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'Low Strangeness' Disappearances (Missing Persons; Runaways; Crime-Related)

An experienced 80-year-old hiker disappeared in the Yorkshire Dales, triggering a search operation. He surfaced by showing up at the pub where officials were planning to make an appeal for information after failing to find him for 4 days.
An 80-year-old who disappeared while out hiking turned up at his own missing person appeal

An 80-year-old man who went missing while hiking during a hailstorm was reunited with his family at a press conference staged to try and find him.

Harry Harvey was reported missing at 1.30 pm on Sunday after he became separated from his walking partner while out hiking in the Yorkshire Dales, in the northeast of England. ...

Police, the Royal Air Force (RAF) and mountain rescue workers spent four days searching for the experienced hiker and a press conference was planned for Wednesday at The Tan Hill Inn, situated within the national park.

But the planned appeal turned into a celebration when Harvey turned up at the pub.

A wildlife photographer had spotted him while out on the moors and contacted rescuers. ...

Seated by a roaring fire in the country pub, he described being "caught in a really heavy hailstorm" with "howling gales and winds." ...

"By the time I got my kit on it was really dark," he said at the press conference ...

Harvey said he then reverted to "plan B" by finding somewhere safe to camp and setting up his tent. ...

Asked how he felt about the gathering at the pub, he said: "If I'd have known, I wouldn't have come back. I could do without all of this.

"I had three really good wild camping nights where I was on my own and had all the kit I needed. The only thing I was getting a bit short of... I've got a hell of an appetite... and when I get hungry I've got to get something to eat or I can't go on."

Harvey's relatives were less enthusiastic about the experience. His daughter-in-law, whose name was not given, told the press conference: "He's had a blast, we've had a nightmare." ...

FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/missing-hiker-gbr-scli-intl/index.html
 
Asked how he felt about the gathering at the pub, he said: "If I'd have known, I wouldn't have come back. I could do without all of this.

Harvey's relatives were less enthusiastic about the experience. His daughter-in-law, whose name was not given, told the press conference: "He's had a blast, we've had a nightmare." ...

Ungrateful old sod.
 
He didn't ask them to search for him. The article refers to him as an experienced hiker, chances are his family or walking partner panicked and called in the authorities unduly.
 
Ungrateful old sod.
Exactly. Stories like this really pee me off. Saw him briefly on TV when he said this experience wouldn't put him off going off on his own again. Should be made to pay the full cost of the rescue, and then given a good slap.
 
He didn't ask them to search for him. The article refers to him as an experienced hiker, chances are his family or walking partner panicked and called in the authorities unduly.
If you suddenly didn't know where your 80 year-old hiking companion had got to you wouldn't just assume he's OK, go home and forget about him. You'd raise the alarm in case he was in danger.

However, I smell a rat here. Why didn't they stay together when the stormy weather started? That's what you're supposed to do. Had they had an argument, so one stomped off in a different direction?

Also, how could a big search party miss his tent for four days? Why was he carrying a full set of camping gear and at least two days' food on a hike? Inquiring minds need to know.
 
If you suddenly didn't know where your 80 year-old hiking companion had got to you wouldn't just assume he's OK, go home and forget about him. You'd raise the alarm in case he was in danger.

However, I smell a rat here. Why didn't they stay together when the stormy weather started? That's what you're supposed to do. Had they had an argument, so one stomped off in a different direction?

Also, how could a big search party miss his tent for four days? Why was he carrying a full set of camping gear and at least two days' food on a hike? Inquiring minds need to know.
Yes I found this story as reported a little strange. He may well be in a state where his family should worry about him, they're not going to discuss this with the papers.
 
Not fans of personal freedom are you?

No, just a fan of acting responsibly. You can get GPS trackers when out hiking which he obviously didn't have. Acting like a spoilt child.

Reminds me of a woman I worked with who was in her 70's, had a fall at work and cracked her head. Refused an ambulance, refused the offer to be driven to A&E. Said she would "take it further" if I called her son. Eventually agreed to go home after a good two hours of time-wasting but neglected to say she was on her own that night, (we all thought her son would be there).

The next we heard she was off for a month with a neck injury - probably concussion as well.

If she died how would we have felt? Horribly selfish behavior.
 
If you suddenly didn't know where your 80 year-old hiking companion had got to you wouldn't just assume he's OK, go home and forget about him. You'd raise the alarm in case he was in danger.

However, I smell a rat here. Why didn't they stay together when the stormy weather started? That's what you're supposed to do. Had they had an argument, so one stomped off in a different direction?

Also, how could a big search party miss his tent for four days? Why was he carrying a full set of camping gear and at least two days' food on a hike? Inquiring minds need to know.
I agree. The story doesn't make a lot of sense.

Not showing up at home when expected is a good way to get a search party organized, no matter how old you are. And that's good!
 
