The people who have vanished without a trace: Anguish of unsolved missing persons cases from 13-year-old who disappeared delivering newspapers and ‘the girl in the green mac’ to chef Claudia Lawrence
- Around 170,000 people go missing here every year and some are never found
- Claudia Lawrence, Genette Tate and a little girl last seen in 1944 among them
While Nicola Bulley’s disappearance continues to mystify the nation, her loved ones’ agony of simply not knowing is a feeling shared by other families across the country.
They are the parents, brothers, sisters and children of the UK’s other still missing people who will have looked at this latest case with a sense of tragic familiarity.
Around 170,000 people go missing here every year and some are never found again: their fate shrouded in the mists of time.
Here MailOnline takes a look at other people – all still unaccounted for – who simply vanished one day without a trace.
Schoolgirl Genette Tate.Genette Tate, 13, who disappeared while cycling on her newspaper round in Aylesbeare, Devon, in August 1978.
Genette Tate: August 19, 1978
Schoolgirl Genette Tate had stepped out from her home in Aylesbeare, Devon, on a bright Saturday afternoon in August 1978 for her paper round like every other weekend.
On her distinctive blue Kalkhoff bike, she rode to the nearby White Horse Inn to start her work and even met two of her friends for a chat just after 3.15pm.
But for school pals Margaret Heavey and Tracey Pratt saying goodbye to her as she left them to finish off the round would be the last time they would see her.
Ten minutes later they came across her bike lying on the floor, newspapers spilled across the ground and Genette never to be seen again.
From that moment, the little girl became the face of one of the country’s most notorious missing people’s cases.
Unlike some cases, the police acted incredibly quickly and mounted a huge search, including an RAF helicopter.
The village hall became an impromptu investigation centre but as hours turned to days there was little to suggest where Genette could have been.
Two holidaymakers staying in the picturesque village came forward to tell police they had seen a man in a car where the girls had been.
That vehicle was never traced and the person behind the wheel never identified.
But by the end of the 1990s serial child-killer Robert Black was linked to the case by police, who had questioned him about it earlier that decade.
In 2007 Devon and Cornwall Police submitted a file to the Crown Prosecution Service but it said there was not enough evidence to charge him.
Then when Black was convicted in 2011 of the 1981 abduction and murder of Jennifer Cardy, nine, the hope was it could reopen investigations.
But after Black died in prison in August 2016 police submitted another file, but it said it would not make a decision on it.
When Genette’s father John died in 2020 he had said in his final interview he did not want to accept she could be dead.
He said: ‘My life is coming to an end. I dearly want to know where Ginny is. Just to know that she has been found and given a Christian burial would be enough.
‘There is no closure. We will probably never have closure, especially now the only suspect is dead.’
Sheila Fox was nicknamed the ‘girl in the green mac’ and has been missing for nearly 80 years
Sheila Fox: August 18, 1944
Six-year-old Sheila Fox’s disappearance happened during World War II in Farnworth, Bolton.
Sheila had left school as usual at 4pm and was thought by friends to be in her way home.
But classmates claimed they had later sighted her outside a local bakery.
He was well-dressed, clean-shaven and said to be slim and aged between 25 and 30.
Various eyewitness described her as being either walking alongside him or riding on the handlebars of a bike he was riding.
Sheila was spoken to at the time and asked where she was going and she is said to have replied she was ‘going with this man’.
She was never seen again.
The trail was cold for nearly 60 years until 2001 when police received a tip-off about a garden in Manchester.
A huge police operation saw the lawn dug up after a man said that as a boy he had seen his neighbour putting something into the ground.
But detectives and forensic experts found nothing and Sheila – dubbed the ‘girl in the green mac’ – remains missing.
One of her relatives had said at the turn of the millennium, she had hoped one day the case could be solved.
Sheila ‘s older sister Rene added: ‘I will be so glad if they find her because it was all so sudden. It left us all feeling so empty. It was a terrible time.
‘We never even found her shoes or a ribbon. It was as if the earth had swallowed her up. It would be such a comfort if she could have a Christian burial.’
Mary Flanagan, 16, vanished on New Year’s Eve, 1959, and had not been seen for over 60 years
Mary Flanagan, December 31, 1959
A New Year’s Eve party had been young Mary Flanagan’s destination when she vanished in Newham in 1959.
The teenager, 16, had made a point to kiss her two little sisters goodbye before she vanished without a trace.
She had worked at the Tate and Lyle factory, but when she disappeared her shocked parents discovered she had not been in for two weeks.
Mary had been besotted with a grown man called Tom, someone who police have never been able to track down.
Since she vanished over 100 unidentified bodies have been DNA tested by experts but none have been her match.
