Hi, and welcome back to the Unseen podcast podcast dedicated to missing people,
unresolved cases and UK true crime. Today, we're going to be discussing the
disappearance of thirty seven year old Deborah Steel in Ely in Cambridgeshire. In nineteen
ninety seven. The popular pub Landlady disappeared after a shift and has not been
seen since. Her family want answers to what happened to her. As Deborah's
disappearance is still unsolved. This episode is about a missing person and does not
contain any graphic descriptions. However, listener discretion is always advised. The Royal
Standard Pub is located in Ealy in Cambridgeshire. Eely is a city which is
well known for its large and decorative cathedral and its proximity to both Cambridge and
London. The Royal Standard Pub was located in Ealy, just a stone's throw
from the famous cathedral. The pub has been an integral part of Ealy life
for hundreds of years and is one of the oldest buildings in the area of
four Hill. It started out life as a one room public house in around
the fifteenth century. The pub is still going strong today and is listed as
one of the most popular places to eat and drink in that area. In
nineteen ninety seven, thirty seven year old Deborah Steel and her partner Brian McDermot
were running the pub and had been for three years. Deborah was a very
popular landlady. Her family described her as very bubbly, a friendly and outgoing
person, the perfect person to run a pub, and by all accounts,
Deborah and dried her work. She was hard working and aspirational, and during
the later hanme of nineteen ninety seven is reported that she had secured financing for
a new catering business which she wanted to set up. Things seemed to have
been going well for Deborah and so during the Christmas period that year she would
have been busier than ever. Deborah and Brian had split up in August of
nineteen ninety seven, however, they were both still running the pub and it
appeared that they were still living together during that period of time. On December
twenty seventh, nineteen ninety seven, Deborah worked a shift at the pub as
she planned to do, and then it reported that her original plan was to
stay overnight at the pub. However, this is not what she decided to
do. Deborah was seen leaving the Royal Standard Pub around one am that morning
after finishing work. Deborah and Brian lived around a mile away from Ealy in
the long Fields area, and it's believed that this is where Deborah headed in
the early hours of the morning on the twenty eighth of December. The next
morning, Brian woke up and found that Deborah's bed had not been slept in.
However, as Deborah had been due to stay overnight at the pub,
this may not have struck him as unusual. When Deborah had still not returned
after a couple of days, is reported that Brian believed that she may have
gone to visit friends in London unannounced, as this is something she had done
before. Her family, however, knew that when she was still missing over
the New Year period, something must be wrong. She had not been in
contact with anyone and she had failed to turn up to work, which was
not something that Deborah would have done. She was responsible and did not let
other people down. Her family feared that something must have happened to her,
and they contacted the police on the second of January to report her missing.
Police began making inquiries into her disappearance and they put out an appeal around two
weeks after she'd last been scene. A police spokesman stated, we're keen to
trace Deborah to know that wherever she is, she is alive and well.
A description of Deborah was also issued. She was described as white, five
feet six inches tall and of a medium build. She had ash blonde,
long hair and brown eyes with a fair complexion. When she was last seen,
she was thought to be wearing brown jeans, brown boots, a dark
colored raincoat, and had possibly been wearing a yellow top. The fact that
Deborah had just seemingly disappeared into thin air was concerning and so unlike her that
her family didn't know what to think. They knew that she would always contact
them, and so the fact that she hadn't was the most worrying part.
The police had to try and figure out how far she had got on her
journey home and whether she had in fact made it back had something happen to
her on the way home. It reported in Cambridge Alive that there were some
odd things found at her home that in some ways suggested that she'd made it
back there. That night. When police searched the home, they found that
Deborah's keys were in the house, along with her mobile phone and all of
her jewelry, which she normally wore. The jewelry was something that made her
family think that she had actually made it home. Her half sister, Virginia
Seca, told Cambridge Alive in this article, I think Deborah left the pub
and I do believe she went home to her house in Italy before she went
missing. I believe this because police found her jewelry, which she never took
off unless she was going to sleep. She used to wear my mum's engagement
ring on a gold chain around her neck. She never went anywhere without it.
