Corrie McKeague: RAF airman filmed singing a month before he vanished
The 23-year-old RAF gunner has not been seen since he vanished on a night out clubbing in the early hours of Saturday, September 24, in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Searches have taken place across the town, including RAF Honington where Mr McKeague has been based for the past three years while training to be a gunner and a medic – but have yet to yield any results. The only clues to his disappearance are late night CCTV footage in the town centre and a signal from his mobile phone, picked up later in the Barton Mills area nearby.
SWNS•MCKEAGUE FAMILY The 23-year-old RAF gunner disappeared following a night out in September 2016
He likes to make people laugh, he is just so charming Nicola Urquhart
In the homemade film recorded in August, a chirpy Corrie can be seen sitting in the garden singing along to a song from the musical Wicked. His mother Nicola Urquhart said sharing the video of her son had been difficult, but she “wanted people to see his nature and personality.” The 15 second clip shows Mr McKeague laughing while reeling off the words to “Poplar” from the West End musical. “He likes to make people laugh, he is just so charming,” Mrs Urquhart told the BBC. Last month his family began raising cash on a Crowdfunding page to pay for a private investigator to look into the case. Mrs Urquhart, 48, said she had “no faith” the police would find him, and so far almost 5,000 people have donated a total of more than £51,000.
BBC Nicola Urquhart has thanked the public for their support
She is now calling on detectives to trace three men who tried to set fire to a white car with a foreign number plates the day after he vanished. Ten miles away at lunchtime the following day, witnesses observed three men acting suspiciously by the vehicle in a remote layby at Blo’ Norton, a village near Diss, Norfolk. One witness told police of an odd shape in the front of the people carrier and she believes there was an attempt to insert a rag into the fuel tank. Mr McKeague was reported missing the next day.