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Hi, and welcome back to The
Unseen Podcast, a podcast dedicated to missing

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

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looking into the bizarre disappearance of Kevin
Dundon in nineteen eighty. Kevin was only

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twenty two at the time of his
disappearance and the circumstances of his disappearance alarmed

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his family and they have not stopped
looking for him. Since this episode is

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about a missing person and so does
not contain graphic detail, but listener discretion

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is always advised. Clacton on Sea
is a seaside town located on the Tendering

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Peninsula in the County of Essex.
It's almost eighty miles from central London and

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around sixty miles from Southend on Sea. The town has always been associated with

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tourism, and since it's founding during
Victorian times, many people have visited for

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day trips to see the beaches and
other seaside activities. This only increased when

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Billy Butlin, the famous entrepreneur who
opened Butlin Holiday camps across the country,

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opened a park in Clacton on Sea. This was open until nineteen eighty three,

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when the public began booking more holidays
abroad, and they became less popular.

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The Dundun family lived in the seaside
town, but Paddy and Rita Dundon

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were originally from Ireland and had settled
in the town with their children Jimmy,

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Tom, Kevin, Danny and sister
Jennifer. They were a close knit family

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growing up in the sixties and seventies, and all of the siblings were supportive

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of one another and got well.
As Kevin grew up, his siblings described

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him as happy, go lucky and
chilled out. He had a great sense

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of humor and would always make friends
easily with anyone. As he approached his

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early twenties, his siblings explained that
he was just all about enjoying himself and

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doing things that made him happy.
His eldest brother, Jimmy told Essex Live

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he worked hard and played hard.
He was quiet in his own way,

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a bit of a joker. He
left notes on the back of photos making

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comments and named himself King Kevin in
the family. His younger brother Danny added

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he bought loads of records, loved
his music, bought clothes, had a

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girlfriend and was very happy, always
smiling. His hobbies were having fun,

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listening to music and having a drink. By nineteen eight, Kevin was twenty

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three and was doing everything that someone
in their early twenties and joys. He

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was socializing with friends, going for
drinks and spending time with his girlfriend from

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Clacton, who had recently started dating. Everything was going well for Kevin and

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he had a lot to look forward
to. At the time, Kevin was

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employed by the Townsend Thorison Shipping Company. The Townsend Thorison Company was the name

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used by European Ferries to market their
ferry services, but the European Fairies Group

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had existed since nineteen thirty five and
had taken over Townsend car Ferries in nineteen

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fifty nine. They began to expand
and by nineteen seventy six they had acquired

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Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company. Felixstowe
Dock is the UK's busiest container port and

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by nineteen seventy four Townsend Thorison had
begun running twice daily ferries from Felixstowe to

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Zebruger in Belgium. Kevin had been
working on the ferries on and off during

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the late seventies. In September of
nineteen eighty, he had taken a job

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as a galleyman aboard the Viking Viscount
Ferry on a round trip between Felixstowe and

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Zibruger. The job wasn't glamorous and
involved a lot of cleaning and maintaining the

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galley. However, the money was
generally good, with cash in hand often

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given. The night before he was
due to board the ship, he had

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stayed with his brother Tom in Ipswich. Tom would later recount he didn't want

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to go on that boat. He
didn't like it, he didn't like the

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crew. He wasn't happy to go
on it, but he went anyway.

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Tom dropped Kevin off at the port
in Felixstowe to make the journey to Zebruger

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on the Viking Viscount. There wasn't
anything particularly concerning for Kevin's family about this

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job, given that Kevin had been
on boats for years and this was usual

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for him. There was nothing to
suggest that anything would happen on that trip.

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Despite this, Kevin's trip on the
Viking Viscount would change the whole family's

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life forever. The first that the
family heard that something wasn't quite right was

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early on Monday, the twenty second
of September nineteen eighty. The Viking Viscount

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had been on its way back into
Felixstowe the day before, on the twenty

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first. Tom later explained that in
the early hours of that Monday morning,

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he received a phone call. On
the other end of the line was a

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priest from Felixstowe. This priest informed
Tom that when the Viking Viscount had docked

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into the port, he had had
a visit from a crew member from the

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ship. This crew member had told
him that Kevin was missing, but didn't

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elaborate on the circumstances. Tom stated, the padre said to me that he

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couldn't tell me what he said,
but don't let it drop. Bad things

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had happened on that boat. This
phone call was strange and alarming, and

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Tom immediately began trying to figure out
if this was true or not. Had

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Kevin really disappeared from the ship.
Unfortunately, Tom was quickly able to corroborate

