Thinking Sideways: The Disappearance of Andrew Gosden

a mystery today, I'm like most days. We're going to talk about the story of Andrew Gosden, who's missing teenager. Well he's not a teenager anymore. But um, and before we get too or into it, because I'm really good at forgetting uh, this was a suggestion from I think Katrina or Katerina. I'm sorry, I don't know which one it is, but thanks for suggesting it, both of them, both both of them. Yeah, And I know we've gotten suggestions for this in between the time that she suggested it,

but I didn't write any other names down. Apparently. I know. Andrew Gosden was a normal fourteen year old guy. He was a very bright young man, described as quite the math genius or quiet math genius, whichever. Yeah, he had a hundred percent attendance record for school except for this one time. He had won a number of national math competitions. And he was the kind of kid who would leave a note um pretty much if he just like went around the corner. I don't worry either of you guys.

Neither of you guys were kids like that, right, No. I was a kid like that for my parents. If I left for any reason, yeah, I had to, but I usually had somebody at home so it was easy. Yeah. He was also really into heavy metal. And that's the description you'll hear about him. That's it. Yeah, That's one of the frustrating things about this case is I don't really feel like I know much about Andrew. You know, there's there's a very patent or patent what's the word.

I'm trying to say, very pat description of him that is out there, and it is almost verbatim, these four or five lines when um so in the development marketing world, we call that a broiler plate boiler a broiler. Yes, you're right where it's just you know, three lines about this thing. That's what this is. Yes, and it's the only information that I can really find about that. I know that I don't even know if he had friends, And then you think that would have no idea, it

would assume so, but I don't know. Probably on the morning of Friday, September four, two thousand seven, Andrew woke up a bit late and was grumpy, and his mom thought that was kind of odd. He was usually kind of awake on time and ready for school. But he got dressed in his uniform anyway, put his backpack on, and left for school with his typical bice you later. I'm gonna pause here to apologize. I am recovering from a coal So if I sound a bit stuffy or weird,

that's why. Actually you sound all right, I wouldn't worry about it. Well to our listeners, I'm sorry, all right. Back to Andrew. After his parents left for work, Andrew actually returned home and changed out of his uniforms, so he skipped around the block and basically hid for Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what he did in that time. I probably that long I heard any one sat in the park for a little while. That what's really sad about this is that Andrew's perfect attendance record was kind of

ruined by him doing this. It's true. Yeah, weird, Well, there's only so many years when a perfect attendance really matters. That's true. I had it as a kid. Oh totally, did you perfect? Totally had perfect attendance for years in a row. I well, you know, I don't get sick, and I never never played hoockey. And then one day I was like, I don't want to go, and I just I don't care anymore, and so then I would start to cut well, and then the rest was history. Yes,

and that's why you're poor. Okay, So whether he went to a park or whether he just walked around the block a couple of times. I actually, frankly, I don't know how we would know really what he did. Um, But anyway, he left the house for a little while, and then he returned home and he changed out of his uniform. He put the shirt and pants in the washer like he normally did when he came home from school, put his blazer um hanging on the back of his

chair in his room because school did. Yeah, almost everybody in Britain has a school uniform. I think, yeah, that's a thing. I think that's a thing there. Sorry, I don't mean to offend anybody, but I think it is so this is he was following the typical thing that he would do when he was home from school, which leads people to believe that he was trying to make it look like he had come from home from school. Right at the end of school, he changed into a set of clothes that was kind of what I would

say was his actual uniform. You know, there are people who have performs in this world. And it was a pair of jeans and a black T shirt. It was a Slipknot T shirt because he was the band. He was really really into Slipknot. He took his bag with him and left and never returned home. Yeah, so that's our mystery. Yeah where he went. Did to take his passport? No,

not as far as I know. His parents reported that none of his clothes were missing, and other than the jeans and T shirt that he had worn as well as it looked like his charger. He took his PSP with him, his portable PlayStation with him, but it looked like he had left the charger there. So the that is meant, that's that bit of the storytelling us meant

to infer that he didn't pack an overnight bag. Although, and we'll talk about this a little more when we get into the theories, which I know is everyone's favorite thing to hear from us, But I don't know that parents would necessarily notice if you had grabbed a couple of extra slip NOTO shirts. I was going to say, another pair of jeans. There was a bag in the

bag looked like it wasn't empty, it wasn't stuffed fault. No, it's not like he put all his possessions into one bag, but it did look like there was stuff in it, and mom and dad don't know what you Although although if I was taking a PSP with me, I would probably take the charger because those chargers are expensive. They're like iPhone chargers. So it's not as though fourteen year old boy is necessarily going to have backups of that. Although maybe he did and they just didn't know. Who knows.

I don't think that he thought about it. Yeah, it could have just forgotten. So it wasn't until Andrew's mom asked his sister Charlotte, who's also often referred to as Charlie, to call him for dinner that they realized he was missing. You know, since I mentioned it seemed like he had just come home from school and you know, was in his room. I think he was the door that was going to happen. Never explicitly said, but yeah, we don't know. Is he the kid that just always went upstairs right

after school, dropped his clothes and shut the door. Seems like it. So his mom and dad and sister started calling around to his friends. So he did have friends, never hear from them. Uh, And it sounds like they realized at that point that he hadn't actually been to school that day, which of course was very odd for him. Uh. And they called the police immediately and reported him missing, which I guess you can do in in the States. I don't think. I don't know what they actually for

a minor. I don't think it's I don't know what. I don't know what the time limit is there. It wasn't until the following Tuesday that any leads emerged about where Andrew might have gone. An employee at the railway. Um unemployee of the railway came forward and said that she remembered selling a ticket to Andrew to King's Cross station and in London. Yeah, and she remembered him for two reasons. One was that she thought that he was maybe a bit young to be going to London alone,

because he he actually looked like he was probably about twelve. Yeah, he looked young for his age. He was pretty short. He was five three. Yeah, yeah, so you've three right. I'm smaller than five three, but not by much. So he was about my size, which you know for thirteen year old boy. Boys get tall at different ages, so it's not as though he would have maybe been short his whole life. But but he wasn't. He wasn't a big kid, and he did look very young. Yes, he

