Unsolved: The Boy Who Disappeared (2016) s01e08 Episode Script
The Dig
Good boy.
Come on.
All right, lad.
We're putting aa probe in.
And we're going to let any scent come to the surface.
You can see the water dripping through.
And it And it Mick is a former policeman who specialises in searching for bodies.
Come here.
Come here Damien Nettles was buried in these woods 20 years ago, according to a former dealer close to Nicky McNamara, the chief suspect in this unsolved mystery.
Though the source has no first-hand evidence for this, Damien's family and friends have been digging for his body here for five years.
I'm his mother, and I don't stop thinking about Damien ever, because that's the worst thing - it's not knowing where he is.
This is the first time a cadaver dog has been used.
Good boy.
If this was a modern-day police investigation, then it'd all get stripped off.
Mmm.
All the ivy would get moved.
Any trees that weren't protected that were younger than 1996, they would get brought up.
Mmm.
It's exhausting - just a lot of emotions, a lot of memories, and a lot of fears, you know that they're going to find him, because I don't know what I would do.
I don't have a marker.
I don't have a marker for where my baby is.
I don't have a HER VOICE BREAKS I don't have a grave and I don't have closure.
Just here, something has gone has been cut here.
Yeah.
The reason I called you up was because And that's with no effort.
So, there's some reason why this soil here isn't as solid as that soil there.
HE KNOCKS ON THE SOIL There's something there.
There's something down there.
Yeah.
You can hear it.
I'm going to put the dog over here, and then this area, here, needs some careful looking at.
See? Come on, round here.
Round here.
Right.
No.
He says no but it still needs looking at.
Just belt and braces Yeah, let's do it.
.
.
we need to see what's down there.
Hold it.
Bash down on it so they can hear.
KNOCKING ON SOIL And it's, like, hollow underneath.
That doesn't sound Yeah.
Yeah, again, there's a plank of wood's been laid across.
Yeah.
We've just pulled all these up that were laid.
We've just pulled all them Well, Paula has just pulled all them out.
She's our digger.
Right.
And if you see, there's another hole that way, as well.
'Paula and Kayleigh are friends of the Nettles family.
' Out of his character, really.
He was quite shy and introverted, but always around, you know, for the good times.
Something's under here.
It's like decking wood.
Without a doubt, this has been dug before.
SHOVEL THUMPS Why it's been dug before is anybody's guess.
'Though they've dug several feet, there's no sign of a body.
' Well, I'm sure you've had false alarms before.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
It could have been dug for any reason, for all we know.
We believe that the answers are in here, and that's what keeps us going.
The police say they have carried out over 40 searches in relation to Damien's case, but they do not believe there is credible evidence for looking here.
We need to find him.
You know, he is my friend.
But if he was my son, you'd have to.
He needs And who else is going to? Who else is going to? Exactly that.
Sit.
Come on, hound.
It kind of goes to show just how desperate they are, that they, kind of, just have to take it into their own hands.
I mean, it's so dark.
I can't believe you would be digging for your friend's body.
I'd be afraid that I'd find him.
16-year-old boys don't go missing every day.
Not in a town the size of Cowes they don't.
No.
It would have been a big event.
'We've been on the Isle of Wight investigating Damien's 'disappearance for three months.
'As we prepare to leave, 'the dealer who brought us to these woods offers us one final lead.
'He tells us he saw Nicky McNamara and some associates putting 'a large sail-bag into a car not long after Damien disappeared.
'Our source believes Damien's corpse was inside the bag.
'He remembers clearly the house they carried it out of.
' This is 18 Fellows Road.
This is where we've been told they took Damien's body after he was killed, and kept him here for up to three weeks.
This is the same house that was notorious as a drug den in 1996, and two of the names always associated with Damien's death - Nicky McNamara and Bunny Isles - used to live here.
So, Jon Isles or Bunny Isles was from that group closely associated with Nicky McNamara and could give his first-hand version of whether or not he thought Nicky Mac could have been capable of it.
Yeah.
There's a direct connection between these two, cos they were brothers in arms for years.
If anybody's going to know what Nicky McNamara did, it's him.
