Corrie McKeague's Mother Responds After Father States 'My Son Is No Longer Missing'

The mother of Corrie McKeague says her and her two sons "have not given up" finding out what happened to the missing RAF airman, after Corrie's father posted on Facebook stating the family now know what happened.

Nicola Urquhart, Corrie's mother, wrote in a post:

"WE HAVE NOT GIVEN UP.

"Corrie is missing, he has not been found, nor has their (sic) been any corroborated evidence shown to me yet to say what has happened to my son."

Ms Urquhart went on to write: "Although to the very depths of my soul, I know and feel Corrie is not AWOL. I CANNOT state this is a fact."

Prior to the case being officially closed, Suffolk Police visited the McKeague family to present all the evidence.

In his own Facebook post, Corrie's father, Martin McKeague said:

"We are certain he is somewhere in the Suffolk waste disposal system, but his remains are essentially irretrievable."

Corrie, who was based at RAF Honington, was 23 when he was last seen walking through Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in September 2016, after a night out with friends.

There has been no trace of the airman since.

In the social media post, Corrie's father went on to say that it had not been easy for the family to accept, but it was impossible to search the Suffolk waste disposal system areas:

"That’s why we feel Corrie is no longer missing, but rather his body is irretrievable because the remaining waste disposal environments are either too toxic to search, and the size of Cell 22 is so vast that it could take years to do so in order to find out exactly where he came to rest".

There had been hopes that a card reader could be used to identify the whereabouts of Corrie’s bank card in the landfill site. The technology is however not available. 

Throughout the investigation, the weight of the bin has also caused confusion.

It had been suggested that the weight was 11kg, however, in the Facebook post, Mr McKeague says "that figure was for a different bin" and in fact the one that Corrie entered "recorded weight of 116kg; an unusually high number for this bin, which tells us our son was inside".

Ms Urquhart also made reference to the bin in her social media post, stating that she will be shown "correct data" by the police next month.

The family are currently waiting for the administrative process to finish, then the case will formally become what Corrie's father calls a "cold case file".

Martin McKeague confirmed a memorial held for Corrie once the final stage of the process has been completed.