was baby face. He did have a baby face. Yeah. The other reason that the railway worker remembered Andrew was because she had mentioned that a round trip ticket back from London would actually just be fifties pence more um. But he said that he just wanted the one way ticket only. Does I mean the one way ticket was something ridiculous like right, like sixty pounds pounds? You know. Actually,

we don't have a number on that. We have some inferences on how much it might have called, but I don't know that I've ever seen anywhere explicitly said because the rates changed. Yeah, and we'll talk at all and then actually it's nine years now, yeah, so we'll talk about all of this in the in the theories as well, and as to also as to why maybe he would have declined that offer. His path to the train station

became pretty clear. Actually he had walked from his home in UM Doncaster UM to the railway station, also in Doncaster, and it's about a twenty minute walk, which figures pretty solidly into the timeline of the events in the morning UM.

And he actually stopped on the way at an a t M and took out two hundred pounds of his out of his savings account, and that there's obviously a transaction receipt for that transaction, so they were able to find that out through the bank that he did in fact do that, And reports differ on this if that actually drained his savings account or if it was just

two hundred pounds out of his savings account. On the website that his parents run, it says that he drained his account, but in other fairly credible retellings of the story that I would say it said that he just took two hundred pounds out of his account it was yearly drawing. Well, I mean he did withdraw two hundred pounds, whether he drained it or not, and that maybe why it's standing that way. I don't know. Yeah, so I guess for me, it's just a small clarification that I

wish we had. There's a lot of them. I guess. I'm willing to say that if his parents website says it drained his account, then I drained his account. But then that brings up more questions to me about some other stuff we found out later. Either way, there was a woman on the train who came forward much later, I think, like a month later, and said that she recalled him being on the train quietly playing his PlayStation two around am on the train from Doncaster to London

that morning. But Doncaster is what about from London something like that. That's about an hour and a half long train ride. It's about three hour drive. Okay, So all of the times I should I should just stop to say that, up until we lose track of Andrew, all of the times of what happened up until then totally match up. There's not a question in anyone's mind that this isn't what happened because it's all exactly the times

are always its stitches together. Yeah, it's seamless. So twenty seven days later, investigators were finally able to find three frames of Andrew at King's Cross at a m which is when that train arrived in London on September Um, and he was leaving the station. All of the other CCTV from the area had been wiped by that point. Um, And it's the last confirmed sighting of Andrew like ever and it was white because nobody maintains that kind of record,

and definitely they have to cycle. It was like, yeah, and I'm actually was just going to talk about a few of the things before that, but we can just talk about that right now. Um. The CCTV in London has an automatic thirty day data override, and they obviously don't publicize when this happens. Um, well, I don't think I think that happens every day, right so, but it's

not clear to me. I believe that's the case, but some of the tellings people seem to be under the impression that every thirty days it just wipes the last thirty days. That's the dumbest thing, thank you guys, know, there are people out there. There are people out there who say stuff on the Internet's like, how did how did Andrew know that they were right? Yeah, people are like, oh,

he timed it. That was what I was going to bring up, is that you'll see in in a lot of stuff on the Internet that that somebody says, um, oh, yeah, he timed it perfectly so that the he knew that the tapes were gonna be deleted just that day, so

after somebody that doesn't understand how data is recorded and stored. Well, So, the only thing I guess that's a little frustrating is that they did discover those three frames thirty or twenty seven days later, which would have given them three days to say, hey, everybody was CCTV footage from around this area, we need to see it now. Well, they might not

have discovered the footage. They may have gotten the footage and then had to comb through it, and by the time they combed through it and found him, it had already passed seven day they pull they got all the footage, and then when they've gotten the chance to finally go through it all and figured out he was there several days, he passed and it was too late. Yeah. The the way that I always read it is that on the

seven day they found these three frames. So you know, to me, again, it's one of the tiny, little frustrating things about this case that it's like, well, come on, guys, just would have been nice that it would have been It would have probably solved a lot of this stuff. Yeah, they at least preserve something for say, or even a couple hundred yards around the station, you know, I mean,

that would be that would have been nice. Well, I guess, I guess The question really for me is that it always took them three days to find out that Andrew was headed to King's Cross, So why weren't they immediately saying, oh, there's a lot of CCTV around there, we should probably look at it three days later when there's definitely no chance of it ever having been wiped. Well, now when did the when did the rail employee come forward? Three days later? The tuesdays? Yeah, yeah, so that would have

been probably would have been there. Yeah, But I don't what I Okay, I know that London is one of the most surveiled cities out there, but I don't know that all of the CCTV systems are operated by the same organizations, they may have different time frames for how long they keep their data, you know what I'm saying, Like one group may say we only keep a week's

worth and then we start recycling. Real station might have been the one who said, well, we keep it long term, and that's the only way they dug it up, although I don't know for me. Again, it's the three days. Why why three days did they not just say, hey, everyone, this might be helpful. There's a guy on one web page that I suspect he was British. He said said, with all these all these orwelly and cameras all over the place, and they still can't get any useful information,

why do we have this crap? Yeah, I mean that's

that's such a good point up. Yeah. Uh. Most people say, and I've never been to King's Cross station, and I don't have a good sense of where these three frames are taking place or anything like that, but they say that it vaguely looks like Andrew's headed to the area where you would pick up a taxi out of King's Cross, But also taxis go on the streets, so it's also possible he was just exiting to the street well, as you say, tube stations always just spill right out onto

the streets, So it's hard to draw a much from absolutely. Yeah, but you'll see that around and it does kind of pertain to some of the theories that are out there. There are some oddities in this case, and we're just gonna bullet point them out because they think that's the easiest way to approach them. One of them was the CCTV that we've already covered. Another one is that Andrew had about a hundred pounds in cash that he'd been given for various holidays that was found left in his room.

