a lorry bin or mayby another vehicle associated with one of the buildings.

It is very very difficult to search a landfill, but I would have thought if there was a decent chance that he would be in one they would have done it.

I know for a fact that atleast one wedding ring has been found in a landfill.

Estimated time and date gives the first clue the addresses in bin bags until adress on bin lorry route appeared being the second then they went down the street.

He may not want to be found.
We had a guy at work that just walked away from everything, a great job, wife, house etc,,
He’s still out ‘there’ now, wherever ‘there’ is..

I find it hard to believe that people still vanish in this day and age. Within the UK we have the most surveillance cameras per capita in the world. I’m surprised people can’t be traced when they go missing.

I hope this boy turns up alive and well.

The world, and even the UK, is a big place and once you get rid of your phone, credit cards etc, what is there really to track. Most cameras are low quality (or not recording/not working) and facial recognition, even if it could be done on such and epic scale, is very hard with crappy cameras.

I’m more surprised people are relatively easily located if they don’t want to be found to be completely honest.

It is very very difficult to search a landfill, but I would have thought if there was a decent chance that he would be in one they would have done it.

His phone seems to have taken that route. Just recovering that and any other of his possessions that could be with it in the same place would seem to justify the effort.

Plod can’t be arsed. Must be hard for the family to take.

From the BBC description it does sound like his phone may have been in the bin even if he wasn’t.

I guess in theory it might be worth searching the landfill for that – but that must be a pretty massive operation.

Plod can’t be arsed. Must be hard for the family to take.

You’re basing that conclusion on what information? I’m pretty sure there was a good reason for not searching the landfill site, rather than ‘couldn’t be arsed’.

What I find odd is that the bin lorry went to the landfill site with only 15kg of waste, that surely can’t be right.

I work with Corries stepdad and its fair to say the family has been through a living nightmare since Corries disapearance. The sad thing is the mobile phone companys are refusing to give details of other phones that have pinged back signals from the vicinity of Corries last whereabouts.
My heart goes out to David , Nicola and Corries brothers it the not knowing that must be heartbreaking. 🙁

The bin/landfill theory seems the most likely one based on what’s been made public, however plod must have other info if they’re not searching the landfill site.

My thoughts too @stanfree. It should be compulsory for phone companies to give up that data. I am stunned the landfill wasn’t searched and searched promptly, the sonner was very obviously the better.

As for people dissapearing there was a lad found dead in a car just off the A3 by Guildford, he had been there 6 months after knicking the car and then crashing off road into a ditch and hidden by trees etc late at night. A stretch of road which millions of cars would have driven past.

Do the police look for bodies if there is no sign of foul play? Do they look for missing people at all, or do they only get involved with kids?

Awful for the family

A lad from our circle at Uni ended up falling into the River Wear on his way home after one of our drinking sessions. It was November, and there had been plenty of rain, so the river was up and flowing fast. Fortunately hitting the icy water made him come to enough to realise this was a serious situation and he managed to grab a handful of brambles as he was being pulled downstream along the bank. Another 20 yards or so and he would have gone over a weir.

Luckily he dragged himself up the bank and collapsed on the path – to be found thankfully only minutes later by some of his housemates before hypothermia could really kick in. When he had recovered he couldn’t remember how he had fallen in the river until one of the people who found him pointed out that his John Thomas was hanging out when they found him. He’d tried to have a slash in the river whilst pissed and nearly died as a result.

It didn’t make much of an impression on us at the time as we were being young and stupid, boozing and getting into all sorts of high jinks.

With the benefit of a few years now, looking back, I don’t want to think of how I might have been involved in the accidental death of someone else – no matter how innocently.

It should be compulsory for phone companies to give up that data

It depends whether they’ve refused to give it to the family or refused to give it to the police. The former is understandable, the latter not so much but also the police just need to go to the courts to ask for it I guess.

John Thomas was hanging out

They found a guy in the marina in Cherbourg the same way, he was in his 50’s

@atalz yes agreed, I assumed it was the police who’d asked

It should be compulsory for phone companies to give up that data

Be careful what you wish for.

And I hope the chap is found.

There is more information out there. They conducted enquires at landfill but only one lorry had collected from the site and it weighed 15kg so clearly couldn’t have held a body.

