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

[Amonet]

I don't know details of it, nor if it was available back then, but nowadays there is specialist heat-seeking equipment that can detect dead bodies. It detects the heat from decomposition rather than from a live body.

 

[Resourceress]

I don't know details of it, nor if it was available back then, but nowadays there is specialist heat-seeking equipment that can detect dead bodies. It detects the heat from decomposition rather than from a live body.

That's a really strong point. I wonder when that was developed and whether it would detect if she was buried.

I still am not sure if 100 acres was a very good search though... Does anyone know how many acres police would typically search normally in cases like this ?

If it was my child I would think they had hardly looked if they hadnt searched whole area.

 

[alb1on]

Really silly question - the articles say police searched 100 acres in Box Hill area with heat seeking helicopters and sniffer dogs.

• It's worth mentioning firstly - Box Hill encompasses 1200 acres (1100 acres then unsearched?)
• Also if heat seeking helicopters were used would they actually detect a dead body ?

Fair questions. My understanding is that the helicopter search was on the same night that she went missing. This means that, even if she was dead, the temperature of the body would still be much greater than the surrounds and should be easily seen in thermal imaging. The Surrey Police are certainly experienced in this sort of activity. I live near Guildford Golf Course on the Downs and several times a year we are woken up by police helicopters clearly searching for something (probably local offenders).

I also believe there have been multiple searches of the Box Hill area over the years, including several at the time of her disappearance. I think the 100 acres refers to the initial search. However, the searches were focused on the south east side of Box Hill, in the area she was last seen. This seems sensible both because of the taxi drivers information and because it is less used than the area from the Burford Bridge up the zig zag road to the NT car park. Whilst I would be very surprised if the latter area was not subsequently searched, it was also the focus of both visitors and the 2012 Olympic cycle race - so any body in that area should have been found by walkers or spectators. Even in the area of the initial search there are multiple pathways including the well used local section of the Pilgrims Way from Winchester to Canterbury (and what is now a commercial fishery also well used).

I find it hard to understand how a body could have remained hidden after a search by dogs and helicopters, plus 25 years of intense use by walkers and the Olympics (including all the security searches that involved). If I was to guess (although I still think she is somewhere else, alive or dead) I would suggest a body would be more likely to have stayed hidden across the other side of the A24, towards West Humble and Denbies.

 

[Resourceress]

Fair questions. My understanding is that the helicopter search was on the same night that she went missing. This means that, even if she was dead, the temperature of the body would still be much greater than the surrounds and should be easily seen in thermal imaging. The Surrey Police are certainly experienced in this sort of activity. I live near Guildford Golf Course on the Downs and several times a year we are woken up by police helicopters clearly searching for something (probably local offenders).

I also believe there have been multiple searches of the Box Hill area over the years, including several at the time of her disappearance. I think the 100 acres refers to the initial search. However, the searches were focused on the south east side of Box Hill, in the area she was last seen. This seems sensible both because of the taxi drivers information and because it is less used than the area from the Burford Bridge up the zig zag road to the NT car park. Whilst I would be very surprised if the latter area was not subsequently searched, it was also the focus of both visitors and the 2012 Olympic cycle race - so any body in that area should have been found by walkers or spectators. Even in the area of the initial search there are multiple pathways including the well used local section of the Pilgrims Way from Winchester to Canterbury (and what is now a commercial fishery also well used).

I find it hard to understand how a body could have remained hidden after a search by dogs and helicopters, plus 25 years of intense use by walkers and the Olympics (including all the security searches that involved). If I was to guess (although I still think she is somewhere else, alive or dead) I would suggest a body would be more likely to have stayed hidden across the other side of the A24, towards West Humble and Denbies.

Thanks for the additional information - this is really useful.
I agree there must have been some searching taking place ahead of the olympic cycling event.

That said, I don't think they would have searched the whole area as they couldn't even fence the whole cycle route due to resources or maybe terrain? , Surrey Police face Olympic challenge with cycling race

Those are really good suggestions RE; West Humble and Denbies. Though it would be strange to get a cab to the top Box Hill to commit suicide at the bottom of the hill. Which would suggest foul play if she were found in those areas to me.

