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The desperate mother of a university student has revealed the last message her son sent her before he went missing more than four months ago.
Jack O’Sullivan had been at a house party with friends in Bristol when he left in the early hours of 2 March.
CCTV showed the student, then aged 22, at three locations nearby, but despite a major search operation and a police investigation, it’s still not known where the Manchester United supporter went.
To add to the mystery, his mobile phone showed data usage to the equivalent of a nine-minute video after the last sighting, before coming off the network at 6.44am.
Jack’s mother, Catherine O’Sullivan, told The Independent the family was trying everything to get answers on his disappearance with a £20,000 reward now up for information.
She also revealed more on what happened the night of his disappearance, including WhatsApp messages sent to and from Jack’s phone.
She said: “I messaged because he was at a party with people he only recently knew, and he replied to say he was okay. At 1.52am, he messaged to say he was leaving shortly to go home, he said he was going to get an Uber.”
But after the hours passed at the family home in Flax Bourton, a village around six miles from Bristol, Ms O’Sullivan was anxious when she woke up and he wasn’t there.
She said: “I woke up at 5.20am and called several times and it rang for four or five tones before going to voicemail. The phone was still on.
“I sent him a WhatsApp at 5.30am, asking “where are you?”. It delivered at 5.40am, but I heard nothing back. We then know his phone stopped working on the network at 6.44am.”
She added: “It gets harder everyday not knowing what’s happened, we all just want Jack to come home, we’re desperate.”
Avon and Somerset Police launched an investigation into Jack’s disappearance, releasing CCTV images and footage appearing to show Jack lost or unsure where to go as he walked back on himself two times in the Hotwells area of the city.
He’s first seen walking onto the grass area at the junction of Brunel Lock Way and Brunel Way, before walking back in the direction of the party and over Plimsol Bridge, before heading back toward the bridge.
“Jack knew a restaurant [Lockside] in the area we’d been to which has since reopened as something else [Noah’s], so he might have been lost and decided to head back to get a taxi from Hotwells,” Ms O’Sullivan said.
The police force said it had carried out CCTV trawls, house-to-house enquiries and deployed a specialist dive team to search the basin and the wider River Avon close to where he was last seen.
But the family believe officers should have done more, and lodged a complaint last month.
They say there were mistakes, including how CCTV footage was initially missed and an alleged failure to add Jack to the national Missing People’s Register until he had been missing for more than two months.
Ms O’Sullivan said the family were now restricted to a weekly email update from the force, and added: “We’re working on our own now.”
A GoFundMe page, raising almost £30,000 so far, has provided £20,000 reward money, while cash will also be used to help in the search.
Last week, a clone SIM card of Jack’s phone was sent to a cyber security specialist team to investigate data usage after he went missing. The family are also considering hiring a search and rescue team to look in inaccessible areas.
She said: “We are desperate to find answers and we won’t ever give up for Jack.”
An Avon and Somerset Police spokesperson said: ""This investigation has included reviewing and re-reviewing more than 100 hours of CCTV footage, carrying out expert-led searches by land and water involving multiple teams, including the dog unit, drone unit and specialist dive team, proactively seeking and acting on advice from national policing specialists, and issuing multiple appeals to the public and media for information.
“We’re continuing to seek further guidance and support from national experts, including an oceanographer, and we’ll be following any advice they offer. "Sadly, despite the efforts carried out to date, we’ve been unable to find Jack. We fully recognise the distress and anguish this has had on Jack’s family and our thoughts remain very much with them.”
The public is urged to contact the family’s campaign with any information on findjack23@gmail.com, or police on 101 or 999 quoting reference 5224055172.
