UK UK - Ruth Wilson, 16, Dorking, 27 Nov 1995

[MarziPanda]

Having just watched the documentary and I have questions around her mother's suicide.

1. Why did she kill herself?
2. Did the suicide come out of the blue or was there some longstanding health reason, mental or physical for it?
3. Was Ruth's father playing away at the time and if so was Ruth's subsequent stepmother the Other Woman in the case?

What did come out of it was that Ruth was deeply unhappy about something in her home life. What were the relationships really like between Ruth and her father and Ruth and her stepmother? It's not at all uncommon for a stepmother to resent stepchildren, especially stepdaughters, intensely since they are a constant reminder that there was a wife or longterm partner before her.

And I'm afraid I'm automatically suspicious of church-going-pillars-of-the-community types. All too often there's a deep thread of hypocrisy underneath the public facade. There was a clear implication that Ruth's father's position in the local community, being a prominent church-goer and parish councillor, was deterring local people from speaking to the investigators - which really swings my dodgy-o-meter into the red.

Maybe I'm reading too much between the lines of the documentary but I really felt they were hinting the answer lay at home, one way or another.

I feel like if Ruth and her stepmum didn't get along, Ruth wouldn't have sent her the flowers. Plus, it's been implied in things said by the family (the family's letter to Ruth etc) that Ruth called her stepmum 'mum', and not by her name. I don't think it's common for stepmothers to hate their stepchildren. Fathers don't put up with that sort of thing - and who would want to stay in a relationship where you hate your partner's children? My dad's had lots of partners over the 18 years since my mum died. None of them, bar one, was ever mean to me. And my dad kicked that one to the curb real quick. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, just that it's not common. And in descriptions of the days before Ruth vanished, it seems like they all got along fine... with the trying on of the old clothes etc.
Considering that Ruth was 4 when her mum died, and we know her sister is about three years younger than her, maybe post-natal depression is why her mum committed suicide? I don't personally think the reason why is all that relevant. Unless the reason was specifically that she couldn't handle two children, and Ruth felt guilty enough because of this to consider suicide herself.

Personally I'm leaning towards the 'aimed to run away/commit suicide but met with foul play' angle. Or possibly that she sent the flowers 'just in case' because she knew she was meeting someone dangerous. I think someone picked her up in a car after the taxi dropped her off. The sightings I think might be false and she met with foul play soon after she disappeared. Or, if they are true sightings, I still believe that at some point she met with foul play - got in with the wrong crowd. There are, unfortunately, plenty of ways to get rid of a body where it can never be found, even in a small country. Or if she did commit suicide, possibly she did it in water and was never found. I just find it hard to believe that she made a new life for herself and never once contacted her family or friends, never used her national insurance number (assuming she had one, sometimes they can be late, mine didn't arrive until 4 months after I turned 16) and never went to the police to tell them she's not missing.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

I feel like if Ruth and her stepmum didn't get along, Ruth wouldn't have sent her the flowers. Plus, it's been implied in things said by the family (the family's letter to Ruth etc) that Ruth called her stepmum 'mum', and not by her name.

That's not necessarily an issue. What may be an issue, and may have changed matters, is Ruth finding out that her mother hadn't died in an accident but by suicide. That might have caused her to reevaluate relationships within the family. Not saying it did, but it might have - and we know from Ruth's friends that she was very troubled in the run-up to her disappearance.

I don't think it's common for stepmothers to hate their stepchildren. Fathers don't put up with that sort of thing - and who would want to stay in a relationship where you hate your partner's children?

Hate may be too strong a word. Resentment may be more common.

Take my own mother's case. Her mother, my grandmother, died of lymphoma in her early 30s just before the start of WWII. While his wife was dying, my grandfather had already taken up with another woman whom he eventually married a few years later. They had a son a few years after that. My mother wasn't ill-treated but she was completely marginalised by both her father and her stepmother, especially once her father had a son.

When I came to look into family history some years ago and made contact with a lost branch of the family, they were astonished to learn that my grandfather had had an earlier wife and had a daughter from that marriage. The stepmother had actively given them to understand that she was the only wife.

