The Mystery of Corrie McKeague

I have trouble thinking he may have gone AWOL that night. His behaviour is odd to me, but then I am an ancient old biddy

From his youtube vids he seems very hyper, and very young to me (immature) and also tending towards his effeminate side.. Looks great in his uniform but he is only a very young lad really. Frankly I have no idea how "macho" the RAF is, no doubt there are people of all sexual orientation there.

I truly believe that the facebook site run by his mother and uncle isn't a help. 73,000 people following, raising money and caring, caring, caring! Also wanting information of course, which in a properly run police investigation wouldn't happen. Nor would all the rumour and theories be aired. Such as "why don't we see the CCTV of him in the doorway sleeping, was he crying", more than one person approached him there apparently. It encourages speculation.

I am also very, very sad to read the comments from his paternal grandparents and father. There seems deep division between the parents regarding the publicity over this case yet he is their child.
I anticipate the worst, a simple accident or fall, probably into water of some sort on his way back to base. Time will tell.

I don't know if this has been posted here before - if so Freedom please delete.
Putting it here as it is a sort of public post (internet available anyway), and does raise a few points.


https://m.reddit.com/r/TrueCrimeDiscussion/comments/5f8ldh/corrie_mckeague_and_the_running_man_a_uk_cctv/
Unless you've been sleeping in a ditch (or a doorway) you couldn't fail to hear about this missing young man who now has over 70000 people following his case on the Facebook page set up by his family. In fact the family themselves have taken on an intermediary role between police and the public, issuing "updates" like a sort of cottage industry press office, calling for searches and distributing missing posters to the far ends of England. Corrie's photo has replaced the customary angel at the top of Christmas trees, dogs are expressing their support and you can find them holding up his poster on Facebook, artists are drawing his likeness on the backs of muddy transit vans, Christmas cakes are decorated with a ubiquitous "find Corrie" and he has become the fastest trending hashtag ever made out of a missing person. He is, in other words, our favourite meme.

And yet, while there is such great effort to inform the public that he is missing, there's actually very little verifiable information surrounding the circumstances of his disappearance.

In a press conference a few weeks ago his family failed to correct misinformation about the evening he disappeared from the town centre in Bury, England.

The public was lead to believe he was out with friends from his military base and became separated from them. In reality he was alone that night, sitting in his car drinking vodka before he visited two pubs where he continued drinking, still alone.

Later that night he visited a nightclub where he was ejected after a few minutes for disruptive behaviour. (It has been suggested that he was also loud and aggressive in other pubs prior to this.) At no point in the evening was he actually with his military workmates and we do not know that he had any intention of meeting up with them.

After he was thrown out of the nightclub he went to buy food from a fast food place where he was reportedly "in good spirits"; on camera he is shown engaging with other customers and asking them to play a game of Rock Paper Scissors with him. (Presumably this was the same good spirits that got him thrown out of the club-maybe someone out there just didn't want to play Rock Paper Scissors with an obstreperous drunk? I think we can all groan as we remember similar experiences in late night takeaway stores.)

After buying his food he sat down to eat it and, according to family sources, he simply passed out for two hours in a doorway as he was known to do quite frequently when drinking.

At around 3am he woke up and sent a final text/photo to someone on his phone. Again, this leads to more misinformation from his family. In the press conference his brother says he was the last person to hear from Corrie and the text/image was sent to him. However, we now know it was actually sent to someone else whose identity has not been revealed. In the same conference Corrie's mother goes on to explain that he often walked back to his base and there was no reason to think there was anything unusual about his evening. It was later clarified that he was never known to walk back to base from a night out in the town.

So who and what to believe? I think if we are to assume he is missing due to foul play then we need to have a realistic representation of his character. At the moment all we have is an Internet meme.

On the surface he is an unlikely victim-he is male, physically fit and combat trained. He is also in a small town not known for violent crime. (I have read some comments elsewhere from Bury residents who are keen to stress that this is an unusual incident and they personally feel very safe in town at night. They are concerned that this event gives a negative impression to the UK public and I can sympathise with them. This is not, for example, Manchester where you run the risk of ending your evening in a canal!)

Essentially, you aren't at risk until you put yourself at risk. If we review some of the behaviour he exhibited that night, we start to see a level of high risk behaviour: drunk, aggressive, rough sleeping, little regard for personal safety. These traits could very easily cause him to end up in a dangerous situation which he is unable to control due to intoxication. Unfortunately I'm not seeing these aspects of his disappearance addressed elsewhere online and those who have attempted to broach them have incurred the wrath of Corrie's personal family press spokesman.

By all means ask the public for assistance. But don't assume we are idiots.

I've not read that before, bluebell. So thanks for posting it up.

It highlights the majority of the discrepancies that we've discussed over the last few weeks/months in one post. It makes for interesting reading when you see/read it all together.

Imo etc.

Yes, I agree.

While of course I appreciate that, if you have a missing person in your family, you want to achieve the maximum publicity in the hope of finding them safe, this is sadly such a common event that you never even hear of most of them.

