hey guys it's Bella and welcome back to my channel I hope you're all having an incredible day today in today's video we're going to be covering another mystery Monday case except today's case it's not a mystery at all it's a solved case because I know you guys love them before we get into today's case I just want to mention I always get so many comments about my makeup looks so I actually did a tutorial on this one that for you guys and that'll be up in a day of to keep an eye out and my earrings are from my favorite place about hungry la la I'm at sea make sure you guys check her out and my top is from million will vintage okay let's get into it so today we're going to be covering the disappearance of Shannon Matthews and this case happened just nine months after Madeleine McCann disappeared which if you guys I'm sure you guys know about that case it's like the most famous missing persons case ever and Madeleine was obviously a three year old girl an English girl she went missing in Portugal but she was English which i think is why this case as well got so big because it was another young English girl who disappeared just nine months after the most famous missing persons case in the entire world Shannon was born on the 9th of September in 1998 in Dewsbury England - Karen Matthews and Leon rose and her mother Karen had grown up in Dewsbury she dropped out of school at age 16 and also moved out of home because her and her parents had a bit of a falling out she moved out and then by age 17 she had her first child I'm not really sure what the story is with her with the first father whether they were actually in a relationship or whether it was just kind of a one-night stand she got pregnant sort of thing but whatever the case is they didn't stay together a few months after having her first daughter she met Leon Rose who was Shannon's father and within a few months of meaning she was pregnant with their first child a son and they had a very like rocky strained relationship but they did stay together and then by age 23 karen was pregnant again with Shannon she gave back to him the 9th of September and straight out of the hospital didn't go home to Leon nothing like that she went straight to her parents June and Gordon's house Karen and new parents had actually only race recovered from another falling-out that they'd had but Karen really wasn't coping as a parent she'd already shown silence of neglect with her other two sons and June and Gordon were really strong parents themselves they had raised seven children of their own and really wanted to be there for their grandchildren as well Karen and Shannon stayed with June and Gordon for the first few months of their lives until Karen finally decided to go home to Leon where Shannon really didn't get the same care that she had gotten in the first few months of her life Karen didn't she refused to buy diapers and instead use like plastic bags and towels and you know would rip up curtains just to avoid spending money on diapers so instead she could spend money on cigarettes takeout food and beer eventually about two to three years after Shannon was born in 2001 Leon and Karen spit-up and Leon at the request of Karen took their son and moved about 10 miles away to a place called Huddersfield in 2003 when Karen was 28 years old she moved into a three-bedroom house on the moor side of state she had six children by this point with five different fathers three of the children shannon included lived with her and then three lived with their fathers at Karen's request so Moorside estate that she moved to was a Council of state and at the time it was a pretty desirable place to live for anyone who was seeking counsel housing that was a wait list and the government has spent like four million pounds trying to make it a safer place and revamping the area trying to bring the community together they have police posted on the streets really often trying to reduce the rate of crime in the area because a lot of the residents said they felt unsafe walking around the estate and the burglary rate in the area was also two times higher than the national average they installed picnic tables benches play equipment for children and they restored a lot of the homes in the estate so it became a very very highly sought-after estate for anybody seeking council housing a few months after car moved into Moorside estate she met a new partner man who was 18 at the time they met and let me remind you she was 28 years old I am 22 2023 next month and I couldn't even imagine being attracted to and wanting to talk to an 18 year old like it's just crazy to me Karen and Craig moved in together pretty soon and they lived right next door to Craig's sister Amanda and her husband Neil her they were really closer they also lived really really close to Craig's and mother Alice and Craig's other sister Caroline and they settled in together really quickly and then within seven months of meeting Karen was pregnant again with another son from late 2002 Shannon and her siblings had been put on the council's at risk register which basically meant that Karen was going to be monitored pretty closely to make sure that she was adequately caring for her children and the reason that they were put on there is because teachers neighbors and family had all reported Karen to social services for not looking after her children properly and child neglect Karen's sister Julie and her husband were one of the couple I believe that called social services on her because they had grown apart after so many years of arguing about Karen not looking after her children and Julie was just sick of it she was constantly worried about the kids and the fact that Karen never bought them real diapers or real food she just fed them to take out every single night social workers were also concerned about the fact that on occasion Karen and Craig would leave the children at home by themselves for the entire night and there was also some allegations of some pretty serious alcohol abuse social workers concluded the Khans ability to take care of her children