This same chain had been found in the home. If something had happened
to her on the way home, why were her keys and phone along with
the jewelry she wore daily if found in her house. This was something that
it appeared no one could reconcile. There were other aspects of the case which
also seemed important. In her home, there were two wineglasses which looked to
have been recently used, but had not been cleaned. Her family stated that
this was out of character for Deborah, who would usually have cleaned up after
herself. It's also reported that clothing and a sports bag went missing from her
home, and that police found a London Tube map with three stations on it
underlined. Police chased up this lead and obtained video footage from each of the
name Tube stations in the hope that they would see Deborah on one of them.
This lead didn't appear to have gone anywhere. Her family also did not
think that Deborah would have got on public transport by herself. Her sister stated,
I know police found a map with some undergrad stations on, but she
wouldn't have got a bus or a train on her own because she had anxiety
issues and suffered from panic attacks. She also couldn't drive. If Deborah hadn't
got on public transport, then where could she have gone, Given that she
didn't drive and couldn't have just gone somewhere completely independently, This was another big
question in the case. The police had some evidence that that night Deborah walked
a short distance to a restaurant named Almonry, and it was here that she
was picked up by a taxi driver, probably someone that she knew. The
other big question is, of course, what was her motive for leaving.
Deborah was looking forward to her future and she had plans for it. She
had just got financing for a new business that she was setting up, so
why would she want to leave this behind. It reported in various articles that
Deborah had left the pub that night, possibly after an argument. However this
has not been expanded on in the reporting. Who this argument was with or
why it happened isn't clear. Whether this had anything to do with her disappearance
is also unclear. Police did not have a lot of information to go on
in the days and weeks following her disappearance, and her family held out as
much hope as they could that she would be found alive and well. Deborah,
however, did not contact anyone after her disappearance, and in the three
weeks since she'd been missing. There was a possible sighting of Deborah reported close
to the cathedral, but there was never confirmed to be her. Fliers were
distributed and her description was given to the public in the hope that someone saw
her. At the end of January nineteen ninety eight, the Cambridge Evening News
reported that there was a new lead. Witnesses had noticed a white man who
drove an old white Volvo a state car who had been seen visiting Deborah's house
on two weekends in October. He was in his late thirties and Detective Superintendent
John Cummins, who was leading the investigation, described him as a new associate
of Deborah's and they were keen to speak to him to see if he could
help them. Police helicopters were also deployed to aid in the search, as
well as a ten officer team. Despite a thorough search of both the house
and pub by officers, helicopter searches, and appeals from Deborah's family, by
March nineteen ninety eight, the police was still calling her disappearance an absolute mystery
and they were drawing a blank. In the months that followed, police continued
to monitor her bank accounts, and despite a large amount of money being put
into her bank as a result of financing for her new business venture, none
of it had been touched. By July nineteen ninety eight, Detective Superintendent Cummins
stated that he feared the worst for Deborah and the fact that she had not
used any money was a concern. He said it was unlikely that she had
decided to just disappear, and that they were not pursuing that as a line
of inquiry vanishing completely, he said, would take a certain amount of planning
and was something that someone would not be able to do easily. Brian,
Deborah's former partner, told the press at the time, the regulars miss her.
She's a character behind the bar and in her own riot. I don't
care if she doesn't phone me, but I want to know that she's our
riot. Deborah's father also spoke to the press in August of that year,
stating that he was losing hope that Deborah would be found alive. He said,
it's gone on so long. We haven't given up hope, but things
aren't looking good. When we didn't get birthday cards, we decided that was
it. I've never known her to take off. This statement was echoed by
other members of Deborah's family, with her sister stating that she knew after a
few weeks of her not contacting family that she was not of this world and
that something must have happened. It appears that police also believed this, and
while the family have praised police for how long they kept the investigation going,
they could find little evidence that Deborah was alive and well living somewhere else.
