Sister of Maria Aldridge, the teen student nurse who mysteriously vanished 50 years ago in cold case linked to Fred and Rose West, says she hopes she didn’t suffer as a hostage
Maria Aldridge's disappearance devastated her family who have never stopped searching for her
THE sister of a student nurse who vanished 50 years ago says she hopes her sister was murdered - rather than being held captive for five decades.
Maria Aldridge was just 17 when she vanished in 1968, devastating her family - especially her mother Mary who spent the rest of her life desperately searching for Maria.
Now her sister Cathy Phillips has revealed the heartbreaking truth - that she would rather discover her sister had been murdered all those years ago rather than having spent a lifetime as a prisoner.
The mum of five told BBC West Midlands: "I think someone killed her.
"I hope somebody killed her. I wouldn’t like to to think she was being kept hostage.
"There is always that chance. People do turn up 40 or 50 years later."
Cathy, who now lives in Ontario, Canada, revealed the crushing impact Maria's disappearance had on her mother Mary, who died in 2005 aged 93.
“I always pictured my mother waiting by the kitchen window for Maria to come by the side of the house all of her life," she said.
“I don’t think it hit me at first. I felt more cross than angry.
“No policeman sat us down and said she was missing so I didn’t have that panic. I just thought she would show up.”
Police have examined a number of lines of inquiry over the years - but every one eventually went cold.
The strangest clue was a mysterious personal ad to a Nurse M, published in the Birmingham Mail on June 1 that year.
A man believed to be called Paul Gough travelled to Maria’s family home to tell her mum that she had disappeared from the hospital dormitory where she was living during her training.
Mary and Cathy went looking for her but were instead handed her belongings by a matron who said she was no longer there.
They even reported the disappearance to police working on the Fred and Rose West inquiry in the 1990s.
But checks against the human remains discovered below the patio and in the cellar at 27 Cromwell Street in Gloucester drew a blank.
Police reopened Maria’s case in 2009 following a review of an inquiry into a headless female body found in Norfolk and checks were made against her name.
Details were passed to detectives and they discovered a letter from Maria, who worked at Birmingham’s Dudley Road Hospital, to her mother dated February 28, 1968 in which she wrote of her experiences in Birmingham, including nights out in the city centre.
In the letter she also referred to a number of friends, including two believed to be student nurses, called Sue and Evelyn, and others named Dave Olfrey, Patrick McGill, Christopher Fair and Jim Taylor.
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Det Sgt Stewart Nicol, from West Midlands Police, said at the time: “Our missing person file on Maria Aldridge remains open and we would welcome any information on her whereabouts.
“Unfortunately, no new details came to light from the last appeal to trace Maria, but we hope she is still alive and, for whatever reason, she simply decided to leave the life she knew and begin afresh elsewhere.
“We remain keen to know she is safe and well, and if she would like to confirm this to us in confidence then she can do."
Anyone with information should call police on 101 or the Missing People’s charity on freephone 116 000.
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