Newport car crash timeline reveals family’s search for missing pals who vanished on night out before wreckage found
FRIENDS and family of five pals who vanished on a night out launched a desperate search before they were discovered in a crashed car.
Eve Smith, 21, Darcy Ross, 21 and Rafel Jeanne, 24, died in a horror crash while Sophie Russon, 20, and Shane Loughlin, 32, have been left seriously injured in hospital.
Here we take a look at exactly what happened in the run up to cop’s discovering the car…
FRIDAY 11PM
The girls went to the social club in Maesglas in Eve’s car and only popped in to use the loo around 11pm.
They then jumped in the men’s car to drive to Trecco Bay holiday park in Porthcawl where one of the men’s family owns a caravan.
Sophie’s uncle was working behind the bar at Mufflers that evening.
SATURDAY 2AM
The group were last seen 2am on Saturday morning in the Llanedeyrn area of Cardiff.
SATURDAY DAYTIME
Friends and family of the pals began to spread the word that the five young people were missing.
Sophie’s mother Anna made her first call to Gwent Police on Saturday lunchtime after Sophie failed to come home.
She made 10 calls that day but police kept telling her not to worry and that she was probably out partying.
SUNDAY
Anna made a further 10 calls on Sunday and she claims the police told her to stop ringing.
Gwent Police suddenly escalated the inquiry later that day and a helicopter was launched to search the area.
By that time more than 200 people were out looking for the five friends.
The owner of a fuel station 200m from the site of the crash said the desperate mum of one of those involved had visited him Sunday to ask to see cctv footage in order to establish whether the car had been in the area.
It comes as…
- Three pals were found dead in a crashed car after five people vanished while on a night out in Newport
- Eve Smith, 21, was confirmed dead by her family, who had tragically lost her sister in a crash eight years ago
- Two pals were pictured beaming on the night out before the tragedy
- The mum of Sophie Russon claimed cops told her to stop calling
- She has now revealed her agony at desperately searching for her daughter while she lay critically injured
- Haunting CCTV was shared by friends of the car before it vanished in the early hours of Saturday
- Police are now probing just what happened in the hours before the crash
The fuel station owner said: “We went through our cctv from the time they left the club until about three in the morning on Saturday, but the car did not appear in the footage.
“The woman who needed help said she was the mother of one of the women and she was very distressed and anxious.”
SUNDAY MIDNIGHT
By midnight on Sunday a woman searching with her dog discovered the car and alerting police.
Dozens of cops and fire crews rushed to the scene of the tragedy in a small copse of conifers edging a dual carriageway on the outskirts of Cardiff.
The group’s vehicle appeared to have careered off the road at a bend approaching a roundabout in St Mellons.
Cops closed the road to traffic in both directions as officers searched the area.