So for me, that's kind of a big question mark, especially if he withdrew all of the money from his savings account. Why wouldn't you take that extra hundred pounds. Well, I think that it did all of the money you could possibly get your hands on. Yeah, it does kind of shoot a hole in the theory that he left to start a new life theory. Yeah, that would that would be silly that you would only do it with two hundred pounds. If you could have three hundred pounds,

why not. I don't and I don't mean to give away our secret theories, but as everybody knows by now. Anytime somebody disappears, that's a theory from age two upward. It's, oh, yeah, he crawled out to start a new life two years old. Yeah, yeah, so you know that things would be. The next kind of oddity I guess is that Andrew might have had a cell phone. I was never really clear on if he had a cell phone or not, because I did see something saying that he never really used his phone.

But I also saw a lot of stuff saying that he didn't have a cell phone. So I was looking at the stuff from the family site this morning and it said he didn't. Okay, great, that that makes things a little easier. Um, But he he did have access to a computer again, and not clear. I think there was a computer in his room. That was the sense that I had, But again I don't know that for sure.

I guess I just assumed that because I don't know's it was two thousand seven, that's about when kids started kind of locking themselves in their rooms and chatting to people online and things like that. But I don't know. I got the impression it was a shared family computer. But yeah, that's also possible. Again, he just definitely had access to a computer. For sure. The investigators did search

that computer and they found nothing. By the way, why their computers at school and a school that you want to Yes, but they also searched those, but also leave and now I know, I know the public libraries here, at least here in the States all have lots of computers. Yeah, I mean it's tricky because in two thousand seven, I mean, computers were pretty prevalent, but still not. They were still everywhere. I mean they were boxes, they were yeah, and it

was all like everywhere. Yeah, that's true. I have a hard time remembering two thousand seven. Now there there would have been computers everywhere, computers everywhere. I was in college in two thousand seven. Yes, yes, But to answer your question, Joe, I would imagine that there would be computers in their library,

But I don't. I don't know to what degree. I mean, like now I go to the library here and there everything almost ten years ago there was three to a floor or something like that got a lot cheaper for one time. Yeah, they have well, and so they the investigators said they didn't find anything, and they did have their computer forensic guys whatever you want to call that. I know they went through, so it wasn't just some

cop clicking through the back button on the browser. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, okay, so private browsing was around as early as two thousand five. Tour networks have been around forever. Andrew was a really bright kid, and he was a teenage boy, so it's super likely that he knew how to keep his browsing history private. Well, you probably want to do that, even if you have your own computer, I would say, yes. Yeah, Steve looks like he's concerned

about this. Well, I I am. There's some things about the descriptions of Andrew in general that I think twist this story, and so I'm really concerned. When you say it's super likely that he knew how to do that, he may have, he may not have. I mean, it's it's a fifty split me. I guess I'm saying that, like, in the scope of fourteen year olds in this world, he is on the much more likely spectrum of knowing how to do things like that than say, I don't know,

a fourteen year old girl in suburban Midwest. I don't think that's true. Actually, that is dumb. I don't know. I mean, he wouldn't have it. But I don't want I don't want to cast it as he was a computer genius. No, I don't. I don't want to cast it that way either, But I just he he was a smart young man. Yes, we actually that we actually really know nothing about. Yeah, that's where I'm always like, I feel like we're walking this weird edge with the

descriptions of him because we've got so little. Yeah, I I he was just a smart young man. And my understanding of fourteen year old boys and they're they're browsing habits. Are that something that you might want to keep from your parents? You would like how to hide that pretty quick? Probably? Yeah. Yeah, when I was fourteen, I didn't have any browsing habits. You did, Actually it was like called free hbo or

something like that. Yeah, like hit him under the mattress. Yeah, like the Victoria's Secret ads you get, Yeah, Dad's playboys anyway. So yeah, I will agree with you that it may be overstating, but I will also say that he was a smart for funeral boye, so he probably knew whether it was to the extent that it could be hit in front, you know, because private browsing there's still a record of that. You can still find stuff like that

if you're a computer forensic scientist. So can we do you mind if at this point we go into something else, which is some of the descriptions of Andrew that I'm I really have been concerned about everywhere I've read it, which is that he's a math genius. Again, everything says he was good at math. I'm not. I'm not questioning his aptitude. He competed in competitions, and I think he was in the intermediate level, which is for kids between the ages of twelve to fifteen, and he did well.

But that doesn't mean that he was a genius. He was good at math. But that's one of the things that I keep reading online. It's almost like, well was it Dorothy Arnold where you were reading Joe and in the forums her family was mean tour and then it just progressively group to pure rulty to the point that I just can't blame that. It's totally convinced. And as I've read stuff from the beginning and then moving towards now, his genius level math skills have grown that very same way.

I mean, I've read stuff from his teachers who say he could do stuff. He could do certain equations in his head and other kids couldn't do it. So he obviously had a math aptitude. But again, that doesn't make him some kind of genius. I guess. For I guess I would say that he may have been a genius, but he certainly was a de savant. You know, he wasn't like a prodigy. He but he may have been really really good. I think from the genius means like

much better than children of his age. Correct, he was a genius and he was taking college level you know, it's not good will hunting. I think that. Yeah, I don't think he was particularly advanced, right, he wasn't taking No, I think he was just much better than the kids around here. So so I again, that's another thing I want to bring in because the descriptions have have evolved over time I've watched. Yeah, I'll buy it. Uh. One of the other things you'll see a lot is that

he definitely wasn't being bullied. But that comes from his parents. And I'm not a hundred percent sure that I that you can trust what parents say, not because I think that they are maliciously saying no. He definitely wasn't being bullied, but because I think that parents probably just might not know. Yeah, he probably wouldn't go home and tell his parents and stuff. He walked up to his locker and the bully walks by and shoves him in every class period there, he's

not going to tell him that it's embarrassing. I saw that one one bulletin board out there, whe people were discussing that there was a guy who claimed that he went to the same school and remember it was like a year a year ahead or behind, he said, and he said he was not aware of actually any any any bullying. He said that he said that Andrew was not one of the cool kids, so he did catch a little bit of crap, but not but he said it wasn't really bad. Well, but you never know how