was compromised by her inability to place her children's needs above her which is why they were placed on the at-risk register unfortunately a year later in 2004 they were taken off that risk register and I say unfortunately because that was still obviously signs of a child neglect why is that every time I try and film a mystery Monday this happens Jones teaches really worried about her and her level of concentration she had trouble focusing on everything really but in particular reading writing for long periods of time and her head teacher and about calling social services because she just noticed that there was dirt caked on her body and her feet and her clothes were always unwashed like I said despite this despite you know concerns and reports they were taken off the address register which means that social services tape it down their visits they would always call ahead and this meant that Karen would have time to make a house of presentable when they were going to come because she knew they were going to come and I mother June Karen's mother June always said that she knew when social services were coming because Karen would ask for money and you would ask why do you need the money and she'd say I need to make it look like I have food in the fridge and June said that this is the only time she ever actually put real food in her cupboard I mean Karen she was just she was a pretty neglectful mother from the get-go and there were rumors that the reason that she had these children was so that she could get benefits so for every child you have you get benefits and the more children you have it means the more money you're bringing in which means at seven children she was basically living off her benefits she had practically a full wage just on benefits from having children so having kids was like her income until about 2007 Shannon would pretty regularly go and visit her dad in Huddersfield she got along with him really well she got along with her brother really well she got along with Liang's new wife really well but unfortunately Liane and Karen had a falling out and so Karen started refusing to allow Shannon to go and visit her father by the 18th of February in 2008 Shannon was 9 years old and she shared a room and a bunk bed with her two-year-old sister and her room was kind of like her sanctuary she had all of our Bratz dolls her porcelain dolls in there she had pink wallpaper which was kind of like peeling off of the walls and she would almost use the walls as a diary so she would write and scratch things into the walls underneath the pots of the wool paper that were peeling and she would write things like very recently she won't she wrote that she wanted to go and live with her dad which I guess it's understandable cuz it really didn't seem like Karen's house was great a great place for a child to grow up and her and her mom and Kraig fought really often they actually fought that night on the 18th they got into this big blowout Shannon actually swore it Craig and then she ran down the road to her uncle's house Karen's brother's house because she just liked to be there she got along really well with her cousins I guess you she might have felt safe for that and she really wanted to stay there the night but her uncle really didn't want to get involved so he made his ten-year-old daughter walk Shannon back home and Shannon just cried the entire way home the next day on the 19th of February was Shannon's fourth years of first sermon class which she was so excited for she'd been excited about it for a while she woke up she got dressed in her West more junior school outfit she put on my favorite rain boots which were pink with fur around the edges she got her swimming bag her blue strap towel and she left the house at about 8 a.m. to walk I think it was like a half mile to her school and as she was going to leave at 8 a.m. Karen had just woken up and she yelled out to Shannon as she was leaving and said get out of the house and don't come back and this just broke my heart because that was the last thing she ever said to Shannon so she left the school having had those as the last words she would ever hear from her mother now normally Shannon was a pretty shy pretty quiet like kept to herself kind of girl but she definitely could be outgoing when she wanted to be like with her friends she definitely was not shy around her friends she never really dwelled on a home life will let it get to her I mean occasionally her friends would talk about running away but it was never serious and I feel like that's just what kids do I spoke about running away when I was younger and my parents were great but that morning on the bus on the way to juice brew SportsCenter she was really quiet and withdrawn and her best friend Megan said that it was kind of strange because one she's not normally quiet or withdrawn and two she'd been so excited to go swimming so it was you know a bit unusual that she wasn't chopped up at the the fact that they were on the way to their first swimming lesson but then once they got to the Sports Center and they got to the swimming lesson she packed up her me gonna had a great time swimming then at about 3 p.m. the bus came to take them back to the school and again on the bus ride back she you know got really what's drawn and quiet again Megan didn't really ask any questions didn't want to pry at around 310 the bus got back to the school there was a teacher named mrs. tingle who was standing outside the front waiting for the children to get off and neither mrs. tingle nor me can know which way Shannon went when she got off the bus but all they know is that was the last time she was seen at around 4 p.m. Shannon hadn't arrived home so Karen went to knock on a neighbor's door to see if you know she'd seen Shannon which she hadn't but Karen wasn't too worried because she thought maybe she'd just gone to a friend's house or a cousin's house on her way home so she and Craig sister Amanda decided to go to the shops they got back at around 6:45 ish p.m. which is when they noticed Shannon still wasn't there and so