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Hi, and welcome back to the
Unseen podcast podcast dedicated to missing people,

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unresolved cases and UK true crime.
Today, we're going to be discussing the

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disappearance of thirty seven year old Deborah
Steel in Ely in Cambridgeshire. In nineteen

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ninety seven. The popular pub Landlady
disappeared after a shift and has not been

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seen since. Her family want answers
to what happened to her. As Deborah's

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disappearance is still unsolved. This episode
is about a missing person and does not

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contain any graphic descriptions. However,
listener discretion is always advised. The Royal

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Standard Pub is located in Ealy in
Cambridgeshire. Eely is a city which is

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well known for its large and decorative
cathedral and its proximity to both Cambridge and

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London. The Royal Standard Pub was
located in Ealy, just a stone's throw

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from the famous cathedral. The pub
has been an integral part of Ealy life

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for hundreds of years and is one
of the oldest buildings in the area of

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four Hill. It started out life
as a one room public house in around

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the fifteenth century. The pub is
still going strong today and is listed as

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one of the most popular places to
eat and drink in that area. In

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nineteen ninety seven, thirty seven year
old Deborah Steel and her partner Brian McDermot

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were running the pub and had been
for three years. Deborah was a very

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popular landlady. Her family described her
as very bubbly, a friendly and outgoing

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person, the perfect person to run
a pub, and by all accounts,

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Deborah and dried her work. She
was hard working and aspirational, and during

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the later hanme of nineteen ninety seven
is reported that she had secured financing for

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a new catering business which she wanted
to set up. Things seemed to have

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been going well for Deborah and so
during the Christmas period that year she would

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have been busier than ever. Deborah
and Brian had split up in August of

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nineteen ninety seven, however, they
were both still running the pub and it

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appeared that they were still living together
during that period of time. On December

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twenty seventh, nineteen ninety seven,
Deborah worked a shift at the pub as

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she planned to do, and then
it reported that her original plan was to

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stay overnight at the pub. However, this is not what she decided to

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do. Deborah was seen leaving the
Royal Standard Pub around one am that morning

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after finishing work. Deborah and Brian
lived around a mile away from Ealy in

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the long Fields area, and it's
believed that this is where Deborah headed in

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the early hours of the morning on
the twenty eighth of December. The next

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morning, Brian woke up and found
that Deborah's bed had not been slept in.

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However, as Deborah had been due
to stay overnight at the pub,

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this may not have struck him as
unusual. When Deborah had still not returned

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after a couple of days, is
reported that Brian believed that she may have

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gone to visit friends in London unannounced, as this is something she had done

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before. Her family, however,
knew that when she was still missing over

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the New Year period, something must
be wrong. She had not been in

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contact with anyone and she had failed
to turn up to work, which was

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not something that Deborah would have done. She was responsible and did not let

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other people down. Her family feared
that something must have happened to her,

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and they contacted the police on the
second of January to report her missing.

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Police began making inquiries into her disappearance
and they put out an appeal around two

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weeks after she'd last been scene.
A police spokesman stated, we're keen to

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trace Deborah to know that wherever she
is, she is alive and well.

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A description of Deborah was also issued. She was described as white, five

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feet six inches tall and of a
medium build. She had ash blonde,

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long hair and brown eyes with a
fair complexion. When she was last seen,

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she was thought to be wearing brown
jeans, brown boots, a dark

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colored raincoat, and had possibly been
wearing a yellow top. The fact that

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Deborah had just seemingly disappeared into thin
air was concerning and so unlike her that

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her family didn't know what to think. They knew that she would always contact

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them, and so the fact that
she hadn't was the most worrying part.

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The police had to try and figure
out how far she had got on her

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journey home and whether she had in
fact made it back had something happen to

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her on the way home. It
reported in Cambridge Alive that there were some

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odd things found at her home that
in some ways suggested that she'd made it

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back there. That night. When
police searched the home, they found that

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Deborah's keys were in the house,
along with her mobile phone and all of

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her jewelry, which she normally wore. The jewelry was something that made her

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family think that she had actually made
it home. Her half sister, Virginia

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Seca, told Cambridge Alive in this
article, I think Deborah left the pub

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and I do believe she went home
to her house in Italy before she went

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missing. I believe this because police
found her jewelry, which she never took

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off unless she was going to sleep. She used to wear my mum's engagement

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ring on a gold chain around her
neck. She never went anywhere without it.

