Cops hunting for RAF man Corrie McKeague searching for men he met in takeaway on night he vanished
Police have also released CCTV of last sighting of missing RAF man who vanished four weeks ago
COPS working to trace missing RAF gunner Corrie McKeague, who mysteriously vanished while on a night out, are desperately trying to track down a group of people who saw him just before he disappeared.
Corrie, based at RAF Honington in Suffolk, bought food from Pizza Mama Mia in Bury St Edmunds between 1.15am and 1.30am on the night he went missing.
While he was in the takeaway he sat with a group of people who have not yet been traced.
The group included a man who is described as black and wore a distinctive black T-shirt with 'Death', the Roman numerals 'LXXVIII' and the number '78' in large white letters on the back and a white motif on the front.
He appears to be shorter than Corrie, less than around 5ft 10ins tall, and had short dark hair.
He leaves the takeaway with Corrie, before Corrie is seen on CCTV walking away on his own.
There is no suggestion there was any contact after this, but officers are asking the group and the man who spoke with Corrie to come forward as potential witnesses.
Yesterday, specialist RAF search teams joined searches of wooded areas on possible routes Corrie may have used in a bid to walk home, four weeks ago.
Footage shows Corrie walking through Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, at 3.25am on the morning he disappeared.
There have been no reported sightings of Corrie since this time.
An abandoned white van was briefly investigated in connection with the case this week, but police have since dismissed it from the investigation.
Corrie's mum, Nicola Urquhart, appeared on ITV's Good Morning Britain earlier this week, and said she believed her son was alive and pleaded for anyone who can help locate him to come forward.
It is three weeks since Corrie, 23, left his RAF base in Honington, Suffolk, and vanished on a night out with pals in Bury St Edmunds sparking a huge manhunt.
His disappearance is as baffling as it is worrying, with one RAF source saying it was “as if he has been abducted by aliens”.
But, asked is she had believed her son was alive Nicola told Good Morning Britain: “Yes, yes I do.”
CCTV footage captured Corrie's last known moments walking through Bury St Edmunds at about 3.20am on September 24.
He had told at least one person that he planned to walk the 10 miles back to RAF Honnington, but police have not been able to find CCTV images of him leaving the town.
Nicola said: "Corrie walks just to the back of shops, it’s where deliveries are made, it’s a dead end, it doesn’t go anywhere.
“Corrie is quite clearly on CCTV seen walking in the middle of the road into this loading bay where vehicles and bins and stuff are.
“He never gets seen coming back out, there’s not one image of Corrie on CCTV in the entire area of Bury that’s been captured.
";It would take an expert months of preparation to be able to evade that and Corrie wasn’t trying to.
"He has just vanished and as a police officer I know that doesn’t happen but the police have been fantastic. They’ve shown me everything they’ve been doing.
“Somebody else must be involved because he’s not seen leaving on foot at all."
Somebody else must be involved because he’s not seen leaving on foot at all.
Nicola
Asked if there was a reason Corrie would want to get away Nicola said: “I know that would be an easy answer and I wish it was because then at least I would think it was something Corrie has chosen to do.
“There was nothing going on in his life, there was no major event, there was nothing that might cause him to suddenly think at 3am after he’s had a drink, a week before payday, when he’s left his little seven-month-old puppy in his room, he’s been sending photographs to friends.
“He’s been in a fantastic mood. He spoke to his brother Darroch four times on the phone that night making plans for Darroch to come up last weekend."
Nicola has considered a number of possibilities that could explain her son's disappearance.
She said: "Corrie would go with a stranger in a car, he would ask a stranger for a lift, he would equally pick up hitchhikers so perhaps somebody has given him a lift to try to get him back to the base but they’ve taken him to the wrong place and they’ve dropped him off and they feel bad and they don’t want to come forward.
“But the police don’t know where to search because they’ve searched the road back to the base and he’s not there.