Why has this case been so different is a question that I think needs to be asked.

Andrew wrote:Hiya. Sorry is this confirmation that Corrie is probably gay then because he was at a drag act? Which I believe are normally associated with gay people. (I have nothing against gay people in the slightest by the way). Just trying to catch up and work out what's what here...

The fact he may be gay or exploring his sexuality isn't the point for me, Andrew. It is the fact that Nicola has said that it isn't true at all and that if he was he would be the 'proudest gay man'.

Given this picture was posted on the 3rd September means the family have known about it from the beginning, so why go out the way to deny the possibility?

The other thing that surprises me is that none of the 70,000 FB group followers have asked about it/posted the picture and nor have the tabloids jumped on this (whether there is anything in it or not) when they normally do. Why?

PS. Sorry for posting later than I said I would....work is crazy!

Not seen the 'proudest gay man' comment before....  

I think the fact that he's gone 'missing' and later on, probably from Police intelligence, she found out he was gay or bi etc then she just found it all too much. As I said on another post she could've been embarrassed, ashamed or just in denial about it all. All her focus is on finding him and the finer details have deliberately been omitted to save face if you like...

The FB group (from when I could actually see it) was clearly ran and moderated in a way that only strengthens Nicola's / Tony's own beliefs. If you thought 'outside the box' or came up with a theory without approval then it would quickly get deleted.

Just my thoughts....

I didn't realise there was a Wiki entry about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Corrie_McKeague

bluebell wrote:
On the surface he is an unlikely victim-he is male, physically fit and combat trained. He is also in a small town not known for violent crime. (I have read some comments elsewhere from Bury residents who are keen to stress that this is an unusual incident and they personally feel very safe in town at night. They are concerned that this event gives a negative impression to the UK public and I can sympathise with them. This is not, for example, Manchester where you run the risk of ending your evening in a canal!)

This echoes some thoughts I was having about PdL the other day. There were people there with significant property investment in the place who were happy to let it be known - in fact, almost encouraged the idea - that there was an unresolved risk to your children should you ever visit. Whereas they could have just gone with the more, er, obvious alternative....

It's a bit like if, in Jaws, Chief Brody was running around killing people, and to avoid a panic that would deter visitors, the mayor decided to blame it all on some mythical shark.

I would imagine that the armed services are still one place where being gay is hard. Certain organisations like the police, fire etc it's almost advantageous to be gay, and I'm sure that at the high levels and in what is said its the same in the forces,but at rank and file level I can imagine there being lots of difficulties Therefore Corrie could have had a secret life,his workmates will have had an idea ,probably ,but not known the details and therefore be unable to give much help

I'm sure I read in the very early reports when he first disappeared that he'd recently spit up with his 'girlfriend' and as far as I know that has never been mentioned ever since.

I wonder if that was actually true or an attempt to quash rumours of his sexuality etc?

Just a pointless thought really.

I can't remember whether I have asked this question before but I wonder why 'Missing People' have absolutely no mention of Corrie on their website... ?

This old article is interesting:

http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/christopher_ingram_from_mildenhall_died_after_taking_drugs_at_thetford_forest_illegal_rave_1_4822590

Thetford Forest is very near to where Corrie's last phone ping was (Barton Mills). The lad in the article died approx 24 hours after Corrie went missing.

Could there have been an 'illegal rave' there the night/morning before as well and Corrie ended up there?

Just a thought to throw into the mix...

A small section of the most recent update on the f/b site. Hopefully this will be posted on the website as well for thos not able to access the f/b site.

--------------------
Tony Wringe


7. A few fundamentals to help:
We have access to Corrie’s social media accounts - please don’t be alarmed if you see activity on them, but please feel free to let us know.
Corrie has never been AWOL.
Corrie is not currently considered AWOL by the RAF - they immediately reported him as a ‘Missing Person’, that status has not changed.
Much speculation has been made around the reputation of Barton Mills Services as a swinger/dogging meeting site and the fact that Corrie’s phone pinged a mast there, combined with an interview comment about Corrie’s “lifestyle” - my response to that is:
Firstly, it has never actually been established that Corrie was ever at Barton Mills that night, indeed once the investigation started acting upon intelligence instead of information, it was recognised that this was not supported by the evidence. Secondly…
Corrie is a work hard, play hard lad. Less of a ‘Social Butterfly’ and more of a social hand grenade.
His “lifestyle” choice would be to get in to town with his mates or his brothers and have a drink and a laugh. He is a showman and a clown - immediately willing to do something daft to make people laugh. If there’s a party nearby, he’ll find it.
He’s also a lady’s man who will wander off from the group constantly to say hello to the ladies and try his luck; this makes him quite lucky.

Here is a bit more of Uncle T's update. There is much more inbetween but too much to c/p.

WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW…
We’re restarting the “Intelligence Cycle”…because we have to.
Nicola and her husband have over 31 years Police service between them, in a variety of roles including Family Liaison in cases such as this and in Forensic Collision Investigation as well as other Police service roles. I am a former Telecommunications Engineer who then spent several years as an Intelligence & Security Operator with Military Intelligence (working in overt and covert Anti & Counter terrorism and counter Espionage roles around the world), and now work with the World’s leading Consulting firm in their Technology Programme Delivery Group. Between us and our immediate network of likeminded, professional friends (from the same services/industry areas), we have a very good understanding of exactly what the Investigation team should be doing and what assets and resources are available (or should be) to help them. It’s a tough job at the best of times and there are always things that one might do differently with hindsight - that’s normal. What is not acceptable is when our extended team of informed, experienced and professional experts cannot see the basic things happening that we would expect, or get incongruous answers to informed questions.
‘Intelligence’ in a Military or Police context is a product of a process - the Intelligence Cycle. It’s pretty simple:

Just been reading the update myself, bluebell. (My brother gave me his login details so have still avoided signing up!)

The below is unbelievable if true. The Police can't/won't exactly come out and call him/family a liar!

>10 weeks after Corrie disappeared, the Investigation team collected the remaining bins from the bin area Corrie was last seen in to conduct forensic testing on them. We do not know if this will reveal anything after so much time.

So only the one bin that went to the recycling centre was ever forensically tested at first? So Corrie could have been in a general waste bin notwithstanding the supposed manual search of the ashes at the incinerator?

There have been comments in the press that we are not working with the Police or that the Police are not doing their job - neither is true. We both are. We needed your financial help to get there and bring us together…not to mention some very useful information, collation, analysis and communication work of your own!

Am I reading this wrong? The way he words this is if the Police are doing everything right just too slow due to insufficient resources. The problem I have here is the issues he has highlighted have nothing to do with resources and everything to do with being incompetent. Not collecting all bins, not collecting all CCTV etc. These don't rely on resources in my mind....?

There is plenty more there.

That's good you can access the f/b site now TTWO. The latest update is an interesting read I thought.

I did see on the f/b site that Nicola says dogs were taken to investigate the wrong area and the wrong car
- (well we all know from past assertions how 'unreliable' dogs are anyway !).

I am finding it all really hard to follow now and I am not sure what is accurate anymore.
I don't know what to think.

Cheers, bluebell. Do you remember which post Nicola's comment was on? Again that is stating something that was incompetent not lacking in resources.

I do really wonder how much info the Police have shared with the family given the very public trashing the family have given them....It doesn't matter how many times they end a trashing with but this isn't the individuals/teams fault it is lack of resources BS, IMO.

This is the comment by Corrie's mother on the facebook page :

Comments
Nicola Urquhart
Nicola Urquhart Hi. Yes dogs were used. However sadly they were instructed to start in the wrong carpark beside the wrong car. So the poor dog, although untested, had no chance as it was the wrong place. So not their fault x
Like · 44 · 22 hrs · Edited
An admin turned off commenting for this post.

bluebell wrote:This is the comment by Corrie's mother on the facebook page   :

Comments
Nicola Urquhart
Nicola Urquhart Hi. Yes dogs were used. However sadly they were instructed to start in the wrong carpark beside the wrong car. So the poor dog, although untested, had no chance as it was the wrong place. So not their fault x
Like · 44 · 22 hrs · Edited
An admin turned off commenting for this post.

Thanks for finding that for me.

I mean reading that I assume this was (supposed to be) a scent dog search from Corrie's car yet here Nicola is stating they not only got the wrong car but the wrong car park!?

This would be beyond incompetent and nothing to do with lack of resources as they got a dog and handler there. The car was parked on the road in a disabled space...at least that is what the family have said.

Good posts folks.... Will chip in with my take (tomorrow).

I actually have a take as well. I think.

TheTruthWillOut wrote:



Thanks for finding that for me.

I mean reading that I assume this was (supposed to be) a scent dog search from Corrie's car yet here Nicola is stating they not only got the wrong car but the wrong car park!?

This would be beyond incompetent and nothing to do with lack of resources as they got a dog and handler there. The car was parked on the road in a disabled space...at least that is what the family have said.

I will have to try and find it again but the answer was to a question about have sniffer dogs been used... and referred to car/s.  I (possibly mistakenly) thought it was a car in the bin area they were checking out?
As I mentioned earlier, I am finding it hard to follow now with all these misunderstandings and differing reports.     I'll see if I can trace the question to clarify.


eta: sorry those posts have been whooshed now... Did briefly see mention of next search on 22nd January though.

Don't worry about it , bluebell. Most things stated by the family in this case have at least been 'adjusted' if not completely contradicted later.

Anyway...Better get to bed as I have a 500 mile drive tomorrow.

Tony's message copied upthread is a load of tosh.

Sorry, but it is.

A ridiculous statement to come out with when it's his nephew missing.

My take anyway.

... Emphasising that his nephew is a 'ladies' man when it's pretty clear he prefers the other.

Nothing wrong with that, but the dogmatic approach about it all is when the chap is 'missing' and you're seeking answers.