My Corrie may have taken his own life, says father
Missing airman ‘affected by his girlfriend’s pregnancy’
THE father of missing Scots airman Corrie McKeague yesterday said his son may have committed suicide, as police admitted they were shelving their investigation.
Martin McKeague claimed his son could have been ‘profoundly’ affected by the revelation that his girlfriend of five months was pregnant.
The assertion came as detectives announced they had ‘no realistic lines of inquiry left to pursue’ after a £2million investigation lasting 18 months – and said they may never find the RAF gunner, from Dunfermline, Fife.
Mr McKeague, 23, is thought to have climbed into a commercial waste bin following a drunken night out in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in September 2016, and died during the ‘waste disposal process’.
A six-month search through 9,000 tons of rubbish at a landfill site in Milton, Cambridgeshire, failed to locate his body.
Suffolk Police last night admitted that his remains could be in a different part of the sprawling site, or at another landfill site altogether, as they confirmed they were passing the file to a cold case team.
Detective Superintendent Katie Elliott said it was ‘extremely disappointing that we have not been able to find Corrie’ but the investigation had ‘drawn to a natural conclusion’.
She added: ‘We have now reached a point where we are unable to make any further progress and have gone as far as we realistically can with the information we have. If any new, credible and proportionate inquiries relating to Corrie’s disappearance emerge, we will pursue them.’
Mr McKeague Sr, 49, said that Corrie learning that his girlfriend April Oliver was expecting could have had a ‘profound effect’ on the mental health of his son, who had previously suffered from depression.
A daughter, Ellie-Louise, was born in June last year.
‘I just can’t help thinking this would have weighed on him heavily and he may have actually chosen to get in that bin that night, knowing what would happen,’ he told the Daily Mirror.
He also dismissed as ‘conspiracy theories’ any possibility other than his son being crushed by the refuse truck and carried away.
Miss Oliver, 21, was unavailable to comment yesterday but has always claimed she discovered she was pregnant two weeks after Mr McKeague went missing.
His mother, Nicola Urquhart, also did not comment but she temporarily turned off the Find Corrie Facebook page she set up, attracting 125,000 users.
The mother of three, from Dunfermline, wrote: ‘I will be clarifying things and updating you all shortly.’ Mr McKeague was initially assumed to have come to harm as he tried to return to his base nine miles away after the night out.
Police later admitted approaching contacts on dating websites used by him and his girlfriend, including ‘Fab Swingers’, in case his sexual behaviour was connected to his disappearance.
They subsequently resurrected the theory that Mr McKeague, who was based at RAF Honington, had gone into an alley behind some shops and climbed into a bin that was emptied by a lorry.
Suffolk Assistant Chief Constable Simon Megicks said he had ‘absolute confidence in the way the investigation was conducted’.
‘This would have weighed on him’