kids are gonna react to stuff like that. You know, it's really easy as a teenager too, as a preteen or a teenager to build things like that really out of proportion. All then, and you know, that's not to say that that's what was happening. It's not to say that he was absolutely being bullied. But also it's to say that take it with a grain of salt. When his parents say absolutely, there's no chance that he was

even remotely being bullied, because I don't know. He probably was a little bit every Yeah, Andrew had a very very heavy prescription in his glasses as though, like like he was almost blind without his glasses. Yeah, so he needed his glasses or at least contacts, but he would have had to have gotten contacts because he never had contacts in his life. He also had a very unique ear, did you guys, You guys looked to pick. It's very interesting. They describe it as a double ridge on his right ear,

and I can't really describe it. I don't know how to describe it either. I just look it up. Literally, if you google double ridge ear, pictures of his ear will come up first, the first one. How often does that happen? It's incredibly rare. Yeah, it's really really really rare, And a lot of people seem to leave that out

in the tellings and descriptions of him. So people think, well, he was a fourteen year old boy, he could disappear to anywhere, not mentioning that there's there's very distinct feature on him. Ears are also really hard to identify by so like you can see that on somebody twenty yards away. Well he didn't he wear his hair kind of long. Yeah, I just mean it'd be hard for him to be carrying on a totally new life with nobody having noticed.

Oh hey, this guy has a weird ear. Oh I've heard there was a boy that was missing that has a weird ear too. It's worth mentioning. Yeah, it's definitely unique. Yeah. So you know, if you have a spot a guy, how old would he be? An idea about you would be three. Yeah. If you spot a guy with a funny air anywhere in the world, because you knows, you could be anywhere if he's still alive, let us know, don't tell the police, don't tell us, tell us not

the place. Yeah. Next up in the weirdness category, a ticket from Doncaster to London isn't cheap right now. It's anywhere from sixty to a hundred pounds from what I could gather is likely about ten cheaper. I think that's what the kind of inflation has been calculated at. But still that's a lot of money. And uh, because of the time that Andrew was on the train, it would have been considered peak hours. So they actually they call it super peak hours or super off peak hours. That's

the thing. I went to the train website and I like really thought that there was a troll thing happening because that's super off peak, and I was like, what do you mean super off peak? Got it cool? But so they it would have been the most expensive tickets basically, yeah, which means that he would have not had a whole lot of money laughed over or when he hit London. If it was a ninety pound ticket, then pounds which

doesn't go far in London. And one last thing in the weirdness category worth a quick mention is that I've read vague things that suggest Andrew might have had family living in London, maybe a grandmother, maybe someone else. The family has made vague mention of some family. The actual close family has made some vague mention of maybe some family that lives in London, but never explicitly said anything.

Why haven't they said anything. It's a good question. Yeah, yeah, one would assume that they have ruled out their involvement at all, so they just don't think it's worth dragging these people in to the whole mass. But I don't know. It's a good question, and one that I don't really have a good answer for so, Yeah, Andrews still gone, Andrew, if you're listening, Yeah, yeah, what's that phone number again? Yeah? Yeah? Sign us an email? Yeah. Uh. Want to get into theories,

I think let's do so. To start off with the theories, along with the seamless timeline of Andrew getting to London, everyone agrees that Andrew went willingly or semi willingly to want London. No, yeah, there was. He didn't look like he was unaddressed, there's no Yeah, and there's no sense of that being suspicious at all. The reasons why he went to London maybe maybe suspicious, but that seems to be a thing that everyone agrees on. I mentioned that

Andrew was into metal, right, is one of those things. Yeah, his parents describe him as goth. I don't. I don't. I wouldn't consider from what I've seen, I wouldn't consider him goth. I would just consider him to be a fan of heavy metal. But his parents were super Christians, so they may be a little confused. I mean, he seemed like a metal head to me. Not Yeah, I would agree with that. So I've only seen like one

or two picks. A couple of pictures of him and he yeah, it doesn't look like a yeah not to me either, but hey, there you go. We can't discriminate against goths. It's true, yeah, I as I understand it. The metal slash goth community in London is pretty close knit. So I've seen a lot of stuff online with people saying that, um, you could probably ask pretty much anyone in that community if they had ever heard of a

youngish boy trying to join that community. But again, I don't think that's I don't think that's probably the case. I think that's probably an overexaggeration of how close knit any group of people are. And we actually, um looked into a lot of the bands that we're playing. We did our research. Surprise, um yeah, talk about boring clicking through the show listings. I know for real, even on the way back Machine, it was like, oh, these websites didn't exist, okay, fine, got to go back all the

way fine. Actually, and some of this came from the suggest of one of our listeners named Anthony, so um I want to thank him for his help in this matter. There's this band that's called six six. It's not sixth it's six Like how Yeah, it's um S I K capital t H. I'm gonna call him six They are a progressive metal rock band that's often called a math core group, and math core is a particular kind of hardcore metal that is also part of the math rock genre,

both math core, math core, and math rock. I'm having a hard time with my th h S right now. I'm sorry. Uh as math rock. Yeah, they make use of unusual time signatures in their song composition. I have a pretty cool quote here. One critic who I'm gonna quote describes the style of music as quote dynamic, violent, discordant, technical, brutal, off kilter, no rules, mixture of hardcore metal, prague, math rock, grind, and jazz. Unquote. Well so take all music, throw it

in a blender and turn on with a fork. Yes, that's it. Um. I Actually I listened to some of sixth six music and I did not care for it, maybe because I'm sick. It's it's definitely it's a very distinct, silent music. I've never been a real metal I think I probably would have liked it when I was a teenager. I you know again, my part of it is maybe because like my head hurts really bad, so I grindy loud music is maybe not the best in my brain right now, but I definitely can see the appeal of it,

particularly to somebody who was into metal. And then I don't know. I'm not into math like at all, So I don't know if that's a thing that factors into people who like math core or math rock, if that if if having an understanding of math gives you a heightened appreciation for that music. I don't know. I've never had a math or musical aptitude, so I can't say, and I don't know I think that. I don't know either way, but it's it's an interesting extra facet to this.

