UK UK - Lee Boxell, 15, Sutton, 10 Sept 1988

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Missing Lee: the lost boy, the desperate family and the charity that gave them the strength to carry on

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/christma...t-boy-desperate-family-charity-gave-strength/

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The 30-year mystery of a teenage boy’s disappearance could be solved at last after detectives found a “breakthrough” witness.

No trace has been seen of Lee Boxell, 15, since he vanished in 1988.

But officers are understood to have interviewed a person this week with information that could lead to Lee’s remains being found.

A source said: “The information could allow officers to crack open the case. I really hope for the sake of Lee’s parents that they find him and can lay him to rest.”

Police get a breakthrough in hunt for missing boy 30 years after he vanished
 
There's been some doubt raised about this breakthrough could possibly be a hoax but fingers crossed its legit..I always wonder whever the sighting of a boy matching Lee boxell description apparently walking down the road with an older man showing him directions was ever looked into
 
I am ashamed that I haven't read through the thread here. I lived in Cheam at the time and remember Lee's disappearance. The posters in local shops etc. and it struck me particularly as my own son was a similar age to Lee.
Lee has often been in my mind since he disappeared. I will go back through the threads, but do I recall police suggesting it was all connected with a (church?) club Lee attended in Cheam? Known peadophiles? Sorry for my vagueness atm.
 
Father's plea over son missing 30 years

The father has pleaded with the public to end his "limbo" and help reveal if the boy was murdered or is still living.

“It was feared Lee Boxell, 15, may have been killed after witnessing child abuse at a teenagers' hangout near his home in Sutton, south-west London.
Monday marks 30 years since he went missing on 10 September 1988.“

Snip

“"I am almost 72 now and do not want my life to end without discovering what happened to my son."“
 
Thirty years l wonder why they have focussed on Lee being essentially a silenced witness rather than a potential abuse victim.
 


At St. Martin in the Fields recently, in the heart of central London, a choir lifted its voices out of the depths of despair. Nearly every member has endured the anguish of a missing loved one – children mostly. Some, like Peter Boxell's son Lee, disappeared decades ago without a trace.

"If he is in heaven, then I just pray that he can hear us and that he will know that we're still thinking of him, that we still love him," Boxell said.

They call themselves the Missing People Choir – 30 or so voices from every walk of life. Most had never sung a day in their lives, until music producer James Hawkins volunteered to start the choir back in 2014.

"To be eye-to-eye with family members that are there singing to you, who in their heads they're singing to their missing loved one, that's incredibly powerful," Hawkins said.

"There's almost like an instant understanding," said correspondent Lee Cowan.

"Absolutely. And everything is unspoken."

Their goal is to raise awareness of the roughly 180,000 people who are reported missing in the U.K. every year, including their own loved ones.

Boxell's 15-year-old son, Lee, left home in 1988 to go to a soccer match in South London. He hasn't been seen since.

Cowan said, "All these years, though, you never moved away, did you?"

"No, we couldn't bear to move from this house," Boxell said. "We always hoped that Lee would come home one day. Well, we still do."

For decades, he and his wife Christine have waited for any news of his whereabouts. And in all that time, Lee's room has stood just as he left it – his school blazer on a hanger, homework unfinished on his desk.

"We've not been able to grieve, NO, because we don't know for sure what happened to Lee," Boxell said. "I've got that little bit of hope that he hasn't been murdered. I just cling onto that last hope."

One night in 2013, Boxell had a dream that he was singing a song he had written for Lee. With the help of James Hawkins, whom he had met through the Missing People charity, they literally turned that dream into a reality.

Over and over he practiced his song for his son, knowing full well he couldn't really carry a tune. But that didn't matter. At the annual Missing People charity's event, Boxell got up and sang it – belting out his solo as if he'd been singing all his life.

"Lord, help me find my son!"

He said, "Being able to sing about my son released all those bottled-up emotions. I mean, as a bloke, I don't like to get emotional, really. But when I was singing in front of 800 people, it was just so uplifting and cathartic."

Hawkins said, "We saw a transformation happening with Peter. You know, there was more color coming back to his eyes, and his personality."

If singing helped Boxell, Hawkins thought, it might help others, too, like Rosalind Hodgkiss and her eldest daughter, Nina Gross.

Alice Gross vanished in August of 2014; she'd told her mom she was going out to see friends, and was never heard from again. She was 14.

"Ribbons were going all over the country, you know, and posters were going all over the country," said Rosalind.