I don't imagine that's terribly uncommon. I've read too many accounts of stepchildren, especially stepdaughters, being resented and pushed out of the family by a stepmother and of the child's father going along with it to keep the peace.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

I also wonder about a possible ferry crossing to Northern Ireland, from where she could have simply hopped over the border into Ireland. Definitely no passport needed for that one!

It wouldn't make sense for her to do that. The only ferry service to Northern Ireland went from Stranraer area in Scotland and it seems unlikely she would have made her way from Surrey to Scotland when she could have taken a ferry from Fishguard, Holyhead or Liverpool to the Irish Republic. Unless she ran away with someone and they got married at Gretna Green before travelling on to Ireland.

No language difference either, so less intimidating. Ruth would have had French lessons at school, although her ability to speak the language well depends very much on her aptitude for the subject...

At that time I think it was possible for secondary school pupils to drop foreign languages as early as the end of the second year, so age 13. Whether they were encouraged, or even allowed, to continue with a language tended to depend on their aptitude.

Who knows. But its one of those rare cases where there can be a lot of hope that Ruth is still alive somewhere.

I don't think anyone has suggested the possibility of her having not exactly run away to join the circus but run away to join an alternative community of which there were many at this time. Not just those left over from the hippy era but those more recent ones known as New Age Travellers. There would have been opportunities for a 16 year old to disappear into organic farm or WWOOF working, the festival circuit working for keep on side shows, food stands and such like, a tipi village in Wales or simply joined one of the Crusty convoys which were still around but which were finding things harder since the introduction of the Criminal Justice Act 1993. There were plenty of people still on the road and itinerant during the summer who retreated to squats in London, Bristol, Southampton and similar during the winter months. She could very simply have disappeared into one of these groups in the UK or Ireland, and never subsequently come to the attention of the authorities.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

There's a lengthy article in today's Mail about Ruth's disappearance. It's largely based on the short documentary mentioned previously.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5710555/How-16-year-old-just-vanish-air.html

 

[MarziPanda]

That's not necessarily an issue. What may be an issue, and may have changed matters, is Ruth finding out that her mother hadn't died in an accident but by suicide. That might have caused her to reevaluate relationships within the family. Not saying it did, but it might have - and we know from Ruth's friends that she was very troubled in the run-up to her disappearance.



Hate may be too strong a word. Resentment may be more common.

Take my own mother's case. Her mother, my grandmother, died of lymphoma in her early 30s just before the start of WWII. While his wife was dying, my grandfather had already taken up with another woman whom he eventually married a few years later. They had a son a few years after that. My mother wasn't ill-treated but she was completely marginalised by both her father and her stepmother, especially once her father had a son.

When I came to look into family history some years ago and made contact with a lost branch of the family, they were astonished to learn that my grandfather had had an earlier wife and had a daughter from that marriage. The stepmother had actively given them to understand that she was the only wife.

I don't imagine that's terribly uncommon. I've read too many accounts of stepchildren, especially stepdaughters, being resented and pushed out of the family by a stepmother and of the child's father going along with it to keep the peace.

Certainly, finding out about her mum's real cause of death might have made her think differently about her family. Almost certainly. I would feel betrayed if it suddenly came out that my mum had died in a totally different way to what I thought. But I feel like I'd feel more betrayed by my dad, who was there at the time, than the stepmum who came along after the fact.

I agree that being marginalised by your stepparent and new half siblings is more common than hate, or even resentment, but I still think it's far less common these days (and 22 years ago when Ruth went missing). Back in the 30s/40s some husbands saw their wives more as objects, if she died you got a new one (still the case in some marriages). Many people still valued sons far more than daughters - again, still the case for some people, but far less common.

But I think Ruth's situation is very different to that of your mother. From what I've read, Ruth's father and stepmother didn't have any children together. Of course we have no idea what the truth is, but like I said, Ruth sending her stepmum flowers I think shows that there wasn't bad blood between them. My situation is similar to Ruth's - my mum died when I was four. My dad got with his partner about 8 years ago and I consider her to be my main mum figure. If I found out I'd been lied to about my mum's cause of death, I would be very upset. If I then decided to run away, I would consider giving something to my stepmum first to tell her several things... things like 'I'm upset about my mum, but these flowers show that I appreciate that you stepped into that role' or 'I know you love me like a daughter so I know you will be upset, these flowers show I'm okay'. If Ruth and her stepmum didn't get along, I think she'd have had the flowers sent to her sister or dad.

