Rosie’s mother to face trauma of identifying body
THE mother of missing Scot Rosie Johnson was yesterday facing the heartbreak of formally identifying her daughter after a body was discovered.
Police probing the disappearance of the 22-year-old from the adventure holiday camp where she worked confirmed the body had been found in dense woodland by a member of the public.
The grim development came six days after Rosie went missing ‘in a distressed state’ from the centre where she had been working as a field studies instructor since February this year.
A spokesman for Hampshire police said her body was found in woodland near the PGL Little Canada camp but said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding her death.
They have not said how she died. Rosie’s mother Julia and her brother and sister, who had travelled from the family home in Banchory, Kincardineshire, to join the search, were last night being looked after by police family liaison officers.
There was no sign of the zoology graduate’s on-off boyfriend Brendan Storer, 27, who also lived at the holiday camp, which is close to the coastal village of Wootton. Rosie was last seen on Sunday evening and the alarm was raised by staff at the camp after she failed to turn up for her shift the following day.
Hospital and CCTV checks were carried out on Monday but a fullscale ground search, involving dozens of police, coastguard officers and volunteers, was not launched until Tuesday.
Officers had spent most of Friday carrying out ‘targeted door knocks’ at properties with boathouses and outbuildings before making the tragic discovery.
Rosie was the niece of Daniel Johnson, Labour MSP for Edinburgh South. Yesterday, he described the information from the police about the find as ‘deeply upsetting’.
At the Little Canada complex, there was little outward sign of the tragedy yesterday as scores of youngsters enjoyed the fine weather and joined in with the regular summer timetable of activities.
But one member of staff, who asked not to be named, said: ‘It may all look normal but the camp has been devastated by what has happened to Rosie.
‘She was a lovely girl and a great member of the team here. We are struggling to believe she has gone. It’s just devastating to come to terms with.’
Rosie was a former pupil of Banchory Academy and graduated from the University of Glasgow last year.
Yesterday, a spokesman for Hampshire Police said a file was being prepared for the coroner.