A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. Holly Jackson
High Street confirms that Andie’s car was seen driving away from her home at about 10:40 p.m.’3
According to her parents, Jason and Dawn Bell, Andie was ‘supposed to pick (them) up from a dinner party at 12:45 a.m.’ When Andie didn’t show up or answer any of their phone calls, they started ringing her friends to see if anyone knew of her whereabouts. Jason Bell ‘called the police to report his daughter missing at 3:00 a.m. Saturday morning.’4
So whatever happened to Andie Bell that night, happened between 10:40 p.m. and 12:45 a.m.
Here seems a good place to type up the transcript from my telephone interview yesterday with Angela Johnson.
Transcript of interview with Angela Johnson from the Missing Persons Bureau
| Angela: | Hello. | |
| Pip: | Hi, is this Angela Johnson? | |
| Angela: | Speaking, yep. Is this Pippa? | |
| Pip: | Yes, thanks so much for replying to my email. | |
| Angela: | No problem. | |
| Pip: | Do you mind if I record this interview so I can type it up later to use in my project? | |
| Angela: | Yeah, that’s fine. I’m sorry I’ve only got about ten minutes to give you. So what do you want to know about missing persons? | |
| Pip: | Well, I was wondering if you could talk me through what happens when someone is reported missing? What’s the process and the first steps taken by the police? | |
| Angela: | So, when someone rings 999 or 101 to report someone as missing, the police will try to get as much detail as possible so they can identify the potential risk to the missing person and an appropriate police response can be made. The kinds of details they will ask for in this first call are name, age, description of the person, what clothes they were last seen wearing, the circumstances of their disappearance, if going missing is out of character for this person, details of any vehicle involved. Using this information, the police will determine whether this is a high-, low- or medium-risk case. | |
| Pip: | And what circumstances would make a case high-risk? | |
| Angela: | If they are vulnerable because of their age or a disability, that would be high-risk. If the behaviour is out of character, then it is likely an indicator that they have been exposed to harm, so that would be high-risk. | |
| Pip: | Um, so, if the missing person is seventeen years old and it is deemed out of character for her to go missing, would this be considered a high-risk case? | |
| Angela: | Oh, absolutely, if a minor is involved. | |
| Pip: | So how would the police respond to a high-risk case? | |
| Angela: | Well, there would be immediate deployment of police officers to the location the person is missing from. The officer will have to acquire further details about the missing person, such as details of their friends or partners, any health conditions, their financial information in case they can be found when trying to withdraw money. They will also need a number of recent photographs of the person and, in a high-risk case, they may take DNA samples in case they are needed in subsequent forensic examination. And, with consent of the homeowners, the location will be searched thoroughly to see if the missing person is concealed or hiding there and to establish whether there are any further evidential leads. That’s the normal procedure. | |
| Pip: | So immediately the police are looking for any clues or suggestions that the missing person has been the victim of a crime? | |
| Angela: | Absolutely. If the circumstances of the disappearance are suspicious, officers are always told ‘if in doubt, think murder.’ Of course, only a very small percentage of missing person cases turn into homicide cases, but officers are instructed to document evidence early on as though they were investigating a homicide. | |
| Pip: | And after the initial home address search, what happens if nothing significant turns up? | |
| Angela: | They will expand the search to the immediate area. They might request telephone information. They’ll question friends, neighbours, anyone who may have relevant information. If it is a young person, a teenager, who’s missing, a reporting parent cannot be assumed to know all of their child’s friends and acquaintances. Their peers are a good port of call to establish other important contacts, you know, any secret boyfriends, that sort of thing. And a press strategy is usually discussed because appeals for information in the media can be very useful in these situations. | |
| Pip: | So, if it’s a seventeen-year-old girl who’s gone missing, the police would have contacted her friends and boyfriend quite early on? | |
| Angela: | Yes of course. Enquiries will be made because, if the missing person has run away, they are likely to be hiding out with a person close to them. | |
| Pip: | And at what point in a missing persons case do police accept they are looking for a body? | |
| Angela: | Well, timewise, it’s not . . . Oh, Pippa, I have to go. Sorry, I’ve been called into my meeting. | |
| Pip: | Oh, OK, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. | |
| Angela: | And if you have any more questions, just pop me an email and I’ll get to them when I can. | |
| Pip: | Will do, thanks again. | |
| Angela: | Bye. |
I found these statistics online:
80% of missing people are found in the first 24 hours. 97% are found in the first week. 99% of cases are resolved in the first year. That leaves just 1%.
1% of people who disappear are never found. But there’s another figure to consider: just 0.25% of all missing person cases have a fatal outcome.5
And where does this leave Andie Bell? Floating incessantly somewhere between 1% and 0.25%, fractionally increasing and decreasing in tiny decimal breaths.
But by now, most people accept that she’s dead, even though her body