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This same chain had been found in
the home. If something had happened

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to her on the way home,
why were her keys and phone along with

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the jewelry she wore daily if found
in her house. This was something that

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it appeared no one could reconcile.
There were other aspects of the case which

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also seemed important. In her home, there were two wineglasses which looked to

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have been recently used, but had
not been cleaned. Her family stated that

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this was out of character for Deborah, who would usually have cleaned up after

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herself. It's also reported that clothing
and a sports bag went missing from her

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home, and that police found a
London Tube map with three stations on it

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underlined. Police chased up this lead
and obtained video footage from each of the

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name Tube stations in the hope that
they would see Deborah on one of them.

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This lead didn't appear to have gone
anywhere. Her family also did not

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think that Deborah would have got on
public transport by herself. Her sister stated,

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I know police found a map with
some undergrad stations on, but she

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wouldn't have got a bus or a
train on her own because she had anxiety

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issues and suffered from panic attacks.
She also couldn't drive. If Deborah hadn't

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got on public transport, then where
could she have gone, Given that she

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didn't drive and couldn't have just gone
somewhere completely independently, This was another big

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question in the case. The police
had some evidence that that night Deborah walked

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a short distance to a restaurant named
Almonry, and it was here that she

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was picked up by a taxi driver, probably someone that she knew. The

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other big question is, of course, what was her motive for leaving.

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Deborah was looking forward to her future
and she had plans for it. She

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had just got financing for a new
business that she was setting up, so

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why would she want to leave this
behind. It reported in various articles that

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Deborah had left the pub that night, possibly after an argument. However this

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has not been expanded on in the
reporting. Who this argument was with or

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why it happened isn't clear. Whether
this had anything to do with her disappearance

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is also unclear. Police did not
have a lot of information to go on

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in the days and weeks following her
disappearance, and her family held out as

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much hope as they could that she
would be found alive and well. Deborah,

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however, did not contact anyone after
her disappearance, and in the three

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weeks since she'd been missing. There
was a possible sighting of Deborah reported close

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to the cathedral, but there was
never confirmed to be her. Fliers were

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distributed and her description was given to
the public in the hope that someone saw

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her. At the end of January
nineteen ninety eight, the Cambridge Evening News

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reported that there was a new lead. Witnesses had noticed a white man who

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drove an old white Volvo a state
car who had been seen visiting Deborah's house

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on two weekends in October. He
was in his late thirties and Detective Superintendent

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John Cummins, who was leading the
investigation, described him as a new associate

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of Deborah's and they were keen to
speak to him to see if he could

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help them. Police helicopters were also
deployed to aid in the search, as

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well as a ten officer team.
Despite a thorough search of both the house

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and pub by officers, helicopter searches, and appeals from Deborah's family, by

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March nineteen ninety eight, the police
was still calling her disappearance an absolute mystery

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and they were drawing a blank.
In the months that followed, police continued

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to monitor her bank accounts, and
despite a large amount of money being put

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into her bank as a result of
financing for her new business venture, none

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of it had been touched. By
July nineteen ninety eight, Detective Superintendent Cummins

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stated that he feared the worst for
Deborah and the fact that she had not

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used any money was a concern.
He said it was unlikely that she had

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decided to just disappear, and that
they were not pursuing that as a line

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of inquiry vanishing completely, he said, would take a certain amount of planning

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and was something that someone would not
be able to do easily. Brian,

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Deborah's former partner, told the press
at the time, the regulars miss her.

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She's a character behind the bar and
in her own riot. I don't

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care if she doesn't phone me,
but I want to know that she's our

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riot. Deborah's father also spoke to
the press in August of that year,

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stating that he was losing hope that
Deborah would be found alive. He said,

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it's gone on so long. We
haven't given up hope, but things

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aren't looking good. When we didn't
get birthday cards, we decided that was

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it. I've never known her to
take off. This statement was echoed by

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other members of Deborah's family, with
her sister stating that she knew after a

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few weeks of her not contacting family
that she was not of this world and

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that something must have happened. It
appears that police also believed this, and

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while the family have praised police for
how long they kept the investigation going,

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they could find little evidence that Deborah
was alive and well living somewhere else.

