Mum dies tormented by mystery of missing son
AMOTHER has died not knowing what happened to her missing son who has not been seen since his crashed car was found abandoned.
Kyle Vaughan was aged 24 when his silver Peugeot 306 was found on December 30, 2012, on the A467 between Risca and Crosskeys in Caerphilly borough.
A murder investigation was launched but nobody has been charged in relation to Kyle’s disappearance and no-one seems to know what happened to him.
Almost five years to the day of her son’s disappearance Kyle’s mother, Mary Lucas, died without finding the answer to what happened to her son.
Ms Lucas was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and launched her final appeal to find out what happened to her son in 2015, three years after his disappearance.
She died on New Year’s Day aged 55, having been told in 2015 that she could only have weeks to live.
At the time of the appeal, Ms Lucas said: “The doctors have said they don’t know how long I have left. It could be just weeks. If I’m lucky it might be months.
“I should be able to properly say goodbye to him – to give him a funeral. The thought of not ever finding out is too cruel to contemplate.
“I just want to know where my Kyle is. Someone out there must know something.
“I want to say to them: put yourself in my shoes.”
Factory worker Kyle, known to his friends as Jabbers, was last seen at his home in Newbridge, near Caerphilly, on December 30, 2012.
It was not clear whether Kyle had been driving the vehicle, but police said they were confident he would have been able to walk away from the collision.
Ms Lucas said she knew something was wrong when Kyle didn’t answer his phone.
She added: “Kyle would always answer his phone, no matter what – and even when he went away on holiday with his friends he would still always call me up every morning to let me know he was safe.”
Extensive searches by a team of up to 40 officers followed, as well as numerous public appeals for information.
The major investigation saw detectives sift a mountain of evidence – including more than 10,000 lines of telecommunications data, 200-plus hours of CCTV footage and around 2,000 separate pieces of property.
But despite their best efforts nothing was found to indicate what had happened to Kyle.
Again speaking at the appeal at Gwent Police HQ in Cwmbran in 2015, Ms Lucas said: “Christmas and New Year should be a happy time, but for us it brings back the bad memories of when Kyle first disappeared.
“I can’t celebrate Christmas any more. The only present I ever want is to get my boy back.
“Being told by police they believe your only child is dead was hard to take, but the uncertainty in not knowing where he is or what has happened has made things worse.
“It’s like being constantly in limbo. It makes the grief unbearable.
“I definitely think the stress and the uncertainty has had an effect on my health.
“Someone out there must know what has happened to him or has information which could help the police. “Please, come forward. “You can give information anonymously if needs be. I don’t have much time left.”
Gwent Police declined to comment.