A YOUNG mum who disappeared while on a five-minute walk to meet friends for a night out is still missing 35 years on – but cops are no closer to finding out what happened.
Stephanie Rose Whittaker, from Newport, Monmouthshire, in South Wales, had given birth to her third child just months before “vanishing off the face of the earth” in March 1990.
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Her body has never been found and there are few clues as to what happened to the 34-year-old in one of Britain’s most baffling missing person cases.
It had cops so stumped the lead detective told a local newspaper months into the search: “Basically, we don’t have a bloody clue.”
Since a brief segment on a 1994 episode of BBC’s Crimewatch, in which it was reiterated police considered her disappearance was “highly suspicious”, Stephanie has had little public mention, with no fresh appeals ever launched.
In April, Gwent Police confirmed as part of a Freedom of Information request, she is, however, “still regarded as a missing person”.
A family friend told The Sun this week they hoped “something comes” from renewed publicity, adding: “I often think about her disappearance.”
On the evening of March 23, 1990, Stephanie said goodbye to her husband Tony at around 8.25pm and began the walk from their Llanthewy Road home to the town centre.
The route she would have taken would have been busy with people and reasonably well-lit.
She was wearing a pin-striped blue and white shirt, dark trousers, black ankle-high boots, and a three quarter-length navy blue waxed Barbour-type jacket.
Tony, then 37, had told the South Wales Echo his wife had gone for the evening “after a family night of domestic rush, much like any other”.
Stephanie had left him in sole charge of the children, Tom, 12, Rose, nine, and 18-month-old Adam.
She was due to meet her girlfriends at a local spiritualist meeting at St John Ambulance Hall in Caxton Place, not even half a mile away from her home.
It was a common Friday evening occurrence and was usually followed by drinks at a nearby pub.
Stephanie – known as Stevie or Steve – called one of her friends’ homes just prior to setting off and told her husband she was running a little late for the 8.30pm meeting.
He told her the friend had already set out.
Stephanie, described as five-foot, blonde and with blue eyes, didn’t make the meeting and at some point between her home and the hall she vanished.
Stephanie left her home with just a couple of pounds in change, “no cheques or credit books”, said Tony.
The baffled dad went to bed at around midnight with an “element of concern” which escalated when he woke at 3am to find his wife still not home.
Tony began pacing up and down the bedroom – never had Stephanie been back so late in 15 years of marriage.
At 5am he called one of Stephanie’s friends, who confirmed she’d never made it to the meeting spot, and then he alerted the police.
“It just wouldn’t make any sense for her to leave,” said Tony.
“If Steve was under pressure and just wanted some space I would respect that.
“If she’d left her family for good willingly, I wouldn’t believe in anything anymore.”
The family had celebrated Tom’s birthday the night before Stephanie’s disappearance at a pizza restaurant and were looking forward to a holiday in West Wales, according to Wales on Sunday.
Her mum Treffina Jones said her daughter had told her as she prepared for the trip by making clothes for the kids, “I’ve never been so happy”.
“Nothing makes sense, nothing seems logical,” Tony is quoted as saying in the same article.
Stephanie, a Bristol University graduate with a psychology degree, was a former home adviser for those with learning difficulties for the Gwent Health Authority.
Prior to the birth of her youngest child, Stephanie had been on a course in counselling and communication at Newport’s All t-yr-Yn college.
College course friend Maureen Ballinger said: “She loved her kids so much. I used to joke about it and even called her Earth Mother. She gave up her job for her youngest child because she didn’t want to miss any part of his growing up.
“I just can’t believe that she would have left her children and had a happy marriage. She had no reason to up and go.”
Neighbours Alan and Margaret Anstice said they were afraid to think what might have happened.
“She lived for the three children,” said Alan at time. “She dotes on her little boy and spends lots of time in the garden with him.
“She was so devoted to her to the children, if she had just gone off I feel sure she would have contacted someone.”
A week later a handbag containing makeup was found on the pavement outside a pub, with investigators trying to determine if it was Stephanie’s, reported the Western Daily Press.
At the same time, with police staging a reconstruction of the walk she’d made were said to be concerned as they’d had a poor response from the public.
Just 30 calls had been logged at the incident room at Newport Central police station in that time, with cops fearing she’s “vanished off the face of the earth”.
“We need to impress on people this is a highly suspicious disappearance,” said Detective Superintendent Wilf Hill, leading the search.
There were, however, multiple supposed sightings in the days and weeks that followed.
One couple claimed to have seen a woman in distress sat alone on a bench in Westgate Square at 9.30pm on the night Stephanie disappeared.
On April 6, police said there had been a possible sighting in Hereford.
In September 1990, an article in the Lynn Advertiser refers to cops being anxious to trace a woman “with a Welsh accent” who took a taxi from Lynn to Hunstanton in early August who they believed could be Stephanie.
A cab driver who picked up the woman at Lynn’s Manhattan nightclub then spotted a missing person poster and believed it could have been Stephanie.
At the same time, cops had said they were convinced she was no longer in Wales but said they were still “working on the assumption that she is alive”.
Tony said as the summer wore on: “I have to be hopeful… I have to believe I will see her again.”
Tony, a housing manager, had also described being forced to hire a nanny so he could go back to work and support his family amid the search.
“I have to plan and organise my time better for the children and try to create a new kind of normality,” he said, adding that the older children had “shed tears” over their mum.
By March 1991, there were reports of a possible sighting at a pub in London.
By June that year, Newport head of CID Bill Glynn said he had had sleepless nights over the search for Stephanie but was sure she was dead.
“I pass her house almost daily and she is constantly in my thoughts,” he said.
Regarding the search, he added: “Basically, we don’t have a bloody clue.”
A planned TV appeal on Crimewatch in an effort to rejuvenate interest in the case, was postponed in December 1993.
Producers had reportedly decided there wasn’t enough time to do the case justice, and it was eventually broadcast the following month on January 20 1994.
There’s little in the news archives beyond that date on the case.
However, Stephanie did feature in an episode of the Persons Unknown Podcast last month, in light of the FOI response.
The Sun has contacted Gwent Police for further information.
Did you know Stephanie Whittaker? Email [email protected]
