On September 10, 1988, 15-year-old Lee Boxell left his home in Sutton, Surrey, to watch Crystal Palace play at nearby Selhurst Park. He has not been seen or heard of since. 'Every year that day comes around, it's very hard,' Chris, his mother, says. 'Christmases, his 18th, his 21st, they've all been and gone, but how can you celebrate?'
Chris and her husband Peter still live in the same neat, modern terrace house, a picture of Lee standing just to the right of the fireplace in the sitting room. 'I suppose we could have moved, but I would dread the thought that he could come back here some day and find us gone.'
Chris gets out a number of scrapbooks that document the lengths they have gone to in order to find out what happened to Lee. They are full of newspaper and magazine cuttings - dozens of articles, details of television interviews and football club appeals. There are reports of rivers and ponds being dragged, empty properties being entered and examined. At first there were 25 detectives on the case and an incident room was set up in Sutton High Street, but with no information coming in, within a few months it was down to four detectives.
'I was keeping the campaign going,' Chris says. 'If not, I would have gone to pieces. Now I feel very guilty that my life was centred on looking for Lee because, to be honest, I forgot about my daughter, Lindsay. She really needed me and I haven't given her enough. If she had gone missing, of course I would have done the same.
'My husband used to spend all his spare time wandering the streets around here and in central London, looking for any information on Lee. There was never anything. I always ask the police what they think may have happened and I always get the same reply: they don't know. There's no evidence of life and no evidence of death.' There have been moments when their hopes have been raised. 'One day Peter was outside working on his car when a man came round asking for the Boxells. He said, "I think I know where your son is. He's in Greenford Market." Peter went there straight away. There was someone who did look exactly like Lee, but it wasn't him.'
The family has offered a reward of £25,000 for information on Lee, but no one has come forward. 'We had beermats made, milk cartons, pop videos. The Body Shop printed his picture on the side of their delivery vehicles. It's been endless.'
Upstairs, Lee's bedroom is the same as the day he left, 19 years ago. The calendar is set on the same day. His vinyl records, books, clothes, even his school uniform remain. Lee would now be 34. 'People say, why don't you clear it all away?' Chris says. 'I can't. Even his Old Spice aftershave is there! Not many kids use that these days. I have to hope that one day he will come back to us. For many years I wouldn't even go on holiday.
'I have been to see clairvoyants. I wanted someone to tell me that he's alive. I know it's all rubbish, but it helped me at the time. I know that with other kids who have gone missing, after a while their families agree to pronounce them dead. But I can't do that. When I know for certain, that's different.'