Talking of mad as badger 80 year olds, yesterday one such walked into the Halifax bank in Blackpool, and poured petrol everywhere including on himself. The resultant standoff involved evacuating all the shops on the street, 6 ambulances, huge number of Police, a helicopter and a drone and hundreds of sight seers. Clearly no one was prepared to bring the daft old git down before it got totally out of hand. One despairs. I hope if I get to 80 and act like some of these characters you hear about (including the old guy who got a good beating for ranting racist bile on public transport) that someone will have the guts to put me away.
 
Talking of mad as badger 80 year olds, yesterday one such walked into the Halifax bank in Blackpool, and poured petrol everywhere including on himself. The resultant standoff involved evacuating all the shops on the street, 6 ambulances, huge number of Police, a helicopter and a drone and hundreds of sight seers. Clearly no one was prepared to bring the daft old git down before it got totally out of hand. One despairs. I hope if I get to 80 and act like some of these characters you hear about (including the old guy who got a good beating for ranting racist bile on public transport) that someone will have the guts to put me away.
You do wonder how they get to that age, with such behaviour.
 
No, just a fan of acting responsibly. You can get GPS trackers when out hiking which he obviously didn't have. Acting like a spoilt child.

Reminds me of a woman I worked with who was in her 70's, had a fall at work and cracked her head. Refused an ambulance, refused the offer to be driven to A&E. Said she would "take it further" if I called her son. Eventually agreed to go home after a good two hours of time-wasting but neglected to say she was on her own that night, (we all thought her son would be there).

The next we heard she was off for a month with a neck injury - probably concussion as well.

If she died how would we have felt? Horribly selfish behavior.

You did exactly the right thing there, full marks for trying. If she'd died from it, even a while later, you'd've found yourself summoned to her inquest to explain to the Coroner why she went home instead of to hospital.

Sounds like the Natasha Richardson scenario. You may have read my rant elsewhere about the importance of taking head injuries seriously!
 
Talking of mad as badger 80 year olds, yesterday one such walked into the Halifax bank in Blackpool, and poured petrol everywhere including on himself. The resultant standoff involved evacuating all the shops on the street, 6 ambulances, huge number of Police, a helicopter and a drone and hundreds of sight seers. Clearly no one was prepared to bring the daft old git down before it got totally out of hand. One despairs. I hope if I get to 80 and act like some of these characters you hear about (including the old guy who got a good beating for ranting racist bile on public transport) that someone will have the guts to put me away.

Yup, one assumes there was no attempt to Taser him in case the spark set off the petrol vapour. (The vapour aspect is a pet peeve of mine. I have whinged about this before.)

Last night I put on the local news hoping to find out about this, but for some reason we got the Yorkshire news instead! This has been known to happen when a fire alarm went off in the Granada studio. Didn't get an explanation this time.
 
That's why Craig Shergold has received hundreds of millions of birthday cards for three decades. (I assume that's still happening?).

Mr Shergold sadly died on 21 April this year of Covid. He had received 350 million greeting cards, a Guinness world record.
 
You do wonder how they get to that age, with such behaviour.
I wonder that about a lot of people. Even some teenagers.

My maternal grandmother lived to age 80, after suffering a series of "mild" strokes from which she always recovered well enough to return home. My mother finally had to stop taking her shopping and pretty much anywhere else because she would just blurt out whatever she might be thinking. Mom got tired of dealing with awkward situations caused by Grandma saying things she would not dream of uttering aloud before her strokes.
 
Mr Shergold sadly died on 21 April this year of Covid. He had received 350 million greeting cards, a Guinness world record.

I didn't know that, what a shame. And he'll still be getting those cards sent to him, to add insult to injury.
 
Still no resolution.

Tests on materials found in a renewed search for a Royal Navy sailor who vanished in Gibraltar in 1986 have shown they are not human.

Simon Parkes, an 18-year-old radio operator from Bristol who is thought to have been murdered, disappeared while on shore leave. Police said the latest two-week search, was sparked by "new areas of interest" at Trafalgar Cemetery. The materials were tested by archaeologists and an anthropologist.

Hampshire Constabulary said: "Following the search operation, no materials that were examined have been identified as human."

The searches by specialist teams from Royal Gibraltar Police at the cemetery concluded on 30 September.

Det Insp Adam Edwards said: "We have kept Mr and Mrs Parkes informed of our progress and I'd like to thank them again for their support. We know this remains a difficult time for them and we hope our work will finally bring them the answers they so desperately want."

The case was reopened in 2001 after a shipmate, petty officer Allan Grimson, was convicted of two murders. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-54505335
 
A woman named Sarah Everard has been missing for a week, last seen in South London.
Walked at night from Clapham to Brixton along the South Circular Road.
How can someone just vanish along a busy stretch of road, even in lockdown it's busy?

