Hi, and welcome back to The Unseen Podcast, a podcast dedicated to missing
people, unresolved cases, and UK true crime. Today we're going to be
looking into the bizarre disappearance of Kevin Dundon in nineteen eighty. Kevin was only
twenty two at the time of his disappearance and the circumstances of his disappearance alarmed
his family and they have not stopped looking for him. Since this episode is
about a missing person and so does not contain graphic detail, but listener discretion
is always advised. Clacton on Sea is a seaside town located on the Tendering
Peninsula in the County of Essex. It's almost eighty miles from central London and
around sixty miles from Southend on Sea. The town has always been associated with
tourism, and since it's founding during Victorian times, many people have visited for
day trips to see the beaches and other seaside activities. This only increased when
Billy Butlin, the famous entrepreneur who opened Butlin Holiday camps across the country,
opened a park in Clacton on Sea. This was open until nineteen eighty three,
when the public began booking more holidays abroad, and they became less popular.
The Dundun family lived in the seaside town, but Paddy and Rita Dundon
were originally from Ireland and had settled in the town with their children Jimmy,
Tom, Kevin, Danny and sister Jennifer. They were a close knit family
growing up in the sixties and seventies, and all of the siblings were supportive
of one another and got well. As Kevin grew up, his siblings described
him as happy, go lucky and chilled out. He had a great sense
of humor and would always make friends easily with anyone. As he approached his
early twenties, his siblings explained that he was just all about enjoying himself and
doing things that made him happy. His eldest brother, Jimmy told Essex Live
he worked hard and played hard. He was quiet in his own way,
a bit of a joker. He left notes on the back of photos making
comments and named himself King Kevin in the family. His younger brother Danny added
he bought loads of records, loved his music, bought clothes, had a
girlfriend and was very happy, always smiling. His hobbies were having fun,
listening to music and having a drink. By nineteen eight, Kevin was twenty
three and was doing everything that someone in their early twenties and joys. He
was socializing with friends, going for drinks and spending time with his girlfriend from
Clacton, who had recently started dating. Everything was going well for Kevin and
he had a lot to look forward to. At the time, Kevin was
employed by the Townsend Thorison Shipping Company. The Townsend Thorison Company was the name
used by European Ferries to market their ferry services, but the European Fairies Group
had existed since nineteen thirty five and had taken over Townsend car Ferries in nineteen
fifty nine. They began to expand and by nineteen seventy six they had acquired
Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company. Felixstowe Dock is the UK's busiest container port and
by nineteen seventy four Townsend Thorison had begun running twice daily ferries from Felixstowe to
Zebruger in Belgium. Kevin had been working on the ferries on and off during
the late seventies. In September of nineteen eighty, he had taken a job
as a galleyman aboard the Viking Viscount Ferry on a round trip between Felixstowe and
Zibruger. The job wasn't glamorous and involved a lot of cleaning and maintaining the
galley. However, the money was generally good, with cash in hand often
given. The night before he was due to board the ship, he had
stayed with his brother Tom in Ipswich. Tom would later recount he didn't want
to go on that boat. He didn't like it, he didn't like the
crew. He wasn't happy to go on it, but he went anyway.
Tom dropped Kevin off at the port in Felixstowe to make the journey to Zebruger
on the Viking Viscount. There wasn't anything particularly concerning for Kevin's family about this
job, given that Kevin had been on boats for years and this was usual
for him. There was nothing to suggest that anything would happen on that trip.
