Yahoo News 'I think about her everyday': Ex partner of missing Kellie Pratt reveals anguish 24 years after she vanished
Forever haunted by his ex's mysterious disappearance tortured Michael Pratt has today told how he still thinks about her every day.
It has now been 24 years since sex worker Kellie Pratt vanished without a trace after moving from Newcastle to Norfolk. Her disappearance has since been linked to several high-profile murder investigations and serial killers. Yet almost a quarter of a century on what happened to Kellie still remains a mystery.
Today on the anniversary of her disappearance Kellie's former partner has told of his belief that she was murdered soon after she was last seen. And as he tells of his anguish at not knowing what happened to his former love, Michael has revealed how Kellie had been due to be reunited with her estranged children just weeks after she disappeared.
The 70-year-old said: "I think about Kellie every day. There's not a day goes by that I don't think about her. I just want to know what's happened. I did really love her. She was just a young girl, she had dreams."
Kellie grew up in Byker and was a pupil at Heaton Manor School. After leaving school, she spent some time working at a care home in Gosforth. Michael, who now lives in Throckley, said he met Kellie at a party on Shields Road when she was 17 and he was 33 and quickly got together.
The couple had two children during their nine year relationship, and although they never married Kellie began using Michael's surname. In 1998 Kellie moved to Norwich to be closer to her mum, two years after splitting-up with Michael. Kellie developed a heroin habit and was eventually jailed for shoplifting. Then following her release from prison she turned to prostitution, working on the streets of Norwich.
Michael said his ex had written to him from Norwich begging to see their two sons. And he had agreed she could during the school summer holidays, in July 2000. But tragically Kellie, 23, went missing before she could be reunited with her boys.
"Only a day or two later after that talk with the boys I pulled up on my drive when one of my neighbours shouted over to tell me that the police had called at the house and they were from Norwich," said Michael. "The next day they came to my house. She started by saying Kellie had gone missing from Norwich. She told me Kellie hadn't long been out of prison, which got to me a little because I could never have imagined Kellie ending up in prison.
Kellie was last seen at around 11.30pm on Sunday, June 11, 2000, talking on a mobile phone outside a pub in Norwich.
Kellie's disappearance sparked a huge investigation by Norfolk Constabulary. And officers from the force visited Michael in Newcastle to deliver the news that she was missing. And Michael says from the very beginning he was convinced Kellie had been murdered soon after she was last seen.
"She showed me a photo of Kellie and as soon as I looked at it it just wasn't Kellie," he said. "She could have sat across the table from me and I wouldn't have recognised her. As I looked at that picture my heart just sank. It was the face of a girl that had lost everything. She just looked sad and withdrawn. As soon as she pulled that photo out I just knew that Kellie was dead. I know she's been murdered. I just felt devastated. I still have that picture, which I carry with me. But I try not to look at it because it hurts like hell when I do."
On the 10th anniversary of her disappearance Michael travelled down to Norwich to retrace her final known movements.
"I went to Norwich 10 years to the hour," he said. "I walked down there at 11.30pm at night. I walked to where she was last seen. I was chatting to her. I was looking at my watch all that time. I was just trying everything. It was very painful."
When Kellie moved to Norwich her two sons stayed in Newcastle with Michael. But she had been desperate to see them before she went missing.
"She sent us two letters," he said. "One was begging me to let her see the kids. Just before Christmas she sent a letter to my mam with presents for the kids.
"Then it was coming up to the summer holidays. I told my son I was thinking of letting their mam have them for a couple of weeks. But even as I'm talking to him she was already dead. I just feel guilty about everything."
Over the years Kellie’s disappearance has been tentatively linked to a number of other high-profile investigations. In 2002, her family were informed after another young woman’s body was found in a shallow grave in Hampshire. It later turned out to be that of Hayley Curtis, a 23-year-old prostitute who went missing from the same red light district as Kellie in October 2001.
At the time, police said they were not ruling out links between the two women’s disappearance. However, in 2005, traveller Philip Stanley, who was 56 at the time, was jailed for Hayley’s murder.
Police also looked into links between Kellie’s case and the unsolved murder of 16-year-old Norwich prostitute Natalie Pearman, but no definitive ones were found. On March 29, 2002, another prostitute, 22-year-old Michelle Bettles, disappeared from the Norwich red light district, prompting fears there could be a serial killer at large in the city. Michelle’s body was found two days later but her killer has never been caught.
Then in 2003 there was further speculation that serial murderer Anthony Hardy, who became known as the ‘Camden Ripper’, could be linked to Kellie’s case. Hardy, from Norfolk, admitted killing Sally White, 31, Elizabeth Valad, 29 and Bridgette MacClennan in London. And the Metropolitan Police confirmed it was not ruling out links with other murders and unsolved cases, including Kellie’s.
On the fifth anniversary of Kellie’s disappearance, in 2005, police in Norfolk admitted they were fearing the worst.
A spokesman said: “Despite extensive enquiries, it is still unclear what happened to Kellie, although police and her family have for some time feared the worst. Work has been ongoing since Kellie disappeared five years ago.
“Last month, officers carried out inquiries into whether advances in phone technology could offer any new opportunities for investigation but unfortunately, it was established that this was not the case."
A year later, the case took yet another sinister twist when it emerged that a ripper-style murderer was thought to be targeting prostitutes in the Ipswich area, just 40 miles from where Kellie was last seen. Police in Norfolk confirmed they were liaising with Suffolk Constabulary as the force probed the death of Gemma Adams, 25, and the disappearance of her missing friend Tania Nichol, 19.
Later in 2006, Norfolk Constabulary confirmed a new senior police officer had been assigned to re-examine Kellie’s case.
Steve Wright, dubbed the Suffolk Strangler, was eventually jailed for the murders of five women including Paula Clennell, who was originally from Northumberland but no links with Kellie were found.
