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

[gregjrichards]

Corrie McKeague's mother has hit back at her son's father after he said the airman was 'no longer missing' and is 'somewhere in the waste disposal system'.

Nicola Urquhart, 48, criticised Martin McKeague, 49, and insisted 'we're still looking for Corrie'.

The 23-year-old disappeared on a boozy night out in Suffolk on September 24, 2016, after it is believed he climbed into a wheelie bin to sleep.

Ms Urquhart said today: 'We're still looking for Corrie. Corrie is missing.

'The police don't know. They cannot categorically state Corrie is in a particular area but they just can't get him.'

Corrie McKeague's mother slams RAF man's father for saying his son is 'no longer missing' | Daily Mail Online

I can understand both parents point of view and I feel very sorry for both of them.

 

[Miss_French]

IMBW, but I thought the CCTV showed them walking past the Cornhill shopping centre towards the Greenwoods camera. Wasn't there also some footage from the camera inside the Cornhill? Unfortunately the police seem to have taken down all the CCTV clips as soon as the people were identified. I had the impression that the driver saw them walk away up SB, but again IMBW.

Again, I'm inclined to take N's statements with a pinch of salt because they aren't always accurate, for one reason or another. She's reliant on what she's been told at the time, and sometimes that changes.

It was said there was cctv of the teens on SB but I dont know whether that was from the rear of Cornhill Walk or private. They were spoken to a couple of weeks after C disappeared. I don't remember any footage of a group of 3 from the front of Cornhill Walk, but the clip to which you're referring can be glimpsed here:

Corrie McKeague's mum overwhelmed by support from public to help find her son

These 3 are walking along Risbygate St, with Hughes the last building on their left. The Greenwoods camera has swung 180 from where it last showed C and is pointing along the road he walked. It's dated November, after the SB teens had been found.

 

[Cherwell]

Ah yes, you're right - they are going towards the HS from the opposite direction. But immediately afterwards, isn't that them passing the Cornhill, from the camera inside? Although only two of them can be seen in the still shot. If it is them, they can't have gone up SB then.

 

[Miss_French]

Ah yes, you're right - they are going towards the HS from the opposite direction. But immediately afterwards, isn't that them passing the Cornhill, from the camera inside? Although only two of them can be seen in the still shot. If it is them, they can't have gone up SB then.

I don't know if the Risbygate St and Cornhill Walk clips are related, but they were people still to be identified, whereas the 3 teens on SB had already been found.

 

[Cherwell]

Thanks for the clarification, it must have been another clip I saw then. I definitely remember seeing at least one showing the "three teens".

 

[Scorpio1]

I remember in the very early days N and uncle T making very loud statements about how corrie could have been taken , we have never really discussed this on WS. Maybe because we don't know anything about this sort of thing, the police have discounted it but how hard did they actually look in to it , it's still possible that he was taken and accidentally died after fight etc then body disposed of, other attempts were made at other bases around the same time,
IMO

 

[Mellowmelly]

I remember in the very early days N and uncle T making very loud statements about how corrie could have been taken , we have never really discussed this on WS. Maybe because we don't know anything about this sort of thing, the police have discounted it but how hard did they actually look in to it , it's still possible that he was taken and accidentally died after fight etc then body disposed of, other attempts were made at other bases around the same time,
IMO

I havnt posted on here for quite a while as there hasn’t been any news on Corrie until recently. I agree it’s possible he could have been taken or got into a fight. I think until they find forensic evidence he is in the landfill i won’t believe he was in the bin and I can understand his mom not wanting to give up the search, as I know I wouldn’t of it was one of my children. It’s so sad he still hasn’t been found, I’m always checking the news for any updates but nothing concrete ever materialises.

 

[Miss_French]

T

I remember in the very early days N and uncle T making very loud statements about how corrie could have been taken , we have never really discussed this on WS. Maybe because we don't know anything about this sort of thing, the police have discounted it but how hard did they actually look in to it , it's still possible that he was taken and accidentally died after fight etc then body disposed of, other attempts were made at other bases around the same time,
IMO

The was only one alleged 'kidanap' attempt, which was RAF Marham, but was later ruled not terrorism, more likely a personal dispute. The other reports generated hysterical headlines in some of the tabloids of 'British Soldier in Kidnal Scare', but Colchester was someone saying they'd seen a vehicle and people matching the Marham description; Aldershot was 2 men in a car parked near the base and 'acting suspiciously'.

SP said kidnap was a possibility, but not a main line of enquiry. I suppose it's like every other possibility, what people and cars were around to have done this.