 

[shadowdancer]

Certainly, finding out about her mum's real cause of death might have made her think differently about her family. Almost certainly. I would feel betrayed if it suddenly came out that my mum had died in a totally different way to what I thought. But I feel like I'd feel more betrayed by my dad, who was there at the time, than the stepmum who came along after the fact.

I agree that being marginalised by your stepparent and new half siblings is more common than hate, or even resentment, but I still think it's far less common these days (and 22 years ago when Ruth went missing). Back in the 30s/40s some husbands saw their wives more as objects, if she died you got a new one (still the case in some marriages). Many people still valued sons far more than daughters - again, still the case for some people, but far less common.

But I think Ruth's situation is very different to that of your mother. From what I've read, Ruth's father and stepmother didn't have any children together. Of course we have no idea what the truth is, but like I said, Ruth sending her stepmum flowers I think shows that there wasn't bad blood between them. My situation is similar to Ruth's - my mum died when I was four. My dad got with his partner about 8 years ago and I consider her to be my main mum figure. If I found out I'd been lied to about my mum's cause of death, I would be very upset. If I then decided to run away, I would consider giving something to my stepmum first to tell her several things... things like 'I'm upset about my mum, but these flowers show that I appreciate that you stepped into that role' or 'I know you love me like a daughter so I know you will be upset, these flowers show I'm okay'. If Ruth and her stepmum didn't get along, I think she'd have had the flowers sent to her sister or dad.

Agreed.

I think Ruth had more reason to be angry with her father. He was the one who was her biological parent. It was his place to tell Ruth about the circumstances of her mother's death, and he was the one who chose to tell her a different story (perhaps because he didn't want Ruth to feel that her mother had wanted to leave her behind).

The stepmother would have just had to go along with it, because it wasn't her place to overrule her husband's parenting decision.

 

[chimpface]

There's a lengthy article in today's Mail about Ruth's disappearance. It's largely based on the short documentary mentioned previously.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5710555/How-16-year-old-just-vanish-air.html

The dailymail is a rag but there's some good comments below the article which raise some interesting points.

Please take a look if anyone gets chance.

 

[alb1on]

The dailymail is a rag but there's some good comments below the article which raise some interesting points.

Please take a look if anyone gets chance.

Having read the article (which largely covers the same ground as the documentary) and the comments I can see no reason to change my view that it is most likely that she decided to leave (although the other possibilities could be true). The only interesting points raised in the comments seem to be;

* rather more explicit pointing the finger at the father. Whether this is reasonable seems entirely speculative.
* the silence of the sister.
* the continued fixation of some on the possibility of her body still being on Box Hill after 20 years despite it being overrun by visitors every sunny day.
* one comment points out the small local rail stations - these would have given another route away which I had not considered.
* the issue of the notes. In the documentary I understood this was unconfirmed.
* the question of why the police are so tight lipped. I had ascribed this to typical Surrey Police behaviour, but the question of their duty of confidentiality if they do know she is alive is an interesting point.

The last two points seem to me to be the only ones where undisclosed information may be out there which would cast light on the case.

 

[chimpface]

Having read the article (which largely covers the same ground as the documentary) and the comments I can see no reason to change my view that it is most likely that she decided to leave (although the other possibilities could be true). The only interesting points raised in the comments seem to be;

* rather more explicit pointing the finger at the father. Whether this is reasonable seems entirely speculative.
* the silence of the sister.
* the continued fixation of some on the possibility of her body still being on Box Hill after 20 years despite it being overrun by visitors every sunny day.
* one comment points out the small local rail stations - these would have given another route away which I had not considered.
* the issue of the notes. In the documentary I understood this was unconfirmed.
* the question of why the police are so tight lipped. I had ascribed this to typical Surrey Police behaviour, but the question of their duty of confidentiality if they do know she is alive is an interesting point.

The last two points seem to me to be the only ones where undisclosed information may be out there which would cast light on the case.

Thank you for taking the time to highlight them in the post above. I think they are all very interesting and valid points, especially the last.

