Missing

[SIRandyraven]

A couple of weeks back I was watching (working from home) a BBC program about missing people. A small article on each person who had been missing for several years.
Some people had simple left home to get a paper or go to work an have never been seen or heard of since.
I was thinking how hard it would be to vanish from your current life ?
- You would first need a pile of cash to live on for a while and somewhere to live
- How would you then work and earn money , without a NI record or leaving a paper trail ?
- Where would you live ? Anywhere you rent would need some form of renters ID ?
Suppose you could use your current ID and hope the person your renting from don't see a Missing type TV program on BBC

You would of course need to keep things legal and not do a Canoe man fraud

[Dee Sa]

maybe someone would go with you and put it all in their name ? or you could change your name by deed poll and start again ? those programmes about reuniting lost family members always make me bawl my eyes out.

[SIRandyraven]

The people on the BBC Missing program had vanished off the face of the earth.
But you had to consider that some had committed suicide and the body has not been found.
To just get up and leave home for work and never come home and not be seen again.
Some had been missing for several years.
I was sitting thinking about how I would just vanish.
For a start I would need a whole pile of cash.
You would have to leave your credit cards and mobile phone at home.
The car would have to be sold or left at home also.
So your new life would require ...
- Somewhere to live
- Cash only way of life
- A form of income (unless you were very cash rich)
Suppose you could always get a new ID.
However change of name by deed poll would leave some form of paper trail ?

[paddywak]

A few years ago a guy who lived just down the road from my sister disappeared, he was last seen putting his bin out on the way to work. No reason was ever discovered for his disappearance he had a good job, steady relationship,and no known problems. His car was never found, his bank accounts cards etc were never used, his family were never contacted and no body ever found. His parents kept his mortgage up but after seven years they had him presumed dead

[Eve]

Sadly suicide (or even murder or accidental death) and ending up on the streets would account for some, even ending up say mentally sectioned depending on state of mind though to walk out of your life like that, something must be horribly wrong.

They have found a number of people in the rivers/canal round here recently, some more immediately than others. One lad they had been looking for for weeks, not long before Jo Yeates but there was nowhere near the publicity, similarly with another lad back home who there have been campaigns about to get his disappearance more publicity. There was another gentleman's body found recently, he disappeared, they found his car and took a while to find him.

[sandyRoe]

The military set up a base on a football pitch here in Belfast. When the troubles ended they left. Builders moved onto the land found a skeleton which had been buried for more than 50 years. If the land had stayed a sports ground it would never have been found.

[SIRandyraven]

@Sandyroe - Did they id the 50 year old Skeleton ?
@paddywak - How does someone just vanish for 7 years and like that. He must have had a planed escape ...money stashed ...somewhere to go etc

[scotman]

I think a deliberate attempt to 'go missing' from the UK would probably involve leaving it. There are too many ways our locations and financial transactions are recorded here.

Did anyone watch the TV prog several months ago about a reporter(I think) who attempted to do this. 24 hours later a private detective was to begin tracking him down. I wasn't able to watch it but it seemed an interesting challenge.

[mike11111]

There was a celebrated case in my area, a few years back now, of a doctor from a leading hospital who suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth. His car was found at a coastal resort which may suggest that he had just walked into the sea. The sea does not always give up its dead.

[paddywak]

Unless he suddenly reappears I guess we'll never know sirandy, but personally what I could never understand what makes a person to just take off like that, cutting themselves off from everything they've ever known. Even if he's killed himself, to do it in a way that is body has never been found is beyond my comprehension. I remember talking to his mother and she said that it was the not knowing that hurt, if he was dead or alive she just didn't know what to think or believe