This is the way that The case would stay until twenty fourteen, when Cambridge
Police decided to reopen the case. When the case was reopened, it was
also reclassified from a long term missing person case to a murder inquiry. Police
then began to run a murder investigation and this involved searching the garden and the
property where Deborah had previously lived in Longfields, which reported The excavators peeled back
the garden at the property and all saw the patio at the Royal Standard Pub
in an effort to find some sort of evidence in the crime. They also
reinvestigated leads that had come in during nineteen ninety eight. There were three arrests
made during the investigation. Three men from Ealy aged fifty, seventy and seventy
three were all arrested. However, they were released without charge. In twenty
fifteen, police appealed to anyone that used to go in the Royal Standard Pub
or knew any information about Deborah to come forward and help the investigation. Police
were hoping that they would find some new information about Deborah's disappearance and made clear
in twenty seventeen that they believed that she came to some harm when she left
the pub in the early hours of the twenty eighth of December. They stated
that they still wanted to make contact with the taxi driver who may have given
Deborah the lyft that night, and we're eager to establish what had happened.
Detective Chief Inspector Adam Gallop of the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit
said, if you live in the UK, you leave a footprint somewhere.
It's very difficult to disappear. There is no sign that Debbie is alive.
She had plans in life, she had aspirations. I really believe that she
was murdered and her body concealed somewhere within easy traveling distance of Ealy. This
must of course been devastating news to Deborah's family, but it does not appear
to be something that they didn't already believe themselves. Her half sister, Virginia
Seca, stated, I last spoke to her a few days before Christmas.
We didn't get to speak to each other on Christmas Day because we were both
so busy. She was going to come and visit me between Christmas New Year.
A friend was going to drive her to come and stay with me,
or I was going to pick her up. I still buy her a Christmas
present every single year. Without a body or evidence, there's nothing. It's
a case of relying on Chinese whispers. But I know somebody must know something.
Twenty years is a very long time to wait. I'm hoping that reopening
the appeal to find out what happened to her will prick somebody's conscience. I'd
like the people of Ealy to search their souls and hearts, and if they
have any suspicions, they must go to the police with them. Sadly,
I do believe she was murdered. There have been arrests, but nothing has
come of them. She also talked about how sad it was that her father
died before finding out what happened to Deborah. It's very sad that our father
went to his grave without laying Debbi to rest. His last sentence to me
was find out what happened to her. It must have been horrible for him.
It's bad enough if you lose a child, but to never know what
happened to them. I don't want to go to my grave not knowing the
truth. I do believe the secret to what happened to her lies in ealy
somewhere. Sadly, Virginia died in twenty twenty one, also without finding out
what happened to her sister. Their other sister, Sam told the BBC in
twenty twenty two, I was with Jeanie at the end and promised her I'd
keep on trying to find the truth. You don't just disappear, even after
twenty five years. Someone knows what happened. Our dad went to his grave
without answers, and I think that broke Jeanie's heart. Now she'll never find
out either. I hate this time of year, especially with Genie gone and
with Debbie. We haven't got closure. We have no body to bury it
and no place to go to remember her. We always hold on to home.
All we hope for is closure. I think we know what the outcome
is, but we want it in black and white. It's so evident that
Deborah's disappearance has caused so much heartache for her family, who just want to
know what happened to her in nineteen ninety seven. She was much loved and
cared for, and her family were left heartbroken when she went missing. The
family have praised the police for their management of the case. And the effort
that they have gone to to find Deborah. I really do hope that information
or evidence comes out in this case, and it's not too late for someone
with information to come forward. Someone must know what happened to Deborah in the
early hours of the twenty eighth of December nineteen ninety seven in Ealy. If
you know anything about her disappearance, please contact one oh one or the link
to Cambridge of Police in the show notes, or you can contact crime Stoppers
anonymously on eight hundred five five five one one one. Thank you for listening
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been unseen sh