Despite this, Kevin's trip on the Viking Viscount would change the whole family's
life forever. The first that the family heard that something wasn't quite right was
early on Monday, the twenty second of September nineteen eighty. The Viking Viscount
had been on its way back into Felixstowe the day before, on the twenty
first. Tom later explained that in the early hours of that Monday morning,
he received a phone call. On the other end of the line was a
priest from Felixstowe. This priest informed Tom that when the Viking Viscount had docked
into the port, he had had a visit from a crew member from the
ship. This crew member had told him that Kevin was missing, but didn't
elaborate on the circumstances. Tom stated, the padre said to me that he
couldn't tell me what he said, but don't let it drop. Bad things
had happened on that boat. This phone call was strange and alarming, and
Tom immediately began trying to figure out if this was true or not. Had
Kevin really disappeared from the ship. Unfortunately, Tom was quickly able to corroborate
that he couldn't be found and had been reported missing on the journey back from
Zimbruga. This seemed impossible given that Kevin was so used to boats, and
the idea of an accident didn't seem right to them. The story of what
happened that night emerged. Witness statements reported that Kevin had last been seen at
around six thirty pm on Sunday the twenty first. At six pm, had
been working in the plate room of the ship, and then around thirty minutes
later, he was spotted exiting the galley through a door which could have taken
him to either the toilets or the deck. This seemed to be the last
sighting of Kevin before the ship docked into Felix Stow that night. At that
point that people began to realize that Kevin couldn't be found. It was reported
that the ship operators did a small search of the boat after it had been
anchored. When Kevin couldn't be found, the operators let the passengers off the
boat and then informed the authorities about his disappearance. This is something which was
later queried by Kevin's family, who believed that a full search should have been
conducted before anyone was let off the ship, and Tom later stated that this
was in breach of maritime law. The fact that the investigation had only been
cursory and the search for Kevin was small his family were worried that there hadn't
been enough done to try and find him, and they were left in limbo
wondering what exactly had happened. There weren't many answers forthcoming that could explain Kevin's
disappearance. How had he gone missing from the boat in a relatively small time
frame. The idea that Kevin may have fallen overboard was something that was quickly
brought up given the circumstances. However, there was also something odd about that.
The crew reported that the weather conditions were excellent that night and the water
had been extremely calm. If Kevin had been on the deck and fallen overboard,
it wasn't believed that it was because of bad weather. Kevin's brother Danny
later recounted Kevin had been on boats for years, so the chances of him
falling overboard were slim, they said, because of how good the weather was,
perhaps two thirds of all of the passengers might have been out on deck.
Anyway, the amount of people out on deck, someone would have seen
something if he'd gone overboard. This, of course was not certain, but
this theory didn't completely account for Kevin's disappearance. This also seemed to conflict with
the phone call that Tom had received from the priest, who spoke to a
crew member from the Viking Viscount. If Kevin had fallen overboard, what terrible
things were this crew member alluding to, and why had they gone to visit
a priest about what had happened. The timeline of that evening was also unclear,
as were Kevin's movements on the ship. Kevin's family had explained that there
was a culture of drinking on the ships during this time, and that while
the crew were on their shift, they would often nip off to get a
drink. They were later told that there were some passengers in the private bar
that night, as they were friends with some of the crew, and before
he went missing, Kevin had been messing around with some of them. Tom
later stated next thing keV was missing. He was never ever supposedly seen again.
It seems incomprehensible that Kevin could have just disappeared, and his family wanted
answers. Police became involved with the investigation, and the official line was that
this was a missing person investigation, given that Kevin was missing and there hadn't
been any concrete evidence found to the contrary Kevin's family would later say, however,
this isn't what they were told by the police during the initial investigation.
Tom later recounted, I saw the Chief Constable with Dad. He was adamant
Kevid being killed and asked me who I think did it? In his office.
This didn't make sense as Kevin's case hadn't been categorized as a murder inquiry,
and so why the Chief Constable was telling them this didn't seem to match
up. All of this led to a lot of confusion and some mistrust with
Essex police. The family knew that Kevin wouldn't just disappear, and stressed this,
saying that they believed that something bad must have happened to him that night
on the ship. The investigation, however, dragged on, with Kevin still
being labeled a missing person with little progress seen in the investigation to find him.
Kevin's family were heartbroken and stuck in limbo, not knowing what to do
next. The brothers later explained that their parents, Rita and Paddy fell to
pieces after Kevin's disappearance, and as years began to pass, they saw little
progress and got no answers. Kevin's parents and his sister Jennifer would eventually pass
away without receiving the much needed information or clarity they desperately saw. Kevin's brothers
continued to try and find their brother and tried to push the police to keep
Kevin's case relevant and being investigated. This proved difficult, and the brothers have
later said they felt like the original investigation was a calamity of errors. One
of these errors that couldn't be explained was that a death certificate had been issued
for Kevin, despite the fact that he was still a missing person and the
seven years that is usually required to declare a missing person dead had not elapsed.
