It's hard to imagine a more desperate situation than a child vanishing without a trace. First comes shock, then disbelief, then the tortuous retracing of steps in the hope of finding any clue to locate the absent youngster.
And with 75,000 children reported missing every year in the UK, the mystery of what becomes of the young faces portrayed in posters and news reports is an enduring one.
Thankfully, eight in 10 of these youngsters are found within a couple of days but more than 1,700 remain missing a year on – and some never turn up at all.
Nearly 30 years after Surrey schoolgirl Ruth Wilson disappeared at a local beauty spot, her best friend Catherine Mair has revealed how the 16-year-old’s unravelling of a haunting family secret might be linked with her vanishing.
Speaking last week, Mair, now 46 and a mother and carer, said Wilson was disturbed after learning her mother had died by
suicide instead of falling down the stairs as her father had told her.
“Obviously it’s crazy to find out that something you’ve been told your entire life isn’t true, whatever the reasons,” said Mair.
“Understandably it left a lot of questions for her – why her mother, with two young babies, would take her life just weeks before Christmas.
“Ruth was distressed and confused and started asking some dark questions. She became fixated on getting to the heart of exactly what had happened.”
Wilson, who would have turned 46 at the end of last month, repeatedly told her friend she wanted “to escape” from her home.
On November 27, 1995, she took a taxi to Box Hill, on the North Downs. She was never seen again, despite a huge police search.
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Just as baffling is the case of Hayden Manis, 9, in Muncie, Indiana, whose grandfather has launched an urgent appeal to find him after discovering he had been missing for five years. Gary Manis last saw Hayden, then aged four, in 2019 at a Christmas gathering.
His son Dustin and partner Terri Williams lost custody of Hayden in 2016 when he was just a year old after Dustin was arrested on drug-related charges. But he regained custody after getting clean, against the wishes of relatives.
Dustin had refused to share information about his son. But after his death from an overdose last month, Gary learned that his grandson has, in fact, been missing since 2020. Police are now doing all they can to find him.
Incredibly, some missing children are found decades after they disappeared.
Sheila Fox, who went missing from Coventry in 1972 when she was 16, was found safe and well in another part of the country only last month, more than half a century after her disappearance.
West Midlands Police published a fresh appeal in December and released a photograph of her on their website and social media. Within hours, members of the public contacted them with information that helped the force resolve one of its longest-running missing person investigations.
Detective Sergeant Jenna Shaw, from the cold case investigation team, said: “Every missing person has a story and their families and friends deserve to know what happened to them and, hopefully, be reunited with them.”
In the UK, someone is reported missing every 90 seconds. Yet the myriad of reasons why a child or teenager slips out of public view are increasingly complex, as Chantal Korcz, communications manager of the charity Missing People, explains.
“The issue in the UK is vast, yet often misunderstood,” she explains. “Most of the people who are reported missing may be experiencing some kind of vulnerability or risk. This can be exacerbated by being missing, particularly where someone has gone more than once.”
Statistics from the National Crime Agency reveal children in care are at a high risk of being reported missing. One in 10 children looked after by their local authority are reported missing, compared to one in 200 children living with their natal families.
More than half of missing children have experienced abuse, neglect or sexual exploitation, with one in five feeling forced to leave. There is also a huge problem with the under-reporting of missing people.
“Research suggests that as many as seven in 10 children are not reported to the police when they go missing,” adds Ms Korcz.
“Every person who goes missing will have different circumstances and reasons for going, and it’s important these are explored when they are found or returned.”
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Children also now account for 44% of victims of modern slavery with 7,342 potential child victims identified in 2023, according to the charity Every Child Protected Against Trafficking. One in four trafficked children looked after in local authority care have gone missing.
Behind the startling statistics are the real life stories that continue to haunt families.
Madeleine McCann is perhaps the most famous one of recent times. The three-year-old went missing on holiday in Portugal on May 3, 2007. Missing for almost 18 years, she would now be 21.
Her abduction sparked one of the biggest and most expensive police investigations in history. Her parents, Gerry and Kate, have never given up hope that she will be found.
Genette Tate is another of those young faces etched on the public’s memory. The 13-year-old disappeared while delivering newspapers in Aylesbeare, Devon, on August 19, 1978.
