After a mysterious disappearance, one of the first things investigators turn to is CCTV
footage.
Sometimes a missing person caught on camera is the key piece of information that turns
an unsolved disappearance into a solved one.
But the most mysterious disappearances are ones where CCTV of the last known moments
of a missing person only lead to more questions.
Antonio Coppola vanished into thin air after leaving a London Underground station earlier
this year.
The disappearance came without warning and so far little information about the investigation
has been made public.
Antonio is an Italian national who had been living in London for two years.
He had previously lived in Sydney.
Despite his travels, he remained very close to his family, and contacted his parents daily.
The last they heard from him was a phone call on 15th September, the day before he disappeared.
There was nothing out of the ordinary about the call, or about Antonio’s activities
earlier on the day of his disappearance.
He and a friend were travelling on the London Underground at around mid-day when Antonio
began to feel unwell with stomach problems.
He got off the tube at Bow Road Station in eastern Central London.
CCTV cameras captured footage of Antonio as he left the building.
He was wearing a white t-shirt, black pants and orange Nike shoes at the time.
He turned right after leaving the station, towards Mornington Grove, and hasn’t been
seen since.
Police have said they are searching CCTV from the surrounding area, but whether any more
has been found isn’t clear.
If Antonio was feeling unwell, he may have tried to get access to a bathroom in one of
the nearby pubs.
If he stayed on the main road, he likely would have walked past the Thames (Tamms) Magistrates
Court, which has several CCTV cameras outside, but so far only footage from the station has
been released.
Antonio’s family have issued a plea for information or for Antonio to contact them
to let them know he’s safe.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the police on 101 or the Missing People charity.
Number 4 For nine years, the family of missing sailor
Timmy MacColl have been trying to solve his mysterious disappearance.
CCTV cameras caught him leaving the Rock Bottom Cafe in Dubai in the early hours of May 27th,
2012 and he has not been seen since.
Timmy was a leading seaman in the Royal Navy and was deployed aboard the HMS Westminster
at the time of his disappearance.
He had a hi-tech job aboard the ship, which had been patrolling the waters off the coast
of Somalia, Libya and Kenya to target pirates and smugglers.
The day before Timmy vanished, the ship docked at Port Rashid in Dubai for maintenance, and
Timmy and the other sailors were given leave to explore the surrounding area.
He spent an earlier part of the day at the Seafarers Mission, where he went swimming.
CCTV from the site was released to Timmy’s family after the disappearance.
He was described as wearing dark-blue checked shorts, blue canvas shoes, and a red t-shirt.
He left the centre at 11.38pm, going with friends to a bar.
Again, there was CCTV footage which showed Timmy outside, chatting to a motorcyclist.
This time, he appeared to be wearing lighter coloured shorts and flip-flops.
Timmy and his friends stayed at the bar for a couple of hours before Timmy fell asleep
at the bar.
Bouncers escorted Timmy out of the club and, according to his family, left him on the side
of the street.
His friends soon came out and put Timmy in a taxi, though no footage of this interaction
was ever captured.
The two friends say they put Timmy in a taxi and told the driver to take him to the ship,
paying in advance.
But Timmy never made it back to HMS Westminster and what happened after this remains unexplained.
The taxi driver was eventually tracked down.
He said he’d stopped for directions at one point and when he got back in his car, Timmy
had disappeared.
Timmy’s family believe he got into a second taxi, possibly one that dropped off another
group of people at the port later in the night.
But this was never able to be confirmed.
At first it was feared he may have been kidnapped due to his job, but if this was the case nobody
ever came forward to say they had him.
After an investigation, the Navy eventually ruled Timmy had drowned in an accident, though
no evidence for this could ever be found.
There was no trace of him or his clothing found in the water despite a significant search.
Timmy’s family have questioned the conclusion and urged for the case to be re-examined so
they can finally get some answers for this mysterious disappearance.
Number 3
Lao civil society campaigner Sombath Somphone disappeared in December 2012 in what Amnesty
International describes as a forced disappearance.
He was following his wife home from work when he was stopped in what was allegedly a routine
traffic stop.
But things quickly diverged from the normal, and into a mystery that remains unsolved.
Sombath had dedicated his life to improving civil society in Laos.
He ran campaigns to sustainably improve living conditions for the country’s poor, and worked
with international organisations to make his projects a success.
This would often be ignored by the Lao government, but in 2012 things began to escalate.
Sombath was the keynote speaker at an international conference for non-governing organisations
being held in Laos’ capital Vientiane.
At the conference, his report “the Lao People’s Vision” was handed out, which assessed the
happiness of people from all over the country.
Plain clothed security personnel harassed some of the attendees, and paper copies of
the report were confiscated.
After the conference a prominent activist working in the country was expelled, but things
would get much worse for Sombath.
He and his wife were travelling home from his office on the evening of December 15th,
2012.
They were in separate cars and Sombath was following behind his wife in a Jeep.
A CCTV camera near the checkpoint captured the interaction, but the quality makes it
difficult to pick out individuals.
Not long after Sombath was stopped, a person riding a motorbike stops a little way down
the street and heads towards the police.
The unknown individual riding the bike got into Sombath’s car and drove it away, leaving
his own bike behind.
About three minutes later, a pick-up truck with flashing lights, apparently being escorted
by two motorbike riders, pulls to a stop outside the checkpoint.
Three people, including Sombath, go into the car.
As they leave, one of the bike riders fires a shot into the air, possibly to scare off
witnesses or to signal to the truck to drive.
They departed, and Sombath has not been seen since.
When Sombath didn’t return home, his wife went to authorities.
She and family members were allowed to see and record the CCTV footage from the night
of the disappearance, but the original version has not been released.
