• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

People Who Just Disappear (Go Missing)

Thank you. That's interesting. However, this police involvement, this keeping tabs on people, no matter the justification, is still an infringement of one's freedom. Every year, for example, it gets harder and harder to travel since one has less and less freedom. I did a lot of travelling abroad during the 70s and into the 90s and I remember how easy it was in the 70s compared to the 90s and early 00s. In fact, I am often surprised at how recently it was that passports were introduced. They are an infringement of one's freedom. One reason I don't want Brexit, for example, is that travel will become more difficult. At least within Europe one can go anywhere without a passport. That feeling of lack of restriction is indescribable.

As to freedom, I quote the Declaration of Arbroath (700 years old last month): "It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

That people are justifying restrictions to freedom e.g. police surveillance, border controls between countries, that people no longer value freedom, demonstrates just how bad things have become.
Not sure on the infringement of freedom thing in the circumstances escargot talked about. You can imagine (just) how life destroying having a child, partner et al go missing suddenly without explanation actually is. The anguish of an unexplained disappearance must be beyond endurance. At least police involvement may uncover what has happened and if the disappeared are found alive and well it must be some comfort to close ones, even though the person may no longer want family contact for whatever reason.
I agree that the 70's was much simpler and not just for travel but in the times we are faced with, I think every traveller should have a passport. And that's me, who thinks that our freedoms are being eroded every day, by totally unnecessary legislation governing even the minutia of our lives.
 
I recently watched one of those US "missing" episodes on the telly. Happened mid 2000's. A married couple who worked different shifts, so sometimes a couple of days went by before they saw each other. Husband gets a call to say wife hasn't turned up for work. No trace of her for 24 hours so he tries to report her as missing, but Police won't accept the report since too soon. He tries several times, searches the roads, badgers the Police, who get a call to say husband is suspicious. He is brought in for questioning when Police find wife upside down in her car in a dense wooded area adjacent to the road she used to get to work. She had gone off the road but amazingly with serious injuries and a week after she had crashed, she was still alive and survived. The husband had travelled that road several times without finding her and if it hadn't been for his badgering the Police the conclusion was that it would be unlikely that she would have been found.
Does make you wonder how many disappeared are lying in a crashed car somewhere not yet found. A few have been found at the bottom of lakes in the past as well.

Reminds me of this very spooky case just a few miles from me in Surrey:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-151325/Did-drivers-ghostly-replay-death-crash.html
 
Richard Morris vanishes after going out for a run. Not seen since the 6th of May

_112226278_capture.jpg


https://news.sky.com/story/richard-...-as-foreign-office-extremely-worried-11986613

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-52635741

My sister and I were discussing this mystery last week. The following day (Thursday 14th, I think) she saw a lunchtime news report saying he had been missing for three months and had been found in a local pond. She was puzzled as he had only been gone for just over a week at that point so she watched the 6 o'clock bulletin to double check. Of course there was no sign of the story or anything similar.
 
My sister and I were discussing this mystery last week. The following day (Thursday 14th, I think) she saw a lunchtime news report saying he had been missing for three months and had been found in a local pond. She was puzzled as he had only been gone for just over a week at that point so she watched the 6 o'clock bulletin to double check. Of course there was no sign of the story or anything similar.
Timeslip? Can you look forward in your calendar for the date that would equate to three months since he went missing, and make a note?
 
Timeslip? Can you look forward in your calendar for the date that would equate to three months since he went missing, and make a note?

I would guess that would be around the 6th of August, so I will keep a lookout for any news. I hope it's wrong though and he has just gone walkabout.
 

He has been found dead, unfortunately.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-53976713

It may or not be relevant that the forest in which the body was discovered had previously been searched.

Suicide or natural causes, one suspects.
 
New development in the case of Tony Parsons, the cyclist who went missing in the Scottish Highlands
Exclusive: Two men arrested in connection with disappearance of grandfather last seen in the Highlands three years ago
by David Walker
December 31, 2020, 5:55 pm

Two men have been arrested in connection with the disappearance of Tony Parsons.
The two 29-year-olds were arrested yesterday but have now been released pending further inquiries.
Mr Parsons vanished three years ago as he made his way from Fort William back home to Tillicoultry, Clackmannanshire.
He had travelled north for a charity bike ride on September 29, and was last seen at about 11.30pm on October 2 outside the Bridge of Orchy Hotel on the A82.
Police confirmed that the two men had been arrested and then released and that inquiries were continuing.

etc

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/f...r-last-seen-in-the-highlands-three-years-ago/
 
New development in the case of Tony Parsons, the cyclist who went missing in the Scottish Highlands


https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/f...r-last-seen-in-the-highlands-three-years-ago/
This case has mystified me over the years and I've followed it quite closely. I don't think the 'mystery' was with the disappearance so much as with how someone could be allowed to go off so ill-prepared for the task in hand. He was, basically, an accident waiting to happen.

I do hope his family get some resolution now though.
 
This case has mystified me over the years and I've followed it quite closely. I don't think the 'mystery' was with the disappearance so much as with how someone could be allowed to go off so ill-prepared for the task in hand. He was, basically, an accident waiting to happen.

I do hope his family get some resolution now though.

It doesn't sound good, does it? :(
 
I often look for updates on Shaun Ritchie, a 20 year-old who vanished in 2014 after attending a party on a farm in Fraserburgh.

