UK UK - Kellie Pratt, 29, Norwich, Norfolk, 11 Jun 2000

[Al Ka]

Kellie Pratt

Age: 29
Sex: female

Date: 11 Jun 2000
Place: Queens Road, Norwich

Kellie Pratt disappeared from Norwich where she was working in the red-light district.

Her body has never been found and it was thought that she has been murdered.

She was a heroin addict and had moved to Norwich after being released from prison after being convicted of shoplifting. She then started working as a prostitute.

She was last seen outside the Rose Inn at the junction of Queen's Road and City Road at 11:30pm talking on her mobile phone.

It was noted that a few minutes later two women were seen arguing in Kensington Place nearby although it was not known for certain that Kellie Pratt was one of them.

She was reported missing a while later after she missed a pre-arranged lift and could not be contacted on her Nokia 6100 phone. Her phone has never been found.

Kellie Pratt was described as white, 5ft 4in tall, with a medium build and fair hair that was shaved at the front and sides. She was also said to have had badly scarred arms. When she was last seen she was wearing a black mini skirt, a black T-shirt and a light blue coat.

She had two children, a 9-year-old boy and a 5-year-old boy.

Her disappearance was later investigated in relation to the 2006 prostitute murders carried out by Steve Wright who was convicted for the murders of five women, but the police said that they had ruled out any connection.

The Norwich Red Light District is said to have been defined by the area within King Street, Rouen Road, Ber Street and Queen's Road and is known as The Block. It is said to have been used for prostitution since the 17th century.

Kellie Pratt - Unsolved Murder 2000 - Queens Road, Norwich - Kellie Pratt Unsolved Mysteries UK

 

[Al Ka]

15 Apr 2002 Victims of a serial killer?

Four women have disappeared from the streets of Norwich. Three have been found strangled; the fourth is still missing.

With its honey-coloured Norman cathedral and quaint medieval buildings, the sleepy East Anglian town of Norwich feels anything but seedy. But just a few hundred yards from the new riverside developments and the wattle-and-daub cottages, a grid of ancient alleyways, empty car lots and building sites provides the privacy required for the world's oldest profession. This grid of streets is called "the block". Around two dozen women work here as prostitutes, just as women have been doing since the 17th century.

Today, however, this is a dangerous place to be soliciting. It is quite possible that a serial killer is on the loose in Norwich - and it is these women, working the narrow area of King Street, Rouen Road, Ber Street and Queen's Road, on whom he is preying.

On Easter Sunday the strangled body of Michelle Bettles, a 22-year-old mother of three who had been a prostitute since her late teens, was found lying in remote woodland off the A47, some five miles out of Norwich. Three months earlier the decomposed body of Hayley Curtis, a 23-year-old prostitute who went missing last October, was found in a shallow grave off the A3 in Hampshire. And 18 months before that, in June 2000, Kellie Pratt, a 29-year-old mother of two, disappeared as she walked the streets for only the second time in her life.
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As for Pratt, the fact that she disappeared from exactly the same part of the red-light district as Bettles may also be significant. "It's of interest and relevance, but the district isn't that big, and clients looking for prostitutes would not necessarily just go to the same area," says Grant.

The difficulty in linking Pratt's disappearance with the two murders is compounded by the fact that no body has been found.
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Bettles had a long-established heroin habit, and Curtis had been taking the drug at least since her late teens.

Pratt, who had taken heroin for about three years, turned to prostitution four days after being released from prison. (Pearman, who had worked the streets for only a few months, had dabbled with heroin and cocaine but was not addicted at the time of her death.)
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For Gloria Carpena, the mother of Kellie Pratt, the question nags constantly. "Sometimes I think there must be one, but then I think, how have these girls been going to these places all these years and survived? Then it seems that there couldn't be," says Carpena, who watched her daughter decline from a house-proud mother to a heroin addict who took the drug because a friend said it would be more effective than antidepressants.

"I really don't know. In my heart I think really that Kellie's dead, so this is the third one in the space of two years. Perhaps he has done something to Kellie and thinks he has got away with it, and so he has got a little bit more careless? All sorts of things go through your mind, and I have no peace from it."

Women: Victims of a serial killer?

 

[Al Ka]

21 Feb 2008
Other possible victims of Steve Wright

Kellie Pratt, 29

A prostitute who disappeared in June 2000 while she was looking for clients outside a pub in Norwich’s red light district. Her body has never been found. Miss Pratt, a heroin addict, was last seen talking on a mobile phone, which was switched off shortly after a woman thought to be Kellie was seen arguing with another woman nearby.

Other possible victims of Steve Wright

 

[Al Ka]

28 DEC 2006
I know Kellie's not coming home

In an exclusive interview Gloria Carpena said her hopes that she would finally be able to lay her daughter to rest were dashed after police said they are not linking the inquiry with the recent Ipswich murders.

Gloria, 57, said: "I had hoped we were a step closer to finding the truth about what happened to Kellie but that looks as far away as ever."

From a relative's house in Scotswood, in Newcastle, she added: "I have known for a long time now that Kellie is not coming home. I have feared the worst because she would have been in touch by now if she was still alive.

"What I can't come to terms with is that her body has never been found.