“If there’s been an accident, if someone has taken him to try to give him a lift up the road tell us where you dropped him off so we’ve got some clue as to where to start searching now.”
Nicola said she doesn't believe her son's disappearance is linked to terrorism - although cops haven't ruled it out.
“I don’t want that to sound like I think it’s got anything to do with terrorism. I’m aware of the Marham incident – it was only 20 miles away, he’s in the armed services and the police are not discounting it either.
"However, there is only one bit of evidence that says it’s not terrorism and that’s because nobody has come forward and claimed him and they would have by now.
";For that very reason, although we wouldn’t discount it, it’s not an active thing they’re trying to look into.”
SAC Corrie was reportedly in good spirits as he finished his weekly duties and prepared for a night on the town on September 23.
Corrie joined the No2 Squadron three years ago. He split from girlfriend Chloe Fox last year but Nicola has previously said: “There was genuinely no relationship issue, especially with Chloe who is a lovely girl.
“Corrie is a young boy who was very happily single and doing what 23-year-old boys do.”
On the Friday he went missing he was wearing white jeans, a pink Ralph Lauren shirt and suede Timberland boots. He left his beloved puppy Louell in his room then drove his blue BMW nine miles to meet his mates.
Corrie joined his friends in Flex nightclub but left well before closing time, slightly unsteady through drink, and headed for something to eat.
He was seen on CCTV at 1.20am, eating a takeaway as he meandered past a pub, stopping briefly to pick up something from the road.
Two men in the footage have been eliminated from the inquiry.
Other, unreleased footage shows Corrie sleeping in a doorway before getting up again at 3.23am. The trail ends there.
Scene . . . centre of Barton Mills, village near where Corrie's phone was last detected
Nicola said: “The boys that were with him are not responsible for him. Corrie does the same thing every time he goes out. He is an absolute creature of habit and will leave on his own.
“He will get food and may have a sleep before he goes home. Nothing in his behaviour was even remotely unusual and the boys he was with would not have been able to stop him.”
Nicola said he did not regularly walk the long distance back to his base but had done so in the past.
She added: “What was absolutely out of character is that he wouldn’t contact one of us, his girlfriends or the boys from the base. He would get in touch with somebody.”
His disappearance was reported when he did not turn up for work on the following Monday morning.
So out of character was it that the RAF immediately reported him to police as a missing person, rather than filing him as awol.
Police know from phone records that Corrie had his Nokia Lumia 435 handset on him at 3am as he sent a picture to his friend.
His phone remained in Bury St Edmunds until around 4am, according to signal records, and can be traced moving 14 miles away to Barton Mills, near the RAF base at Mildenhall, at a speed which suggests it must have been in a vehicle.
A private bin lorry heading that way at the time was traced but there was no sign of Corrie’s Nokia, or its frayed black case.
Officers admitted he could have jumped on the back of the lorry to hitch a lift and could have injured himself when jumping off to complete his journey on foot.
We really need the public to come forward. Somebody must have seen him
Nicola
It is equally possible he could have willingly, or unwillingly, got in another vehicle which is why, so far, he has not been spotted on CCTV leaving the town on foot.
His family believe it is possible someone stole or picked up his phone and threw it away after realising it was of little value.
Either way, the device was disconnected from its network in the area at around 8am.
If Corrie did accept a lift, Barton Mills would not have been an obvious destination, while the most direct route to Honington on foot would have been on an A-road and country lane.
That leaves the possibility he could have been hit by a car or fallen into one of the many waterways along the route. So far, a search operation involving police helicopters, dogs, RAF personnel and the Suffolk Lowland Search and Rescue team has failed to find any sign of him.
Police are continuing to ask local residents, businesses and landowners across the Bury St Edmunds, Barton Mills and Honington area to check any outbuildings and property in the ongoing bid to find Corrie.
Police are keen to speak to anyone who was in Bury St Edmunds on the night of September 23/24. Anyone with information that may assist is urged to call the Suffolk Police incident room on 01473 782019.