They were partners in crime.
Yeah.
They lived together, worked together, and sold drugs together.
As Nicky left me, and he walked away, I witnessed Bunny Isles was also there in the street.
Anyway, they all went off down the high street towards the fountain.
Our source, The Weatherman, also claims Bunny Isles was with Nicky McNamara the night Damien disappeared, in the very place Damien was last seen.
Back then, Bunny Isles was one of the biggest dealers on the island.
He has over 30 criminal convictions.
When we track him down, he makes an astonishing offer.
I mean, I need to digest it, but he said, like, without, um, hesitation, "I will sit in front of Valerie Nettles.
" And that would be hard to do if you weren't Yes, I know, I know.
I mean, for him to agree to that Mm.
I do think, as you suggest, that he will do an interview.
I think he will, as well.
Let's get him to meet Valerie.
If she'll meet him, this is going to be a big thing for her.
He said he wanted to meet you.
Really? Yes.
Well, it would be an opportunity.
I would be interested to know what someone like him has to say, because there is no doubt in my mind that if I can speak to these people directly, then I can cut through all the crap that I'm hearing.
I hear these names all the time.
Quite honestly, I'm sick of hearing them.
I'm sick of wondering.
Because all I get is these names brought up, over and over again.
We do know now that we can't stand up for anything he's going to tell us No.
Would he lie to you? Well, he may.
He may.
Wouldn't be the first time I've been lied to.
There is no evidence Bunny Isles killed Damien, but he has been linked to his disappearance for years.
Iles was the chief suspect Nicky McNamara's closest ally.
Now he's going to talk publicly about Damien for the first time.
It feels like the last chance, for both us and the Nettles family.
I've only ever heard the name Nicholas McNamara from the police after he died.
Obviously, you were friends with him, so, your name got in the frame.
You knew these people pretty well.
Very well, yes.
And your impression would be, what, that? Like I say, I can 101% tell you that I know nothing about it, knew nothing about it, had nothing to do with it.
I can tell you I'm 99.
999% sure my best friends at that time, I do not think had anything to do with it.
If they did, they was a master of disguise - I defy anyone to do something like that and not change.
It's impossible, Valerie, surely, isn't it? I've never seen him start trouble, that's for sure.
Never.
Was he capable of something like that? No, I don't think so, no.
I'll say we had a few fights in our time, but every one of them fights, everyone got home at the end of the night and was drinking in the pub the next day or next weekend, you know.
Well, what makes you so sure that he couldn't have thrown a punch that went terribly wrong and then decided to I can't be so sure he didn't do it, but I don't think he did do it.
You know Did you and Nicky tell each other pretty much everything? Like, yous were as close as brothers, were yous? Yeah, pretty close, yeah.
And did you notice any change in his behaviour, around '96? None whatsoever.
At any stage, until he died? No, that's why I can be 99.
99% sure, because I defy anyone to do something like that and keep it inside 'em.
How many times have the cops talked to you, questioned you, over Damien? Four times, probably.
Three addresses of mine, they've searched.
The last three I've lived at.
And they were asking the same questions then as in the beginning? No, that's when they let slip, the last time, that I'd turned up at a flat .
.
to dispose of Damien's body.
That is what they told me.
Hm.
Sounds rum.
That was a well-known place.
Yes, yeah, probably the well-knownest place on the Isle of Wight at the time.
You were operating in Cowes? Cowes, Newport You and Nicky Mac.
There was more than two of us, there was a big group of us.
And yous came and had it all sewn up? Yeah, we had most of the clubs sewn up, most of the pubs sewn up.
The ones we didn't have sewn up, we wouldn't go in.
How much would you have come into contact with people, younger guys? Not many, not at all, no.
What age were you back then? Damien was 16.
It's 1996.
I was 31.
Damien Nettles' name never came into any of our lives until the day we started getting arrested.
You know, I don't know anything about that.
I have no violence on my record at all.
All my records are drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs.
And to think your son, who How old was he? He was 16.