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that he couldn't be found and had
been reported missing on the journey back from

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Zimbruga. This seemed impossible given that
Kevin was so used to boats, and

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the idea of an accident didn't seem
right to them. The story of what

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happened that night emerged. Witness statements
reported that Kevin had last been seen at

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around six thirty pm on Sunday the
twenty first. At six pm, had

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been working in the plate room of
the ship, and then around thirty minutes

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later, he was spotted exiting the
galley through a door which could have taken

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him to either the toilets or the
deck. This seemed to be the last

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sighting of Kevin before the ship docked
into Felix Stow that night. At that

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point that people began to realize that
Kevin couldn't be found. It was reported

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that the ship operators did a small
search of the boat after it had been

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anchored. When Kevin couldn't be found, the operators let the passengers off the

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boat and then informed the authorities about
his disappearance. This is something which was

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later queried by Kevin's family, who
believed that a full search should have been

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conducted before anyone was let off the
ship, and Tom later stated that this

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was in breach of maritime law.
The fact that the investigation had only been

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cursory and the search for Kevin was
small his family were worried that there hadn't

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been enough done to try and find
him, and they were left in limbo

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wondering what exactly had happened. There
weren't many answers forthcoming that could explain Kevin's

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disappearance. How had he gone missing
from the boat in a relatively small time

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frame. The idea that Kevin may
have fallen overboard was something that was quickly

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brought up given the circumstances. However, there was also something odd about that.

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The crew reported that the weather conditions
were excellent that night and the water

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had been extremely calm. If Kevin
had been on the deck and fallen overboard,

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it wasn't believed that it was because
of bad weather. Kevin's brother Danny

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later recounted Kevin had been on boats
for years, so the chances of him

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falling overboard were slim, they said, because of how good the weather was,

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perhaps two thirds of all of the
passengers might have been out on deck.

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Anyway, the amount of people out
on deck, someone would have seen

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something if he'd gone overboard. This, of course was not certain, but

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this theory didn't completely account for Kevin's
disappearance. This also seemed to conflict with

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the phone call that Tom had received
from the priest, who spoke to a

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crew member from the Viking Viscount.
If Kevin had fallen overboard, what terrible

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things were this crew member alluding to, and why had they gone to visit

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a priest about what had happened.
The timeline of that evening was also unclear,

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as were Kevin's movements on the ship. Kevin's family had explained that there

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was a culture of drinking on the
ships during this time, and that while

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the crew were on their shift,
they would often nip off to get a

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drink. They were later told that
there were some passengers in the private bar

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that night, as they were friends
with some of the crew, and before

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he went missing, Kevin had been
messing around with some of them. Tom

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later stated next thing keV was missing. He was never ever supposedly seen again.

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It seems incomprehensible that Kevin could have
just disappeared, and his family wanted

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answers. Police became involved with the
investigation, and the official line was that

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this was a missing person investigation,
given that Kevin was missing and there hadn't

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been any concrete evidence found to the
contrary Kevin's family would later say, however,

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this isn't what they were told by
the police during the initial investigation.

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Tom later recounted, I saw the
Chief Constable with Dad. He was adamant

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Kevid being killed and asked me who
I think did it? In his office.

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This didn't make sense as Kevin's case
hadn't been categorized as a murder inquiry,

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and so why the Chief Constable was
telling them this didn't seem to match

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up. All of this led to
a lot of confusion and some mistrust with

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Essex police. The family knew that
Kevin wouldn't just disappear, and stressed this,

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saying that they believed that something bad
must have happened to him that night

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on the ship. The investigation,
however, dragged on, with Kevin still

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being labeled a missing person with little
progress seen in the investigation to find him.

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Kevin's family were heartbroken and stuck in
limbo, not knowing what to do

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next. The brothers later explained that
their parents, Rita and Paddy fell to

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pieces after Kevin's disappearance, and as
years began to pass, they saw little

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progress and got no answers. Kevin's
parents and his sister Jennifer would eventually pass

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away without receiving the much needed information
or clarity they desperately saw. Kevin's brothers

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continued to try and find their brother
and tried to push the police to keep

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Kevin's case relevant and being investigated.
This proved difficult, and the brothers have

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later said they felt like the original
investigation was a calamity of errors. One

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of these errors that couldn't be explained
was that a death certificate had been issued

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for Kevin, despite the fact that
he was still a missing person and the

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seven years that is usually required to
declare a missing person dead had not elapsed.

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The family asked how this could be, but reportedly received no explanation.

