16-Year-Old Disappears into Thin Air in 1995 and is Never Seen Again
Ruth Wilson was born on January 31, 1979, to Ian and Nesta Wilson from Betchworth, in Surrey, England. When Ruth was three years old, just months after giving birth to her second daughter Jenny, Nesta committed suicide via hanging. Wilson’s father remarried shortly after. Wilson was told by the family that her mother died falling down the stairs, but unbeknownst to them, she found her mother’s death certificate and learned the truth shortly before her disappearance.
Ruth, aged 16 at the time of her disappearance, enjoyed reading, riding her bike, and playing music on her electric guitar and piano. She had a Saturday job in a music shop and was a really popular babysitter in her local area. She was studying for her A levels exams when she disappeared.
Her good friend Catherine Mair was due to move away to Sheffield and Wilson asked if she could go with her once she was settled in. Mair’s mother recalled Wilson sleeping over not long before she disappeared, but that she was adamant about not wanting to return home. Mair, in a statement corroborated by other friends, claimed that although Wilson clearly wasn’t suicidal, she talked about running from home often.
Wilson’s parents, however, disputed any claims about the unhappiness of their home life. Two days before she disappeared, Wilson worked a shift at her music store job, after which she went to eat with Will Kennedy, her ex-boyfriend, and another friend, Neil Phillipson – both of whom claim Wilson paid for the meal. The day after, she went to handbell practice at her church, then to a youth group in Dorking, and then to dinner at the Kennedys’. Kennedy’s mother gave her some old clothes, and they all remembered her being calm and relaxed.
Into Thin Air:
On the morning of the day Wilson disappeared in November 1995, her parents went to work, leaving Wilson and her sister Jenny to take the bus to school. Wilson’s father had an Ofsted inspection at the school where he was head of the science department and left in a hurry. He recalled Wilson listening to her walkman, and as he was in a stressful mood, he pushed past her saying “Out of my way. I’m in a hurry.” Those were his last words to her. Wilson told Jenny at the last moment that she wasn’t taking the bus with her. While it didn’t surprise Jenny, as Wilson was in her sixth form and tended to come home early, it did surprise her that she waited until the last minute to say something.
Shortly after Jenny left, Kennedy showed up offering Wilson a lift, which she declined, saying she would meet up with him later. She didn’t attend school at all, which family and friends described as uncharacteristic of her. At 11:30 am Wilson took a cab ride into Dorking, where around noon, she ordered flowers for her stepmother from Thistles Florists, at 257 Dorking High Street, but asked that they not be delivered until the next Wednesday. She spent the afternoon at the library, and at around 4:00 took a taxi from Dorking railway station to Box Hill.
She was dropped off on a trail not far from the Hand in Hand Pub, where the cab driver noted she behaved strangely, standing in the rain as he drove off, instead of walking off, looking around as if waiting for somebody. The cab driver was the last person to have seen her. At the time of her disappearance, she was wearing a red jumper, black velvet pants, black pixie boots, and a women’s hand watch. She had a blue duffel bag and a personal stereo with several tapes. According to observations by 58-year-old retired police officer Liam McAuley, who investigated the disappearance, Wilson was prepared to get into another car, or at least, waited for the taxi driver to drive out of sight so he couldn’t see where she went; in essence, implying that someone else was involved and that rather than suicide, the case seemed to align more with a running away. The 13th anniversary of Wilson’s mother’s death was only two weeks away.
The Frenzy That Came After:
Wilson’s failure to return that evening, coupled with her school’s claim that she never showed up, concerned the family greatly. They phoned the police, who thanks to an early report from the cab driver, quickly set out to investigate the area of her last known location. That same night, Surrey Police organized a more extensive search using helicopters, search dogs, and heat-seeking equipment but found no trace of her in the whole of the Box Hill area.
It was soon found out that she often went to Box Hill after school, and that she was worried about her performance, having kept a school report from her parents that weekend. On Nov. 29, the bouquet Wilson ordered – which her father described as expensive – was finally sent to her stepmother Karen. It came with no note. Wilson’s friend Mair interpreted it as Wilson ‘sticking two fingers up” to her stepmother – a gesture equivalent to the middle finger. On December 1, police found three notes under a bush at the edge of Betchworth Quarry, on Box Hill, along with a few empty packets of paracetamol (pain killers) and a half-empty bottle of Vermouth.
On the 2nd, Police and fire rescue services as well as over 60 volunteers – members of the public, school friends, colleagues, and wardens of the National Trust – began a large-scale search. A trained search and rescue team and employees of the quarry’s owner, Nionisle Ltd., organized a detailed search of the quarry itself. To date, with no evidence to suggest suicide, and the likelihood of abduction being low in this case, the consensus is that Wilson ran away from home. The case remains open and unsolved.