Nina said, "While she was missing, I woke up every morning, the first thing I would be saying is, 'Is she home?' You dream every night that she came home, then you wake up and you're like, 'It's not happened yet.'"

A month passed before Alice's body was finally found in a canal. She had been murdered.

Alice's talent for music, however, lives on. She wrote a song, "Don't Let It Go Away," two years before she disappeared, which was then performed by the Missing People Choir:

For Ros and Nina, music has proven to be the one thing that soothes that wound that will never heal.

Nina said, "It brings you that bit closer to her. I feel like when I'm singing, I have that in common with her. I can hear her voice, and I can talk to her and say, 'Oh, I'm really not as good as you are, but you know, trying.'"

Cowan said, "As healing as it is, it's gotta be difficult, though, too?"

"Yeah, and you get some rehearsals which are more difficult than others."

Rosalind said, "Sometimes the moments where you feel most connected, it's also the moment where you feel the saddest because then you're aware, I'm aware, more of the loss."

There is comfort in their togetherness. Each of the choir members feels it. And while practice may not always mean perfect, their hard work is getting noticed.

In 2017 the choir got the chance to sing to their biggest audience yet, on "Britain's Got Talent."

There wasn't a dry eye in the house.

The performance was so well-received the choir released "I Miss You" as a single this past December. But the best part was that all the publicity did exactly what the choir hoped it would: It brought at least six missing people back home.

Ju Blencowe was one of them. "Without the work of the Missing People Choir, I wouldn't be here," she said.

"You don't think so?" Cowan asked.

"I know so."

Blencowe went missing after her mother passed away. She had been caring for her for more than a decade, and was so grief-stricken about losing her she had a mental breakdown, and wandered away in a fog.

"I just thought how easy it is to just become a lost person, a faceless person, someone without a story," she said.

But somehow the memory of hearing the Missing People Choir made her realize that she, too, was missed. "The whole mixture of emotion and love within that choir, to make it sing out so beautifully, touched my heart, and brought me home," she said.

The hope that that can happen more often is just what sends Peter Boxell up to his son's empty bedroom to practice.

"Lean on Me" takes on a whole new meaning coming from such a place of pain.

"Lean on me
when you're not strong
I'll be your friend
Someone to carry on…"


James Hawkins said, "There's something about that communal singing together that has a healing power and property to it which I don't think I even want to know why it does it. I'm happy that it does."

A choir singing their hearts out while healing them, too.

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The Missing People Choir: Raising voices in pain and hope
 
A bit short notice, but I just noticed a new documentary is on in the UK tonight in an hour, at 10pm on Channel 5 about Lee's case. It's not a case that has had much television exposure in the past so should be interesting. I am sure it will be available on catch up for a while too.
 
A bit short notice, but I just noticed a new documentary is on in the UK tonight in an hour, at 10pm on Channel 5 about Lee's case. It's not a case that has had much television exposure in the past so should be interesting. I am sure it will be available on catch up for a while too.

Yes, it was called The "Missing Or Murdered?" and it quite good with lots of information, some new. Recommending to see it.

===
The 'Missing Or Murdered?' Lee Boxell Case Remains Unsolved, But New Evidence Could Change That


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On September 10, 1988, 15-year-old Lee Boxell left his home in London to watch a football match at Selhurst Park in Croydon. But he never returned. The case has baffled and haunted the nation in the decades since, as it remains unsolved to this day. But now, just over 30 years later, the case is being looked at once again. Channel 5's Missing Or Murdered? will explore the Lee Boxell case in depth, taking a retrospective look at what happened all those years ago, and analysing some newfound discoveries that have occurred in recent years. It's an absolute must-watch for anyone who's been keeping a close eye on the case.
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According to the Daily Mail, soon after Boxell's disappearance, police discovered that he had been spending time at a meeting place for teenagers called St. Dunstan's Church in Cheam, which was nicknamed 'the Shed.' The newspaper writes that this spot had become "a target for sexual predators."

In 2013, the Daily Mail reports, a forensic team scoured 'the Shed' for evidence, but nothing was uncovered and, despite the police interviewing three suspects the following year, no one was formally charged.
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However, in August 2018, a fresh line of enquiry opened up, according to the Daily Mail. Little is known about this new enquiry, but a Scotland Yard spokesman said: "On the basis of new information coming to light, officers are pursuing a new line of enquiry.
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As The Sun reported ahead of the show's premiere, new evidence is presented in Channel 5's Missing Or Murdered?, including testimonies from alleged witnesses. According to the newspaper, one of these witnesses — who preferred to remain anonymous, but the programme makers named 'Sally' — tells Channel 5 that she saw a blood-stained mattress propped against one of the walls of 'the Shed' a fortnight after Lee's disappearance. 'Sally' also reportedly states: "We were invited into a private place and told quite blatantly that Lee was not going to be seen again, that Lee was dead and that he was buried most likely in grassland not far from The Shed."