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Over the years and then decades that
Kevin remained missing, the family were asked

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to identify bodies that had washed up
and pulled out of bodies of water in

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case any of them could be Kevin. Kevin's brother Jimmy, later recounted how

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awful this was to witness, saying, there's nothing worse than looking at some

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young man lying on a table,
trying to make him your brother that is

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not him, but trying to prove
that he's not. It clearly wasn't.

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Kevin's case remained unsolved, with little
progress or information being published. The family

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remained in the dark about the situation
until around two thousand and seventeen, when

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they received a phone call from a
surprising source. Andy Guy from Norfolk and

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Suffolk Constabulary's Major Case Review Team got
in touch with the family to say that

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he was working on Kevin's disappearance as
a cold case. This was a shocking

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but welcome intervention, given that almost
forty years had passed without any progress being

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made. The investigation seemed to be
reinvigorated at this point, with witnesses being

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reinterviewed and other witnesses who earned even
interviewed at the time being tracked down.

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The Major Case Review Team flew one
man over from Ireland to speak to him,

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and planned to speak to another couple
in Cyprus who was reported may have

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known what happened to Kevin. The
family's DNA had also never been obtained to

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match to any John Doe that may
be on the database, so this was

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also done by the new investigation.
The family have since said that Suffolk Police

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have done a tremendous job of the
reinvestigation it was going well until COVID hit

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and the investigators were hindered by lockdowns
and being unable to travel or meet with

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people face to face to do interviews. This meant that the plan to interview

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witnesses in Cyprus had to be done
by Cypriot police rather than the Major Case

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Review Team. After their investigation,
in interviews of these witnesses, it was

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deemed that there was no new evidence
or anything more to be done as a

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result of it. This was,
of course disappointing. However, Kevin's family

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were happy with the progress that had
been made and believe that some one was

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now taking it seriously. Andy Guy
later commented on the case and the original

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investigation, saying, it isn't for
me to defend or attack the police in

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if the family feel they didn't get
a good service, then then that's fair

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enough. It was a different world
back in the nineteen eighties. Would we

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do it better now? Absolutely?
Some cases we look at go back to

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nineteen fifty eight. Nowadays we used
data we just didn't get back then.

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While this, of course is little
comfort for Kevin's family, they do now

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have better links with the police than
they did, and it seems as though

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more investigation has been done. There
has been little discovered, however, and

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Kevin's disappearance is still unsolved. He
still hasn't been found as of twenty twenty

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three, over forty years after he
went missing. There has been some mention

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over the years about the possibility of
possible union involvement or even a Liverpool mafia

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who had some links to the disappearance, but these are all just rumors with

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little substance. Kevin's family have never
officially commented on any of these rumors,

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and they are left with just rumors
and no concrete information what happened that night.

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They're sure that Kevin wouldn't have gone
missing by choice. So did an

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accident happen or did someone do something
to him? The phone call from the

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priest seemed to imply that something terrible
had happened, or that was what a

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crew member had said. If this
had happened, someone must know, and

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this is exactly what Kevin's family believe
and continue to appeal about. Kevin's brother,

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Jimmy, appealed to whoever had information
that could help them tell the truth.

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Get it off your mind. No
one is getting younger. Who wants

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to die with that knowledge and guilt. Why don't they help us out of

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our misery? Mom and Dad had
to die not knowing. We would like

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to know the truth. We know
that they know. Kevin's family had been

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very open about how they feel that
Kevin has been forgotten about despite being at

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the center of their hearts and their
family, and this is such a tragic

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thing to hear. A statement from
them reads, we just have to live

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our lives with it being forgotten by
the world. This isn't how anyone should

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feel. And it's so important that
all these cases are remembered and that we

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don't forget about Kevin's disappearance. Someone
out there must know what happened or know

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someone that does. Kevin's case is
now the longest missing person case in Essex

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Police's case file and it would be
amazing for new information to be forthcoming and

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for his family to finally know what
happened to him. If you know anything

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about the disappearance of Kevin Dundon on
board the Viking Viscount in September nineteen eighty

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then please contact Essex Police or off
can Suffolk Police on one oh one with

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your information. Anything could be important. Thank you for listening to today's episode.

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reviewing the podcast wherever you listen,
including Spotify, and also just share the

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episodes. You can subscribe on YouTube
and follow us on social media. You

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can also now subscribe and listen to
my new podcast, ten Minute True Crime,

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which tells infamous crimes in a short
form, bite size ten minutes,

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but people on the go or who
dislike the facts find that wherever you listen

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00:19:07.960 --> 00:19:14.880
and in the show notes. As
always, I'm Caprice and this has been unseen