Ruth would now be in her 40s. While there certainly is evidence that she had planned her disappearance, I find it infuriating that Surrey Police refused to cooperate with the documentary, but more suspiciously, her own father.
I'd say that although Ian Wilson may not have played a direct role in her disappearance, he likely did in the reason. In October 1995, Ruth came to believe that her biological mother's death was not as she had been told. She was told that Nesta (her mother) had died on December 10th 1982 after accidentally falling down the stairs. Soon, she travelled to London to examine her mother's death certificate. The actual cause of death was suicide by hanging. According to a 2018 interview, her childhood friend Catherine Mair, Ruth thought that her childhood was based upon a foundation of secrecy and lies.
Less a year after Nesta's death, in 1983, Ian remarried, which brings up the possibility of an extra-marital affair that she may have found out about shortly before she died. It is possible that he wanted to silence Nesta and brutally murdered her, staging her death as a suicide to throw off the investigation and turn the suspicion away from him.
Ruth disappeared on Monday 27th November 1995, just two weeks shy of the thirteenth anniversary of her mother's death. There had reportedly been numerous sightings of her in the Dorking area by people who knew her well.
On October 6th 1996, it was believed that Ruth was spotted on the outskirts of London five days earlier after a L!VE TV appeal.
On the first anniversary of her disappearance in November 1996, a young girl was captured on CCTV at a newsagents in Dorking, two miles from Box Hill. The girl appeared distressed and made an unusual request for a copy of all the local newspapers, and was visibly upset when told that at least one of the papers were sold out. The owner saved the footage and reported the incident to police.
Initially both Ian and her stepmother Karen denied that the girl was Ruth, but over time became convinced that it was, stating so in an article published in The Times newspaper on January 2nd 1997.
In 2008, there was a sighting of Ruth in Canada. Because there were a lack of clarity and details on the exact location of this sighting, I find this lead to be fairly unreliable. It was claimed by another childhood friend, that at the time of her disappearance, Ruth didn't have a passport which would have made international travel a lot harder, although travel to countries like Ireland or France would have been much easier in 1995, even without a passport. Rules and regulations were changed significantly after 9/11, so it bears the question:
If Ruth has left the country, how would she have applied for a passport between 1995 and now without being found?
I am very much critical of Surrey Police's refusal to further probe Ian Wilson in his ex-wife's death and his daughter's disappearance and believe that both he and Karen (Ruth's stepmother) could be hiding evidence or know something that could blow the case wide open. I also want them to speak with the taxi driver who dropped Ruth off at the bridleway near Box Hill, if they are still alive.
Anyone could be hiding anything, so I think it's very important that police start by interviewing Ian and Karen again.