Also another thought - if that CCTV sighting of her were real. Why get a cab to the top of boxhill in order to disappear ?

• Hand in Hand is at least 1 hour walk from any train station I think (if she acted alone, as she doesn't drive as underage)
• If she were meeting someone for a lift, it's a really strange place to get picked up in a car , especially as she were in town at the library earlier that day
• If the location was chosen due to the remoteness/ lack of CCTV or something - why get a cab there and not walk to a nearby remote area from town where she wouldnt be seen getting picked up ? And there would be no record of where she last went because she left on foot?
• Makes me wonder if she knew someone in that residential area

As a local, wouldnt you agree it's a strange place to start a runaway ?
It's just a very odd place to go missing without abduction

 

[Resourceress]

Have the campsites at the top of Boxhill been there also in the 90s do you know ?
Maybe she met someone from out of town who took her elsewhere ?

 

[MarziPanda]

Heat seeking from a helicopter doesn't really work like that - and especially not in the 90s. I watched a documentary series about missing people (I believe it was BBC) and they used it in one of those cases. It doesn't work well at all in rugged or forested terrain. Heat seeking video can't see through walls/bushes/foliage. So if you're in a helicopter above a forest, it's very difficult to see heat signatures in the forest because the trees are in the way. And this was late November - it would have been cold, so if she died there, it's likely her body went cold quite quickly. In the 90s I imagine the technology/video quality was even worse.

I personally think it is possible (and it's happened before) for people to go into an area like that and never be found. Bodies decompose, bones get scattered, eaten by animals, taken into badger sets and fox dens, until nearly nothing remains - and what remains is quickly buried under dirt.

 

[alb1on]

I don't know about the campsites. I agree that if the body were across the other side of the A24 it would suggest third party involved. The Hand in Hand is much closer to Betchworth station if you take the hillside path from The Tree (the new name of the Hand in Hand) - but I cannot think of a good reason to do that. I can think of only 3 reasons to go to the Hand in Hand (other than for suicide on the hill);

• to meet someone at the pub. I have often waited outside a pub when I have arranged to meet someone to then go for a meal or drink.
• to meet up with someone who lived locally to the pub. It is a far less rural area than sometimes thought, with quite a lot of local houses and it may have been convenient to specify the Hand in Hand to a taxi driver and then walk a short distance to a house - but the fact that the taxi driver saw her standing there suggests otherwise.
• to be picked up by someone using the Hand in Hand as an easy to find local point. I suspect this is most likely although it would suggest deliberately choosing a place less likely to have too many people around (consistent with the other elements of planning) and (possibly) some local knowledge by the other person as it is on a back road (albeit not difficult to find).

I still lean toward her leaving, although whether she then met trouble at the hands of a third party seems the big question. I rather think this depends on whether that party was someone she knew well - such as from school - or was a recent contact. My inclination is that one of her friends knows more than they are saying, but that is just guesswork based on very little.

 

[alb1on]

Heat seeking from a helicopter doesn't really work like that - and especially not in the 90s. I watched a documentary series about missing people (I believe it was BBC) and they used it in one of those cases. It doesn't work well at all in rugged or forested terrain. Heat seeking video can't see through walls/bushes/foliage. So if you're in a helicopter above a forest, it's very difficult to see heat signatures in the forest because the trees are in the way. And this was late November - it would have been cold, so if she died there, it's likely her body went cold quite quickly. In the 90s I imagine the technology/video quality was even worse.

I personally think it is possible (and it's happened before) for people to go into an area like that and never be found. Bodies decompose, bones get scattered, eaten by animals, taken into badger sets and fox dens, until nearly nothing remains - and what remains is quickly buried under dirt.

There should have been no problem with body heat loss making thermal imaging a problem given the helicopter search was on the night she went missing - ie within 10 hours. Core cooling takes at least 24 hours and even skin cooling longer than 10. The tree cover is a good point but almost all of the cover on Box Hill is deciduous and would have shed most leaves by that time of the year. Thermal imaging is not perfect and I recall a big fuss about the failure to locate the David Kelly body from a helicopter back in Blair's day - but if she was there a combination of helicopter and search dogs should have located her. The difference in this case from most (including Kelly) was that the police had a pretty precise area to search and were on site within hours. I know the police are sometimes criticised (including by me) but in this case they moved fast and deployed the best of resources for the initial search.