And police have also been hampered by the fact some case records were destroyed during a 2013 flood in Plaistow.
Some of the more persistent theories about her disappearance suggest she may have eloped with Tom.
Or many think it is possible she may have fallen pregnant and decided to run away with him to have the baby.
But her family have never given up hope she will one day come home and they will be reunited.
Mary’s sister Brenda said in 2020: ‘We all think Mary might be embarrassed after all this time, or worried if she got in touch she might be rejected, but that’s not going to happen.
‘She is welcome in our lives and we want her with us.
‘Dead or alive, we just want to know so we can be together, or we can grieve.’
Claudia Lawrence lived by herself in the Heworth area of York, but failed to arrive for work at the University of York on March 18, 2009
Claudia Lawrence: March 18, 2009
Claudia Lawrence, 35, is perhaps the past two decades’ best-known missing adult.
She lived by herself in the Heworth area of York, but failed to arrive for work at the University of York on March 18, 2009.
Ms Lawrence was reported missing by her father Peter Lawrence two days later, after her friends said they had not heard from her.
In the twelve years since her disappearance, nine people have been questioned by officers, but no charges have ever been brought.
The case – which is being treated as a suspected murder – has never been closed by North Yorkshire Police.
Police believe Ms Lawrence – who worked at York University – was murdered, although no body has ever been found.
Her father Mr Lawrence – who campaigned tirelessly for Claudia’s Law, which allows relatives to control of their missing loved ones’ financial matters – died in February aged 74, without finding out what happened to her.
His friend Martin Dales said last year that there could be one or more people ‘at large’ who knew what happened to her.
Ms Lawrence’s mother Joan has spoken numerous times about her agony as not knowing what has happened to her daughter.
In 2020 she said: ‘Still I don’t know where my daughter is. I don’t even know if there is a ‘grave’ somewhere.
‘It plays on my mind that her body is out there.’
Rebecca Coriam, 24, went missing in March 2011 while working as a childminder on the Disney Wonder cruise ship during a cruise between California and Mexico
Rebecca Coriam: March 21, 2011
Chester-born Rebecca Coriam, 24, vanished while she was working on a Disney cruise ship in 2011.
Her lover Tracie Medley said she saw her in the early hours before she vanihsed.
Rebecca’s parents Mike and Ann believe their daughter was murdered and her body thrown overboard after she was sexually assaulted by an unknown attacker.
Disney say she was swept overboard by an enormous wave and vanished at sea.
The alarm was only raised she had gone a few hours after she had not turned up for work.
Her parents settled a lawsuit with Disney out of court in 2016.
Rebecca was filmed on CCTV talking on her phone, but there was no evidence to explain her disappearance.
Superintendent Paul Rolle concluded that there was no evidence of foul play after apparently interviewing just six witnesses.
The ship was packed with 3,000 passengers and staff, but the vast majority were never spoken to by officers.
Cheshire Police was sent the full report by the Bahamian authorities, but claimed they were unable to share it with Miss Coriam’s family because it was not their property.
Missing Georgina Gharsallah, 30, vanished after leaving her mother’s home on March 7, 2018
Georgina Gharsallah: March 7, 2018
Georgina Gharsallah vanished after leaving her mother’s West Sussex home in March 2018.
Her mother Andrea fears the 30-year-old has been murdered or sex trafficked and said her family have since been forced to become the ‘lead investigators’.
The family identified a string of alleged failings including key CCTV footage not being reviewed for more than a year, and a failure to place Georgina on an Interpol watchlist for more than 18 months.
They also say nine potentially significant segments of CCTV were lost by Sussex Police, ‘without explanation.’
Ms Gharsallah’s father Gasem, a managing director, is from Libya while her mother Andrea, a carer at a local convent, is from Sussex.
She lived with her parents and three siblings in Libya before the family moved back to Brighton – where her parents met – when she was 10.
In 2018, Ms Gharsallah had moved back in with her mother – ten days before she went missing – after splitting from her boyfriend.
On the morning of the day she went missing, Mrs Gharsallah said Georgina had mentioned her phone wasn’t working so gave her one of her old devices to use.
Ms Gharsallah then headed into the town centre to pick up a sim card.
The 30-year-old, who had two young sons under the age of ten, was last seen on CCTV in a corner shop in Worthing in West Sussex on March 7, 2018.
She was reported missing to Sussex Police on 17 March and has not accessed her phone, social media accounts or withdrew any cash from her bank account since she vanished.
Two men were arrested on suspicion of murder after a witness saw Ms Gharsallah talking to two men in Worthing, on the evening of March 7.
They were later released with no further action.
Ms Gharsallah is still missing.
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