Despite extensive searches, her body has never been found and the cause of her disappearance remains unknown. Missing for more than 46 years, the case is one of Britain’s longest missing person inquiries.
Robert Black, a serial killer convicted in 1994 for similar crimes involving the abduction and murder of young girls, remains the prime suspect, although he has since died.
According to the UK Missing Persons Unit, there are currently more than 1,500 children in the UK classed as “long-term missing” – meaning they have been missing for more than 28 days.
However, a smaller number of children, like Madeleine, have been missing for more than a decade, with investigations often ongoing. These include Daniel Entwistle, who was last seen in May 2003, aged seven, in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. No trace of him has ever been found.
Ames Glover was just five months old when he disappeared from Southall in London. He was last seen in the backseat of his father Paul’s car in 1990. He left Ames in the car while he went to an ATM and a takeaway restaurant and when he returned his baby son had gone.
Like Madeleine McCann, two-year-old Ben Needham vanished on a foreign holiday with his family, in Kos, Greece, in 1991.
British author and journalist Caroline Bullock is fascinated by the subject of missing children and has based her debut novel, The Missing Boy, on real-life cases that have moved her.
She says: “These stories of missing children, like Madeleine or Ben Needham, stick in everyone’s mind. You have a cast of suspects and endless theories. We wonder what happened to them, where they are now?
“In all these iconic cases time stands still for them – they’re rooted in a former life that sparks memories for all of us. This
mystery and nostalgia was very much the inspiration when I wrote the book.”
She also cites the case of Gregory Villemin who was just four when he was murdered in 1984. His body was discovered in a river in eastern France, with his hands and feet bound, marking the start of one of the most haunting criminal cases in the country’s history.
The case of “little Gregory”, as it became known, has haunted the judiciary, media and French public for four decades, with its resolution just as elusive today as it was on October 16, 1984, when he was found dead. No one has ever been charged with his murder.
“Every time I would go to France I would see this story on the cover of magazines, even decades later,” says Caroline.
“It was the 40th anniversary last year and it still haunts the whole community, the whole country, and the case has never been solved.
“These cases of missing children tap into people’s biggest fears. When a child goes missing it doesn’t just affect the family,
there is a massive impact on the whole community.
“These stories of missing children like Madeleine or Ben Needham stick in everyone's mind. You have a cast of suspects and endless theories.
“We wonder what happened to them, where they are now. In all these iconic cases time stands still for them; they’re rooted in a former life that sparks memories for all of us; so this mystery and nostalgia was very much the inspiration when I wrote the book.”
While Gregory was murdered, in many cases concerning missing persons there is no actual evidence a crime has ever been committed.
Susannah Drury, Directory of Policy and Development at Missing People, says more Government funding is crucial to address the plight of missing people.
“It provides the resources needed for search efforts, support services, and preventive measures. Yet, this cause often remains underfunded, leaving missing people at high risk of harm and families struggling in the face of uncertainty and loss,” she says.
“Charities like Missing People play a vital role in preventing people going missing, finding and safeguarding missing people from harm and supporting their families. This is why funding is crucial.”
Of course, each case is compelling in its own macabre way.
The disappearance of Jay Slater, 19, in Tenerife last summer sparked wild online conspiracy theories for weeks. The teenager was last seen on June 17 after leaving a friend’s Airbnb after they had visited a music festival.
Following an extensive land and air search, Spanish police finally found his remains on July 15. He had died after apparently falling from a height and suffering head injuries.
Caroline believes such cases tap into our own deepest fears of how and why a child can slip through the fingers of society, so completely out of reach, either by their own volition or through ill will.
“Whether they are found or not, their story casts a spell,” she says.
“Everyone grows and evolves but that child is frozen in time. These cold cases of missing children tap into visceral, powerful feelings. It is a nightmarish scenario.”
As for Ruth Wilson, Surrey Police says it “continues to keep an open mind about what is behind [her] disappearance”.
A spokesperson said last week: “At this time there is no further evidence to support any one particular line of inquiry about what has happened to Ruth.”
Sadly, the teenager may be one more missing person whose story will never fully be known.
● The Missing Boy by Caroline Bullock is available to buy tomorrow from chiselbury.co.uk, Amazon and all good bookshops.