Something quite liminal about where she was last seen, never felt comfortable along that stretch of road.
It is Clapham South rather than Clapham proper, too far East to be Streatham, too far South to be Brixton.

A police officer has been arrested in connection with the investigation.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...sted-disappearance-Sarah-Everard-Clapham.html
 
Here is another one from the archives.

FT93 from December 1996 reported the disappearance in 1995 of two Belgium teenagers, An Marchal, 17 and Eefje Lambrecks, 19. The story goes that they were hypnotised at a seaside show and CCTV cameras showed them walking around like zombies. They boarded a train for Ostend and were never seen again.
Sadly we now know that they were victims of the serial killer Marc Dutroux. The connection with hypnotism seems to have been coincidence as Dutroux confessed to having drugged them.
Strangely, the report in the FT was from the Daily Mirror and the Evening Standard in early August 1996. The bodies of the 2 girls were discovered days later.
 
This is one of the oddest stories I've seen in a while ... I'm calling it a "Low Strangeness Disappearance" even though one might say she hadn't really disappeared. She was where she'd been all along, though unfound until accidentally discovered.
Woman missing since November found alive in Utah canyon

... On November 25, 2020, US Forest Service Officials found a car in the parking lot of a campground in the Diamond Fork Area of Spanish Fork Canyon.

Along with the car, officials found camping equipment and information that lead them to identify the person who was camping there.

A search of the area was then performed by Utah County Sheriff’s Office (UCSO) detectives and a Search and Rescue team, but no one was found. ...

Over the next several months, UCSO attempted to identify and contact the woman’s family, but they were unsuccessful.

Deputies then contacted the woman’s coworkers and received information that suggested she struggled with her mental health ...

Then, on May 2, a UCSO Sergeant returned to Diamond Fork with a nonprofit aerial search organization in an attempt to find evidence that suggested the woman still might be in the area.

The aerial search organization deployed a drone to search for evidence, but the drone crashed. The UCSO and drone pilot then set out to search for the drone. ...

As they searched for the drone, UCSO said that the sergeant and drone pilot spotted a tent nearby.

According to a news release, at that moment, the zipper of the tent opened and the 47-year-old woman who had been missing since November of 2020 appeared. ...

UCSO said the woman had willingly chosen to remain in the area since November 2020. The woman told Search and Rescue Officials that she foraged for moss and grass to survive and had access to water supply via a nearby river, a news release said.

After the woman was found, Deputies took her to a local hospital for a mental health evaluation. ...

UCSO stressed that the woman did not break the law, saying “But we want to be clear that ... she did nothing against the law. And in the future, she might choose to return to the same area.” ...
FULL STORY: https://www.wfla.com/news/national/woman-missing-since-november-found-alive-in-diamond-fork-canyon/
 
Interesting case.

A teenage girl who disappeared while jogging in north-west France but was found alive after a huge hunt has said she escaped an attempting kidnapping.

The 17-year-old was found in a state of shock in a takeaway about 10km (six miles) from where she had gone running. She was receiving medical care after vanishing on Monday in the Mayenne region, east of Rennes.

French media reports say she told police she had been held captive by kidnappers but managed to flee. Prosecutors said a kidnapping investigation had been opened and a man had been questioned in custody but released without charge.

The teenager, a regular runner who has not been named, left her home for the local Bellebranche forest at around 16:00 on Monday. The girl's father went looking for her after she failed to return home, and called the police three hours later. When searching his daughter's running route, the father found her phone and GPS watch, with traces of blood.

Investigators searching for the girl examined data from her running app, which showed her jog had abruptly ended in a rural area. A search involving some 200 police officers, rescue dogs, divers and a helicopter was launched.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59231418
 
This lengthy article describes what is finally known about the disappearance of a 20-year-old Cleveland bank teller who walked out of his bank one day with $215,000 in 1969 and vanished into thin air ...
Mystery solved: Theodore Conrad vanished after robbing Cleveland bank where he worked in 1969; marshals traced him to Boston suburb

Fifty-two years ago, a young teller left his job at Society National Bank on Public Square with $215,000 in stolen cash. Within hours, he vanished.

Theodore Conrad, just 20, had pulled off one of the biggest bank heists in Cleveland history. His disappearance became one of the city’s greatest mysteries.

Federal agents from across the country tried to track down the graduate of Lakewood High School, class of 1967. Some believed he had bolted for the beaches of California, hoping to ride waves and escape Cleveland winters. Others thought he had settled in Europe. The missing cash, adjusted for inflation, would be worth about $1.7 million today.

On Friday, U.S. Marshal Peter Elliott said his office solved the mystery his father, John, had investigated decades ago: Theodore Conrad died in a suburb north of Boston in May. He was 71. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.cleveland.com/crime/202...969-marshals-traced-him-to-boston-suburb.html
 
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