We've moved hook, line and sinker to the Isle of Wight to solve
a potential murder that hasn't been solved for years.
When people give you the opportunity to investigate something for them,
you can't take that responsibility lightly.
You have to go in and you have to give it everything.
It definitely makes me relentless.
And I think that a family deserve that after 19 years of
not knowing what happened their son.
It's a tough story. It's a dark story. It's a really sad story.
It could be a gruesome story. It could be a dangerous story.
So, it's a big responsibility, I think.
2nd November, 1996,
16-year-old Damien vanishes after a night out on the Isle of Wight.
19 years later,
police have not been able to fully explain what's happened to him.
The body hasn't been found
and no-one has been charged with his murder.
We're two journalists turning up.
Nobody knows us.
We don't know anybody.
The island is awash with theories, you know, "Did he drown?
"Did he go missing? Did he run away? Was he killed? Who killed him?
"Who knows?"
And somebody knows something.
And we're going to try and see if they'll tell us.
It was very frightening and emotional and distressing.
Mum.
We just can't go on with our lives.
We're stuck in this limbo,
and we just want Damien to come home.
This is Damien's mum, Val, on TV days after he went missing.
SKYPE DIAL TONE
The family has now left the island
and today they live in Dallas, Texas.
That's the video.
Oh, there it is. There you are. How are you? Hi.
You're not at all like I thought.
I thought you were going to have red hair. THEY LAUGH
I do naturally, but that's a secret.
LAUGHTER
I'm blonde this year.
Back in 1996, Val and Ed went to the police within 24 hours
of Damien disappearing.
Well, what kind of support did you get from the police at that stage?
Zero. Really?
I think, in the beginning.
Nobody was interested. They were not interested.
You know, it was just, "Oh, we'll make a report,"
sort of, like, I felt like...
Val is giving us everything she's got about her son's disappearance,
including all communications with the police.
It builds a picture of Damien's movements that night.
He goes out to a party and then gets the chain ferry with his friends,
Chris Boon, and goes to some of the local pubs.
He can't get in. He's trying to get into the pubs, I think.
He's 16, isn't he? Yeah, he's 16, but he's six foot,
so he has a good chance of getting in.
Where are we going?
We're going to meet Chris Boon, who is Damien's best friend,
and was with him, actually, the night that he went missing.
'It's not going to be one person gives you the great, big answer
'that you've been looking for but every tiny, little bit that
'you get from somebody is just like a piece in a jigsaw to you.
'If you keep going and keep going and keep going,
'you'll get some tiny, little bit'
that can take you forward
to the next little bit and the next little bit.
And that's just how this works.
Hi, Chris. Hey, Chris, hi. I'm Alys. Nice to meet you.
Hi, nice to see you again. Thank you.
What kind of a lad was he?
He really did have a kind of lust for life.
He was one of those guys that... He was quite exciting to be around.
Things would happen when he was there.
You know, a party would be a lot more exciting when he was there.
You know, I've recalled the story so many times.
I'm even myself not 100% sure of which bit I really remember.
The boys' night started around 7:30 at a house party.
But the party wasn't up to much so they headed out to buy cider.
MUSIC: Dirge by Death In Vegas
Damien was quite a tall lad
so he was definitely on the buying-the-drinks duty.
A bottle of Special Red each, which was a kind of cider at the time.
When they took the ferry from East to West Cowes,
witnesses said that they were chatty but not drunk.
We went into town because he believed his sister was there
so we started to kind of, like, stalk the pubs,
and I'd be hanging outside
cos they would just throw me out instantly.
Many witnesses report that Damien was going from pub to pub
looking for his sister.
It really started to rain.
I'm wet, drunk, I've had enough,
we're not getting served anywhere, we've got no money.
Then we walked up, up the park road, up the street,
and I remember we got to the steps of the park.
I turned round and left.
I was absolutely convinced that
Damien walked off through the town, er, through the park.
In fact, I know he did.
I remember seeing him, sort of, going up the stairs,
walking up the...and then turn around.
