WHERE IS SHE?
How UK’s longest ever missing person case is STILL unsolved 65 years after teen, 16, left for a party & never came home
Read on to see her sisters' emotional plea to Mary after 65 year mystery
NEW Year's Eve was meant to be a night of celebration for 16-year-old Mary Flanagan. But instead of ringing in the new year, she vanished without a trace.
Ready to party in 1959, the East London teen had left her home but never returned - now becoming the UK's longest missing person case.
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Dressed to impress in a red cardigan and pencil skirt, she gave a kiss to little sister, Brenda Harris.
Little did the eight-year-old know, it would be the last time she'd see older sister Mary.
BIZZARE CLUES
Mary’s disappearance remains the UK's longest-running missing person case, leaving behind bizarre clues and endless heartache for her family.
Despite new leads and technological advances, the case is still shrouded in mystery.
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The day after Mary vanished, alarm bells rang as her family discovered she hadn’t been to her job at the Tate & Lyle factory in West Ham for two weeks.
Yet, she had been leaving home every day, pretending to go to work.
Why she was pretending, who she was meeting and what on earth happened in those hours, her family still question.
With so many leads it remains an unsolvable mystery.
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SUSPICIOUS SEAMAN
Mary had been engaged to Tom, a merchant sailor introduced to her by their strict father.
Their relationship ended the night before she disappeared when Mary found out Tom "lied" to her.
She thought he lived with a landlady, but it turns out he actually lived "at home with his mum".
Eileen remembers hearing Mary arguing with their dad before she went to bed in tears.
The suspicion surrounding this fibbing ex grew when he suddenly stopped looking for Mary.
Her sisters then started questioning just how much they knew about the boy and whether he had a darker side than he was letting on.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t remember Tom’s last name,” said Brenda.
“It seemed funny [his assistance with the search] just petered out.” she told
SECRET PREGNANCY
Eileen and Brenda, Mary’s sisters, have questioned whether Mary might have been pregnant at the time.
They questioned whether this could explain her sudden disappearance.
In 2013, the case was reactivated, bringing a glimmer of hope to Mary’s surviving family members.
However, the renewed investigation was hampered by a flood at Plaistow police station, which coincidentally destroyed all crucial records.
“It’s dominated our lives,” said Brenda. “It doesn’t get easier.”
DNA tests on 100 unidentified bodies showed no matches, and each promising lead turned into yet another dead end.
CLOSE CALL
In 2016, a woman matching Mary’s description walked into a health clinic in Edinburgh.
Brenda was "already on a train to Edinburgh" in her head.
A heartbreakingly close call - Brenda was crushed when the woman denied being Mary and disappeared the next day.
Unfortunately the woman insisted “I’m independent, I can look after myself" and had disappeared the next day.
Brenda said: "It's like there's been a hole where the piece of the puzzle is missing for all these years and it needs filling".
For Brenda and her siblings, the pain of not knowing what happened to Mary is the hardest part as she begs her sister for "closure".
"Please Mary, just reach out and let us know you are happy and OK so we can have closure finally," she said.
As the 65th anniversary of Mary’s disappearance approaches, her family continues to hold out hope that they will one day be reunited before it's too late.
“We hope one day we will all be together again. But time’s running out for all of us.”
Sister Eileen wishes for an end to this.
"If we hear she has passed away, we can grieve and it's the end."
"At the moment there is no end to this story."
Some 65-years on, her family's hope remains unbroken, praying for the day they can finally close this painful chapter and find the peace they deserve.
Often solving a missing persons case can come with as much heartbreak as it does trauma.
Read More on The Sun
In this recently solved case, missing Lucy Charles, 39, was declared dead after she ‘slipped into River Dee'.
Elsewhere, a mum shares her heartbreak after two bodies were found in a search for her missing husband and 12-year old son.
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How decades-old missing person cases remain unsolved
The Sun investigates three of the UK's most notorious unsolved missing person cases.
The anguish of not knowing the fate of a loved one can be more tormenting than death itself. In cases where individuals vanish without a trace for years, the pain lingers, leaving families in perpetual uncertainty.
Norfolk schoolgirl now missing for over 55 years: The disappearance of 13-year-old April Fabb on April 8, 1969, remains one of Norfolk's most tragic and enduring mysteries.
Last seen cycling to her sister’s house, her bicycle was found abandoned just minutes later, sparking a massive search effort involving 40 officers and every available police dog.
Despite extensive investigations and appeals for information over the past five decades, April has never been found, leaving her parents, Ernest and Olive Fabb, with unanswered questions until their passing in 1998 and 2013 respectively.
Norfolk Constabulary continues to seek information, with April commemorated by a memorial at St. Andrew’s Church, funded by a book written by retired detective Maurice Morson.
As the years pass, hope remains that new information may finally bring closure to this enduring mystery.
Infamous McCann case: A more recent but equally mysterious case has been the baffling disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007 from a resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
It remains one of the most heavily reported missing person cases in modern history.
The three-year-old vanished while her parents dined with friends nearby, sparking a global search effort and countless theories.
Initially, suspects included a local real estate consultant and even Madeleine's own parents, who were later cleared.
Speculation ranged from potential abduction by sex traffickers to accusations against public figures.
Despite extensive investigations and media scrutiny, Madeleine's fate remains unknown, leaving her case one of the most puzzling in contemporary times.
RIchey Edwards: Among the individuals listed, Richey Edwards stood out not only for his disappearance but for his pre-existing fame as a talented lyricist in the renowned Welsh indie rock band Manic Street Preachers.
Revered by alternative music enthusiasts in the early nineties, Edwards vanished on February 1st, 1995, at the age of 27, a coincidence noted due to its significance in rock culture.
Despite legal declarations of his presumed death in absentia in November 2008, speculation persists among devoted fans regarding his potential survival.
While some entertain the notion of Edwards living incognito in locations like The Canary Islands or the Caribbean, the prevailing belief leans towards the likelihood of his demise.
Known for his struggles with depression, substance abuse, anorexia, and self-harm, it's widely speculated that he may have taken his own life.
His erratic behaviour leading up to his disappearance, coupled with the discovery of his car near the Severn Bridge, a recognised suicide site, supports this theory.
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