 

[MarziPanda]

There should have been no problem with body heat loss making thermal imaging a problem given the helicopter search was on the night she went missing - ie within 10 hours. Core cooling takes at least 24 hours and even skin cooling longer than 10. The tree cover is a good point but almost all of the cover on Box Hill is deciduous and would have shed most leaves by that time of the year. Thermal imaging is not perfect and I recall a big fuss about the failure to locate the David Kelly body from a helicopter back in Blair's day - but if she was there a combination of helicopter and search dogs should have located her. The difference in this case from most (including Kelly) was that the police had a pretty precise area to search and were on site within hours. I know the police are sometimes criticised (including by me) but in this case they moved fast and deployed the best of resources for the initial search.

I get your point, but I don't personally agree. I've seen a lot of helicopter thermal imaging and it's pretty poor quality even these days never mind 26 years ago. It's very easy to miss a person who is alive, let alone a cooling deceased person. A lot of it is movement based too - it's a lot easier to find someone who is moving. A small warmer spot that isn't moving can be easily missed. And if she were still alive at that point she could have hidden, or have travelled outside of the search area before dying. I just don't think it can be discounted that that's where she went and might still be based on them doing thermal helicopter searches. Even dogs can pretty easily miss stuff.

 

[Resourceress]

I don't know about the campsites. I agree that if the body were across the other side of the A24 it would suggest third party involved. The Hand in Hand is much closer to Betchworth station if you take the hillside path from The Tree (the new name of the Hand in Hand) - but I cannot think of a good reason to do that. I can think of only 3 reasons to go to the Hand in Hand (other than for suicide on the hill);

• to meet someone at the pub. I have often waited outside a pub when I have arranged to meet someone to then go for a meal or drink.
• to meet up with someone who lived locally to the pub. It is a far less rural area than sometimes thought, with quite a lot of local houses and it may have been convenient to specify the Hand in Hand to a taxi driver and then walk a short distance to a house - but the fact that the taxi driver saw her standing there suggests otherwise.
• to be picked up by someone using the Hand in Hand as an easy to find local point. I suspect this is most likely although it would suggest deliberately choosing a place less likely to have too many people around (consistent with the other elements of planning) and (possibly) some local knowledge by the other person as it is on a back road (albeit not difficult to find).

I still lean toward her leaving, although whether she then met trouble at the hands of a third party seems the big question. I rather think this depends on whether that party was someone she knew well - such as from school - or was a recent contact. My inclination is that one of her friends knows more than they are saying, but that is just guesswork based on very little.

I would like to think if she had met someone at the pub, she would have been seen at the pub.
I agree it seems she would have intended to meet a local resident or meet someone from out of town at the pub as a meeting point.

It is probably most likely that she left the area again in another persons car.
Although it is equally as possible that her remains are in the local area due to foul play.

... The thing that really sticks out to me - and I can't find any further info on - is the 3 hours spent at the library.
I can't find any records on the facilities available there at the time. Or whether she checked anything out...

I am SURE the police must have checked computer records there if they were available. But then again, it's odd that no reports seem to list WHAT she was doing for 3 hours at the library. To me, there's a huge difference between studying books for school (would indicate definitely not suicide) or using the internet to, for example research other towns to go to or talking to a contact.

I wonder if there was computers available there at the time and if she was speaking to someone on a forum and left to meet them... Other people I have spoken to locally hypothesise she was being groomed by someone (online or offline) and planned for some weeks to leave with them, probably romantically.

I would agree on that it is a huge potential possibility - as I honestly don't think a young girl like that could disappear entirely on her own and still be alive, all whilst being undetected for so long. Yet she was planning to go somewhere it seems (things she mentioned to friends, the flowers, the farewell curry ect.) If she was being groomed she may have been told not to tell anyone..

