Two years ago, I was watching a lot of true crime documentaries. A lot. Square eyes amounts.

Six months prior to that I’d fallen ill, and the consequent long-term health issues and chronic fatigue that struck were so profound I couldn’t walk sometimes; I didn’t have the strength to stand beneath the shower, I had to sit; I couldn’t concentrate enough to read a book let alone write one. I went from someone who loved to go for long walks with her two dogs, who loved jogging, going out with friends, learning new things, to sometimes having to lie on the sofa and work myself up to opening my eyes because my lids felt too heavy. My writing career, which had been starting to take off after three years of hard work, didn’t so much hit the brakes as crash completely.

By February 2019, although I still sometimes struggled to have the energy to read, I’d improved enough to watch TV that required more than two brain cells, and that’s how my true crime documentary addiction started. Then one day, while watching one particular documentary, a family member made an appeal about the crime that struck a chord  with me and made me ask myself: what if the killer were watching, too? What if he/she did get in touch? Why would they, when 25 years has passed since they committed their crime?

On the surface, The Girl In The Missing Poster is about Leila Hawkins, a police cadet who disappeared, aged 19, after leaving her dad’s birthday party during a storm. It’s about far more than that, though. It’s about the emotional impact her disappearance had on her whole family, but particularly her identical twin, Stella.

Even 25 years on, Stella can’t move on. How on earth does a person move on when there are no answers only questions about their loved one’s fate? Fascinated and horrified, I began actively researching various crimes, starting with missing persons and unsolved crimes and moving on from there.

As well as exploring this highly emotive theme through a first-person narrative, The Girl In The Missing Poster also features chapters told in the style of a documentary transcript – because Stella taking part in a documentary is what makes someone get in touch about Leila’s disappearance. Within the framework of the documentary, I have used real crime statistics that are current at the time of writing. It felt natural to me, as I’d spent more than 20 years as a national journalist. Mainly, though, I did it to try, in my own small way, to give a voice to some of the thousands of victims of crimes that go unsolved, the missing who are never found, and the loved ones left at home, forever wondering and never getting answers.

Here are five of the crimes that influenced the writing of The Girl In The Missing Poster:

1 – Jill Dando.

Jill Dando was a well-known BBC journalist, television presenter and newsreader in the UK, particularly famous for being the face of Crimewatch, which ran weekly in-depth reports on crimes, reconstructions, and appeals for information. That was until 26 April 1999, when she was killed with a single gunshot on the steps of her London home.

Fans with theories overwhelmed the police inquiry lines – to this day social media is awash with theories. Eventually, a local man called Barry George was convicted of her murder, but later acquitted. 

While watching a documentary about her death, I was struck by something her brother, Nigel said:

‘I just wish someone could explain to me – or a judge and jury – and tell me why they killed her. It makes no sense to me. It will never make sense to me.’

I tried putting myself in his shoes and started crying at the enormity of it. I rewound the documentary, grabbed a notebook and jotted the line down. I was struck by the incredible sadness of never knowing, and this longing is what sparked the idea of the killer watching the program, too. How would they feel? Pity? Triumph? The urge to apologise? It was like someone had thrown open a window in my brain and scenes and scenarios flooded in…

2 – Renee and Andrew MacRae

I have to highlight Britain’s longest-running missing persons’ inquiry. I’m not someone who is good at dealing with unknowns, so my heart breaks for the family of Renee MacRae, 36, and her three-year-old son, Andrew, who disappeared in 1976.

The pair were last seen leaving Inverness in November that year. Renee’s BMW was later spotted by a passing train driver in a remote lay-by on the A9, near Dalmagarry. A rug stained with blood matching Renee’s blood type was found.

Last year, detectives carried out an extensive forensic search of Leanach Quarry, near Culloden Battlefield. About 13 million liters of water was drained from the flooded quarry, and sediment and silt were removed for detailed forensic examination. Still, no trace of Mrs MacRae or her son were found.

