For eight long years after she vanished in 2003, Becky Godden’s parents searched, waited and hoped.
“I was out looking for her all the time,” her father, John Godden, said on Friday. “It becomes surreal. I still think she’ll come walking through the door. My heart goes out to other families still in that position now.”
Godden’s mother, Karen Edwards, described how she would automatically look for her daughter’s favourite biscuits and sweets when she went shopping – then remember she had gone.
“Where was she? What was she doing? I spent hours driving around the town at all hours of the day and night.” Edwards suffered sleepless nights, paranoia, even feelings of anger towards her daughter.
Godden loved Christmas. “Every year I bought her a card and presents and I put them under the tree, anticipating that she would return home,” said Edwards.
The case of Christopher Halliwell, who has been handed a full life term for the murder of 20-year-old Godden, a sex worker, and – eight years later – the killing of Sian O’Callaghan, 22, an office administrator, shines a light on the issue of women who have vanished.
Godden’s family at least know the worst now that taxi driver Halliwell has been found guilty of murdering her and burying her body in a remote Gloucestershire field in 2003. Many other families live in limbo.
An estimated 250,000 people go missing every year, around half of them women. Most return swiftly. But according to the UK Missing Persons Bureau, which is run by the National Crime Agency (NCA), around 2,100 people become long-term missing every year. Approximately half of them are women.
It is difficult to pinpoint how many become murder victims. Home Office research that looked at data from around a third of UK forces found that over an eight year period, 98 people who had been reported missing were killed, and two thirds of them were women. But many who work with missing people believe that this may be the tip of the iceberg.
The lack of a central database of missing people – something the NCA is pushing for – and patchiness in the way police forces across the UK collate the figures makes it hard to know exactly how many women go missing – and how many come to harm.
Susannah Drury, director of policy and research at the charity Missing People, said the Halliwell case highlighted the lack of a central information point. She said: “Having a central database would make a huge difference in terms of intelligence sharing and give us a clearer picture of the extent of the issue.”
Peter Lawrence, whose daughter Claudia remains missing after vanishing from York in 2009, said the best source of information tended to be Missing People rather than the authorities. “I’m sure there could be more national co-ordination,” he said. When his daughter vanished, he was shocked at the lack of official support, although it has improved over the years. “But more could be done,” he said.
Karen Shalev Greene, director at the Centre for the Study of Missing Persons at Portsmouth university, said the way police forces handled missing persons reports had improved in the five years since the story of Becky Godden first emerged. “I think there is more awareness of risk factors but improvements are still needed,” she said.
The confusion over missing people was illustrated this week when various media outlets named six women who might have been victims of Halliwell. The Guardian has now established that three of the women are alive.
However, Halliwell may have been involved in the disappearance of 25-year-old Melanie Hall, a hospital worker, who went missing in Bath in 1996 after leaving a nightclub.
Linda Razzell, a 41-year-old college worker, went missing in Swindon in 2002. Her body has not been found and her estranged husband, Glyn, was convicted of her murder but has always protested his innocence.
Perhaps the disappearance of most interest to the Halliwell team is that of 23-year-old Sallyann John, a sex worker who went missing in 1995 from the same red light area – Manchester Road – as Becky Godden. Her body has not been found and in 2014 police said they believed she had been murdered.
Her mother, Lesley John, has said she thinks of her daughter every day and – like John Godden – imagines her walking through the door.
“I have had to deal with the thought that she may have been killed. However, I have never given up hope that one day she might walk through the door. I still cannot believe that in all these years no one has come forward to say where Sally is. Someone out there knows what happened to Sally.”
Whether or not Halliwell is behind John’s murder, detectives are convinced he has killed more. They do not believe he suddenly became a killer as he approached his 40th year – or that there was such a long gap between murders.
His choice of career – he was a chauffeur and ground worker who travelled the country as well as a taxi driver – meant he would have had other chances to kill, and police are sure he would have taken them.
Criminologists agree with police that there are probably other Halliwell victims to find.
David Wilson, professor of criminology at Birmingham City university and a former prison governor, said: “Most serial killers start to kill when they’re in the late teens or early 20s. Halliwell probably wasn’t starting off when he killed Becky Godden. He is old to begin to commit that sort of murder. There was then a significant gap before he killed Sian O’Callaghan. That is very unusual.
“The question he posed in prison over how many people you need to kill before being considered a serial killer is important. A lot of killers fantasise about that. They buy books about serial murder. The become fascinated with the phenomenon. In defending himself during his trial, Halliwell revealed his narcissism. He will love this speculation about what else he has done.
“If I was to have a cookie cutter and put it on the mass of male humanity and say this was the cookie cutter shape for a serial killer it would be him.”
The tough task of locating more victims will begin with police trying to pinpoint his timeline going back 30 years. They will consult forces across the UK and the NCA.
Meanwhile, women like Becky Godden continued to work the streets of Swindon this week. Jess Halsall, an outreach worker for the charity the Nelson Trust, said: “They face risk every day. They take it on the chin and move on.”
Halsall recently supported a sex worker in her 40s who was subjected to a vicious sexual attack after being picked up on Manchester Road. She bravely gave evidence and her attacker, Barrie Zervanro, was jailed for eight years. “There is so much violence against these women,” said Halsall. “They are so vulnerable.”
Whenever Halsall sees one of the 40 or so women she works with she feels a mixture of sadness and relief: “I worry if I see the women; I worry if I don’t.”