at 6:48 p.m. Karen called nain nain nain to report her missing looking for 9 yeah when did you last see her so it's almost morning there been any arguments or no and police arrived at the house at 7:15 p.m. they were greeted by Craig and the other three children because Karen was not home she was out searching and when police did speak to her she was adamant that Shannon wouldn't have run away because she was really happy at home mm-hmm and she was cumin so that somebody had abducted her the officers asked if they could have a look around house which they noticed was pretty filthy that was rubbish everywhere that was clothes and shoes that had been strewn around there was takeaway containers piled up in the kitchen the house stunk of cigarettes and initially on the ask Craig got really defensive of this which I guess you know it's not really that uncommon some parents either feel defensive like police are accusing them of something when they ask to search around the house and when they start asking family questions or they might feel like why are you wasting your time on me when you could be out looking for the person who actually did this who actually took my daughter sort of thing and you know police just explained that it's just something they have to do it's just part of procedure they just want to see if there's maybe any clues that could lead to who took her or where she went if she ran away which did calm crank down a little bit it wasn't long before neighbors started showing up at Karen's house and then once they realized what was happening started helping her look for Shannon police also drove to Huddersfield to tell Shannon's father Leon what was going on see if maybe she was there which she wasn't and Leon was just devastated as a news hearing that Shannon was missing he immediately drove back to Jewsbury and the Moorside estate to help look for her a search team was put together that night they started doing line searches of all neighboring areas they traced any routes that she could have taken to and from school neighbor's family school friends and their families just people from the general area I guess wet word spread quickly and all of these people started coming in flocks to help search for Shannon they looked until about 4:00 a.m. nobody found any sign of her whatsoever which was definitely worrying so I think I got to about negative 9 degrees Celsius that not which is freezing so a lot of people were worried that if she was out on her and if she hadn't run away that she could suffer the effects of hypothermia the next day on the 20th of February they had over 200 officers helping search for Shannon they knocked on doors they questioned neighbors they looked anywhere that they thought a young child might hide they checked the hills the Moors around the general area to see if she was anywhere there and after coming up with nothing on this second day as when they started you know changing their mindset from thinking she's run away to believing that she had in fact been abducted Julie Bushby who was the head of the tenants association in the mall Santa State began organizing the civilian search for Shannon the public were just super involved in this case probably even more so because of the Madeleine McCain case which was so fresh in people's minds and they really wanted to do everything they could to help find Shannon many people dropped everything to be able to help aid in the search efforts police went back to Karen's home to speak to her and Craig to try and gather any information they might have at all that could lead to Shannon's whereabouts and Karen was just a mess by this point she was just staying cooped up at home with Craig and how other three children Chief Superintendent Barry south also held a press conference on this day the day after Shannon went missing to assure the public that they were doing everything in their power that they could to try and find Shannon because they really just didn't want to follow in his footsteps of the Portuguese police who received a lot of criticism for how they handled metal and McCain's disappearance so there was definitely like a lot of pressure on the police while police were there they advised Karen not to make any press conferences not to speak to the media and anywhere because it could harm their investigation but against the advice of police Karen did have kind of like an impromptu press conference was clutching a teddy bear and she basically said that she wanted Shannon to come home that she was her little princess but one of her best friends Natalie actually said that this press conference kind of made her a little bit suss on Karen because she never called Shannon her princess II Bob that was the first time for the media and the teddy bear when she asked what was Shannon's teddy bear she said that she didn't know kind of like just using it to like look innocent like oh hey I love my child I'm holding a teddy bear you know vulnerable to live vulnerable three days I've just Shannon disappeared every major Police Department was aiding in the search for Shannon they called in the major inquiry and homicide teams they had knocked on over 2000 doors asking every household if they had seen anything suspicious in the lead up to Shannon's disappearance the nearby town of Wakefield which the district's Police Academy was in close their doors the the Police Academy closed their door sorry not the entire town and they sent every available cadet out to the streets to search they had over 200 officers searching a helicopter with heat-seeking technology was dispatched they had mounted police searching they searched all overgrown thick scrub which was really hard to look through but they searched every inch of it there was a lake in which they had to break the ice off which was formed at the top so that they could get divers down to search down there over 200 residents from Moorside and the surrounding areas showed up to help which is crazy because none of them were asked to help they just turned up the residents printed hundreds of missing-persons flats