Good Evening All!
I have only really picked up on this case quite recently and a baffling one it is, I was lurking here for a while and just watched Nicola’s walk around and the part in Hughes doorway is what concerns me. I am sure this may have been suggested in previous threads so my apologies if it has!
I don’t believe someone to be “just” drunk to collapse and be out cold like that and not move at all for two hours and wake up that confused.
I think Corrie may have been spiked with/taken GHB, which is a liquid drug commonly used for date rape or simply to party with. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s liquid and it’s put into your drink. The effect generally makes you feel like happy drunk (hence party goer’s use) but when you take too much it will hit you out of nowhere and you are rendered unconscious (hence the date rape usage)
It can take about 30 minutes to kick in, so it could be quite possible he may have picked up the wrong drink in Flex or he was spiked and by the time he got to the door way it hit him. Although he was removed from Flex and a bit unsteady he seemed of piece of mind still according to those who he interacted with at Pizza Mamma Mia. To me that’s happy merry drunk, he wasn’t paraletic drunk where he needed people to carry and aid him, so I find it highly suspicious a happy merry drunk would slump and collapse out cold like that for 2 hours and not move at all, he would have sat down and at least fidgeted to get comfy, where as GHB hits you and your out cold. Also when you wake up from it, your in a complete state of confusion with no memory of what’s happened and that explains the confusion in the doorway for 20 minutes! Someone just drunk and had a two hour sleep will wake up a bit more compesmentas than even worse. I believe this more so than him hitting his head.
A somewhat similar situation happened to me when I picked up the wrong drink in a club (it was a friends drink who took GHB volunterily so nothing untoward) but one minute I was stood there and next minute I was out cold, luckily my friends carried me home and put me safely to bed. When I woke up the utter state of confusion and discombobulation was really surreal. I had no idea where I had been, who I’d been with or what day or time it was. The clubbing clothes gave it away I’d been out, I literally wandered around my apartment in a daze, when I finally found my phone (which was a task in itself in that state) it took me ages to even figure the thing out and find my messages. In fact it said Sunday 4am on it and I was convinced it was Sunday night (ie Monday morning) and I had work in 3 hours! It took a good hour to properly get myself back together and call friends to ask what happened. Complete black out.
Sorry for rambling, I guess what I’m getting at is if he blacked out because of GHB it explains that bizarre confusion for such a longtime.
None of this really explains what happened after he disappeared from the HS but it gives you an insight to what peace of mind he was in.
And trust me, in that state there is absolutely no way he would have been able to arrange a lift or hook up, and he certainly wouldn’t have been able to remember where his car was, or if he even had one (explains why he didn’t just go back to it) and also to why he didn’t bother to look at his phone or use it at all when he woke because even if he had a prearranged lift/hook up he probably wouldn’t remember, so there was no urgency to check his phone.
He does look a little confused going into the HS, looking around and he was a little unsteady, he may have just turned the wrong way and that point had no idea where he was and simply walked back out again (by doing so missed the CCTV rotation) or could have been so out of sorts he dropped his phone and just chucked it in the bin.
However he left, if he had taken GHB you can bet your bottom dollar he wouldn’t have been in sane state of mind for quite a while afterwards and it’s not a nice feeling at all, much worse than drunk confusion, he could have wandered off not having a clue where he was and had an accident. He could have been wandering around for ages dazed.
Sorry for the long post I just wanted to put that out there. Doesn’t really answer anything mind but it certainly seems possible drawing on my own experience