Recovered/Located UK - Cardiff - 3 Women & 2 Men Missing, leaving nightclub approx 2am, Newport, 4 March 2023

[JennieM]

It is not yet clear when the crash happened.

BBC journalist Adam Hale said no obvious signs of a crash were visible, even in daylight, to drivers using the slip road to approach the busy roundabout over the weekend.

"I was one of the potentially thousands of motorists who will have passed the scene of the accident over the weekend who could be forgiven for not noticing anything out of the ordinary," he said.

"There are a lot of trees that line that particular stretch of road that could easily obscure a car that had left the road.

"In terms of things you'd expect to see in the aftermath of a road accident - tyre marks on the road, parts of a car strewn across the way - none were clearly visible to myself or friends or family who live in the area and also travelled past the site across Saturday and Sunday."

Cardiff car crash: Tributes to three found dead after night out

Tributes are paid to three people who were found dead in a crashed car days after going missing.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[dunkley]

This is addressed to anyone who might come across a crashed vehicle ....
Unless you can clearly see tape, or stickers, that say 'Police Aware' - please, please check. Stop in a safe place, and check. Or call 999 and pass on the location and details. You *might* be the first on the scene. And you would be surprised how often crashed vehicles are either missed, or ignored.
Once upon a time, in a previous life, an unconscious motorcyclist was taken to hospital. The area of the accident was searched, by several emergency services. When the rider regained consciousness they kept asking about someone else. It turned out they had had a pillion passenger, who was found, eventually, in a ditch, the other side of a very large hedge, almost 100 metres away!!! Fortunately, they survived.

 

[rightsaidfred]

It looks like they were very well hidden - but surprised as there are houses across the road and no one heard anything.

Being realistic - it's the middle of the night (2-3am seems plausible) and there's a bang.

You might, or might not, wake up. Maybe you're an insomniac, or maybe you're a deep sleeper with double glazing. I fall into the latter category and - living on a busy road - routinely sleep through ambulances going past with sirens on.

If you do wake up you would probably check downstairs, and look out the bedroom window.

But there's nothing downstairs and you can't see anything out the window.

Does anyone, realistically speaking, go out in their pyjamas and start searching undergrowth on the other side of the roundabout, on the basis of a funny noise that woke them up and nothing more?

 

[UK Girl]

Has it been confirmed who was driving then?

I actually thought it might have been the other lad who was driving and not Shane as in the photos it looked like the smaller
person in the driver seat i thought.

 

[Nikynoo]

I actually thought it might have been the other lad who was driving and not Shane as in the photos it looked like the bigger person in the driver seat i thought.

Bigger person is sat in the passenger seat? A smaller person is driving.

 

[UK Girl]

Bigger person is sat in the passenger seat? A smaller person is driving.

yeah thats what I meant sorry. The passenger looks kinda chunky imo

 

[Ruthbullock]

If you look at the last post shared. Darcey has a bright light blue top on, I think she was in the passenger seat- although it’s all irrelevant now and I’m sure things will become clear without any further speculation. It is so upsetting that it was known where they were driving and nobody in the police thought we will do a check along any potential vanishing points- it could literally happen to anyone and that thought is quite scary.

 

[Firstsnow4]

If you look at the last post shared. Darcey has a bright light blue top on, I think she was in the passenger seat- although it’s all irrelevant now and I’m sure things will become clear without any further speculation. It is so upsetting that it was known where they were driving and nobody in the police thought we will do a check along any potential vanishing points- it could literally happen to anyone and that thought is quite scary.

What post are you referring to? I know in the last Snapchat shared by Darcy (with Rafel) she was wearing a white top with a pattern. Although I appreciate she could have been wearing a coat. JMO.

Woman smiles with pal on night they vanished before 3 found dead in car

PHOTOS show Darcy Ross smiling with Rafel Jeanne on the night they vanished with their pals. Cops today discovered three bodies in a crashed car after Darcy, 21, Sophie Russon, 20, Eve Smith, 21, a…

www.thesun.co.uk

 

[tedtink]

I actually thought it might have been the other lad who was driving and not Shane as in the photos it looked like the smaller
person in the driver seat i thought.

Was the CCTV footage before they dropped the 6th passenger off or before, do we know?

