Megan fell into river after night out, say police
MISSING university student Megan Roberts probably fell into a river while drunk and drowned, police said yesterday.
Despite evidence she may have been targeted by a stalker, detectives are increasingly convinced she died in an accident after a night out a week ago.
A senior officer revealed that Megan, 20, and her friends had been drinking for several hours and she was clearly the worse for wear as she walked home from a bar in the early hours.
Megan was the last of a ‘spread- out’ group and was seen on CCTV bumping into cycle racks about 20 yards from the River Ouse in the centre of York.
Some of the young revellers crossed Lendal Bridge on their way to a McDonald’s restaurant and others ran down a road below the bridge and headed towards the river.
Police Superintendent Phil Cain said Megan was the last in the group. She was not seen alive again, but police believe she went along the riverside path, which has no barriers, and fell into the water. She had her mobile phone with her and police believe that it was at this point the signal vanished.
Police underwater search teams were scouring the fastflowing and murky waters yesterday. However, it can often take many days before a body is found.
Officers have carefully investigated an incident in which Megan and her friend tweeted about being stalked from bar
Handing out
posters
to bar by a ‘creepy guy’ six days earlier. But Supt Cain said police inquiries ‘ do not indicate that Megan’s disappearance is the result of any criminal activity’.
They have also rejected links with the unsolved mystery of university chef Claudia Lawrence’s disappearance in York almost five years ago.
The latest development appears to dash the fading hopes of family and friends. Earlier, volunteers from the charity Missing People were handing out posters in the belief Megan could still be alive.
Supt Cain said that after almost a week of no contact it was time to ‘deal with the facts as they currently present’. Megan, a Fine Arts undergraduate at York St John University, spent the evening drinking and left the Popworld bar at 2.10am last Thursday.
Supt Cain said: ‘All the group, including Megan, were heavily affected by alcohol. All members of the group concerned have been traced and spoken to at length by police. There is nothing at this stage to indicate that any member of that group of friends or anybody else is directly responsible for Megan’s disappearance.’
He added: ‘The strongest and most probable line of enquiry being pursued by police is that Megan, affected by alcohol, has entered the river.’
Megan’s family live ten miles away in Wetherby and have been too upset to comment.
She was the oldest of three children and was said to be popular and hard-working.