I hope that makes some sense

 

[alb1on]

... The thing that really sticks out to me - and I can't find any further info on - is the 3 hours spent at the library.
I can't find any records on the facilities available there at the time. Or whether she checked anything out...

I am SURE the police must have checked computer records there if they were available. But then again, it's odd that no reports seem to list WHAT she was doing for 3 hours at the library. To me, there's a huge difference between studying books for school (would indicate definitely not suicide) or using the internet to, for example research other towns to go to or talking to a contact.

I wonder if there was computers available there at the time and if she was speaking to someone on a forum and left to meet them... Other people I have spoken to locally hypothesise she was being groomed by someone (online or offline) and planned for some weeks to leave with them, probably romantically.

I hope that makes some sense

I do not think this can be an online case. This was 1995. Browsers were very basic and facilities most common in academic circles. I would be 99% sure that there was no internet connection available at Dorking Library, at least for public use. I recall that domestic internet facilities in the UK really took off with the launch of Freeserve in 98/99, which simplified getting online and got rid of monthly fees. This would mean that any grooming would have had to be done in person and should have been detected during the investigation (as it seems likely that someone would have noticed something).

 

[Resourceress]

This is really good to know. Though it does make it even curiouser for me what someone would be doing for 3 hours in a library on the day they go missing..

Unless she was killing time until a meeting perhaps... I wonder if it was a regular haunt of hers and what she would usually do there.

I don't recall them covering the contents of that last day with the friends interviewed in the short film. It would be good to know from someone who knew her whether those movements were out of character. Maybe she spent 3 hours at the library a few times a week. Would be good to know as would build better context as to state of mind and intentions I think ..

 

[Resourceress]

Also I don't find that grooming is very detectable in alot of cases. Teenagers are secretive at the best of times. And it happens all the time that grooming is not identified.

 

[Konstantin]

• to meet someone at the pub. I have often waited outside a pub when I have arranged to meet someone to then go for a meal or drink.
• to meet up with someone who lived locally to the pub. It is a far less rural area than sometimes thought, with quite a lot of local houses and it may have been convenient to specify the Hand in Hand to a taxi driver and then walk a short distance to a house - but the fact that the taxi driver saw her standing there suggests otherwise.
• to be picked up by someone using the Hand in Hand as an easy to find local point. I suspect this is most likely although it would suggest deliberately choosing a place less likely to have too many people around (consistent with the other elements of planning) and (possibly) some local knowledge by the other person as it is on a back road (albeit not difficult to find).

I still lean toward her leaving, although whether she then met trouble at the hands of a third party seems the big question. I rather think this depends on whether that party was someone she knew well - such as from school - or was a recent contact. My inclination is that one of her friends knows more than they are saying, but that is just guesswork based on very little

I agree with you in that I also lean toward her leaving.

I think that it's possible Ruth's disappearance was very calculated actually. There are signs that this is the case.

-- Ruth deliberately ordered flowers for her stepmum, with whom there are indications she was having issues, most likely around the fact that Ruth had found out that her birth mum had committed suicide and not died in an accident. Ruth made a plan around the ordering of the flowers, which would have a message that was clear to her parents, and she must have known, since it's a small town/village, that the flowers would be traced back to the shop she bought them from and the shop owner would likely remember the girl who bought them. So she likely knew up ahead that this sequence of events would happen. She was sending a message, we just don't know what.

-- I think Ruth planned to make it look like she killed herself, and left notes that were ambiguous in a place where they would be found. You write and leave notes because you want and expect them to be found, right? Actually it's worth noting that most suicides DON'T leave notes and in teen suicides the numbers who leave notes are even smaller, since teen suicide is actually very rare, if you look up the teen suicide rate for the year Ruth went missing you can see it's tiny. Yet Ruth both wrote notes, and her notes were found very soon after her disappearance. Yet there was no body? Why? Well, let's hypothesize that Ruth took the taxi to the weird place of the top of Box Hill-- where some suicides have happened, and she might have known that--knowing that her taxi journey would be discovered soon after she went missing. We have pointed out before how odd this is as a place to run away from. But what if Ruth chose it because she wanted to lay a trail that suggested she was a suicide on Box Hill, and clearly her plan worked because the police found her notes. That in itself is fishy to me, because the night she went missing it was cold, rainy and blowing a gale, so if you left paper notes lying around they woudl go soggy, the ink would run and they would blow off. Yet clearly this cannot have been the case with Ruth's notes.