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This is the way that The case
would stay until twenty fourteen, when Cambridge

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Police decided to reopen the case.
When the case was reopened, it was

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also reclassified from a long term missing
person case to a murder inquiry. Police

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then began to run a murder investigation
and this involved searching the garden and the

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property where Deborah had previously lived in
Longfields, which reported The excavators peeled back

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the garden at the property and all
saw the patio at the Royal Standard Pub

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in an effort to find some sort
of evidence in the crime. They also

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reinvestigated leads that had come in during
nineteen ninety eight. There were three arrests

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made during the investigation. Three men
from Ealy aged fifty, seventy and seventy

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three were all arrested. However,
they were released without charge. In twenty

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fifteen, police appealed to anyone that
used to go in the Royal Standard Pub

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or knew any information about Deborah to
come forward and help the investigation. Police

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were hoping that they would find some
new information about Deborah's disappearance and made clear

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in twenty seventeen that they believed that
she came to some harm when she left

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the pub in the early hours of
the twenty eighth of December. They stated

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that they still wanted to make contact
with the taxi driver who may have given

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Deborah the lyft that night, and
we're eager to establish what had happened.

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Detective Chief Inspector Adam Gallop of the
Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit

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said, if you live in the
UK, you leave a footprint somewhere.

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It's very difficult to disappear. There
is no sign that Debbie is alive.

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She had plans in life, she
had aspirations. I really believe that she

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was murdered and her body concealed somewhere
within easy traveling distance of Ealy. This

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must of course been devastating news to
Deborah's family, but it does not appear

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to be something that they didn't already
believe themselves. Her half sister, Virginia

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Seca, stated, I last spoke
to her a few days before Christmas.

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We didn't get to speak to each
other on Christmas Day because we were both

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so busy. She was going to
come and visit me between Christmas New Year.

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A friend was going to drive her
to come and stay with me,

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or I was going to pick her
up. I still buy her a Christmas

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present every single year. Without a
body or evidence, there's nothing. It's

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a case of relying on Chinese whispers. But I know somebody must know something.

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Twenty years is a very long time
to wait. I'm hoping that reopening

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the appeal to find out what happened
to her will prick somebody's conscience. I'd

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like the people of Ealy to search
their souls and hearts, and if they

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have any suspicions, they must go
to the police with them. Sadly,

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I do believe she was murdered.
There have been arrests, but nothing has

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come of them. She also talked
about how sad it was that her father

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died before finding out what happened to
Deborah. It's very sad that our father

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went to his grave without laying Debbi
to rest. His last sentence to me

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was find out what happened to her. It must have been horrible for him.

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It's bad enough if you lose a
child, but to never know what

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happened to them. I don't want
to go to my grave not knowing the

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truth. I do believe the secret
to what happened to her lies in ealy

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somewhere. Sadly, Virginia died in
twenty twenty one, also without finding out

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what happened to her sister. Their
other sister, Sam told the BBC in

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twenty twenty two, I was with
Jeanie at the end and promised her I'd

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keep on trying to find the truth. You don't just disappear, even after

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twenty five years. Someone knows what
happened. Our dad went to his grave

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without answers, and I think that
broke Jeanie's heart. Now she'll never find

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out either. I hate this time
of year, especially with Genie gone and

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with Debbie. We haven't got closure. We have no body to bury it

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and no place to go to remember
her. We always hold on to home.

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All we hope for is closure.
I think we know what the outcome

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is, but we want it in
black and white. It's so evident that

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Deborah's disappearance has caused so much heartache
for her family, who just want to

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know what happened to her in nineteen
ninety seven. She was much loved and

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cared for, and her family were
left heartbroken when she went missing. The

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family have praised the police for their
management of the case. And the effort

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that they have gone to to find
Deborah. I really do hope that information

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or evidence comes out in this case, and it's not too late for someone

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with information to come forward. Someone
must know what happened to Deborah in the

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early hours of the twenty eighth of
December nineteen ninety seven in Ealy. If

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you know anything about her disappearance,
please contact one oh one or the link

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to Cambridge of Police in the show
notes, or you can contact crime Stoppers

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anonymously on eight hundred five five five
one one one. Thank you for listening

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offer. You can also support us
by reviewing the podcast wherever you listen,

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including Spotify, and also just share
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our ways. I'm Caprice and this has

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been unseen sh