I'll listen to it. I've got pretty good math appitude actually, so listen to it and see anyway. Uh. Sixth is from Warford Thank you in Hertfordshire. They formed in May of two thousand seven. They announced that two of the vocalists would be leaving the group after the conclusion of their summer two thousand seven tour, and conveniently, the final show of this tour was at the Carling Academy in London, which is a two club. Yeah, it's an O two club.

One of the like twenty in London, um and it was on you guessed it September fourteen, two thousand and seven. The Carling Academy is less than a mile from King's Cross station, which means it would have been a twenty

minute or less walk. Uh so, pretty walkable. Really. The tickets for this venue range, but it's it's pretty cheap actually, uh even now, yeah, even now, tickets for a similar sixth show, because they actually reunited in two thousand thirteen, so they had a show there in two thousand fourteen, and and the tickets for that were less than twenty pounds, so even and then you know, I looked at a lot of the other ones, and it seems like there wasn't a single ticket that went for more than twenty

pounds there, even with the service charging charge and all that stuff. So I'm willing to say that it was it was really cheap. So he would have certainly had money for this ticket if if some were available, and then a bunch of money left over for beer. Yeah, as a twelve year old, the fourteen year old boy

who looks like he's twelve, Yeah, he's work out. Uh so, And actually that's the thing that I run into the most here is that concert venues like this typically have age restrictions on them, so that you know, maybe it's an eighteen and over, maybe it's twenty one and over, or maybe it's an all ages, but they certainly don't admit all ages just no matter what, it's all ages with an adult. Eight is the youngest that can go

into that venue. But they have to have and it's from I think it was eight to fourteen, has to be has to have a an adult with interesting because they looked up their policies on it. So he couldn't have just gotten in by showing up with twenty pounds at the door. Yeah. Well, and particularly because like so the and then there are there are other extra age

restrictions on certain shows. So every show I've ever seen, because I looked at a lot of different venues for six concerts and it's all eighteen and over or fourteen and over, fourteen to eighteen with an adult. Well, of course you might have actually not a adult in London. Well so yeah, well we have just befriended somebody in line. So the other thing that I run into here is

that this show is actually a rescheduled show. I don't know when it was originally scheduled for, but they had not originally intended to play on that night at that venue. How far in advance, I don't know. I never saw that. I didn't either, Yeah, but I think that's an interesting little thing to throw in there as well. But it is reasonable to assume that anybody at that time would

have thought that this was sixth last show. Ever after that you presume that's their last, even though musicians always say that's it, I quit until next year. Yeah, I can see the motivation there, if you really like these guys a lot. Yeah. Well, and there were there were a number of other concerts that have been suggested in London on that night. I mean, it's not as though the music scene is lacking in London. All of the other I would say that this concert in particular is

the best if he was going to a concert. All the other ones that I saw were like all rock that we're also twenty minute car right away from King's Cross station or But bear in mind he wasn't completely and wholly dedicated to metal. I mean, his dad talks about the fact that he took him to a Muse concert, not to this pretty metal. You. I don't consider Muse that metal at all. Really. Yeah, They're they're very tame

compared to like Slipknot and some of those guys. So I wouldn't I wouldn't say that he was only into the hardcore stuff. He was a boy who liked what he liked. Yeah, But I also guess I wouldn't. I would say that Muses solidly like a rock band. Yeah, But there's also most of the other stuff that was found was like alternative rock, which is like adult soft you know, like cold Play is alternative rock, right, So that's not that didn't seem like it was his scene

as much. Anywhere hearner to get to this I listened to this music, it seemed like it was totally the kind of music that he was into. He thought it was their last show. It was really really convenient from King's Cross. Because that's the other thing too, write is that maybe, like there are train stations that are closer to the other venues that he could have gotten tickets to, he could have stayed on the train longer to get off more conveniently, whereas this one King's Cross was the

most convenient station to that particular venue. Yeah, although he also had hours like half a day, yeah, because yeah, it wasn't until seven or something like that, maybe even nine. I don't have the actual time, but that's when those shows usually start, which is what boggles me when it comes to the he was going to a show theory, because obviously he traveled at what was it, super high

peaked time. Okay, well, if you know the show is not going to be until seven o'clock at night and it's yeah, I go dink around in town for a couple of hours, well you might have had something to do in London before. That's true. He also I don't know if I don't know what his parents jobs entailed, or his sister for instance, or if he thought. You know, if you're a kid who is literally never bumpd off school, right, you don't know your first day skipping class, you're going

to think I Am going to get caught. You don't know. You might run in your parents, you might run into your parents friends, you might run into another kid who's going to tell. So it would make sense to me that he would be trying to get out of town as fast as possible because it's way less likely that somebody in London is going to say, oh, hey, aren't you supposed to be in school? So I remember the first time. I mean I remember the first time I

skipped school, and I was terrified. I really thought I was going to get caught. And then you know, it gets easier as you do it more, and then you just keep doing it more and more and more. Not that we're advocating so that that would make sense to me? Is that maybe he because he don't seem like the kind of kid who might have been a little nervous about something like that. Um, so I guess that would be a reason why he would try to leave as early as possible. Yeah, I think that The thing I

like about this series that explains a lot. I think what happened is he was befriended by the band. They went back to their room later and party, and they were doing huge lines of blow and then it's and they'd never done that before. His heart gave out, and so the band had the body. Probably wrote a song about it. If you listen to this, there's probably one song that's got some coded messages about how they disposed of the body. Probably Okay, I'm just kid, that's Joe's

Scooby Doos theory. So it's possible that Andrew was on a chat and met somebody online. It's possible that he was a part of a forum that was a fan club for six or some other band, or just you know, metal enthusiasts in general, and you know, maybe he planned a meeting from there. Maybe he met some guys online or some people online and they said, yeah, man, this show is happening. I had tickets for you. Want to

come meet me in London? And he was like, yeah, absolutely, I'll come meet you guys in London, even though that's like super nerve wracking and totally out of character. I'm gonna come meet you guys. So he came early, he met them, they all went to the concert venue together.

