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MISSING ENGLISH GIRL

The detectives also warned the vulnerable parents about corruption in Bali and people offering false information for cash.

The difficulty with sources from that area of the world is that they tend to report on uncorroborated hearsay with the sole intent of financial gain. Part of our job was to warn the family against such exploitation.

— Detective Chief Inspector Bill Whitehead

The day the Osbornes flew out, Kate’s mum told journalists, ‘We will never give up the search for Kate and believe we will find her.’ But ten days later they came home, no closer to unravelling the nightmare.

Instead, they had a new question — who was the mystery person their daughter had called at 4.14 am on the day she vanished? Kate’s phone records, obtained in Bali, showed she’d not only made that very early morning call but had also sent six text messages to the number throughout the night. It was the last trace of their daughter’s existence. As yet, they didn’t know whose number it was.

The strongest lead has to be to find the person Kate contacted at 4.14 am, to find out the nature of the conversation and why there were several text messages to that phone earlier in the day.

— Detective Chief Inspector Bill Whitehead, in The Journal, Newcastle UK, 3 July 2003

Although the trip to the island hadn’t turned up any answers, it gave the distressed parents an intangible connection to their missing daughter.