UK UK - Corrie McKeague, 23, Bury St Edmunds, 24 September 2016 #15

[Northern Light]

A personal honest insight, invaluable. Thank you.

 

[Northern Light]

Being bipolar (thankfully now treated and under control), and having attended several mental health courses, I feel semi-qualified to say the following:

Often very depressed people are seen to be the happiest people around; certainly everyone I knew was astonished when I tried to commit suicide.

Once a person has decided that suicide is a justified course of action, that option is always there to be used at a whim.

Typically, many people who decide to end it ll go through a period of extreme happiness leading up to the event (they are happy their troubles will soon be over).

Often, families & friends rebuke the idea that their loved one could be suicidal

No idea if any of this applies to this case as the Police obviously only release the bare minimum information to move the case along and the family seem more positive PR focused.

I just want to say thank you for telling it as it is on your very personal journey and from a qualified IMO, perspective. We are observers in a journey if we haven't had the experience of actually going through it. Yes we can empathise and be supportive but we are not going through what our friend, family member and colleague is going through to have the same insight. I wish you the very best of continued health and it really is good to read that you received the treatment and support. I have no thoughts on C being suicidal. My observer status comment is work related and my personal support to others over the years.

 

[bojarney]

Thanks all for sharing your perspectives and experiences. It's really important. I'd like to add that I have been suffering from some Mental Health issues lately. However if you asked my close friends and family about me, they would all say I was very happy, always messing around, positive attitude and first person to want to go out, have fun etc. I think extreme happiness with extreme low points factors a LOT in certain MH issues. I think this could be a possibility for C.

Also people with MH issues tend to be VERY good at covering it up. <modsnip>

 

[Ruthbullock]

Can you elaborate on this theory please?

which part bike, or housing?

 

[onthecounter]

which part bike, or housing?

bike

 

[Northern Light]

Bojarney - I just want to say how invaluable your personal experience is too and thank you for sharing. A member of staff I had was in denial that there could be anything wrong for a long time prior to diagnoses, ongoing treatment and counselling. Friends, staff and family had no idea of the struggle the person was going through. As you say in your post, some people are very good at covering it up. Wishing you a rewarding and positive journey.

 

[Niamh]

A personal honest insight, invaluable. Thank you.

You're welcome Northern Light, as you can tell, I can laugh about the situation now, I'll never forget clambering over that wall at the crack of dawn!
And very best wishes to Tucker and bojarney too, being able to talk about it is half the battle.

 

[eagle eyes]

ruth bullock, I also think that a bicycle (not necessarily the cyclist) is also a line of thought to be mused upon. I believe I read before that the phone pinging was consistent to the journey speed of the bin lorry (and therefore slower than a usual car on an A road?). This speed could potentially match that of a cyclist? Have you any other thoughts on this?
I still question suicide, the body hasn't turned up, no messages etc, and also , if C was wanting to commit suicide in a specific place outside BSE, wouldn't he have driven there over the limit or not?

 

[eagle eyes]

Thank you ruth bullock, I just checked the original missing poster that asks for any found objects including a bike. Curious that this was included on the list of objects at that point? In addition I have now noticed there is a bike rank in the pictures of the horse shoe. May mean nothing, but the police have always said C could not have left the HS unseen 'on foot'.

 

[Purplepixii]

Ah the bike, I too remember that being mentioned right at the beginning of all of this. For some reason Corrie strikes me as the sort of person who, drunk, would "help himself" to an unlocked bike and then grab hold of the back of the bin lorry and whizz along behind it. I remember friends doing similar on skateboards when I was at school - looked like great fun!

 

[Reallyodd]

For anyone who is able to do maps and phone ping overlays, I now have a comprehensive list of all married quarters for RAF honington, if anyone would find this useful please let me know (I will give rough areas, rather than the specific road names). The quarters by the golf course are american quarters, not british (not that it means that wasn't where the party may have been). I know think bike man has a lot more to do with this, still unidentified, talking to lots of people (did he stop and talk to Corrie in the doorway?) and the original information appeal posters looking for keys, wallet, phone and bike.

With my posts about this I was going along the line of the fact that C's phone went from BSE to BM. The party would fit in with this very well and at that time of night, if he couldn't get home or perhaps wanted to stay out longer, it would be the most logical place to go. We know he had at least one American friend, so I wouldn't discount a venue with others. Two golf courses in the BM area, where his phone remained until at least 8am when it probably ran out of battery.