Maybe it turns out that the people he was supposed to meet, or the person he was supposed to meet were actually not who how they represented themselves, which is in a different theory, but you know, it would also explain why he didn't buy a return ticket, and that they're the two questions for me on the return ticket are the fifty pence ticket? Was it open ended or did you have to pick a time? Right? Right? But did you have to pick a time because they have

they have both of those as the turn. So if you if you get the super peak, is that what it is? Super peak is not and you get your return ticket. The return ticket is fifty p if it's not an open ended time, right, such more expensive when you just say I'm going to get on a train and they're they're that same day, right, And so that to me makes me think that he didn't really know when he was going to be coming home, which would

corroborate going to a concert. You don't know, last train left London at eleven, yeah, so but you don't maybe you don't really know when you're gonna want to go home, or maybe since you're meeting some friends there, maybe they say, oh yeah, and my my friend can. He's got a car,

so he can. He's going to be headed your way, so he'll drive you back your way, And so you think, why why waste crazy amount of money for the later ticket, or you know, maybe the fifty pence one was yeah, if you return at five o'clock, it's fifty pence, and he was like, all the concert won't have even started by then. So to me, that helps to corroborate that story a little bit as an idea that specific that really just addresses why he would have gone to London.

It doesn't really address why he never came back from London. But I think it's a strong possibility of why he wanted to London. I can see the I was going to get a ride from somebody, but it's such a long drive. It's just I mean, if if he left late enough that he couldn't catch the last train, well,

but he it's possible that he could have. But I'm just That's what I'm saying, is that so he would have had to have buy an open ended ticket as a return ticket, which would have been really really expensive, probably more expensive than just going and buying the ticket when you're trying to return, because then it's an at time ticket. And then that the or that the fifty pence return ticket was for a specific time That wasn't, but it would, but it could have been that that

didn't apply to the eleven thirty train. It only applied to the five o'clock train, so it would have been way more expensive anyway to get that later train. No, I can see how it could have been another he could have taken the other half of his money, so that helps to explain why he would have not gone the return ticket as well, because it may have just been cheaper and in the end to walk up to the kiosk and say, okay, I'm ready to go instead of buying it pre buying it. So I guess we

should talk about maybe why he didn't back. I have some ideas. One of the theories is that he was lurned to London by a stranger. Yeah, it's possible that while Andrew seemed to have been a smart kid, at least at math, he could have just been pretty naive, like most fourteen year olds are, especially in two thousand seven, you don't necessarily think I mean, it was still a thing like there were bad people online, but that wasn't a thing that you really thought about as much. I didn't,

and I was much older. I'm I am much older than Andrew, and you know, even in two thousands and seven, I wasn't necessarily thinking, oh, they are bad people online and I don't want to meet them, you know. So that's part of it. Although I never like met anybody that I met online in real life because I'm not dumb, But even as an adult at that time, I didn't believe anything that people said online because it was smart.

You knew it was bored, right, But when you're fourteen, it doesn't seem as bull Oh and it might you know, it might be too that you know, Andre was smart enough to like, you know, want to meet this guy in a public place. Or maybe he didn't even know it was a guy. Maybe he thought it was a woman girl, gender bending, somebody torturing themselves as actually that's super comment. Yeah, and then and then and he gets the appointed place and there's no girl. That's some guy.

He says, oh, yeah, you know, I'm a I'm a older brother. I'm not supposed to take you to meet her, you know. And then yeah, yeah, yeah, so I would I would classify this as the predator theory that some online predator of some kind misrepresented who they were and

learned him to London for any reason. It could have been to come to a concert, it could have been just hey, come visit me in London, or you know, people think, oh, he wanted a new life, so maybe somebody said, okay, I can help you with a new life. The one I don't think we'll talk about new life in a minute. Yeah, I was going to say, is this whole? So I I kept trying to figure out how he could have been if somebody did indeed lure him away. Okay, well they looked at the computer and

there was nothing on there. I know that. You you know, you you kind of believe that he may have been able to private brows, but it would be possible, but I also don't think it would have it's likely, but you know what, But you know what I really wonder about because I've never heard any mention of it being looked into. You know, he had an Xbox at home, right.

They do talk about the Xbox Live chatting, and I wonder if he was talking to somebody because Xbox Live now has the actual text chat function, but that didn't come into effect till two thousand and eight, so it would have all been voice. But I just wonder if anybody looked at what games was he playing? Hey, can you tell us who was in the game at that time?

Because he could have had an extend built an extended relationship with somebody in that in that world and got talked to you that way and then got the same is true for like if he I don't know if he was like a Wow kid, like a World of Warcraft kid. I don't know if he liked online games like that, but those all existed too, and you chat with people at that point as well, and that's not necessarily logged. So I think that's a really good suggestion as well, although I don't. I just think that it's

probably not possible to look up that it's too late now. Well, I mean, i'd think even at the time, it probably wouldn't have been possible, just because of the huge volume of people that you know what, big data loves data. I bet you that Microsoft is logging the crap out of that stuff and probably had the records for a while, you know what. I would say, Let's just you know, they would have had it for months, if not years.

It could have been pulled. I bet you if somebody said, I have went to gone to the judge and I have this order that says Microsoft give me this data, Microsoft would went here. It is similarly, Similarly, one would assume that, you know, the CCTV would have been able to be pulled. But hey, yeah, I know, I think it might very well be that his parents and the police, you know, didn't really, you know, we're involved in that sort of stuff, and it's a game, it's a video game.