And of course, we know now that he never carried on that way.
Chris Boon says this was the last time he saw Damien, 10:30.
Experts say it's highly likely Damien's body would have
washed up if he fell into the sea.
So could he have got into some kind of trouble that night?
We need to find out what was going on in Damien's life at the time.
Going to talk to Damien's ex-girlfriend, Abbey.
They had been together just before he disappeared,
and they'd split up in July, and he disappeared in November.
He's so tall. When you see him stretched out...
Oh, God, yeah. He was massive.
That's a really nice photo.
It gives me goose bumps when I look at that one.
He was a gentle, beautiful person.
He wouldn't hurt a fly.
I don't understand why anybody would want to hurt him.
It's just part of my life that doesn't come out at all.
It's tough. It is tough.
Just before you come to the point of separating, how was Damien?
Was he still the same boy you'd met 18 months previous?
Erm...no.
He was still Damien but there was flickers of...
..somebody else who I didn't quite...
..um...
understand.
He was hanging around with a different group of people
who were a little bit older than him.
There obviously were some things he was keeping to himself.
It could have been the fact that he was using drugs. I don't know.
So, could Damien's disappearance have had something to do with drugs?
Chris Boon says they'd only been drinking,
but is it possible Damien was on drugs that night?
At 11:30pm, CCTV from Yorkie's chippy on Cowes High Street
recorded Damien.
CRACKLY CCTV AUDIO
There he is. That's him coming now.
He doesn't look like a 16-year-old, does he? No, he doesn't.
Look at the height of him in comparison to the...
Several minutes into the video, Damien starts behaving oddly.
The first guy we need to talk to is the guy who owns the chip shop.
We're going to go and see Denis Welsh.
Dennis used to own Yorkie's Chip Shop.
Hello. How are you? Yeah, very well, thanks.
Look...
There he is. Can you spot Damien for me? Can you point him out?
Can you see that OK?
That's him.
The big, tall lad? Yes, he's tall.
Him there. Just up there. That's him. Yeah.
You were working that night Damien was in the chip shop, weren't you?
Yes. 2nd November, all those years ago. That's right. 20 years.
When Damien left... Mm-hm.
..I was going down to see Rob and Sharon
to lock up, and they said, "Oh, that guy there was..." He was...
He couldn't say, he was so out of it
that he had to point what he wanted.
He just couldn't get the words out.
"It wasn't drink," was Rob's opinion and Sharon agreed with that.
She said, "We can recognise drink. It was drugs."
It was a drug effect, if you like. Yes.
We showed the footage of Damien in the chip shop that night
to Chris Boon, the best friend who had left Damien an hour beforehand.
He looks... He looks pretty out of it. He does, actually.
Yeah.
Very distant. Yeah, he possibly could've taken something.
I'd always been adamant that, "No, he was just drunk," but actually now
seeing it, it kind of does,
it does make you think, "Well, hm, I don't know."
Maybe, you know, if he'd had a trip or something like that
then it would definitely lead you to being confused.
Do you think, at any point, Damien could have taken something
when you were with him that you didn't know about?
Um...
Er...
No. Erm...
ACOUSTIC BLUES SLIDE GUITAR
MUSIC: I Know You Rider by The Grateful Dead
# I know you, rider You'll miss me when I'm gone... #
'I remember walking around with other mates,
'going around all these derelict buildings'
and calling out his name and searching for him
while it didn't seem like anyone else was going to bother.
# Rolling in your arms... #
'The police line is, "He's a teenager.
' "He'll come back in a few days. He's just run away from home." '
No.
Not really. Where are you going to run...
on the Isle of Wight?
# I know my baby well
# She's bound to love me some... #
Alex Roberts was 16 when his close friend Damien Nettles went missing.
He believes the key to the mystery of Damien's disappearance
is the island's drug dealing fraternity.
The stories of Damien getting mixed up with dealers
and into deep water hold more credence than anything else.
There are so many rumours but the only one thing that we know
is it does revolve around the same people time and time again.
They're in every rumour.