Nicola Bulley: Forensic search expert provides update

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The news of missing people not only torments the family but sends shock waves through the local community and wider country. This is horrifically being played out across the UK now as the hunt for the 45-year-old mother of two, Nicola Bulley, continues into the 11th day, with experts describing it as one of the most unusual cases they have ever worked on.

Here, Express.co.uk examines five unusual missing person cases which have been left at a loose end for years — in some cases, decades.

Allan Bryant

Disappearing in the modern age of mobiles and almost constant surveillance seems impossible. However, this happened to Allan Bryant. The 23-year-old fabricator disappeared on November 3, 2013, when he was seen leaving the Styx nightclub, just a mile from his home in Glenrothes in Fife, Scotland, at 2am on CCTV.

Since then, the search to find him has been one of the most extensive missing person investigations in Scottish history. However, his family believes he was murdered with suspicions that he was murdered at a house party. Last year, on the ninth anniversary of his disappearance, police renewed efforts to find him with the family releasing more pictures of him. 

Detective Inspector Scott Roxburgh said: “Allan was a young man on a night out when he disappeared. There was nothing apparently out of the ordinary that night and we are still asking people to come forward with information.”

Sheila Fox 

Six-year-old Sheila Fox vanished in Farnworth, Lancashire, on August 18, 1944, when she did not return home from school. Scouts, air raid wardens, special constables, and neighbours all pitched in with the extensive search to no avail. Her disappearance became known as one of World War Two’s most “baffling mysteries”. 

But, almost 60 years later in 2001, police excavated a garden in Greater Manchester. An elderly man had told police that when Sheila went missing, when he was just 13 years old, he had seen a neighbour digging a huge hole at night in the garden of a house nearby to the little one’s parents’ house.

In 1944, the suspect Richard Ryan — who was later convicted of rape and indecent assault of a child — had lived at the house. But the excavation of the garden proved unsuccessful as a body was never found. 

The youngest of five children known as the “girl in the green mac”, Sheila was last seen on the handlebars of a bike ridden by a man before she disappeared. Tragically, her parents died without ever knowing what happened to their daughter and spent their lives waiting for her to come home, leaving the door unlocked in case she did just that. 

Russell Bohling 

On March 2, 2010, tragedy struck the Bohling family when the 18-year-old Russell left the family home in West Ella, Yorkshire, and was never seen again. The student’s car was found at the RSPB Bempton Cliffs beauty spot. His family had feared that he was murdered for £300,000 given to him by his father for a business. 

Police then suspected that he killed himself as his Renault Clio was found near the cliffs with there being a dictaphone recording where he left a suicide message — but this was recorded years before he disappeared when he was just 15. 

Almost a decade after his disappearance, a coroner ruled out suicide as “highly unlikely”. Assistant coroner David Rosenberg told the inquest held in Hull in 2019 that Russell had died due to the lack of a financial footprint or evidence that might indicate that he was still alive. 

Mr Rosenberg also pointed out that although the police’s investigation had “not been perfect” it was thorough. But exactly what happened to Russell remains unknown. 

Genette Tate 

On August 19, 1978, 13-year-old Genette was cycling around the village of Aylesbeare, Devon, delivering copies of the Exeter Express and the Echo on her blue Kalkhoff bike. But she would never return home to the cottage where she lived with her father. Haunting pictures of her deserted bike, found by two of her friends in a lane, were plastered over the news. 

In 1994, delivery driver Robert Black was convicted of the kidnap, rape, and murder of three girls, having used his work as a cover with his crimes appearing similar to Genette’s case. In 2011, he was convicted for a fourth murder, Jennifer Cardy.

Prior to this however, in 2007, Devon and Cornwall Police presented a file to the Crown Prosecution Service, demanding that charges be brought against Black for Genette’s vanishing. 

But matters did not progress and although the prosecution was intended to get underway in 2016, Black died in prison just weeks before the case was due to open. Genette’s body was never found and although police believe Black is responsible for her death, many doubt whether the case would have been strong enough for the jury. 

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Ben Needham 

On July 24, 1991, the 21-month-old baby had been playing outside with a buggy when he disappeared from the Needham family’s farmhouse on the island of Kos, Greece. Ben’s family was horrified to discover he had gone and contacted the police. 

Although the island’s airports and ferry terminals were closed, the search was fruitless. The family, originally from Sheffield, travelled all over Europe in the hope of finding their baby boy. Eventually, the case went cold. 

In 2016, South Yorkshire police said they believed Ben had died on the day he went missing, killed in an accident with a digger driven by a local man, Konstantinos Barkas, near the farmhouse. However, two excavations of the site have not revealed a body. 

Last year, ITV Calendar discovered that a young child had been seen at a campsite in Corfu, 600 miles from Kos, the very year baby Ben disappeared. His mother, Kerry Needham, made a fresh appeal in July 2022, marking the 31st anniversary of his disappearance, stating that they are still being helped by South Yorkshire police. She wrote: “Anyone with any information can contact us or the police directly, we are still hopeful that we will find the answers to exactly what happened to Ben.”

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