-- The taxi driver claims that Ruth just stood there after he drove off. That could be because she wanted him to see her standing there, to remember her, and/or because she wanted to give the impression she planned to stay on Box Hill and head down the bridleway, and she didn't want him to see where she was heading off to, so she waited til he was gone. It was cold and rainy and she had no coat so I doubt she would have stood around for long. Again, Ruth was aware that this journey would be found out, and she wanted that to happen since the journey places her at Box Hill. She wants people to think she went to Box Hill and killed herself there. Maybe she wanted to escape or maybe she also wanted to hurt her parents, send a message to them, pay them back.

-- Suicide by paracetamol is very hard and even if it was successful it would take hours and hours and most likely Ruth would have been found that night. Or, if she came to harm on Box Hill -- there was a search party that night, one would assume it would be reasonable that some signs of a struggle would be visible. and anyway, it would have been very bad luck for her to have chanced on a random stranger who killed her and hid her body so thoroughly no one ever found her on there.

No, I think Ruth planned her departure-- as evidenced by her farewell meal, her obvious distress around her home life, her friends probably know a little more than they are letting on but it's more likely she had help from someone outside of her school friends circle. She worked in a music shop, which wasn't a place that sold records and CDs but a place that sold sheet music, as her interest was playing and learning music, so its possible for example she could have met someone there. She was certainly telling some people she was close to about her problems at home. I think those problems probably ran deeper than certainly her family have let on. Whether something happened to Ruth after she ran away, i think we will never find that out.

 

[Catdetective]

It would be interesting to get hold of a 1995 map of the Box Hill area. I notice there is currently a music shop near to the old Hand in Hand. Given that she worked part time in a music shop, could there have been a link there?

 

[Konstantin]

It would be interesting to get hold of a 1995 map of the Box Hill area. I notice there is currently a music shop near to the old Hand in Hand. Given that she worked part time in a music shop, could there have been a link there?

yes i was wondering that myself... it does seem that, if Ruth did meet someone outside of her school friends circle, this is a place where that could have happened.

The other thing that stands out for me in this case is that her parents really don't seem to want to keep the case alive and their appeals to Ruth and insistence that nothing was wrong at home do seem somewhat odd to me. I mean, there does seem to have been something wrong at home. For Ruth to run away more than once suggests that her parents must have been aware she was troubled, so why the denials that anything was wrong? Guilt? But why not try to keep the case alive? To try to seek justice for Ruth, if something happened to her? I do get the impression they think she ran away and is alive. The police haven't reclassified her case as a murder or declared her dead either so that suggests there may be other information that is not in the public domain that means they believe Ruth is most likely alive. There are dark undertones to this case that really are quite disturbing.

 

[Resourceress]

yes i was wondering that myself... it does seem that, if Ruth did meet someone outside of her school friends circle, this is a place where that could have happened.

The other thing that stands out for me in this case is that her parents really don't seem to want to keep the case alive and their appeals to Ruth and insistence that nothing was wrong at home do seem somewhat odd to me. I mean, there does seem to have been something wrong at home. For Ruth to run away more than once suggests that her parents must have been aware she was troubled, so why the denials that anything was wrong? Guilt? But why not try to keep the case alive? To try to seek justice for Ruth, if something happened to her? I do get the impression they think she ran away and is alive. The police haven't reclassified her case as a murder or declared her dead either so that suggests there may be other information that is not in the public domain that means they believe Ruth is most likely alive. There are dark undertones to this case that really are quite disturbing.

Yes I agree the family are quite suspicious. It's a horrible thing to suggest but can't be ruled out.

The family life clearly wasn't happy, at least at that time, so it does seem really strange to suggest otherwise. However, they could be doing that to shift blame and refocus case in an outward direction for the right reason or because they are involved.