The family asked how this could be, but reportedly received no explanation.
Over the years and then decades that Kevin remained missing, the family were asked
to identify bodies that had washed up and pulled out of bodies of water in
case any of them could be Kevin. Kevin's brother Jimmy, later recounted how
awful this was to witness, saying, there's nothing worse than looking at some
young man lying on a table, trying to make him your brother that is
not him, but trying to prove that he's not. It clearly wasn't.
Kevin's case remained unsolved, with little progress or information being published. The family
remained in the dark about the situation until around two thousand and seventeen, when
they received a phone call from a surprising source. Andy Guy from Norfolk and
Suffolk Constabulary's Major Case Review Team got in touch with the family to say that
he was working on Kevin's disappearance as a cold case. This was a shocking
but welcome intervention, given that almost forty years had passed without any progress being
made. The investigation seemed to be reinvigorated at this point, with witnesses being
reinterviewed and other witnesses who earned even interviewed at the time being tracked down.
The Major Case Review Team flew one man over from Ireland to speak to him,
and planned to speak to another couple in Cyprus who was reported may have
known what happened to Kevin. The family's DNA had also never been obtained to
match to any John Doe that may be on the database, so this was
also done by the new investigation. The family have since said that Suffolk Police
have done a tremendous job of the reinvestigation it was going well until COVID hit
and the investigators were hindered by lockdowns and being unable to travel or meet with
people face to face to do interviews. This meant that the plan to interview
witnesses in Cyprus had to be done by Cypriot police rather than the Major Case
Review Team. After their investigation, in interviews of these witnesses, it was
deemed that there was no new evidence or anything more to be done as a
result of it. This was, of course disappointing. However, Kevin's family
were happy with the progress that had been made and believe that some one was
now taking it seriously. Andy Guy later commented on the case and the original
investigation, saying, it isn't for me to defend or attack the police in
if the family feel they didn't get a good service, then then that's fair
enough. It was a different world back in the nineteen eighties. Would we
do it better now? Absolutely? Some cases we look at go back to
nineteen fifty eight. Nowadays we used data we just didn't get back then.
While this, of course is little comfort for Kevin's family, they do now
have better links with the police than they did, and it seems as though
more investigation has been done. There has been little discovered, however, and
Kevin's disappearance is still unsolved. He still hasn't been found as of twenty twenty
three, over forty years after he went missing. There has been some mention
over the years about the possibility of possible union involvement or even a Liverpool mafia
who had some links to the disappearance, but these are all just rumors with
little substance. Kevin's family have never officially commented on any of these rumors,
and they are left with just rumors and no concrete information what happened that night.
They're sure that Kevin wouldn't have gone missing by choice. So did an
accident happen or did someone do something to him? The phone call from the
priest seemed to imply that something terrible had happened, or that was what a
crew member had said. If this had happened, someone must know, and
this is exactly what Kevin's family believe and continue to appeal about. Kevin's brother,
Jimmy, appealed to whoever had information that could help them tell the truth.
Get it off your mind. No one is getting younger. Who wants
to die with that knowledge and guilt. Why don't they help us out of
our misery? Mom and Dad had to die not knowing. We would like
to know the truth. We know that they know. Kevin's family had been
very open about how they feel that Kevin has been forgotten about despite being at
the center of their hearts and their family, and this is such a tragic
thing to hear. A statement from them reads, we just have to live
our lives with it being forgotten by the world. This isn't how anyone should
feel. And it's so important that all these cases are remembered and that we
don't forget about Kevin's disappearance. Someone out there must know what happened or know
someone that does. Kevin's case is now the longest missing person case in Essex
Police's case file and it would be amazing for new information to be forthcoming and
for his family to finally know what happened to him. If you know anything
about the disappearance of Kevin Dundon on board the Viking Viscount in September nineteen eighty
then please contact Essex Police or off can Suffolk Police on one oh one with
your information. Anything could be important. Thank you for listening to today's episode.
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and in the show notes. As always, I'm Caprice and this has been unseen