I don't know what it was that was said, that he owed us drug debts, whatever - do you think we would be lending 16-year-olds that sort of drugs to cause that sort of trouble? It would be daft for a 16-year-old to approach our group at that time, you know? We was all off our heads on drugs, doing crazy things, yes.
And that's all we did do.
We never committed any murders or got rid of any bodies or had any involvement in anything like that.
And that's with my hand on my heart, 100%.
You know, that's all I can say about that, I hope you believe me.
So I hope it does get solved.
And I think, hopefully one day, it will, for your sake, it will get solved, I think.
Was that what you expected, Val? Er, it's what I hoped for, because, um, he was amenable, he was very, very honest about his past.
You know, he didn't pull any punches, he didn't hide anything.
I mean, his reputation precedes him anyway.
But has Bunny Isles told Valerie the whole truth? 'Damien Nettles' name never come into any of our lives' 'It would be daft for a 16-year-old 'to approach our group at that time, you know?' Chris Boone was Damien's best friend when he disappeared, and when Bunny Isles was dealing from Fellows Road.
I lived in Fellows Road.
You know, it was well known that that's where you could get drugs from, down at the bottom of Fellows Road.
Would there had been a time that you and Damien went to Fellows Road? Yes, definitely.
You know, his mum might drop him off at our house or something, then we'd walk down the road, and I would normally wait round the corner, then Damien would be round five minutes later.
I can quite clearly say that Damien has been in contact, can't I, with Bunny Isles? Yeah.
In Fellows Road.
Yeah.
Do you remember the first time I talked to you? Yes.
You remember that? Yeah.
We started to talk about the drugs thing.
You got really anxious, I don't know if you realised it.
You really were very anxious and your body language was like, "I need to get out of here, I need to get away from you.
" There's been a long journey since that, obviously, and you've come to know us.
Is it a bit easier now to tell us the truth of it? It is, and also, you know I didn't intend not to talk about it the first time, but I was probably being a bit cagey.
I feel closer to Damien here and it's going to be hard for me to leave.
I would love more time here, just to be VOICE BREAKING: .
.
just to be closer to where he was.
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, you know, if he died because someone If somebody did something to him, beat him If someone murdered him, if he knew what was going on, did he did he call for us?
Come on.
All right, lad.
We're putting aa probe in.
And we're going to let any scent come to the surface.
You can see the water dripping through.
And it And it Mick is a former policeman who specialises in searching for bodies.
Come here.
Come here Damien Nettles was buried in these woods 20 years ago, according to a former dealer close to Nicky McNamara, the chief suspect in this unsolved mystery.
Though the source has no first-hand evidence for this, Damien's family and friends have been digging for his body here for five years.
I'm his mother, and I don't stop thinking about Damien ever, because that's the worst thing - it's not knowing where he is.
This is the first time a cadaver dog has been used.
Good boy.
If this was a modern-day police investigation, then it'd all get stripped off.
Mmm.
All the ivy would get moved.
Any trees that weren't protected that were younger than 1996, they would get brought up.
Mmm.
It's exhausting - just a lot of emotions, a lot of memories, and a lot of fears, you know that they're going to find him, because I don't know what I would do.
I don't have a marker.
I don't have a marker for where my baby is.
I don't have a HER VOICE BREAKS I don't have a grave and I don't have closure.
Just here, something has gone has been cut here.
Yeah.
The reason I called you up was because And that's with no effort.
So, there's some reason why this soil here isn't as solid as that soil there.
HE KNOCKS ON THE SOIL There's something there.
There's something down there.
Yeah.
You can hear it.
I'm going to put the dog over here, and then this area, here, needs some careful looking at.
See? Come on, round here.
Round here.
Right.
No.
He says no but it still needs looking at.
Just belt and braces Yeah, let's do it.
.
.
we need to see what's down there.
Hold it.
Bash down on it so they can hear.
KNOCKING ON SOIL And it's, like, hollow underneath.
That doesn't sound Yeah.
Yeah, again, there's a plank of wood's been laid across.
Yeah.
We've just pulled all these up that were laid.
We've just pulled all them Well, Paula has just pulled all them out.
She's our digger.
Right.
And if you see, there's another hole that way, as well.