His Mother has now said he was “a social hand grenade” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-38457221

All very sad but IMO something tragic has happened to him being hammered.

Police do conduct enquiries into missing people, the level of work that goes into it depends on the category, i.e. high risk more resources thrown at it.

Given the attempt to kidnap a serviceman just before his disappearance, I think the Police will have been checking every possible lead as carefully as they could.

As others have said, if you don’t want to be found, ditching your phone and cards and then keeping away from transport hubs and town centres makes it pretty easy. Hundreds of people go missing every year, a good number are never heard from again.

Tragic for families involved left behind whatever has happened.

Piece in the Telegragph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/29/policewoman-starts-investigation-sons-disappearance-detectives/

I can’t believe he’d intentionally leave and not take his beloved dog.

Foul play somewhere along the line , foreign or domestic

Foul play somewhere along the line , foreign or domestic

Without sounding flippant, he’s a Rock Ape not a spook..

Edited – sorry, flippant Rock Ape jokes not acceptable in the circumstances.

Without sounding flippant, he’s a Rock Ape not a spook..

The member of the armed forces out running who was the victim of a kidnapping attempt wasn’t a “spook” either

There appears to be other info since I read it a few days ago. They’re now saying that a number of vehicles went into the area, not just the bin wagon. So, it’s possible he got a lift, dropped off somewhere and then attempted to walk somewhere. Maybe his phone ended up separated from him in a bin, maybe he cadged a lift to somewhere in a booze fuddled attempt to walk somewhere which made sense to him in his state. Just thinking about the stupid decisions I’ve made in a similar state, which would not have made sense when sober. The chances he bumped into a cold blooded killer are highly unlikely.

You’re basing that conclusion on what information? I’m pretty sure there was a good reason for not searching the landfill site, rather than ‘couldn’t be arsed’

Such as what? There is no good reason not to go through the bins at any crime scene; only laziness.

And their elimination of a possible site of a body could be based on a faulty load cell on a bin lorry.

If this lad was your kin, you would hope that all avenues were exhausted, and they are not. Plod are not being thorough, whichever way you slice it.

If this lad was your kin, you would hope that all avenues were exhausted, and they are not. Plod are not being thorough, whichever way you slice it.

Have you thought of the possibility that the police have more information on this than you? That they have a valid reason for not searching the landfill site due to other information they have that they haven’t released to the public.

I honestly don’t think the investigating team when considering searching the landfill site mulled it over then thought, “nah it’s a bit dirty and smell, we should search it really but none of us can be bothered’.

They may have tested the truck and found it was weighing accurately. If it is then it would be a bizarre act to go and search the landfill when all the evidence suggests he isn’t in there.

At the same time they may have other more promising leads to follow up on.

There is no good reason not to go through the bins at any crime scene; only laziness.

I suspect that closing down and searching a regional landfill site for something the size of a mobile phone, that may or may not still be in one piece, is just a bit more involved than “going through the bins”.

Have you thought of the possibility that the police have more information on this than you? That they have a valid reason for not searching the landfill site due to other information they have that they haven’t released to the public.

I have. I can’t think of a good reason. I asked you in my last post for a “fr’instance” and you came up with nothing.

is just a bit more involved than “going through the bins”

Yes.

I know.

Kind of my point.

Just coz it’s a bit harder than tipping up a wheelie bin is not a good reason not to do it. His phone could have significant last contacts on it. Why would you not do everything you can to find it?

Oh right, it’s inconvenient

Faith in the police is a creditable virtue. Sometimes, it’s misplaced.

For the hard of hearing, or those that can’t be bothered reading then I’ll repeat.

Have you thought of the possibility that the police have more information on this than you? That they have a valid reason for not searching the landfill site due to other information they have that they haven’t released to the public.

I don’t have all the information to hand to decide that searching the landfill site, or not, is the right thing to do I presume the police, and you, do.

To satisfy you I’ll give you a for instance – the police know other vehicles entered and left the ‘horseshoe’ area, they have questioned the driver of one of these vehicles and they gave the boy a lift and for whatever reason the police have not released that info. No idea if that’s the case but I had to give you something.

I’m being daft here, but how does checking the weight of the truck help in this?