Disappearance of Corrie McKeague

Life

McKeague was born in Perth and moved to Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland at the age of nine, following his parents' divorce. McKeague and his two brothers, Darroch and Makeyan, were raised by their mother and attended St Columba's High School in Dunfermline. McKeague joined the RAF Regiment in 2013 and was posted to No. II Squadron Royal Air Force Regiment based at RAF Honington after his initial Regiment training at the base. McKeague is a Senior Aircraftman gunner and medic on the squadron.

In January 2017, April Oliver, aged 21, announced that she was pregnant with McKeague's baby. Neither she nor McKeague were aware of the pregnancy at the time of his disappearance. They had been going out for 5 months. Miss Oliver was on a holiday in America when McKeague disappeared, but cut the holiday short to return to the UK.

Disappearance

On the night of 23 September 2016, McKeague was out drinking with friends in Bury St Edmunds,. He had driven himself to the town with the intention of leaving his car overnight. He separated from his friends in the early hours of 24 September, after leaving the Flex nightclub on St Andrews Street South. The doorman at Flex recalls asking McKeague to leave because he was too drunk to stay. He remarked that McKeague was 'no trouble' whatsoever and that they chatted afterwards on the street outside. McKeague was in the Mama Mia's takeaway restaurant, reportedly his usual takeaway restaurant, between 1:15 am and 1:30 am. The last known sighting of McKeague was on CCTV at 3:25 am on Brentgovel Street. CCTV footage also suggested that McKeague had slept briefly in a doorway before waking up and moving on. It is not believed that he intended to walk back to his base, RAF Honington, which is 10 miles (16 km) north east of the town along minor unclassified roads.

Nicola Urquhart, his mother, has stated that her son has never walked back to Honington on any previous occasions. However, leaving on his own, getting food and sleeping for a short time have all been cited by his friends and his mother as something McKeague has done in the past.

As he had the weekend off, McKeague was not reported missing until the 26 September (the following Monday) when he failed to report for work. Since he was reported missing, the Suffolk Lowland Search and Rescue team (SULSAR) have been involved with the police in searching the area around Bury St Edmunds and Honington alongside the RAF's own search and rescue teams which have been bolstered by searches involving police helicopters.

There was one unconfirmed sighting of McKeague at the back of a sugar factory at Bury St Edmunds at 4:20 am, but police have stressed this has now been investigated and the person involved is not Corrie. The last known authenticated sighting was on the CCTV at Brentgovel Street.

Investigation

On the morning of McKeague's disappearance, his mobile phone moved from Bury St Edmunds to Barton Mills, some 12 miles (19 km) to the north west along the corridor of the A1101 road. Phone data indicates that this journey took 28 minutes, which means that it did not cover the distance by someone walking on foot. Suffolk Constabulary seized a bin lorry that was said to have contained his Nokia Lumia mobile but the line of enquiry led to nothing. It was noted that the bin lorry seized was only carrying a weight of 15 kilograms (33 lb) and so could not have been carrying McKeague himself as he weighs around 90 kilograms (200 lb). This led to searches being carried out along the bin lorry's route between the two towns. The mobile phone was either switched off at 8:00 am, ran out of battery power or was damaged and it was not found.

One focus of the investigation has been whether or not someone gave a lift to McKeague as he was walking back to his base. His mother stated that Corrie would have accepted a lift if offered to him, as he would offer a lift if he was driving and saw someone walking on their own. She also appealed for anyone who may have given him a lift to come forward, even if something untoward had happened. Police believe that McKeague is not in Bury St Edmunds. Superintendent Katie Elliott stated in an interview to Forces TV with Nicola Urquhart that there could be third party involvement and that the police would not rule anything out.

The investigation also covered parts of the Hollow Road Industrial Estate in Bury St Edmunds and Great Livermere, a small village close to RAF Honington on McKeague's supposed route back to his base. Along with the British Transport Police, the Suffolk Constabulary searched along railway lines in the area and some of the roads have been closed to enable thorough searches to go ahead. In November 2016, a stretch of the eastbound carriageway of the A14 road, was closed between junctions 44 & 45 (Moreton Hall & Rougham) to search for McKeague.

A dismembered and burned body was found in a suitcase off the A628 road near Tintwistle in Derbyshire on the 10 October 2016. Initial investigations led police to say that it was a white man under the age of 50, but it was later revealed that a DNA search had come up negative and Derbyshire Police confirmed the body was not McKeague's.

In November 2016, it was revealed that in the two hours between 3:00 am and 5:00 am on the morning of 24 September 2016, 39 people are seen on the same CCTV camera as the last one to record McKeague's transit. Despite repeated inquiries and appeals 23 of these people remain unidentified. Suffolk Constabulary installed a 'Pod' at a Christmas Fair in Bury St Edmunds between the 24 and 25 November 2016. The public were encouraged to visit the pod to help establish the identities of the 23 people, of which, by December 4, 13 had been positively identified.