 

[UK Girl]

Was the CCTV footage before they dropped the 6th passenger off or before, do we know?

to be honest I dont know

 

[Furore]

I've just been reading (rather grim) statistics about how low your chances of survival are if the car you are travelling in hit a tree, so I am not sure this is what happened in this case. Pure speculation, but it could be that Sophie and whoever she was sitting behind (or vice versa) wore seatbelts and the other two back passengers didn't. We all know how that ends from the frightening public service films

Seatbelts have a profound effect on survival (link below), so agree.https://www.rospa.com/media/documents/road-safety/road-observatory/Vehicles-Seatbelts.pdf

Sadly any crash that has involved lethal force (suggested by the sad passing away of the car inhabitants) bodes poorly for those with remaining injuries imo

With respect to raising the alarm, sadly one of the mechanisms of high speed-tree collision injury is something called diffuse Axonal injury. Your brain cells are mostly water but their long axons are coated in myelin, a fatty substance. When you accelerate-decelerate the two different densities accelerate-decelerate at different speeds. The axons can therefore be torn off the cell bodies. (Links below)

Traumatic Brain Injury

Acquired brain injury hapens when a sudden, external, physical assault damages the brain. It is one of the most common causes of disability and death in adults.

www.hopkinsmedicine.org

Diffuse Axonal Injury - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf

Thus even the survivors may have been completely knocked out imo

Then of course direct damage from any branches etc

Devastated for such gross loss of young life. I really think the one advantage of driverless cars if they happen will be protecting younger people.

 

[JennieM]

From this shot which direction would they likely have been travelling in?

They will have been travelling in the same direction as the vehicles that are pictured parked on the carriageway (towards the top left of the photograph). On the ground, that is a west to east or north-west to south-east direction towards the roundabout.

There is what appears to be a van pulling a trailer in an anti-clockwise direction on the roundabout. That is only possible because the roundabout was closed to traffic at the time.

I agree Normal Norm.

The BBC video I posted earlier Cardiff car crash: Tributes to three found dead after night out shows the roundabout cordoned off.

If you click on the BBC article there is also a map that shows the crash site. The image is too big for the Websleuths site so I can't upload it here.

 

[UK Girl]

Sister of 21-year-old dead in crash lost big sister eight years before

The sister of a young woman who died with her two friends in a carcrash - eight years after she lost her older sister in a fatal crash caused by a drug driver has paid tribute to their memory.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Ray_of_hope]

How sad. More precious lives gone too soon.

 

[VixenLeaf]

To be honest, in almost all cases when someone's whereabouts are unknown after a night out, they'll have drunk a bit too much , crashed at a mates house, not have their phone charger with them so are uncontactable, and only wake up with a hangover at about 2pm.

I think we all did that when we were about 20. I know I did. My mum nearly had kittens.

Hindsight is 20/20, but I'm sure the police get a lot of calls from worried mums about their adult offspring who haven't made it home after a night out, and they almost always turn up within a few hours.

Was there anything to suggest that this was unlikely in this case in the initial hours?

Well yes, 3 friends all missing. No one has heard from any of them? Last seen getting in a car with 2 blokes?

 

[JennieM]

IMAGE: Clear indication of crash site, " A timeline shows how the five tragic friends' accident occurred".

Anger after revelation it took police 48 hours to find crash victims

Police were facing questions last night about how five young people lay undiscovered for two days with search parties claiming they discovered the grim accident in Cardiff 'before authorities'.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[JennieM]

Another poster earlier (sorry don't remember who it was) had said the car wouldn't leave marks on the grass, and the image in the link above seems to support that theory.

 

[airportwoman]

There must be very little evidence of the collision it doesn’t appear to be remote, looks a well used road/route. Yet they potentially sat there unnoticed for 2 days.

It doesn't take all that much brush or shrubbery to hide a vehicle. Maybe they weren't going fast enough to leave tire tracks in the dirt?

 

[JennieM]

It's been extremely dry for February lately (driest since 1993 or something like that), so it wouldn't have been boggy.

It's definitely possible to drive across dry grass without leaving noticeable marks... especially if you're not braking hard and/or skidding at the same time.

@rightsaidfred
see the image in the link above, it supports your theory

 

[JennieM]

IMAGE: It is believed the car carrying the five young people collided with this tree.

Anger after revelation it took police 48 hours to find crash victims

Police were facing questions last night about how five young people lay undiscovered for two days with search parties claiming they discovered the grim accident in Cardiff 'before authorities'.

www.dailymail.co.uk