If my theory of him having pre-arranged a lift to the party, just before he sent his last text at 3:08am in Hughes doorway, is right, then his lift could be arriving at about 3:30am or maybe a bit later and that then fits in with the last CCTV sighting at 3:25am at HS. Then he could get to the loading bay on SB unseen. If going to a party and maybe needing to take a bottle, stop off at Tesco to get one. Then maybe pick up someone else, but ultimately, it coincides with the bin lorry with the movement of the phone and being roughly the same destination.

 

[eagle eyes]

We have so few FACTS in this case. C last seen in HS. Phone moved and traced to BM. Phone went dead at 8. I am trying to work on what this can mean potentially (IMO);
a, C never left HS (or left undetected at a later date/ time). If suicide were an option here then one would assume his body would have turned up. This leaves us with intentional AWOL or third party involvement.
b,C left the HS in a vehicle intentionally or otherwise.
c, C somehow left the HS unseen and travelled to BM on his own steam(this is where the bike theory resonates, bike rank being in HS). If this is of consideration, IMO he would have been doing so with intent of a pre arranged meeting. This could have been at any of the hotels near BM, but lets say the Travellodge as a starting point geographically (has cctv been checked here?).
I would also like to question, does anyone know if there is a 'lorry park' there (BM) where HGV's can overnight? No evidence to say this is relevant, just following gut feelings.

 

[onthecounter]

Thank you ruth bullock, I just checked the original missing poster that asks for any found objects including a bike. Curious that this was included on the list of objects at that point? In addition I have now noticed there is a bike rank in the pictures of the horse shoe. May mean nothing, but the police have always said C could not have left the HS unseen 'on foot'.

3 Possible Options
He is still there &#8211; completing the forensic search of the whole Horseshoe area will discount this option.
He left on Foot &#8211; this is only possible if it was after 1600hrs on Saturday, which is possible but unlikely.
Corrie left in a vehicle.

http://www.findcorrie.co.uk/2017/01/05/3-possible-options-update-5th-january-2017/

 

[MidsummersDay]

Excellent spot! So he walking up St Johns street in the direction of the Horseshoe right on the pavement outside "The Snug" Another route Corrie couldn't have gone without being seen.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[eagle eyes]

I like the idea of the party, but surely someone taking him there or who saw him at the party would have come forward. Is there evidence that the ping of his phone showed it stopped at Tescos? If so has Tescos cctv been checked for this period of time to see if anyone is buying booze, cigarettes, condoms or the like? It would be a quiet time of the night so very few customers to look through IMO?

 

[Ruthbullock]

With my posts about this I was going along the line of the fact that C's phone went from BSE to BM. The party would fit in with this very well and at that time of night, if he couldn't get home or perhaps wanted to stay out longer, it would be the most logical place to go. We know he had at least one American friend, so I wouldn't discount a venue with others. Two golf courses in the BM area, where his phone remained until at least 8am when it probably ran out of battery.

If my theory of him having pre-arranged a lift to the party, just before he sent his last text at 3:08am in Hughes doorway, is right, then his lift could be arriving at about 3:30am or maybe a bit later and that then fits in with the last CCTV sighting at 3:25am at HS. Then he could get to the loading bay on SB unseen. If going to a party and maybe needing to take a bottle, stop off at Tesco to get one. Then maybe pick up someone else, but ultimately, it coincides with the bin lorry with the movement of the phone and being roughly the same destination.

The quarters I know the road name of are close to bury St Edmunds gold club- I don't have any more information on th american quarters. Barnham was mentioned on ping maps- there are both quarters for families and single accomodation for people working at RAF Honnington based there. There are several other areas that may or may not be within the circle of the last phone mast.

 

[Rachelle1968]

Okay, so I stopped reading right before everything went crazy with the big announcement, and it's taken two days of reading to catch up through five days of your posts!

And now those articles in the DM and Sun. The DM one was clearly compiled from sending a reporter to read the social media and also this forum. And the Sun says they have some info that may or may not be relevant but they're not telling anyone what it is...that's helpful.

I feel terrible for April. She's in a very difficult situation already, and now she has social media and forums discussing her relationship with Corrie and her pregnancy. Corrie's family kept quiet about her to protect her, and now that's led to some feeling "what else might be being covered up that could possibly be relevant to Corrie's state of mind at the time of his disappearance?" Which is a valid question, but a great shame that it might now be phrased more as an accusation.

