Sorry for all the replies, but just to reply to the bit here where you say:
"I guess it just doesn't sit well with me that the general assumption about the case, which I've seen again and again, is that the last thing Kevin ever did was lie to his family, and sneak off to commit some shady outdoor gay sexual acts with older man, end up murdered and no body ever being found."
Firstly, Kevin wouldn't have known it was the last thing he was saying to his family. He didn't know he might be in danger, and wasn't making a death bed confession. As discussed, it was hardly unusual back then, or indeed now, for teenagers to hide from their parents what they were doing.
Secondly, we know from studies such as those cited in the IICSA Inquiry that when under 18s go missing, it is overwhelmingly because of something to do with sex. So, perhaps it is only looking at probabilities, although as I think I've been at pains to say in various posts throughout this whole thread that there was so much going on in the local area that literally anything could have happened to Kevin. With regard to potentially an older man grooming him, what we also now know is that sexual abuse of teenagers is also overwhelmingly carried out by people quite near them in age. It's very possible that if indeed Kevin was being groomed, it was by someone who was at most 21 - 22 years of age. For example, the man who was convicted in 1999 for grooming teenagers in the local parks would have been 21 when Kevin went missing. Not relevant to Kevin's case, but there's a shocking statistic that the average age of those who sexually abuse younger kids is just 14 years old.
You mention "shady outdoor gay sexual acts" but sadly that is what society pushed gay people into to back then. The legal age of consent for a male to have sex with another male was 21, it could only legally occur in a 'private residence', you could still be arrested for even smiling at another man under the 'importuning' laws, gay bars were regularly raided by Police, blackmail was rife and and you could be sacked from your job if you were gay. That's not even to mention how virulently homophobic the average person was back then. So you can see how it was all pushed into the shadows.
I don't know if you have managed to see it, but the BBC documentary series about the gay serial killer Denis Nilsen looks into how homophobia in society in those days enabled Nilsen to get away with it all. Many of his victims' families seemed more upset by the fact that their sons may have been gay than the fact that they'd been murdered. It's really recommended viewing and gives a real insight into the aggressive social attitudes towards gay people in the 1980s and how it enabled a lot of bad things. It may or may not be relevant to Kevin's case, but it does give a very good feeling for what society was like when he disappeared. The link to the first episode is in the link below if you're interested:
The Nilsen Files - Series 1: Episode 1
As Nilsen’s crimes are discovered, the truth about his victims reveals prejudice and multiple missed opportunities to catch a murderous predator.
www.bbc.co.uk