Due to the fact police at the time didn’t seem too concerned about the situation, and
the lack of help trying to find Sombath after the fact, international human rights organisations
suspect authorities may have at the least been complicit in Sombath’s disappearance.
Despite regular appeals, nobody has released any information about what happened to Sombath
once he got into the truck, and his fate remains a mystery.
Number 2
Ani Ashekian had a successful career, plans to move to Argentina, and was in a happy relationship
when she mysteriously vanished in Hong Kong on November 11th, 2008.
It was a last minute trip she had taken with a group of work friends but, not long after
they arrived in China, she left the friends without saying goodbye and travelled to Hong
Kong.
The last confirmed sighting of Ani was caught on CCTV as she took out money from an ATM.
Ani was a well travelled young woman and a successful paralegal.
Earlier in October, she and her boyfriend had come back to Canada after a trip to Costa
Rica.
Almost as soon as she got back, she was making plans to go with friends to China in a few
days’ time.
This was unusual for her.
Usually, she would plan out her trips, and she liked to travel alone, so making this
last minute decision shocked her family.
Nevertheless, she made the trip and arrived with her friends in Beijing on October 25th.
Her friends had plans to travel to a number of countries in South East Asia, but Ani had
only had time to secure a visa to China, and was planning to get the others while abroad.
Her final stop was supposed to be India for a yoga retreat, and then return back to Canada.
On October 31st Ani left her friends without warning.
She’d left the hotel room in the middle of the night, then returned later that day
to collect her things and checked out.
She travelled to Xi’an by train and then on to Hong Kong by plane, arriving on November
9th.
What Ani got up to in Hong Kong is unclear, but immigration records show she never left.
There were a handful of sightings of her in the city, particularly in the are around Chungking
Mansions, but none of these could be confirmed.
While Hong Kong was generally safe for tourists at the time, this was a more dangerous area,
with significant crime rates for the city.
She was spotted at a hostel, but it wasn’t confirmed if she actually spent the night
there or was just checking it out.
It was the early hours of the day after the sighting at Chungking Mansions that Ani was
caught at the ATM.
She made two transactions, taking out a total of $2800 Hong Kong dollars, which was less
than $500 Canadian dollars.
Ani left the ATM, never to be seen again.
The final interaction Ani made with her friends back home was later that day, when she text
her sister to wish her niece a happy birthday.
Ani had been in contact with her family regularly throughout the trip so, when she stopped contacting
them, they became concerned.
The Foreign Affairs Department in Canada reported her missing to Hong Kong police on December
9th.
But police didn’t know where to begin, as Ani had told nobody back home her plans for
her trip and no CCTV footage showed Ani after she left the ATM.
None of the sightings that were put forward were ever confirmed, and no trace of Ani was
ever found.
Ani’s disappearance quickly became a cold case, and remains unsolved.
She was 5ft4in tall and weighed 120 pounds at the time of her disappearance, and was
last seen in a white t-shirt and travelling with a black and blue backpack.
Any information should be passed to Hong Kong police to try to solve this strange case.
Number 1
The last hour of Tiffany Whitton’s life before she vanished into thin air was captured
on CCTV cameras at a Walmart in Marietta, Georgia, on September 13th, 2013.
It was between 1 and 2am.
Tiffany was behaving strangely and under the influence of illegal substances.
She takes clothes and puts them into her shopping cart before removing them again.
It happens multiple times.
All the while, she’s slipping things into her handbag.
Her boyfriend, Ashley Caudle, walks behind her.
Just after 2am, they go to the checkout, and Caudle pays in cash for the items still in
the cart, mostly clothing for his young daughter.
He goes to the exit, and Tiffany follows a little way behind.
As she goes to exit, Tiffany is confronted by a loss prevention officer, one of the plain
clothed security guards on the lookout for shop lifters.
He grabbed her handbag strap.
Tiffany called for Caudle, who was already out the doorway, but he didn’t react.
Tiffany shakes off her handbag and runs from the store, leaving her shoes behind.
Neither Caudle nor the security officers go after her.
The security footage of Tiffany leaving the store is the last time anyone ever saw her.
It was a while before Tiffany’s family realised she was missing.
Tiffany had been addicted to illegal substances for a while, and her family were used to her
being in touch only sporadically.
Her mother had actually stopped contacting her because she believed it would help Tiffany
get clean sooner.
It was only after Tiffany’s grandmother received a letter about the theft at Walmart
and tried to contact the store that they realised there was anything wrong.
Even after that, getting authorities to treat her disappearance wasn’t easy, and it would
be months after Tiffany disappeared that a serious investigation began.
Caudle became the main person of interest.
According to Caudle he searched for Tiffany after she disappeared.
There was an IHOP across the street from the Walmart which Tiffany had previously worked
at before being fired for theft.
He asked there if anyone had seen her, but she didn’t make it there.
He then called a friend to pick him up.
The car he had arrived in had illegal substances in it and he was scared of getting caught.
Caudle and the friend drove around looking for Tiffany, but when they couldn’t find
her they figured she would turn up eventually.
She never did.
Caudle denies being involved in Tiffany’s disappearance.
If he did take her life, like many suspect, the time frame he had to do so was very slim.
Caudle points to another friend who he alleges also came to pick him up that night, but stayed
in his car after Caudle and the first friend left.
Tiffany was 5ft3in tall and weighed 105 pounds at the time of her disappearance.
She was wearing a light coloured shirt and dark blue jeans, without any shoes or socks.
The one thing everyone involved in the case agrees upon is that someone knows what happened
to Tiffany, and it could just be one witness coming forward that would finally solve this
mysterious missing person case.