Personally, I can deal with pretty much any truth, but not knowing… Unable to deal with it, I tend to dig and dig and dig until I get answers. It’s probably why I became a journalist, and is also why I now love to explore questions in my fictional books. So what Renee’s family have been through, never knowing what happened, really got inside my head and refused to leave me alone. It swelled until a story was wrapping itself around my question of ‘what if…?’

In real life, since my research was conducted, a pensioner, William MacDowell, 77, has been arrested and charged with two charges of murder and two of perverting the course of justice, and proceedings are on-going. Hopefully, Renee and Andrew’s family will finally have some answers soon.

3- Roman Sosa

Texan man Roman Sosa was murdered and raised from the dead – now who could resist reading more about a story like that? Not me.

Back in 2015, Lulu Sosa offered $2000 to a hitman to murder her husband. What she didn’t know was that the hitman went straight to Roman and the police with the information. Texas Rangers, working with the FBI, then dug a shallow grave for Roman, and covered him in gruesome make-up and fake blood to make it look as though the hit had been carried out. Photographs were then shown to Lulu to ‘prove’ her husband was dead. When she saw them she smiled and shook the hitman’s hand.

Lulu was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to a charge of second-degree felony solicitation of murder. Unsurprisingly, the couple have since divorced and Roman has now written a book about the ordeal.

4- Arkady Babchenko

If you thought Roman’s story was extreme, this goes to a whole new level. Arkady Babchenko is a journalist who, on 29 May 2018, faked his death with the help of Ukrainian authorities. They said the veteran war correspondent had been shot three times in the back as he left his apartment in the capital, Kiev, to buy bread. Even his wife wasn’t in on the secret.

The world’s media condemned his murder, politicians spoke of their shock, and friends and colleagues showered him with posthumous tributes – until the following day when Arkady appeared before a surreal press conference held by Ukraine’s SBU security service. He apologized to his wife for the “nightmare” he had caused her, but insisted there had been no alternative to playing at being dead in order to thwart a plot by Moscow to kill him.

5 – Levi Bellfield

Levi Bellfield is a British serial killer who for a brief time had women in south London terrified, as he targeted blondes, attacking them from behind to smash them on the head with a hammer. I lived in the area he hunted – and I’m blonde – and remember vividly the fear of that period every time I walked home from the train station after work or a night out. Because of that, this case has always particularly resonated with me (Bellfield also influenced another of my books, The Darkest Lies. At one point the serial killer, while still a free man, was cruel enough to befriend a father whose own child had been cruelly murdered).

Within The Girl In The Missing Poster is a tiny nod to Bellfield’s crimes, because during a key scene there is a white van with tinted windows and one wing mirror held in place with tape. This is the van Bellfield drove while hunting his victims – and was also what spelled his downfall when police realized and began to search for it.

On 25 February 2008 he was found guilty of the murders of Marsha McDonnell, 19, and Amélie Delagrange, 22, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, 18, and sentenced to life imprisonment. On 23 June 2011, Bellfield was found guilty of the murder of Milly Dowler, 13.

While I write fiction, I never forget that for some people out there my imaginary world is all too real.

Barbara  Copperthwaite is the Amazon and USA Today bestselling author of psychological thrillers INVISIBLE, FLOWERS FOR THE DEAD, THE DARKEST LIES, and HER LAST SECRET. More importantly, she loves cakes, wildlife photography and, last but definitely not least, her two dogs, Scamp and Buddy (who force her to throw tennis balls for them for hours). Having spent over twenty years as a national newspaper and magazine journalist, Barbara has interviewed the real victims of crime – and also those who have carried those crimes out. She is fascinated by creating realistic, complex characters, and taking them apart before the readers’ eyes in order to discover just how much it takes to push a person over a line. When not writing feverishly, she is often found hiding behind a camera, taking wildlife photographs. 

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