Become an Apple Subscriber or Patron to listen.
On Tuesday, February 19, 2008, a call came through to the police as a woman frantically explained that her 9-year-old daughter was missing. 33-year-old Karen Matthews told investigators that her daughter, Shannon Matthews, had last been seen at her school, Westmoor Junior School in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire after she’d been on a swimming trip, but Karen was worried since she hadn’t come home from school. Shannon lived a half-mile from the school at the home she shared with her mom & three siblings.
As time ticked by & Shannon still hadn’t come home, missing posters were hung & distributed while 250 officers & 60 detectives combed the area with the help of local residents, family & friends. In the process, more than 3,000 homes were searched while 1,500 area drivers were questioned with the hope of finding the little girl unharmed. Every park was searched while 75% of the country’s police dogs were utilized.
Separate searches were also conducted in other areas of West Yorkshire, Cumbria & Nottinghamshire. Investigators combed through more than 800 CCTV tapes & hard drives in hopes of catching a glimpse of the young girl.
Shannon’s case became the biggest inquiry in the area since the Yorkshire Ripper when Peter Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women & attempting to murder 7 others between 1975-1980. The investigation was believed to have cost upwards of £3.2 million.
On Friday, February 22, detectives revealed the fact that Shannon had voiced her desire to leave home prior to her disappearance. She’d scribbled a note on her bedroom wall that said she wanted to see her biological father more often. During this time, investigators conveyed their dire concern regarding Shannon’s safety.
By March 1, 11 days after Shannon vanished, The Sun offered a reward of £20,000 & eleven days later, the reward was upped to £50,000 on March 12. Meanwhile, Karen, a mother of seven, made a number of tearful public appeals for the safe return of her daughter.
It was about this time that a couple of people began to notice Karen’s questionable behavior. This included Detective Constable Christine Freeman, the family liaison officer assigned to the case. Freeman’s gut instinct kicked into gear when she noticed red flags popping up in regards to the way that Karen was behaving after her 9-year-old vanished.
When Christine arrived at Matthew’s home one day, she found Karen & her boyfriend, Craig Meehan, casually playing video games on the Xbox. It seemed an odd scene during such a dire time. Despite the fact that she was there to help in finding Shannon, Karen barely acknowledged her presence. A few minutes later Christine’s phone began to ring, chiming the tune of a pop song. The detective found it exceptionally strange when Karen stood up & began to dance; the woman seemed so carefree while her daughter’s whereabouts were unknown.
Not only was Detective Freeman noticing this strange behavior, but as was Karen’s close friend, Natalie Brown. During times that Karen would come by to stay at her house, Natalie noticed that while the cameras were rolling, her tears seemed forced & when it was just them at the house, Karen seemed very normal & happy. She began to question the authenticity of her friend’s story at this point in time.
During one visit, while the TV was on in the house, Shannon’s face flashed across the screen & Natalie’s daughter voiced her hope that Shannon would come home safely. Natalie wanted to be transparent with her oldest daughter & reminded her that they had to prepare for the fact that unfortunately, that might not happen. Natalie was baffled when Karen suddenly stepped in & said, Look, she’s famous now, she’s on TV. Don’t worry, she’s coming home.
Despite the fact that Karen had been urged by investigators to limit her exposure with the press in order to protect her child & her case, Natalie was shocked to see that her friend was not heeding this advice & went outside to make a statement to awaiting reporters. She got the sense that Karen was relishing in the attention rather than grieving the fact that her daughter was missing, her whereabouts still unknown.
On March 14, 2008, when Shannon had been missing for 24 days, a woman contacted investigators to report that she heard the sound of a child’s footsteps in the flat above despite the fact that she knew that man who lived there did not have any children.
As officers arrived, the resident didn’t answer the door so they were forced to break into the flat in question in Lidgate Gardens. As they got further into the home, they could hear the sounds of a girl’s voice. Following the sound, they moved toward a bedroom. Once inside, they could hear the muffled voice more clearly as the little girl said, Stop it, you’re frightening me. This was the moment they discovered Shannon Matthews.
Shannon was hidden in the base of a divan bed, in the hollow area of the bed’s frame that holds a drawer. This location was only one mile from Shannon’s own home & was occupied by a man named Michael Mick Donovan.
40-year-old Donovan was born Paul Drake & had a learning disability with an IQ of about half of the national average. He also had a connection to the Matthews family; he was the uncle of Karen’s partner, Craig Meehan.
It turned out that Donovan was home when officers arrived, but he refused to answer the door. Within minutes of investigators entering the flat, Donovan burst into tears & told investigators, Get Karen down here. We’d got a plan. We’re sharing the money – £50,000.
Shannon had been tethered to a long elastic strap that was knotted to a roof beam with a loop at the end. The restraint was long enough to allow her to move about the flat without allowing her to leave. When Donovan would leave to run an errand, he would tether Shannon so that she couldn’t escape. Investigators also learned that the young girl was also drugged with sedatives during her time in captivity.
They came to find that when she was on her way home from school on February 19, Donovan lured her into his car with the promise of taking her to the fair. Instead, he took her to his flat in Batley Carr.
For 24 days, the 9-year-old little girl was drugged & ordered to obey a set of rules so that she wouldn’t be discovered; she wasn’t allowed to go near windows, the TV volume had to be kept low & she wasn’t allowed to do anything without Donvan’s permission. In the meantime, Karen had been the mastermind of the plan & was the face of the media, tearfully asking the public for help in finding her daughter.