Also this is PURELY speculation - But I did worry when I first heard of this case that the death of her mother is suspicious. Then maybe Ruth cottoned on to that and was disposed of or tried to run away from it. However, I am sure there are ways to tell if someone hanged themself or someone else did it ?

Although I have recently heard of some convictions where people have been charged for egging on a suicide or abusing someone so much they do commit suicide. So that again may have been a possible suspicion of Ruth. She did go to London and find out the details of her mothers death on her own and maybe she laid some blame for it on her family, which wouldn't be an uncommon emotional reaction - even if incorrect. Maybe she sent flowers to her step mum as she was sorry for leaving her in a bad situation at home.

Again, all speculation and I am very sorry if this triggers anyone.

 

[alb1on]

I cannot be sure there was not a music shop near the pub in 1995, but I assume the reference is to Malcolm Healey's premises. I know that his premises were in Sutton (miles from Box Hill) in the early noughties (circa 2001/2) so suspect his presence at Box Hill post dates Ruth's disappearance.

 

[JSolt1210]

No, I think Ruth planned her departure... She worked in a music shop ... so its possible for example she could have met someone there. She was certainly telling some people she was close to about her problems at home. I think those problems probably ran deeper than certainly her family have let on.

The other thing that stands out for me in this case is that her parents really don't seem to want to keep the case alive and their appeals to Ruth and insistence that nothing was wrong at home do seem somewhat odd to me. I mean, there does seem to have been something wrong at home. For Ruth to run away more than once suggests that her parents must have been aware she was troubled, so why the denials that anything was wrong? Guilt? ... There are dark undertones to this case that really are quite disturbing.

Also this is PURELY speculation - But I did worry when I first heard of this case that the death of her mother is suspicious. Then maybe Ruth cottoned on to that and ... tried to run away from it...

I have recently heard of some convictions where people have been charged for egging on a suicide or abusing someone so much they do commit suicide... Maybe she sent flowers to her step mum as she was sorry for leaving her in a bad situation at home.

Wow I think these are all very excellent and plausible points.

If Ruth had been told all her life that her mom's death was an accident, only to learn later on that it was suicide, Ruth may have doubted even this story. After all, if you lied to me once, how can I be sure you're telling me the truth now?

Depending on what her family life was really like in private, maybe Ruth felt there was more direct involvement in the death—whether someone actually killed her, or abused her to the point of despair. Maybe a detail in the death certificate made it 'click' for her, and she just 'knew' what really happened.

Actually, this might explain why no one has come forward all of these years. If Ruth had revealed her findings to someone (her close friends, someone she befriended at the music shop, etc.), they may have been worried about her enough to keep the secret and help her run. To reveal her whereabouts would be to reconnect her to a potentially abusive environment, so they kept quiet for her safety.

The thing with the flowers now really creeps me out, because up to now I viewed it as a gesture of consolation, like, "I appreciate you; you had no part in this." I hadn't thought about it as an apology, like "sorry to leave you in a bad situation." But what if it's more like a warning, like "you could be next, so here are the flowers for your funeral." ::shudder::

 

[JSolt1210]

I do not think this can be an online case. This was 1995. Browsers were very basic and facilities most common in academic circles. I would be 99% sure that there was no internet connection available at Dorking Library, at least for public use. I recall that domestic internet facilities in the UK really took off with the launch of Freeserve in 98/99, which simplified getting online and got rid of monthly fees. This would mean that any grooming would have had to be done in person and should have been detected during the investigation (as it seems likely that someone would have noticed something).

Yeah I agree. From what I remember of using the internet in high school in the late 90s, it was basically like a computerized encyclopedia. You used it to look up information that you otherwise would've needed a library for, and that was pretty much it. Oh and, of course, song lyrics when they didn't come with the cassette or CD lol.

I don't remember instant messaging platforms. In fact, ICQ came out in late '96, followed by AIM in '97. There may have been online forums (similar to this one), but I don't think you could send private messages through them; it all would've been public.

Point is, I don't see internet grooming in this case—especially since not every school or household even had internet access.