In December 2016, 5 square miles (13 km²) of the woodland between Barton Mills and RAF Honington was searched by volunteers and staff from the Suffolk Lowland Search and Rescue Team. They were searching the King's Forest area in the possibility that McKeague had been hit by a vehicle on his way home. The area had not been searched before and was declared officially cleared by the end of 17 December 2016. Nichola Urquhart said that she had prepared herself mentally for finding her son's body.

In December 2016, Nichola Urquhart publicly went on record as saying that Suffolk Constabulary were not investigating her sons' disappearance properly. The appeal fund raised in Corrie's name had attracted funds of more than £50,000 by the end of December 2016 and Mrs Urquhart was considering hiring a private investigator to pursue lines of enquiry which she believes the police should have done, but so far had not. Suffolk Constabulary defended their actions stating "We are very focused on finding Corrie. Although it is a missing persons inquiry, we have given it the same resources as a major investigation. We have not ruled out any possibility." Mrs Urquhart postponed hiring an investigator after Suffolk Constabulary agreed to investigate an incident where three men were seen setting fire to a car on the 25 September 2016. The police said that there was no link between the car being set alight and McKeague's disappearance. In the same interview, Mrs Urquhart described her son as a "social hand grenade" as he would have been happy to get into a stranger's car.

In January 2017, the back of a mobile phone was found close to where the last signal from Corrie's mobile phone was detected. However, as the part contained "no essential components", such as a SIM card or any electronic parts, the police said it would be impossible to link the part with Corrie's disappearance and that no investigations would be carried out on it. However, police were looking into his activities on a swingers' website. His family had provided Suffolk Constabulary with his username on at least one site.

In February 2017, police started searching the landfill previously identified as being the last place his mobile phone was located when it connected to a tower. The search will cover 1,100 square yards (920 m²) to a depth of 25 feet (7.6 m) and is expected to take ten weeks. On 13 February, McKeague's mother announced that a £50,000 reward, offered for information about her son, was to be withdrawn if nobody came forward in the following week.

On 1 March 2017, a 26-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice. The man is not the driver of the bin lorry nor a relative of Corrie. The man was released on the 7 March 2017 and police issued a statement saying that they believed he had genuinely made a mistake and they dropped the charge of perverting the course of justice. In conjunction with this, police revealed that an error was made in the calculations of the weight that the bin lorry was carrying and that it was close to 220 pounds (100 kg). Nichola Urquhart stated on Facebook that "This can really, devastatingly, only mean one thing".

Theories

A retired senior detective from the Metropolitan Police, Colin Sutton, has gone on record as saying that McKeague's disappearance was not intentional as making preparations leaves a digital footprint. Sutton also said that McKeague is shown going into a cul-de-sac that is blocked off by a high wall and a fence, but there is no CCTV of him leaving the road. He doubts whether McKeague would have been aware of where the CCTV cameras are located, which Sutton says, is also indicative of not leaving intentionally. The CCTV cameras that are owned by the council in the town do not give 100% coverage. Even with private CCTV recordings being reviewed, there have been no further sightings of McKeague. McKeague's uncle, Tony Wringe, said that the area off Brentgovel Street that McKeague was shown walking into on CCTV, had been physically tested and it was shown to be impossible to not be caught on CCTV if leaving on foot.

Sutton said that his guess was that there was another person or other people involved in McKeague's disappearance.

McKeague's job with the RAF was not a contributory factor according to the lead detective in the investigation. Intended disappearance was also put in doubt by McKeague's happy mood at the time; he was making plans to meet up with his brother, Darroch, on the night that he went missing, with his last text being sent at 03:08 am. He had also booked flights to go home to Dunfermline for Halloween. His mother also pointed out that he loved his dog which he kept at RAF Honington and would not have left it behind intentionally. She has stated that there are three possible scenarios; that he has met with an accident and is dead, that he left voluntarily or that a third party is involved.

Whilst it has not been stated openly, some parallels have been drawn between the proximity (37 miles (60 km) away) of McKeague's disappearance with an attempted kidnapping of a serviceman at RAF Marham in July 2016. Whilst kidnapping is one investigative route, McKeague's mother, who is a family liaison officer with Police Scotland, said that it was not something that the police were discussing with her. In December 2016, the outgoing Station Commander of RAF Honington, Group Captain Mick Smeath ruled out any link between the attempted abduction at RAF Marham and the disappearance of McKeague.

In November 2016, the family issued a statement on Facebook saying that they were unhappy with the police investigation. McKeague's uncle, Tony Wringe, said that "This is a Major Investigation Team in name not function" (sic). The family also said that a decision not to search a landfill in the Barton Mills area for McKeague's phone was wrong.