'Paula and Kayleigh are friends of the Nettles family.
' Out of his character, really.
He was quite shy and introverted, but always around, you know, for the good times.
Something's under here.
It's like decking wood.
Without a doubt, this has been dug before.
SHOVEL THUMPS Why it's been dug before is anybody's guess.
'Though they've dug several feet, there's no sign of a body.
' Well, I'm sure you've had false alarms before.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
It could have been dug for any reason, for all we know.
We believe that the answers are in here, and that's what keeps us going.
The police say they have carried out over 40 searches in relation to Damien's case, but they do not believe there is credible evidence for looking here.
We need to find him.
You know, he is my friend.
But if he was my son, you'd have to.
He needs And who else is going to? Who else is going to? Exactly that.
Sit.
Come on, hound.
It kind of goes to show just how desperate they are, that they, kind of, just have to take it into their own hands.
I mean, it's so dark.
I can't believe you would be digging for your friend's body.
I'd be afraid that I'd find him.
16-year-old boys don't go missing every day.
Not in a town the size of Cowes they don't.
No.
It would have been a big event.
'We've been on the Isle of Wight investigating Damien's 'disappearance for three months.
'As we prepare to leave, 'the dealer who brought us to these woods offers us one final lead.
'He tells us he saw Nicky McNamara and some associates putting 'a large sail-bag into a car not long after Damien disappeared.
'Our source believes Damien's corpse was inside the bag.
'He remembers clearly the house they carried it out of.
' This is 18 Fellows Road.
This is where we've been told they took Damien's body after he was killed, and kept him here for up to three weeks.
This is the same house that was notorious as a drug den in 1996, and two of the names always associated with Damien's death - Nicky McNamara and Bunny Isles - used to live here.
So, Jon Isles or Bunny Isles was from that group closely associated with Nicky McNamara and could give his first-hand version of whether or not he thought Nicky Mac could have been capable of it.
Yeah.
There's a direct connection between these two, cos they were brothers in arms for years.
If anybody's going to know what Nicky McNamara did, it's him.
They were partners in crime.
Yeah.
They lived together, worked together, and sold drugs together.
As Nicky left me, and he walked away, I witnessed Bunny Isles was also there in the street.
Anyway, they all went off down the high street towards the fountain.
Our source, The Weatherman, also claims Bunny Isles was with Nicky McNamara the night Damien disappeared, in the very place Damien was last seen.
Back then, Bunny Isles was one of the biggest dealers on the island.
He has over 30 criminal convictions.
When we track him down, he makes an astonishing offer.
I mean, I need to digest it, but he said, like, without, um, hesitation, "I will sit in front of Valerie Nettles.
" And that would be hard to do if you weren't Yes, I know, I know.
I mean, for him to agree to that Mm.
I do think, as you suggest, that he will do an interview.
I think he will, as well.
Let's get him to meet Valerie.
If she'll meet him, this is going to be a big thing for her.
He said he wanted to meet you.
Really? Yes.
Well, it would be an opportunity.
I would be interested to know what someone like him has to say, because there is no doubt in my mind that if I can speak to these people directly, then I can cut through all the crap that I'm hearing.
I hear these names all the time.
Quite honestly, I'm sick of hearing them.
I'm sick of wondering.
Because all I get is these names brought up, over and over again.
We do know now that we can't stand up for anything he's going to tell us No.
Would he lie to you? Well, he may.
He may.
Wouldn't be the first time I've been lied to.
There is no evidence Bunny Isles killed Damien, but he has been linked to his disappearance for years.
Iles was the chief suspect Nicky McNamara's closest ally.
Now he's going to talk publicly about Damien for the first time.
It feels like the last chance, for both us and the Nettles family.
I've only ever heard the name Nicholas McNamara from the police after he died.
Obviously, you were friends with him, so, your name got in the frame.
You knew these people pretty well.
Very well, yes.
And your impression would be, what, that? Like I say, I can 101% tell you that I know nothing about it, knew nothing about it, had nothing to do with it.
I can tell you I'm 99.
999% sure my best friends at that time, I do not think had anything to do with it.
If they did, they was a master of disguise - I defy anyone to do something like that and not change.
