FIND MY MISSING MUM’S BODY BEFORE I DIE
Terminally ill Graham, 50, begs for help so he can rest in peace
A MAN with weeks to live has pleaded for help in finding his mother who vanished nearly 50 years ago when he was a baby.
Graham Ruffle’s mum Ellen, a teacher, was last seen on November 14, 1969, after dropping him and his two-year-old big sister at their gran’s home.
Ellen’s body has never been found although police carried out extensive searches at the home she shared with her husband Norman.
Graham revealed his
ailing health has made his search for answers even more urgent.
Last night, he said: “All I want is answers. I just want to know what happened to my mum before I die.
“I wasn’t expected to see last Christmas. I’m not in very good health at all. I’ve had three strokes and a heart attack. I’ve got tubes feeding me and I suffer from neuropathy.
“I have diabetes and kidney disease. I’m in a wheelchair and I can’t get out of the house a lot.
“It’s so difficult with my health knowing I still have no answers as to what happened to mum even after searching for so long.
“As far as I know, the police have not come up with anything else. The case has gone cold.
“I believe my mum to be dead. I just want to know what happened to her.”
Speaking from her home in Johannesburg, South Africa, Graham’s sister Rosemary, 52, said the family had heard nothing from police and the public.
She says she is desperate to find out what happened to the mum she last saw as a two-yearold, adding: “There has been no further information on my mum.
“We were really hoping that when the story was reported in the Press in 2012 that someone would come forward with information.
“I have not heard from the police at all.”
In 2012, police began a new search for Ellen that focused on the back garden and a garage at the family’s former Motherwell home and a forensics team began examining the property.
Ground-penetrating radar was used to scan the garden and a nearby wooded area was searched for several days but nothing was found.
Ellen’s husband Norman was granted a divorce in 1975.
Norman, now 77, lives with his second wife Senga in Melrose in the Borders. They married in December 1975.
Ellen was born in Motherwell in 1935 and trained as a teacher at Craiglockhart College in Edinburgh after leaving school.
She married husband Norman in Singapore eight years before her disappearance.
Ellen taught in Singapore, Bournemouth and schools in Lanarkshire. She was working at Cathedral Primary School in Motherwell at the time of her disappearance, when she was 34.
In 1976, along with Senga, Norman took Rosemary and Graham to live in South Africa.
Back in Scotland, the search for Ellen eventually halted without any new leads.
During a previous plea for help in 2016, Graham, now 50, said he feared something “sinister” had happened to his mum.
He added: “I wouldn’t like to hear mum was murdered and dumped in a field or something. She deserves a proper burial if she hasn’t already had one.
“I’ve looked into the case as much as I could, as have the police. There is no proof of her ever being alive since the last day she was seen.”
Graham grew up believing Senga was his real mum. He has previously told the Record that Rosemary could remember her mum but, when she asked about the disappearance, she was told to drop the subject.
Graham, who lives in London, began probing his mum’s disappearance after he returned from South Africa in 1989.
He was originally contacted by police six years ago after he launched a publicity drive aimed at finding out where Ellen was.
He gave a statement of evidence he had gathered during his bid to find his missing mum. Speaking at the time, Police said: “Ellen Elizabeth Ruffle is still a missing person and the case is regularly reviewed.”
Police could not comment on the investigation yesterday when approached by the Daily Record.
Norman said in 2012 that the new investigation had brought back unhappy memories, adding: “I have absolutely no thoughts on the search being made at the old house. I was contacted by the police and I was speaking to them. I don’t expect to be speaking to them again.”
When contacted by the Record, Senga Ruffle said Norman was not taking calls. When informed that Graham had made a new appeal for information about his mum and asked if either of them would like to comment, she replied: “Definitely not.”
Anyone with information about Ellen should call police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.