 

[alb1on]

The question of Surrey Police behaviour is interesting. The guidelines for a police missing person investigation in the UK can be found at https://www.app.college.police.uk/a...issing-person-investigations/#confidentiality . There are many links in this site which also go into more detail for specific circumstances such as missing children and victims of domestic abuse. Most interesting is the paragraph on confidentiality which makes it clear that, whilst the police should never disclose a persons whereabouts when found, they are expected to disclose that the person has been found, to the person who made the report of a missing person. So, if Surrey Police did find Ruth they would have told the family.

 

[trendsetter]

Here's the link to the newsagent video (which I don't think has been posted here before):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8587019.stm

 

[PhoebeG]

Agreed.

I think Ruth had more reason to be angry with her father. He was the one who was her biological parent. It was his place to tell Ruth about the circumstances of her mother's death, and he was the one who chose to tell her a different story (perhaps because he didn't want Ruth to feel that her mother had wanted to leave her behind).;

The stepmother would have just had to go along with it, because it wasn't her place to overrule her husband's parenting decision.

Having read the recent articles that have come out of the documentary, anger at her father is very plausible. If it’s true that Ruth had been led to believe her birth mother died in an accident, it must have been very upsetting to discover it was actually suicide and, from Ruth’s perspective, a conscious decision her mother made to leave her. On top of this, her father and stepmother were married no more than a year after her mother’s death (last few months of 1983). Finding out about the suicide may have given Ruth a different perspective on this, particularly if there were the usual teenage issues/tensions in the family. This could have been a catalyst.

I wonder what made Ruth start looking into her mother’s death in the first place? Something must have triggered this, which makes you think that something had been happening in the family to make Ruth question things even before she found out the truth about her mother’s death.

 

[jd1066]

I have watched the Youtube video about Ruth Wilson's disappearance. Retired detective and his journalist friend, Martin Bright, seem to have discovered the "dark secret". I can understand that Ruth would have taken it very badly to discover at the age of 16 that her mother, Nesta Wilson nee Landeg died from suicide. Not what her father, Ian G Wilson, had told her. He had always told his daughter, Ruth Wilson, that her mother Nesta had fallen down the stairs and broke her neck.

I don't think this new knowledge would have led Ruth to commit suicide. I think she would have understood that her father was just protecting her.

 

[jd1066]

Ruth Wilson took two taxis the day she went missing. And bought her stepmother, Karen I Wilson nee Bowerman (married Ian G Wilson Dec qu 1983) (Dorking?) an expensive bouquet of flowers to send her. She certainly had plenty of money to spend. Taxi driver ever been named? I haven't found the birth registration of Nesta Wilson nee Landeg. Nesta Landeg married Ian G Wilson 1976 in Newport, where she lived with her parents, Joseph Landeg and his wife, Linda May Landeg nee Thompson. Joseph Landeg died in Newport 1980. (Born 1906). Linda May Landeg nee Thompson died Newport, 1992. I wonder if Joseph and Linda adopted Nesta. Joseph married Linda 1939. Newport. So we only have the taxi driver's remembrance of the last moments of Ruth Wilson.

 

[alb1on]

Ruth Wilson took two taxis the day she went missing. And bought her stepmother, Karen I Wilson nee Bowerman (married Ian G Wilson Dec qu 1983) (Dorking?) an expensive bouquet of flowers to send her. She certainly had plenty of money to spend. Taxi driver ever been named? I haven't found the birth registration of Nesta Wilson nee Landeg. Nesta Landeg married Ian G Wilson 1976 in Newport, where she lived with her parents, Joseph Landeg and his wife, Linda May Landeg nee Thompson. Joseph Landeg died in Newport 1980. (Born 1906). Linda May Landeg nee Thompson died Newport, 1992. I wonder if Joseph and Linda adopted Nesta. Joseph married Linda 1939. Newport. So we only have the taxi driver's remembrance of the last moments of Ruth Wilson.

Like you I failed to find a birth record for Nesta Landeg on Ancestry, and this is unusual for an English birth in 1948 (although not unknown). So, although all reports are specific that she was born Nesta Landeg, it is possible she was adopted. However, I do not see any relevance to this case whether or not she was adopted.

