‘Jack went missing a year ago, I cling to the hope he’s still alive’
Catherine O’Sullivan has been trapped in a ‘groundhog day’ nightmare ever since her son Jack vanished a year ago.
His bedroom remains the same and the porch light is still on, while the mum-of-two devotes ‘her very existence’ to finding out what happened to her 23-year-old boy.
Jack, an intelligent and high-achieving student, had just moved back home to Flax Bourton, north Somerset, with mum Catherine and dad Alan after graduating from the University of Exeter with a History degree.
The family enjoyed simply existing with each other, going about their separate day-to-day lives working or studying, but coming together on an evening.
‘His brother Ben doesn’t live very far, so we would all meet up a lot, enjoy watching TV together on an evening – I was even trying to convince Jack we should enter Race Across the World together,’ Catherine tells Metro.
However, this idyllic and happy period was torn away when Jack didn’t come home after an evening in Bristol with friends at a house party on March 2 last year.
In the early hours of the morning, he texted his mum at 1.52am declining the offer to be picked up, saying he would take a taxi as he was going to a club.
After leaving the club around 3.30am, the last CCTV sighting of Jack was 10 minutes later, at the top of a busy slip road called Bennett Way.
Jack has not been seen since, although he did appear active on Find My Friends that morning at 6.44am, putting his location as Granby Hill, near the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
None of the belongings he had on him have turned up either, leaving the family in a state of limbo, clueless on how life should carry on.
Birthdays have come and gone and the rest of the world carries on around them, but there is nothing normal about life for Jack’s family any more.
‘I am still stuck on the day he went missing. Everyday is groundhog day for my family, none of us are the same people we were a year ago,’ says Catherine.
‘I wake up each day and go through all the messages we have been sent to see if there are any believable clues as to where my son has gone.’
The majority of messages are hoaxes, she says, which has opened up the vulnerable mum to a ‘type of nastiness she didn’t know existed’.
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Yet Catherine continues to expose herself to the fake emails and ransom messages, knowing that she cannot take any information, no matter how small, for granted.
‘It’s a horrible existence, but I have no choice,’ she admits.
Before he disappeared, Jack was intensely studying for his law conversion course. His mum would often tell him to have more fun and make time to enjoy his hobbies, like football and golf.
‘He was a high achiever and he put himself under a lot of pressure. But he was just a nice, caring guy who didn’t care about being the centre of attention,’ she recalls.
In the days, weeks and months that followed his disappearance, Jack’s family would go out and physically searching for him daily. They would climb fences and check ditches, anywhere they could feasibly look for him. Now, they have hired a team of private detectives after the police ‘lost so much important information’.
‘We have been forced to go back to the beginning,’ explains Catherine. ‘There are holes in the police investigation which have made our lives really difficult.’
Missed CCTV in particular has cost them dearly, she says, as three months into her son’s disappearance she was given footage supplied by police which were labelled ‘no longer of value’.
But after sifting through it herself, Catherine found two sightings of Jack – both of which were missed by police. However, as nearly 13 weeks had passed, any footage captured on dash cams and Ring doorbells was gone.
‘It’s really hard to accept that,’ says Catherine, pausing to take a moment. ‘We have just lost so much information which could have revealed where my son has gone.’
Did you see Jack?
Jack has been described as white, around 5ft 10ins tall, of slim build, with short, brown hair.
When he disappeared, he was wearing a quilted green and brown Barbour jacket, a beige woollen jumper, navy chinos and brown leather trainers with white soles.
Assistant Chief Constable Joanne Hall from the Avon and Somerset Police adds: ‘Do you remember what you were doing that cold, snowy day in March 2024?
‘You may recall seeing something which, on the surface, seemed unimportant, but may be an important piece of information for us to know. Do you remember seeing anything on your journey, whether you were walking in the area or travelling on the roads.’
Only recently, the family were told by officers a body had been found on a beach in early January and that it may be Jack. They had to wait six agonising days before confirmation came through that it wasn’t him. It was ‘the worst experience’ they’ve had so far, says Catherine.
‘It’s been particularly hard on Jack’s older brother Ben. They were very close, and watching him become lost in Jack’s disappearance has been so hard to watch,’ she adds.
When asked what she thinks happened to her son, Catherine says she and the family firmly believe Jack is alive, and got into a car before vanishing.
‘I can’t not think he is alive, otherwise surviving each day would be impossible,’ she explains. ‘We wake up and find something to cling onto to keep going.’
In his last known movements Jack was seen trying to hail a taxi in a busy area, which didn’t pick him up. He was then seen signaling to another car – potentially thinking it was another taxi – and hasn’t been spotted since.
‘The last physical sighting of my son was him walking up a busy slip road, and 15 vehicles drove passed him,’ Catherine says. ‘Someone must have seen him, but because he just got into a car it didn’t seem out of the ordinary, so they don’t remember.’
Although she says police insist Jack must have entered the water, Catherine believes they are basing this on statistics rather than actual evidence.
‘Missing person cases are generalised, but every one is individual,’ she adds.
‘We are put into the same box as other cases, and that he has either gone into the water or he has chosen to go missing.
‘But we just don’t believe that to be true.’
Avon and Somerset Police told Metro: ‘On Saturday 4 January, we contacted Jack’s family to inform them that a body had been located at Stout Bay, in Wales. Detectives worked with colleagues at South Wales Police, who led on the investigation, and requested the DNA process be fast-tracked to identify the remains as soon as possible and provide answers to the family.
‘During the six-day period, the Superintendent overseeing the investigation made contact with the family on several occasions to provide what update we could. We were able to provide the family with an update on Friday 10 January after receiving an update from our colleagues in Wales, where we confirmed the remains were not Jack’s.’