 

[Shiressleuth]

Interesting excerpt from Nicola's FB post (quoted in MSM link above)

"I have also been read the statement of the driver of the biffa lorry that night and the description he provided to the police of the 4th person he saw STANDING in the horseshoe looking at his phone his description matched Corrie exactly.
I have no reason to doubt this man at all, he appears to be the single person from biffa that has actually said exactly the same thing from the first day he was spoken too. It is evidence and fact in police statements that this gentleman looked in the bin and he states Corrie was not in the bin, it was filled with the same rubbish as normal."

That would be interesting to see the bin man's statement to see if his description included a pink shirt and white trousers.

 

[KarenUK]

I was in Bury shopping yesterday, I don't go there very often, but everytime I walk past the horsehoe I get a bit of a shiver.... Anyway, here's a new article from the Mirror following a new facebook post from Nicola Urquhart

Missing Corrie McKeague's mum reveals new information that 'changes everything'

 

[CoverMeCagney]

I can't decide whether Nicola truly believes what she's saying, or whether she is just desperate to avoid the case being closed on the assumption he's lost in landfill. Either way she needs to get the roadsides properly searched, I don't really understand why this hasn't already been done in the last two years.

She said: “We know that when Corrie went missing there was a massive search carried out from Bury to Honington this search covered the area that if a person was to walk the police have guessed – slightly more to it than a simple guess, I am using simple terms – which would be most likely. Suffolk MIT have drawn a line of the most direct way to walk “as the crow flies”. This area has been searched.

“However, when I have been with Corrie, including the week before he disappeared he drove from Honington to Bury on each occasion by driving along the A134 and along Green Ln. April [his partner] has also confirmed this is the way Corrie would usually drive.

“The search for Corrie walking back to Honington only covers the right-hand side fields of this road with only the verge on the other side being searched. There have been a couple of other areas searched on this side but the majority has not been searched passed the standard search when searching a road.”

 

[MelmothTheLost]

I was in Bury shopping yesterday, I don't go there very often, but everytime I walk past the horsehoe I get a bit of a shiver.... Anyway, here's a new article from the Mirror following a new facebook post from Nicola Urquhart

Missing Corrie McKeague's mum reveals new information that 'changes everything'

I'm not sure there's anything actually new there. There's actually no evidence for anything other than that Corrie went into the Horseshoe and wasn't seen to come out. There's no evidence that he ended up in a bin and then in the landfill, but it's the simplest of all the possible explanations for what happened that night.

The problem for Nicola is that in reality there is no reasonable explanation for Corrie's disappearance that doesn't reflect poorly on him, whether in terms of his behaviour or of his lifestyle.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

“The search for Corrie walking back to Honington only covers the right-hand side fields of this road with only the verge on the other side being searched. There have been a couple of other areas searched on this side but the majority has not been searched passed the standard search when searching a road.”

Searching the fields on the right hand side of the road is the sensible option because, as Corrie would have been trained to do, you should always walk along a road facing oncoming traffic. This means that you can't be hit from behind by a vehicle but on a dual carriageway like the A134 obviously there's no chance of hitching a lift.

Nicola's complaint about only the verge, rather than the fields, on the left hand side being searched doesn't seem to me to have much merit. If you look at the area on Google satellite view you will see that much of the route on both sides is bordered by barley or wheat fields, which means that they will have been cultivated right up to the fence that borders the strip of grass between the field and the road. If he was in the fields he would have been found very soon after his disappearance.

The areas on the left which have not been searched beyond the roadside verge are mostly made up of villages and other strips of settlement, or patches of woodland which mostly stand on top of roadside embankments. If the verges on that side of the road have been searched, so have the embankments and I very much doubt that if Corrie was hit by a speeding vehicle his body would have been thrown right over the embankment. Even then, had it landed in the fields beyond it would have been found. This is intensively cultivated land. There is no realistic possibility that human remains in a pink shirt could or would have been missed in those fields.

I'm sorry to say that I think Nicola is still deep in denial.

 

[KarenUK]

Searching the fields on the right hand side of the road is the sensible option because, as Corrie would have been trained to do, you should always walk along a road facing oncoming traffic. This means that you can't be hit from behind by a vehicle but on a dual carriageway like the A134 obviously there's no chance of hitching a lift.

Nicola's complaint about only the verge, rather than the fields, on the left hand side being searched doesn't seem to me to have much merit. If you look at the area on Google satellite view you will see that much of the route on both sides is bordered by barley or wheat fields, which means that they will have been cultivated right up to the fence that borders the strip of grass between the field and the road. If he was in the fields he would have been found very soon after his disappearance.