A few posts back I made the comment that my daughter, when she was working at weekends in a shop only 10 miles from Dorking as a 16 year old at school, could have saved £1-2000 quite easily. Whilst this would not be enough to support a disappearance it would finance taxis and flowers. I did wonder if she might have another source of money. Her maternal grandparents died before she disappeared. I know that when my wife's mother died, my daughter inherited a tidy sum from her as a 14 year old. I would assume the police asked about money sources and would have probed about inheriting money - but given the tight lips from all sides in this case it may not have been made public if there was inherited money (or something like an expensive piece of jewellery which could have been converted to money).

I think it would be wrong to have any more than passing questions about the taxi driver. The police know his identity and have never raised any suggestion of involvement. Whilst Surrey Police have had their problems they would certainly have been reasonably efficient on the basic enquiries, including looking into the primary characters in the story - which would have included the taxi driver as the last witness to see Ruth. Even if the initial investigation was poor there have been several reviews in the intervening years and, again, no questions have arisen about the taxi driver. I also think it wrong to be too critical of him leaving Ruth. She was left in a populated area (not remote) at 4.30 in the afternoon (not late at night) and next to a well known pub. And she was 16 - not a young child. He may have thought it a bit odd, but no more than that.

 

[Amonet]

I've read the thread and would conclude that Ruth either wanted to commit suicide or she wanted everyone to think she had.

The notes at Box Hill, the flowers to arrive several days later, never again touching her bank account, all these suggest suicide, along with finding out her mother had committed suicide.

The paracetamol and vermouth suggest a false trail for suicide, but I don't know how much truth there is in them.

The Olympics were so long after Ruth's disappearance that it's unlikely any remains would be visible after all that time.

If Ruth was running away she could have sent the notes and flowers by post. She could have saved the taxi and flower money for her going away fund to get her a bedsit and keep her going until she got a job. If there's money in her bank account she should have emptied that account, transferred the money to a new account if she was that worried about it, or accessed the bank account later (they said it was a bank card account, so she could easily carry that card with her, and if it had been a passbook account then the logical thing to do would be to go home and get that book and run away the next day).

The description of Ruth by her friends seems to be that of a deep-thinking girl. I see a high risk of her mother's suicide being depression-related and there being some hereditary aspect that would increase the risk of suicide for Ruth at this age and the confusion of this discovery (about her mother) and she only talked to a few schoolfriends about the discovery, she didn't talk to her parents...why not? It sounds like she's maybe emotionally closing herself off from them.

So I would put a higher probability on suicide.

 

[jd1066]

I would like to thank the person who gave the bbc website address on here. Cctv footage of young woman in newsagents shop. Year after Ruth disappeared. And the assistant thought it could be Ruth. On Chrome browser cctv not availabe so I switched over to I E browser on my laptop and saw the video. Anyway, you say forget about the taxi driver.? It was not late at night?. It was a populated area?. It looks quite lonely to me. And at 4:30 pm late in November it must have looked like midnight. And freezing cold, and raining. Taxi driver was last person to see Ruth. It is only his account that she ever got to Boxhill in the first instance. I only hope that the police took his cab to bits to find out if there had been any struggle in his taxi.

If they didn't they would be very poor police officers

 

[jd1066]

My last reply was to alb 1 on. On his/her reply to my post; just to make it clear. I pressed quick reply. Perhaps I should have tapped some other 'reply'. It doesn't make it clear on here.

 

[Legally Bland]

My last reply was to alb 1 on. On his/her reply to my post; just to make it clear. I pressed quick reply. Perhaps I should have tapped some other 'reply'. It doesn't make it clear on here.

You want the "reply with quote" button. And welcome to WS.

You seem to have done a fair bit of research on this. Have you ever seen confirmation of the notes/paracetamol/vermouth story?

I had a bit of a Google but couldn't find anything.

 

[Amonet]

I was thinking about this overnight, and the only other scenario I could come up with was that Ruth goes into the woods and sits down not too far off the path, writes her notes, takes the paracetamol and drinks the alcohol, and it's around tea time so someone coming in from work and taking their dog for a walk comes by and finds her there in a distressed state and takes her to a hospital. Being still in the suicidal frame of mind maybe she gives a false name and says she's 18 and doesn't want anyone contacted? From there she could be passed onto mental health services and get the support to start up a fresh new life for herself and has made a choice all these years to not get in touch due to shame and wanting to close off the two parts of her life as if the first 16 years were a different person.

Police should have checked intakes at local A&E departments but what if they weren't looking for a 18 to 21 year old with a false name?