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/f...an-shaun-ritchie-still-missing-five-years-on/

The case didn't get very much coverage at all beyond the Scottish press and I can't find anything more recent than October 2019 on it


Poor lad, and it must be awful for his family.

I suspect someone knows something but they're not spilling the beans. One day they'll crack.

If he'd gone missing in, say, January, in bitter cold, and his clothing had been found, I'd suspect he'd suffered from hypothermia and started stripping off because he'd started feeling warm.
This can happen. He'd have been found nearby though.
 
Poor lad, and it must be awful for his family.

I suspect someone knows something but they're not spilling the beans. One day they'll crack.

If he'd gone missing in, say, January, in bitter cold, and his clothing had been found, I'd suspect he'd suffered from hypothermia and started stripping off because he'd started feeling warm.
This can happen. He'd have been found nearby though.

Drug deal gone wrong. Murdered.
 
Drug deal gone wrong. Murdered.

That’s what I was erring towards to. The detail of he and his friends being coerced into the van that took them to the party (and the Snapchat from one of the group saying they’d been kidnapped) definitely suggests foul play.
 
Chinese technology tycoon Jack Ma, founder of the Alibaba empire, disappears from his Dragon's Den style TV show and has not been seen in public since criticising the Communist regime.

https://www.ft.com/content/a91dfeae-da1e-4348-8212-bbfbe94d93bd
Bad news indeed. Just the other day, I was thinking 'Jack Ma's one of the good guys over there' because he's actually been fairly philanthropic in the Covid crisis. I feel sure he will surface again - can't easily disappear somebody with such a high profile without questions being asked.
 
Bad news indeed. Just the other day, I was thinking 'Jack Ma's one of the good guys over there' because he's actually been fairly philanthropic in the Covid crisis. I feel sure he will surface again - can't easily disappear somebody with such a high profile without questions being asked.
Mmm - don't know about that. Chinese authorities seem totally unconcerned about the opinion of the rest of the world.
 
Another development in the Tony Parsons case
BEAUTY SPOT DIG Cops searching for missing cyclist Tony Parsons dig up posh estate near Bridge of Orchy three years after he vanished

  • 12 Jan 2021, 20:44
  • Updated: 12 Jan 2021, 20:44
COPS searching for a cyclist who disappeared more than three years ago are digging up a posh country estate.
Specialist officers were excavating the grounds of rural Auch Estate, Bridge of Orchy, Argyll, around four miles from where Tony Parsons was last seen.



Cop stands guard at the scene
Expert soil analysts were also involved in the huge operation in the sprawling pile.
The dramatic development comes almost 3½ years after grandad Tony, then 63, vanished during a cycle from Fort William to his home in Tillicoultry, Clackmannanshire.
Earlier this month, we told how police probing the former Naval officer’s disappearance had arrested two men, both aged 29.
etc

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/ne...sing-tony-parsons-bridge-of-orchy-police-dig/
 
“Cops” “nicked” etc quality journalism from The Sun.

Years ago, at work in some dead-end job, a colleague read out a story from that day's S*n about something that had featured in top people's paper, the Guardian.

I said 'Oooh, top people's paper, eh?' and pulled out my own copy of that very publication. 'So I'm a top person then?'

They looked at me aghast. It was as if I'd casually produced the Holy Grail.

What the hell did I think I was doing with the Guardian when I was just a common working person? Who said I could read posh things?

sigh
 
Remains have been found
Human remains found in search for missing cyclist Tony Parsons
Published4 hours ago
Share

Police have discovered human remains during a search for a man who went missing more than three years ago during a charity cycle ride.
Tony Parsons, from Tillicoultry, was last seen on 29 September 2017 outside the Bridge of Orchy Hotel.
Detectives said the discovery was made during a detailed search of a remote site close to a farm near the A82 at Bridge of Orchy.
Police said that Mr Parsons' family have been made aware of the discovery.
Efforts to recover the remains will continue over the coming days before a post mortem is held to establish their identity.
etc

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-55632811
 

How awful. I wasn't aware of the recent developments of searching the estate cottage etc, which was quite shocking because I don't think it was the sort of outcome any of us really expected. I'm very familiar with the road in question and the area, having driven along there many times, and knowing what an awful road it would be for cycling on (especially in the dark) I half-expected his body to just be found near the side of the road, having been accidentally knocked off his bike or summat. But as time passed I guess that became less and less likely or it would have already been discovered.

If the remains are of poor Mr Parsons (RIP) then I guess the only thing is that at least it is some closure for his family rather than the agony of not knowing, but of course not the best outcome they could have hoped for. :(

Hopefully the police do get to the bottom of what happened and the perpetrator(s) is/are brought to justice.
 
What the hell did I think I was doing with the Guardian when I was just a common working person? Who said I could read posh things?
Housemate of mine, a keen musician bass guitarist, insisting that classical music wasn't for "the likes of us".
 
So . . . "posh" people can't listen to and enjoy rock and roll? :yellowc:
 
It's pretty close to where he was last seen. I'm guessing it was a hit and run.
Yep I always thought that the hit and run explanation was going to be the solution, that is if Mr Parsons wasn't involved in some sort of skulduggery. I wonder what the arrested characters explanation will be- surely it would have been easy , if you were that way inclined, to simply call the Police and come up with "he had no lights on and rode out straight in front of us , honest Gov" type excuse. One suspects that those involved had something more to hide. Tragic end for the family.
 
Back
Top