I think the family have been as open as they felt they could be. I don't believe Corrie's relationship with April was a great secret (if the guys from base called her to let her know C was missing, then she's not been hidden from them). If she found out she was pregnant just a few weeks into the disappearance, then it's understandable to me that she wouldn't want to be the subject of a full-page DM or Sun story about Corrie's private life. On the statement Nicola made that's been put on the FindCorrie website, Nicola has said that technically Corrie was/is single (not married). I think that from Nicola's perspective that Corrie was single, he was happy (and currently happily single and seeing April, which made him happy) and he had used dating sites (which was how he met April). So to Nicola it would have been a white lie out of protection of April, rather than a great big whopper.

I noticed when looking at the baby scan that Corrie's forehead is the only one of the three boys who has the Wringe forehead (Uncle Tony's forehead) .... I think the baby is going to have that forehead. It might be completely irrelevant but Corrie favours Uncle Tony in looks, and he seems to have recently taken to emulating Uncle Tony's clothing style. The boy on those YT videos is really growing up and maturing in a lot of ways. And at the same time, Corrie's found a nice girl and they've gone in the past five months from being casual dating friends to being something more, but they're still both very young and only a few months into this deeper, closer, part of their relationship.

I've read with interest the links about missing people, but I haven't processed it enough to consider whether it might have relevance to Corrie's disappearance. It still seems to me that Corrie has a lot of good things going on in his life, plans for the near future, and plenty of options of people he could 'run to' if he wanted to 'run away' -- which is effectively what those missing people stories were about, people running away. Knowing that Corrie has a steady girlfriend seems like just another reason for Corrie to not 'run away'. Seeing his style maturing gives me the impression that a surprise pregnancy might mean he's going to react by manning-up and being a dad, just like all the people he looks up to in his life ... his parents, his grandparents, his uncle whose style he seems to be emulating. I found it very sad the way one of those 'newspaper' articles made it sound like April was just one of a dozen girls that Corrie was seeing and she'd got pregnant that way...I don't think that's what April was trying to say in her interviews. And she must have strong feelings for him if she couldn't stay on holiday knowing he'd gone missing...she wanted to be back home in case his body turned up in one of those roadside searches.

I would take with a pinch of salt the article that said Corrie was drinking before going out that night. I think it was erroneous conflation of some of the earlier reports of Corrie drinking before he went out, and has now been corrected to drinking in his car when he was already in BSE. In some ways those articles may be a hindrance rather than a help as they may end up fixing errors or misperceptions by being put in print. Corrie's a human being, and neither he nor his family or relationships deserve to be fodder for tabloids.

Decent post Amonet. Although understandable that people want to discern Corrie's character and his mental state previous to disappearing, I do think that some are using this as an excuse for a bit of character assassination. Nearly everything we are discussing is guess work because we don't know the full facts. I'm glad that some people are refraining from that and are still working hard to use what info we have got to try and build a picture of what could realistically have happened.

 

[Northern Light]

Midsummer is back! Yah.

 

[Ruthbullock]

I have no solid theory on the bike, it's just always struck me as odd that from the very first day they asked people to look for an abandoned bike. I wonder if it has less to do with Corrie taking a bike and more to do with man on bike being seen later without a bike. Struggling to make any logical connections at the moment, it just strikes me as strange- bikes at that time of the morning aren't peoples usual choice of transport after a night out. Although we did have a case of my friends bike dissappearing one night after they had gone to bed and it reappeared the following evening with an anonymous note, thanking the owner for saving them from walking home.

 

[eagle eyes]

I have no solid theory on the bike, it's just always struck me as odd that from the very first day they asked people to look for an abandoned bike. I wonder if it has less to do with Corrie taking a bike and more to do with man on bike being seen later without a bike. Struggling to make any logical connections at the moment, it just strikes me as strange- bikes at that time of the morning aren't peoples usual choice of transport after a night out. Although we did have a case of my friends bike dissappearing one night after they had gone to bed and it reappeared the following evening with an anonymous note, thanking the owner for saving them from walking home.

It strikes me as odd too. I was already thinking about the bike option (timings to BM) before I saw your post about the original poster, and then noticed the bike rank. People are saying his leaving on one is impossible without being seen by cctv, but they are also saying the vehicles that left have all been checked, and that he couldn't leave on foot. It doesn't leave many options open!