Was just playing the Nintendo thing exactly. But yeah, so that's one way you could have, like, you know, like it's been lured to London by a purv, you know. And that's just a question of theories. Are is what happened to him afterwards? You know? Of course everybody everybody thinks that well, he was the PERV, did his pervy stuff and then murdered him. Although my for alternative theories, I would say that maybe he's just locked in a basement somewhere and maybe well maybe will be discovered a

live someday, although I kind of doubt. I hate to say that. That is like one of the most optimistic theory. In a basement, it happens, and then these people sometimes people escape and find out about it. Yeah, yeah, with the women in l A. Is that the one last year or the year before? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it happens. Not so, but it does. Yeah, and he'll have one he does escape. If he does, he'll have a very

really interesting story to tell, I'm sure. But in another possibility that occurred to me again is this outlandish, that's possible. As he met he meets this guy, Uh, they go for to go to Starbucks for a type of coffee. The guy rufi's him and not to have sex with them, but just to just to like smuggle them out of the country and sell him into slavery. So that's another very optimistic theory possible. And one of the questions I have for this is, uh, and I asked you already

about this, and but I don't. I don't know if the police, when they are looking at missing children and looking for them, if they checked the child pornography sites and stuff like that. I don't want that job. No,

I wouldn't need it. Well, know what I was thinking that you kind of hope somebody is checking him, right, Well, it would seem like the thing to do at least send pictures of these missing kids to the sites and just say, hey, you know, would you post these pictures and tell your users if they see any any porn with these children? And I don't I don't know if there's that much oversight in the those kind of ye kind of if the police know who runs it, to

send that information to them, they're busting down. Yeah, that's that's that's that's kind of the the obvious thing there. Yeah, but they could still crowdsource that. They can say, hey, pervs so for this stuff and let us know. Yeah. Uh, just as a point of interest, I guess they did search the Thames Thames thank you. I can't say that word because it's not spelled the right way. Everything they do. They did search the reference. You're welcome, We're just kidding.

They did search the river and they didn't never find any remains of Andrew. So he's probably in there, probably not, but there's lots of other places to put a body. Next theory is that um Andrew wanted to start any life. Now, why would Andrew, fourteen year old, relatively seeming relatively happy, want to start a new life. Well, you know, one theory that I was thinking about, I have no idea. I was and I was wondering if maybe he was gay. I didn't feel like his parents would understand. They are

strongly religious. Yeah, you know, my I think he probably wouldn't have a reason to want to run away at start new life. But as as we stated, his parents were very heavily Christian, and you know, they described him as goth. That doesn't mean that they were going to be intolerant, certainly does I don't want to I don't want to come across the yeah, exactly. I think that it sounds to me like his parents were kind of tolerant.

Like the sound like they do seem to be genuine They do seem to really genuinely love and miss him on the website that they run. They run a website and they have a letter to him, and it's, you know, very moving. But you know, I don't know if I

really want to say this or not. But as cynical as it sounds, it's easy to say things like that to your kid after they're gone and I and that isn't to make a presumption that they weren't loving and open and caring, but it is to say that as a teenager, it's very often easy to interpret what your parents are saying and doing as intolerant, or even if they aren't intolerant, just to assume, you know, if your parents are constantly saying, oh, you know, I can't believe

that this person is gay, I don't know how I would deal with that. You're gonna say, oh, my god, I could never be gay, regardless of the fact of if you came out to them and they would actually say, oh my gosh, we love you so much. Of course you know we'll accept you. And again, this is not too I've never seen anything that has said that his parents were intolerant in any way. But I also know that most of the information we have comes from his parents.

Um And again, you know, I just I hesitate to say that it's easy because that sounds really horrible and cynical and off And I understand that, and please don't write me letters because I already know how horrible and off colcle sounds. But I just want to point out that very curated information, it is very curate information, and it is it is that's when you say those things, is oh my gosh, we never meant to hurt you.

Come back. But again, that's not to disperse the family, because as far as I can tell, they are a wonderful, loving the indication that what we're guessing about is even real, no, no, no, very genuine and amazing and really just had something horrible happen in their family, And I don't want to cause

them any extra pain. But I also do want to mention that on the other hand, about the gay running away because he's gay thing, But would argue against that is he's only fourteen, he doesn't really uh and and one place I heard he was actually thirteen. His birthday was coming up. Oh no, wait, hang on, I'm getting my unsolved mysteries mixed up. That's the murdering in India. Yeah, okay, that he was fourteen, he didn't really need to decide

the whole gay thing. I mean, he may have totally know when he was gay, if he was gay, but you know, he could wait till he was eighteen and they go after college and I don't know it's self to not I mean, that's that seems like a thing.

I mean, like a lot I know a lot of gay people who say, like, I've known my whole life and like, have you know, been actively gay for as long as they've been alive basically, so you know, again, that's kind of like asking somebody to repress part of themselves just to stay in their house, which I guess some people do, but some people don't want to do.

But again, it's it's hard to tell with him. Another fact you'll see, um that's turn around is I guess mildly interesting I don't know how valid is, but we're going to just throw it out there anyway. It's reported that Andrew's favorite TV show was The Fall and Rise of Reginald Parent, which is a series. It's a TV series that follows the middle aged man who fakes his

own death to start a new life. Um, but I've read a lot of synopsis of this series and I actually don't think it pertains to this case, like at all. Do you know when when does this show will come out? Well, the show originally aired in like the seventies, six to seventy nine is when it ran, But then it was released on DVD actually like in two thousand and six.