The areas on the left which have not been searched beyond the roadside verge are mostly made up of villages and other strips of settlement, or patches of woodland which mostly stand on top of roadside embankments. If the verges on that side of the road have been searched, so have the embankments and I very much doubt that if Corrie was hit by a speeding vehicle his body would have been thrown right over the embankment. Even then, had it landed in the fields beyond it would have been found. This is intensively cultivated land. There is no realistic possibility that human remains in a pink shirt could or would have been missed in those fields.

I'm sorry to say that I think Nicola is still deep in denial.

Totally agree. It's too much of a reach that he could have left the horseshoe area and the town centre unseen by CCTV or witnesses, having lost his phone in the bin (in order for it to have followed the bin lorries route), then is presumably struck by a vehicle which doesn't stop to help or report the incident and on top of that no remains found in an area which has been searched or fields that have been farmed in the time since. I feel for Nicola, it must be awful not being able to lay her son to rest, but Corrie's fathers statement is far more realistic.

 

[PaulSimon]

I dont know if anyone has read the actual FB post but there are quite a few points of interest however its probably stuff we knew or suspected anyways

The 116kg bin actually wasnt an unusual weight at all, they have records of those bins weighting about 100kg at a time and even on one occasion which was a Saturday it was over 1,000kg. So its not as if it was a shockingly big difference where it could have contained a body. She also had confirmation that the whole "you cant leave the area without being seen on CCTV" is inaccurate as well, because you can. She also mentions after all the mess ups from Suffolk Police she has no confidence that when they watched the CCTV he could have been missed. She also says there is a statement from an eye witness to say they saw Corrie standing in the horsehoe at the time the Biffa bin was collecting (I am guessing this is from the bin man himself as were discussing him saying he saw someone who matched Corrie's description)

Again, nothing particularly new obviously but its basically confirmation that he was not in the bin.

"From Nicola's post

The facts, as we understand them are:
An eye witness stating Corrie was standing in the horseshoe at the time of the Biffa lorry picked up the Greggs waste
No forensics, in the Biffa Bin.
No forensics in the Biffa lorry.
No trace of Corrie at Red lodge
No sightings of Corrie at Red lodge during the dropping off process or when the rubbish was then moved within the bay or moved back into the lorry that took it to Milton."

 

[CoverMeCagney]

I agree she's in denial in many respects and a lot of what she says now is contrary to what she has said before. I'm not blaming her, by the way, I think she's been misinformed in the past. But I have NEVER heard before that the bin weight was regularly around the 100kg mark, this makes a HUGE difference to the case (in my opinion) as it means the whole thing has been based on a phone ping matching the bin lorry route.

If it's the case that the bin often weighed upwards of 100kg, and that it was possible to leave the horseshoe off camera, the whole case needs looking at with fresh eyes. So, let's start at the start....

 

[KarenUK]

Article from The East Anglian detailing Suffolk Polices response

Suffolk police respond after Corrie McKeague’s mum reveals he may not be at landfill site

This one includes the full facebook post from Nicola

Corrie McKeague’s mum says new information suggests he didn’t climb into bin and is NOT in landfill

 

[Cherwell]

I have never believed in the bin/landfill theory. I've always thought he walked out of the horseshoe while the camera was pointing the other way, and set off to walk or hitchhike back. On the way something happened that resulted in his death.

 

[Sark06]

My two pennies worth just for the sake of saying, I think when young men go missing on a night out, the usual outcome is sadly that they come to harm from either falling, drowning, hypothermia etc as in misadventure. I think this was the assumption made by the police in the first hours/days of the investigation. I think having NU running along side the investigation has been the only reason other theories have been highlighted and discussed in such a public way, I think the mistakes made by the police in not viewing all cctv and the weight of the bin lorry discrepancies have been made to look suspicious because the police and NU have, understandably been at loggerheads from the beginning. The police investigating are working on likelihood and probability and so a drunken accident or climbing in a bin are obvious lines of enquiry. For a mother kidnap, hostage, murder, torture, terrorism, sexual predictor and a million other equally awful sinarios will be going through her mind constantly. I think corrie will either be in a hedgerow, a ditch or a pond and will be found one day by a dog walker, I cannot see suicide by bin lorry as a theory or AWOL and if any criminal activity had taken place in the horseshoe surely there would be some trace or witness, very sad case.

 

[CoverMeCagney]

I think Occam's Razor would suggest that Corrie lies in a hedgerow or pond, somewhere between town and home. Like most here I was of the same opinion up until the insistence on the 100kg+ bin weight. So why have we had so many red herrings thrown in our path along the way? Who is at fault for all the misinformation and chaos? The police? The media? Social media? The family? All of the above?

Either he could have got out of the horseshoe or he could not.
Either the bin weighed 80kg more than normal or it did not.

Not rocket science, is it. It's pissing me off to be honest.