C5's New True Crime Doc Examines A Cold Case That May Have Two Very Different Results
 
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Do you know him?
Computer-aged photo released of teen missing since 1988 who may have been murdered in notorious youth club

A computer generated image shows how Lee Boxell, who vanished from Cheam in 1988, would look today aged 46.

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The new witness, known only as Sally, tells C5’s Missing or Murdered? Programme how two days after the youngster vanished she was told ‘Lee was not going to be seen again’.

And she revealed how a fortnight after Lee’s disappearance she wretched when she spotted the blood-covered mattress abandoned near The Shed.

She says: “I could see a mattress standing upright and sagging in the middle with what to me was certainly a very large dark stain. I believed it to be blood.

The smell was quite overwhelming, so much so that I was sick and wretching.”

The woman chose to stay anonymous and programme makers called her ‘Sally’.

In the documentary ‘Sally’ claims to have been 13 when she began attending the Shed, where teenagers were allowed to smoke and drink by a convicted paedophile who ran the club.
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She tells the programme: “Two days after Lee disappeared I went to The Shed with a friend.

“We were invited into a private place and told quite blatantly that Lee was not going to be seen again, that Lee was dead and that he was buried most likely in grassland not far from The Shed.”

Sally adds: “I believe many girls were abused here over the years. Only one actually told me about their abuse.

Artists' impression released of teen missing since 1988 and feared murdered
 
The Missing Teen Whose Cold Case Was Revived
With the Probe of a 'Warlock' Pedophile Ring


In Cheam, Sutton—a large suburban village that starts where Greater London and Surrey intersect —there's a church named after Saint Dunstan.

The modern St. Dunstan's Church was built in 1864, but the site has had a place of worship sitting on it since Anglo-Saxon times. In 2011, the church made national headlines for being the site of a youth club named The Shed. It was here in the late-1980s that the church's groundkeeper and the club's founder, former soldier William Lambert, abused children in a dilapidated hut on the church's grounds. The hut isn't there now; it's long burned down. Painful memories, however, live on.

Lambert claimed he was a warlock who could pass on his powers to the children he abused through sex. During a 2011 trial, a court heard that Lambert raped a child on a tombstone, claiming she would get power from "the black floating monk" who he told her haunted the church. Another time, a girl confided in him her fears she was pregnant. He coerced her into having sex with him by claiming that if she did, she no longer would be. His victims were aged between 11 and 15 years old. In May 2011, at age 75, Lambert was jailed for 11 years.

Dunstan, the Anglo-Saxon saint the church is named after, is renowned for his battles with the devil. Born in Somerset in the year 910, religious scripture tells us that, in later life, Dunstan was approached by the devil with a view to recruiting him to his cause. Dunstan chased him away with tongs.

In the real world, however, this church continues to be soiled by the wrongdoings of the past. In recent years, St. Dunstan's graveyard has been excavated twice. First in 2012, between June and September. Then again in April of the subsequent year. It's believed that its graveyard is the final—unmarked—resting place of the missing schoolboy Lee Boxell.

more
 
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A couple of other thoughts based on the documentary:

* no evidence that Lee went to Selhurst Park - he had never been there before, and the last sighting of him in Sutton would NOT have left him enough time to get there by 3pm kick off.

* the new account of Lee living under an assumed name, I mean, wtf? Was the witness who came up with this a fantasist, or...? Supposedly Lee was still living and had called himself Leslie Hall and lived and worked nearby in Morden.

* 'Sally': pseudonym of a young girl who used to go to the shed. She made the claims about the mattress and about being told Lee was dead. Is it her testimony that led to the 3 arrests?

* the graveyard - was investigated for 1 year. However, the graves themselves were not allowed to be dug up, only the channels between graves. How does this help, if Lee was possibly hidden in an existing grave? It was suggested in the programme that he could have been buried under an existing coffin. It's surprising that the graveyard here was still in use in the 1980s - most suburban UK graveyards were full by then and other municipal ones used instead.

* the Kevin Hicks case was investigated alongside Lee's, and no links were found.
 

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