But that is so weird for his favorite TV show that he identifies with to be this random TV show from thirty years prior suddenly re released that happens to be about somebody who fixed their own death and goes to start new life. Yeah, it is weird. It's weird. I don't know. I mean, maybe his dad liked it, you know, I think that I think that's where this comes from his He and his dad and he said this is great, son, And he said, yeah, Dad, I

really like it. This is my favorite, whether he was honestly saying that or looking at his dad rolling his eyes going it's my favorite. Yeah. Here's the here's the thing about running away to start a new life. Is that pretty quick? You're fourteen? I don't I don't even

know what the labor laws are like in Britain. What if he goes to London try to get a job and he can't be because yeah, and so you know, pretty soon you're going to run out of money and it's gonna be you're gonna be calling your folks and say, hey, can you come to London and get me? Yeah. Well that's that's why there's this vague mention of him. Somebody said, oh yeah, his grandma. I don't know where this information came from, so I don't know if I mean, I

think it's probably totally made up. But somebody said, oh yeah, his grandma lived in London and he ran away to live with her, or he went to visit her and she was ill. Or I don't know why that gets brought up because it's just in forums, and I don't know where people are getting that information from, but people are going to get it from somewhere. It's also suggested that, you know, maybe his parents just didn't know he was being bullied, so he ran away to start in your

life because he was being bullied, which is dumb. And then you know, some other people said, well, he was really bored at school, so he didn't want to go to school anymore, so he ran away to start a new life because he didn't want to go to school. But I think that's silly because if you're smart enough to not to be bored in school, you say to your parents, I'm bored in school. Bumped me up a grade. You don't say, oh, I'm bored in school, So I think I better go start a new life so I

can prove to everyone that I'm smarter than them. And this is where this, this part of not knowing anything about him comes becomes very frustrating to me because I don't know anything about his demeanor. I don't know. I wish I knew, Like, did you have an ego with that? Well not even was he created enough to come up with that? Like did he just think he was smarter than everyone else? Did he think he could pull the

wool over everyone's eyes? Or did was he just you know, a normal smart teenager who was kind of bored or was he just rebellious or you know, I don't know anything about him other than that boilerplate of information, and I just that's so frustrating to me because I feel like I could more solidly throw my weight behind one of these theories if I understood more about him, but

there's nothing. Yeah. Yeah, I think that if he was bored at school and then he won a way to start a new life, he probably would have very shortly found himself really bored at his new job a star Bucks and gone home. Yeah, I think so too, or at least contacted his parents at some point, because there, you know, every every time they do anything, they say, oh, and Andrew, if you're hearing this, we love you. Just

just let us know you're okay. You don't even have to come home, And they do a ton a lot, they really do. They are they are still very actively like they're very committed to the year. Really. Yeah, well, I hope they get him back some day, So I I guess for me, my strongest theory would be that he went to London for a concert and an accident happened. Something happened, like he met some friends or met some people he had met online and something happened and he

died and they tried to cover it up. And the only reason that I say that is because it's the added little bit. Then in two thousand eight, in November of two thousand eight, UM, a guy showed up at a police station and said he had information about Andrew and the person who was there said, oh, we're not open yet. Come back now. I heard that, and he never came. Bagine, what is it? What is the police

station not open? Well, apparently this one wasn't everything. They roll up the sidewalks in Britain at eight o'clock at night, kid you not, It's amazing. We're so we're very spoiled in this country. I mean, I think set free things are probably open, like they're probably always police on duty, but that doesn't mean that every single office is open at all times. Maybe the people at the counter that

are there to take your information. I heard. Another version of this was that he showed up saying he had information and then by the time they found some policemen to come down and talk to him that he would he had left. That's another version that's similar, very similar versions. But he could have been a crank. Yeah, he could have been a crank. But also he could have been somebody who knew something and felt guilty and was coming forward and then lost his nerve because he thought I'm

gonna get blamed for this. But again, that's all. That's that's the likeliest thing I can come up with, because there's just no information about this thing. Do you guys have anything else you want to add? I would just say is that if you are the you know, I suspect. My strongest belief is that he did meet a perv online and you know, you know, did his thing and

then murdered him. And so if you happen to be one of our listeners and you're that perv, stop listening now, please ye never actually actually you can, yeah, I don't listen anymore after this episode. But send us an email. I mean you can do it an honestly, get a trash mail account and send us an email and let us know what happened. And just so just so we could tell his parents and they could have a little closure, okay, or just tell his parents. Oh yes, send us, send

the parents. Yeah, don't do that us. That's a good that's a good plan actually, now that think about it, Yeah, I personally think that he used his remaining money, he bought another ticket, he rode through the chunnel, he went to France, and he's now working at euro Disney. You know, they probably would have hired him. Act, they would have hired him. He could have been one of the munchkins a number of the ride as a fourteen year old boy.

And that is the happiest ending that I could come up with for this freaking stant That's a good end. Although the Channel tickets are really expensive that they are, they are really really expensive. I don't care. He works at euro Disney and he's okay, filled it happy and he has lots of little mice around him, all right, So he's basically just Cinderella. But yeah, I am pro what's that? What do you think is that? You're thinking that too? Yes, now I'm thinking that too. I don't

I don't think that's it. I think that's the best case scenarios. He's he's chained up in a basement somewhere and he's going to escape next week or so. I don't think Disney is the best Well that's yeah, okay, the best theory Disney Disney. Oh maybe he just he just wants to live on a farm somewhere like Lassie.

Ye apply. Well, if you have theories about this, about this, or any other story or suggestions, or you want to tell us stuff about things or whatever, you can do that in the comments section of our website, which is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. Leave a comment on the on the actual episode, not in like the about the show or anything, because that's really hard to figure out what you're talking about if it's just there. Yeah, it's really hard to figure out where I have them? Yeah, yeah,

uh see. There's also links to some of our research and past episodes there as well. Uh, you're probably listening to us on iTunes. If you are, give us uh comment and a rating and subscribe. If you haven't already, you might be streaming us. If there's a way to comment and rate, do that too, please. You can find us on social media. Were on Facebook. We have the group and the page, so you can like us and find the group. If you want part of the discussion,

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to that on our website. You can donate via PayPal also link on the website, or you can become a sustaining supporter on Patreon which patreon dot com slash Thinking Sideways no application, but we do love that support. Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of people have done that and it's great. And if you haven't done that, that's fine. Don't feel guilty. I read, I read tons of websites and I don't have I don't have to. Tip ure is literally the

thing that Joe says every week. Yeah. Yeah, all of that having been said, I think we're going to get out of here. I guess. So another mystery solved soon. Guys trained a cat chow