"If the police find the murderer and find out what he did with Kellie, then I can finally put her to rest.

"All of the other prostitutes that have been killed have been found. It is only Kellie that is still classed as missing because her body has never been discovered.
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Gloria's hopes were raised when Norfolk Police told last week how they had assigned a senior police officer to look at the possible connection between Kellie's disappearance in the summer of 2000 and the recent string of prostitute murders.

But after Suffolk detectives charged a man for the latest killings it was then revealed that they were not linking murders in previous years to the investigation.

Forklift truck driver Steve Wright, 48, of Ipswich, has appeared in court charged with murdering Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, 24, originally from Berwick, Northumberland, and Annette Nicholls, 29.

All five women were found near villages south of Ipswich over a 10 day period earlier this month (2006). They all worked as prostitutes in Ipswich.

Police in Norwich have confirmed they are now not linking the unsolved murders of two other prostitutes and the disappearance there of Kellie, originally from Byker, in Newcastle.
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Natalie Pearman, aged 16, was found strangled on the outskirts of Norwich in 1992. Michelle Bettles, 22, died in similar circumstances 10 years later.

The third Norwich prostitute, Kellie, 29, disappeared from the red light area six years ago and has never been found.
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Gloria moved to Great Yarmouth to start a new life but after the latest prostitute killings, she returned to Newcastle to be with her family.

Gloria added: I only hope one day I will get the answers I have waited so long for."

I know Kellie's not coming home

 

[Al Ka]

5 JAN 2007
Missing prostitute's body is out there

A missing Tyneside prostitute's ex-husband says he is convinced she has been murdered.

"I finished up hating Kellie when I found out she'd been on the game. One of the neighbours couldn't hold on to her secret any longer and told me. But there was nobody who ever loved Kellie as I did. When Kellie died, a part of me died also and left what's left of me carrying a huge load of guilt on my shoulders, which is something I'll have to bear for the rest of my days.

"There is not a day goes by when I don't feel close to breaking down and there's a couple of times when I've just felt like putting an end to it all and taking the coward's way out. But I can't do that, not while I have two sons.

"Kellie was murdered and her body's still out there on the outskirts of Norwich somewhere."
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Kellie disappeared at the age of 28 from the red-light district in Norwich. The former Heaton Manor School pupil, who once worked at a Gosforth care home, moved to Great Yarmouth in 1998.

Missing prostitute's body is out there

 

[Al Ka]

25 June 2012
Police still trying to solve mystery of missing Norwich prostitute Kellie Pratt

A plea has been issued for information which could help trace the whereabouts of a Norwich prostitute, more than 12 years after she went missing from the city.

Police still trying to solve mystery of missing Norwich prostitute Kellie Pratt

 

[Al Ka]

12 May 2015
Mother dies without knowing fate of missing daughter Kellie Pratt

The mother of a missing prostitute from Great Yarmouth has died without ever knowing what happened to her daughter.

Kellie Pratt’s disappearance 15 years ago remains one of Norfolk’s unsolved cases and her body has never been found.

Police confirmed this week that her mother Gloria Carpena had died in Newcastle.

A friend who asked not to be named said it was sad that Mrs Carpena had had to suffer such and long and heavy burden of loss, the never finding out compounding her nightmare.
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Mother-of-two Kellie, 28, went missing on Sunday, June 11, 2000.

Kellie was last seen at about 11.30pm talking on a mobile phone outside The Rose pub at the junction of Queens Road and City Road in Norwich.

Earlier she had spoken to friends on her mobile to tell them she was with a client.

Later that night she failed to meet her friends for a prearranged lift, leaving all her belongings behind and making no contact with her family or friends.
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Originally from Byker in Newcastle, Kellie had moved to Great Yarmouth with her mother and brother.

She moved to Norwich after being in prison for shoplifting and turned to prostitution to feed her growing heroin addiction.

Mrs Carpena stayed in Yarmouth for some years ‘just in case’ something turned up but eventually moved back to Newcastle.

Mother dies without knowing fate of missing daughter Kellie Pratt

 

[Al Ka]

New appeal 20 years after disapperance of Kellie Pratt

20 years on: what happened to missing Kellie?

Police are appealing for new information 20 years after the disappearance of a woman from Norwich.

Kellie Pratt, aged 28 and from Norwich, went missing on Sunday 11 June 2000. She was last seen outside the Rose Inn public house, at the junction of Queen's Road and City Road in Norwich, at 11:30pm.
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Andy Guy, the Major Crime Review and Cold Case Manager within the joint Norfolk and Suffolk Major Investigation Team, said: "Despite a major police investigation surrounding Kellie’s disappearance nothing has been seen or heard about her since the last known sighting. Officers took 270 statements at the time and various lines of enquiry have pursued since, but Kellie remains a missing person to this day.
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Anyone with information concerning Kellie’s disappearance should call the Major Crime Review Team on 01953 423819.

20 years on: what happened to missing Kellie?

Kellie Pratt disappearance – 20th Anniversary

 

[StillDiggin]

Ex partner of missing Kellie Pratt reveals anguish 24 years after she vanished

The Newcastle mum, who had been working as a prostitute in Norwich, disappeared after moving to the Norfolk city

www.chroniclelive.co.uk