RIDDLE OF MY LOST BROTHER
Sister’s 25-year heartache after sending him home
THE last time Sarah Nettles saw her younger brother Damien, she had just pushed a £10 note into his hand, hugged him, and sent him to catch a ferry home.
Days later, the 16-year-old vanished after a night out.
That was 25 years ago this week. And Damien has not been seen since.
Sarah, a struggling student at the time, had packed him off early after he visited her at university – and she has felt guilty about that for two-anda-half decades.
Speaking for the first time about the mystery, she told the Sunday People: “I have to move on and I think Damien would be OK with that. I’ve finally made peace with it.”
Sarah, now 44 and a mum, believes her missing brother is dead.
But, like the police, she has no idea what happened to the easy-going teen, who loved Nirvana and was never without his Dr Marten boots.
Sarah is the eldest of four. Her family grew up in a loving home in Cowes, on the Isle of Wight.
She doted on Damien and vividly remembers his last visit to her at Portsmouth University, where she had just started a degree.
They went out for drinks and ate a specially
cooked lasagne. But she sent Damien home early the next day because she was skint and did not really want her kid brother hanging around.
She promised to visit him at home that weekend, but did not go.
On the night he vanished, November 2, 1996,
Damien went to a party in East Cowes.
He left at about
9.30pm and caught a ferry back to
West Cowes with his pal Chris Boon.
CCTV shows the pair trying, unsuccessfully, to get served in pubs on Cowes
High Street.
Damien also popped into a chippy but left without buying anything,
Chris was cold and suggested they go home at about 10.30pm.
But after the pals parted ways, Damien doubled back.
People reported seeing him acting inebriated on the high street and he was picked up again on CCTV at just after midnight – the last confirmed sighting.
One witness later claimed he saw a tall, skinny teen – Damien was 6ft 4ins – being pinned against a wall by Nicky Mcnamara, a notorious local drug dealer. Mcnamara, who had a history of
violent crimes,
was also reportedly seen acting suspiciously the next day. He died of a heroin overdose in 2002.
Other rumours have linked Damien’s disappearance to a drugs gang on the island.
Mum Valerie thinks it should be treated as murder inquiry rather than a missing person case.
She and her family are convinced someone knows what happened to Damien and are tormented by the suspicion the community closed ranks.
Fourteen years after Damien disappeared, Hampshire Police arrested eight people for conspiracy to murder but all were released without charge.
In 2001, Valerie and Sarah’s dad, Edward, made the heart-wrenching decision to move to the US.
Sarah, a contracts manager for a software company, followed and now lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her nine-year-old daughter, Olivia.
She recently set up a support group called International Siblings of the Missing to help the brothers and sisters of people who vanish.
There are pictures of Damien all around her house. And she still thinks about him every day.
She said: “I’ve had dreams over the years of knowing he is there, but I keep losing him and can’t quite grasp on to him. He is always there.”
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