Karen concocted the idea to eventually release Shannon in Dewsbury market where Donovan would find her & claim the various rewards which they would then split 50/50. Donovan was arrested on the scene & charged with kidnapping & false imprisonment
Following the police investigation, Karen Matthews was arrested on April 8, 2008, less than a month later & charged with child neglect & perverting the course of justice. It’s believed that Karen & Donovan had been plotting this foolproof plan for some time despite the fact that Donovan had a clear connection to Karen which would have likely roused suspicions had he found Shannon & come to collect the reward money had their plan not been foiled after Shannon was found in his apartment.
During her police interviews, a detective asked Karen if she called 999 to make it seem as if her daughter was missing when in reality, she was not & she agreed with this statement. As tears streamed down her face, she also said, People will hate me for what I’ve done. I’ve disgraced the kids.
Even prior to Shannon’s disappearance, the Matthews family had been known to social services when they became involved after the birth of her first child in April 1996 due to concerns of neglect. The child was placed on the child protection register for 20 months & removed after Karen attended required parenting classes & was believed to provide safe & adequate parenting. Karen was also assessed by psychologists in 1997 & 2004 who determined that she had a borderline learning disability.
By late 2003, two of the three of her children who had been placed on the register had been removed, but were assessed as needing section 17 support which is in place to promote a child’s welfare with financial assistance as well as other support.
When Shannon was discovered & Karen’s sick plan was revealed to the public, social workers were blamed in the media for not protecting the girl. However, it was ultimately determined that Shannon’s abduction was something that could not have been anticipated.
The trial was held at Leeds Crown Court in December 2008. During this time, it was revealed that Shannon had not only been drugged while she remained concealed in Donovan’s flat for 24 days. A forensic toxicologist told the court that her hair samples proved that she had regular doses of the strong hypnotic drug temazepam that were ingested over an extended period dating back twenty months.
Trace amounts of temazepam as well as Melcozine, which is used for motion sickness, was found in Shannon’s urine after she was discovered which indicated that she ingested these two drugs up to 72 hours before the sample was taken. Melcozine had the side effect of causing drowsiness.
The court also learned that during the investigation, Karen was asked to write out a family tree so their addresses could be checked & she purposely left Donvan’s name off.
Both Karen & Donovan pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, false imprisonment & perverting the course of justice, but they were each found guilty & sentenced to eight years in prison.
Karen was released in 2012 after she served only four years, half of her sentence. She quickly cut & dyed her hair & is said to have moved to the south of the country where she spent time volunteering in a Christian charity shop. After she was photographed by the press in her probation house, she has since changed her identity.
During a 2018 interview with The Mirror, Karen spoke out for the first time regarding her life after her release from prison. During this time, she spoke about her fear of dying alone. Regardless of being found guilty & serving her time, she insists that she is innocent of plotting to kidnap her own daughter. She also said, I’m not Britain’s worst mum. I didn’t kill anybody.. From the start I didn’t know where she was. Others were involved. I didn’t have a clue. You can’t kidnap your own child. I know the truth & I wasn’t involved in it. I still have nightmares thinking that it’s all going to happen again.
Michael Donovan, like Karen, was also released from prison in 2012 after serving half of his sentence. However, he was reportedly called back to prison later that year after breaching his parole conditions during an incident in Leeds Market.
Since his release in 2012, Donovan changed his name to Aiden Johnson & had been at the secure mental health hospital, Three Valleys Hospital in Keighley. In February 2024, Donovan was diagnosed with stage 3 throat cancer & after he collapsed in the courtyard at the hospital, he was pronounced dead on April 16, 2024 at age 54.
After Donovan’s death, Karen’s boyfriend, Paul Saunders, spoke out to the media & said that she was over the moon at the news of his death as he elaborated, It’s the best news she’s had in ages. Karen hopes he rots in hell, we both do. Donovan is scum, we hope that he had a painful death. With this statement, he stressed Karen’s innocence & that Donovan was solely responsible for Shannon’s kidnapping.
After Shannon was rescued from Donovan’s apartment, she was given a different identity & a new family. For her ongoing safety, a special order was put into place to prevent her family from contacting her. Karen had seven children altogether by five different fathers, who like Shannon, were also given new identities & homes.
Despite the fact that Craig Meehan, Karen’s boyfriend at the time of Shannon’s abduction, was determined to have no involvement in her disappearance, was later found to be in possession of child pornography that was thought to have no relation to Shannon’s case. He was sentenced to twenty weeks in prison.
In the years after her abduction & rescue, BBC turned Shannon’s shocking story into a true crime drama, Moorside while Channel 5 released the documentary, The Disappearance of Shannon Matthews.
References:
- Wikipedia: Peter Sutcliffe
- The Guardian: Shannon Matthews drugged & tied up in mother’s fake kidnapping plot, court told
- BBC: Shannon Matthews: Man behind kidnapping plot dies
- Independent: Shannon Matthews’ kidnapper Michael Donovan who hid girl under bed dies from cancer
- Yahoo news: Shannon Matthews abduction case: what happened & where is she now?
- Cosmopolitan: The Shannon Matthews abduction case: What happened & where is she now?
- BASW: Social workers could not have foreseen Shannon Matthews kidnap
- The Guardian: Shannon given sleeping drugs for nearly two years, kidnap trial told
