This Teen Vanished In 1996 After A Night Out With Friends In His Tiny Town
After 16-year-old Damien Nettles went to a house party in Cowes, Isle of Wight, on November 2, 1996, he vanished, and his family believes the loss of evidence and the police’s failure to retain records has hampered the search for answers.
Damien’s mom, Valerie Nettles, remembers her son as a dedicated musician who enjoyed helping people and had discussed studying marine biology.
That Saturday night, he’d also planned to visit his friend Chris Boon’s home. Damien’s father, Edward, gave him a ride at 7:00 p.m., and he got his mom to agree to extend his curfew to midnight.
But shortly afterward, Damien, Chris, and Chris’ brother, Davey, all headed to a house party located in East Cowes.
The gathering was reportedly low-key, with just three couples and Damien, who was alone. According to Chris, Damien seemed bored, which is possibly why he wanted to leave. Davey, on the other hand, thought Damien might’ve wanted to buy cannabis.
Regardless, Damien and Chris left the party together at 9:30 p.m., taking a small ferry to get back to West Cowes and stopping to purchase cider. At the time, Damien had a black camera with him. It’s never been found in the wake of his disappearance.
A Hampshire Police internal review document from 2007 details a timeline of Damien’s movements in Cowes, leading up until he was last seen on a CCTV camera.
From 9:30 p.m. to 12:06 a.m., when Damien went missing, he went to different pubs in Cowes High Street and attempted to get in.
At 10:00 p.m., Damien reportedly went to Yorkies chip shop, and by 10:30 p.m., Chris wanted to go home. The weather that evening was rainy, and feeling cold, Chris supposedly persuaded Damien to leave.
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The pair walked out of town towards their homes and parted ways near the steps of Northwood Park.
“I went straight home. I was 100% sure that Damien had headed up through the park towards home,” Chris recalled.
However, that’s not what happened. Damien reportedly turned around, went back to Cowes High Street, and was seen by multiple witnesses who claimed he appeared “spaced out” or intoxicated.
One individual saw Damien trying to open car door handles in the parking lot of the Harbour Lights pub; meanwhile, another witness stated to have seen Damien at a bus stop, describing him as a “miserable figure, huddled eating chips.”
Damien supposedly walked toward that witness and said, “They are watching us,” twice. Next, he wiped rain off of the witness’s car window before walking toward the Pier View public house.
Damien was spotted on CCTV footage for the last time mere minutes later, and he has never been seen or heard from again.
His 9-year-old sister, Melissa, was the first to notice that Damien hadn’t returned home. At that point, his mother, Valerie, became concerned and contacted his friends. Damien was ultimately reported missing at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 3, 1996.
The Nettles family launched into action, knocking on doors and searching for information. It was also a friend of Valerie’s, Dr. Corran Laurens, who discovered images of Damien on a local businessman’s security camera.
“The police wouldn’t do anything, so I took it upon myself to walk down the street, asking left and right to see if anyone had seen him. The man in the chip shop just told me that he had this little camera above the door and that I was welcome to have a look,” Dr. Laurens remembered.
In the footage from the chip shop, Damien reportedly looked “out of it” and spoke to five men. Their conversation appeared friendly, and police supposedly ruled them out of the investigation. Nonetheless, authorities didn’t identify or talk to all of these men until years later.
This represents just one of the frustrations that Damien’s family has with the police in regard to how his disappearance was investigated. They reportedly did not take Damien’s disappearance seriously, mistakenly listed his age as 19, and refused to conduct land searches, air searches, or deploy search dogs.
“The whole time, the police insisted that he must have gone into the water, but I never believed that. The police were awful. At one stage, they called Valerie and I ‘hysterical women,'” Dr. Laurens explained.
“We pushed and pulled with them. It was almost as though everything closed ranks. It was almost as though it wasn’t good for Cowes for this to happen.”
It reportedly took a while for the police to consider that Damien might’ve been killed. Yet, more mishandling prevented the case from moving forward.
First, Damien’s family spoke with the local business association after determining that he might’ve been captured on CCTV cameras on Cowes High Street. He was, and Valerie was shown the last known footage of her son. Damien could be seen eating chips and walking alone in the middle of the street shortly past midnight.
Then, the police lost the footage, and after Valerie complained to the Independent Police Complaints Commission in 2005 about how her son’s case was being handled, she was told that the police officer who lost the tape had already been taken care of.
Some ex-cops who worked in Cowes following Damien’s disappearance claimed they did everything they could. Searches were conducted, an incident room was set up, and authorities spoke to people of interest.
Conversely, though, the police didn’t hold on to crucial information. Police notebooks weren’t retained, and logs of calls made to police that evening weren’t kept. Additionally, records of what officers were on duty that night are gone.
“They were very brusque. Now they have apologized to us and admitted that something sinister happened,” Valerie said.
In 2007, Ivor Edwards, a private investigator and published author, actually reached out to Valerie and offered his assistance pro bono. He tracked down new witnesses that the police later interviewed, but authorities weren’t happy about his help.
“They sent a police constable to see me and basically said we really don’t want you investigating this case,” Ivor recalled.
He didn’t back down, though, and spent the following five years working on Damien’s disappearance. He ultimately found witnesses who implicated Nicky McNamara, a local drug dealer.
One informant, who was an associate of Nicky’s, had reportedly already gone to police and told them Nicky was involved. Eight years later, that same informant reached out to Valerie since he felt his tip wasn’t acted on by police.
The informant claimed that Damien had gotten into an argument with Nicky over cannabis, who threw a punch out of anger and killed him. The informant also stated that Damien’s body had been hidden in a Cowes drug den for up to three weeks before it was buried near a cycle path.
Valerie informed the police of what she’d learned, and in 2010, new searches and arrests followed, all of which were linked back to the drug scene and Nicky McNamara. Still, authorities supposedly told Valerie the informant couldn’t be trusted as a reliable source.
Nicky couldn’t be questioned, either, as he died of a heroin overdose in 2002. The rumors of his involvement in Damien’s disappearance only surfaced following his death.
The Hampshire Constabulary has since apologized for the CCTV evidence being lost, saying that 1,124 people have participated in the investigation.
“Hampshire Constabulary continues to take action to keep the case open for any new leads. A decision was made in 2012 for the files on Damien Nettles to remain with the force’s Major Crime team for ongoing regular checks,” reads a statement from the police service.
“This move followed an extensive review of all information gathered by police during inquiries into Damien’s disappearance in November 1996.”
Today, Damien’s family is still searching for answers. A Facebook group entitled “Justice For Damien Nettles” has been created to raise awareness about his case, and Valerie continues holding onto hope.
“We will never let go of the light of the hope that someday we will get answers to soothe our tortured souls. We try to follow the light with positivity and hope that one day, the truth will shine on us,” Valerie said.
“Finding his body, or what’s left of it, would be a gift. And it might not end, you know, the distress, but if I could place him somewhere instead of thinking of every awful thing that might have happened to him and wondering if he cried for us.”
Anyone with information regarding Damien’s case is urged to contact the Hampshire Constabulary and cite Operation Ridgewood.
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