On March 19, 2009 Claudia Lawrence went missing. 15 years later her mother, Joan, still deals with unsolicited theories on what happened to her daughter.
One of the best-known unsolved crime cases, Claudia’s disappearance widely entered the public’s radar after Netflix’s Missing or Murdered covered her story in an episode.
According to the docuseries, on the morning of the 19th, Claudia missed out on a shift at work as a chef at the University of York. Her manager attempted to call her but it went straight to voicemail.
Later that evening, Claudia was supposed to meet up with her friend Suzy Cooper at a pub. But when she never showed up, Cooper called her phone only to have it go straight to voicemail again.
When no one could successfully contact Claudia the following day, she was officially reported as a missing person.
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The ambiguity of Claudia’s case ultimately resulted in an outpour of amateur sleuths digging into her story and contacting Joan with their theories on what happened.
Tom McDermott, a journalist who investigated Claudia’s disappearance alongside her mom, explained on his podcast Answers for Claudia that these sleuths tread on harassment and more often than not give false hope than actual help.
He said: “People have rung her, pushed notes through her door and stopped her on the street. Over one two-week period she rang me with three possible lines of inquiry people have brought to her, each one she feels unable to dismiss or look away from.”
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One particular case saw a man bump into Joan on the street and claim that he traced Claudia to Australia.
On the podcast, Joan calls Tom and says: “It’s a long shot but I met him yesterday, I bumped into him by accident and he lives in one of the villages.
"A nice chap and he said he has traced her to Australia and she’s married. But he’s all along saying he has been tracing Claudia’s movement, is that feasible?”
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Author Neil Root who also investigated Claudia’s disappearance for his book Gone: The Disappearance of Claudia Lawrence and Her Father’s Desperate Search for the Truth, echoed McDermott’s sentiments and shared on the podcast: “There were numerous theories online on medium and Reddit lots of forums and some of them were quite sickening and distressing for Claudia’s family and friends for sure because some of them upset me.”
Following Claudia’s initial disappearance, a number of suspects were arrested by the police but were subsequently released. North Yorkshire Police is convinced information is still out there and claims 'silence’ is their biggest obstacle in solving what is now suspected to be Claudia’s murder.
For help, support and advice about missing children, visit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on their website, www.missingkids.org/gethelpnow/support.
Topics: Crime, True crime
Yasmeen Hamadeh