It's impossible, Valerie, surely, isn't it? I've never seen him start trouble, that's for sure.
Never.
Was he capable of something like that? No, I don't think so, no.
I'll say we had a few fights in our time, but every one of them fights, everyone got home at the end of the night and was drinking in the pub the next day or next weekend, you know.
Well, what makes you so sure that he couldn't have thrown a punch that went terribly wrong and then decided to I can't be so sure he didn't do it, but I don't think he did do it.
You know Did you and Nicky tell each other pretty much everything? Like, yous were as close as brothers, were yous? Yeah, pretty close, yeah.
And did you notice any change in his behaviour, around '96? None whatsoever.
At any stage, until he died? No, that's why I can be 99.
99% sure, because I defy anyone to do something like that and keep it inside 'em.
How many times have the cops talked to you, questioned you, over Damien? Four times, probably.
Three addresses of mine, they've searched.
The last three I've lived at.
And they were asking the same questions then as in the beginning? No, that's when they let slip, the last time, that I'd turned up at a flat .
.
to dispose of Damien's body.
That is what they told me.
Hm.
Sounds rum.
That was a well-known place.
Yes, yeah, probably the well-knownest place on the Isle of Wight at the time.
You were operating in Cowes? Cowes, Newport You and Nicky Mac.
There was more than two of us, there was a big group of us.
And yous came and had it all sewn up? Yeah, we had most of the clubs sewn up, most of the pubs sewn up.
The ones we didn't have sewn up, we wouldn't go in.
How much would you have come into contact with people, younger guys? Not many, not at all, no.
What age were you back then? Damien was 16.
It's 1996.
I was 31.
Damien Nettles' name never came into any of our lives until the day we started getting arrested.
You know, I don't know anything about that.
I have no violence on my record at all.
All my records are drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs.
And to think your son, who How old was he? He was 16.
I don't know what it was that was said, that he owed us drug debts, whatever - do you think we would be lending 16-year-olds that sort of drugs to cause that sort of trouble? It would be daft for a 16-year-old to approach our group at that time, you know? We was all off our heads on drugs, doing crazy things, yes.
And that's all we did do.
We never committed any murders or got rid of any bodies or had any involvement in anything like that.
And that's with my hand on my heart, 100%.
You know, that's all I can say about that, I hope you believe me.
So I hope it does get solved.
And I think, hopefully one day, it will, for your sake, it will get solved, I think.
Was that what you expected, Val? Er, it's what I hoped for, because, um, he was amenable, he was very, very honest about his past.
You know, he didn't pull any punches, he didn't hide anything.
I mean, his reputation precedes him anyway.
But has Bunny Isles told Valerie the whole truth? 'Damien Nettles' name never come into any of our lives' 'It would be daft for a 16-year-old 'to approach our group at that time, you know?' Chris Boone was Damien's best friend when he disappeared, and when Bunny Isles was dealing from Fellows Road.
I lived in Fellows Road.
You know, it was well known that that's where you could get drugs from, down at the bottom of Fellows Road.
Would there had been a time that you and Damien went to Fellows Road? Yes, definitely.
You know, his mum might drop him off at our house or something, then we'd walk down the road, and I would normally wait round the corner, then Damien would be round five minutes later.
I can quite clearly say that Damien has been in contact, can't I, with Bunny Isles? Yeah.
In Fellows Road.
Yeah.
Do you remember the first time I talked to you? Yes.
You remember that? Yeah.
We started to talk about the drugs thing.
You got really anxious, I don't know if you realised it.
You really were very anxious and your body language was like, "I need to get out of here, I need to get away from you.
" There's been a long journey since that, obviously, and you've come to know us.
Is it a bit easier now to tell us the truth of it? It is, and also, you know I didn't intend not to talk about it the first time, but I was probably being a bit cagey.
I feel closer to Damien here and it's going to be hard for me to leave.
I would love more time here, just to be VOICE BREAKING: .
.
just to be closer to where he was.
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, you know, if he died because someone If somebody did something to him, beat him If someone murdered him, if he knew what was going on, did he did he call for us?