with Shannon's photo on them they also printed out hundreds of missing-persons t-shirts with Shannon's photo on top of them which all of the residents wore as they were out looking for Shannon and our you know putting up the posters the Sun newspaper offered a 20,000 pound reward for any information leading to shown safe return and cool business in Huddersfield also added another $5,000 and then the son later increased their reward to make the entire reward pool 50,000 pounds for any information leading to the safe return of Shannon it was a huge huge such effort I think 3 million pounds was spent on the search effort and it was the biggest search in 30 years in Yorkshire since the Yorkshire Ripper after a week had gone by they had scientists they had mountain rescue teams they had specially trained victim recovery dogs and still they found nothing at home Karen and a bunch of the local kids have planted flowers and Karen's front garden that was like a group that released a bunch of balloons and Shannon's owner and there was also candles lit all the way down the street also and Shannon's honor two weeks after Shannon went missing police set up another press conference which both Karen and Leon spoke out Karen what a help find Shannon tisha and carried the teddy bear once again and she was pretty unemotional and flat especially in comparison to previous press conferences but she continued to say that she was convinced that Shannon had been abducted and was still alive she also said that she thought it was somebody who knew her that had taken her and now can't trust the people close to her anymore because of it and she thought that somebody close to her took Shannon just to hurt her she also said that the last thing Shannon said to her was I'll see you at tea-time mum love you witch Shannon's father Leon was there as well as I said and he had been looking for Shannon every single day since she went missing you know handing out flyers driving around like he had just been endlessly searching for her by this point they have 250 offices involved 60 detectives they'd knocked on her over 3,000 households they had questioned over 1500 motorists a used victim recovery dose to such over 500 homes on the route from Shannon's school to her home they scrutinized the sex offenders list they looked at over 800 ccdb tapes as well as computer hard drives West Yorkshire Police so opened up a website called the help fund at Shannon Matthews fund which they had all of the information about the Shannon Matthews appeal they posted a new photo of her they also released the 999 call which Karen made when she realized Shannon was missing and the longest Shannon was missing the more people started to speculate about what was happening what may have happened to her there were a lot of rumors swirling that Craig was abusive and violent towards Shannon which both Leon and Karen defended him saying that he was in Craig also said that he had nothing to do with her disappearance Karen's house as well as I said was always completely swamped with media and reporters and she still had three children at home I just I can't even imagine how overwhelming this must have been for her other three kids with Karen and her other three children's help police managed to put together a full set of Shannon's fingerprints as well as a full DNA profile for Shannon they were also able to determine from this and have to sit Karen and Craig down to let them know that Karen and Craig's child was not actually Craig's child also police got Karen and Craig to help them put together a full family tree because they wanted to go and visit all of these people which was gonna be a very slow process because there was over 350 people in this family tree but they were you know trying to start off by compiling a list of people on this list who they thought may have been persons of interest to go and visit them first however police did end up getting a tip about somebody who wasn't on the list Michael Donovan which was Craig's uncle he only lived half a mile away but they forgot to put him on the list which at first police didn't really think was anything because a lot of people on their list there's 350 people you know easy to forget one person and on top of that Karen forgot that she had seven kids like one time when she was having a chat with social services I believe she said that she only had six kids and they were like don't you have seven kids and she was like oh yeah like kind of just brushed over it like it was nothing that she just forgot how many kids she had but it was bizarre that they didn't mention him despite the the fact that he only lived half a mile away anyway Michael diamond was a bit of a loner he didn't work either after having sustained a head injury in a car accident so he just kind of lived off his disability benefits but police definitely wanted to go and talk to him just like they wanted to talk to everybody else on the family tree but police were particularly interested in paying him a visit and asking him two questions after they found out not once had he helped in any of the searches for Shannon despite living literally half a mile away from Karen there detective Nick Townsend and Paul caterwaul who had been you know questioning a lot of the people in the family tree went to go and question him at Luke gate Gardens which is where he lived it was a large estate full of two-story vanilla brick flats in batley car and they arrived you know late morning knocked on his door at unit number 24 but received no answer so they decided to go and question a few of the neighbors one of whom said that he should be home because his cars there and he never went anywhere without his car after questioning a few more neighbors they ended up questioning someone who lived directly below him and she said that she had heard him walking around in his flat that morning she also said that she heard what she thought was a child's footsteps or a child's scuffling but she didn't report it she didn't think anything of it because Donovan had just got a new girlfriend and she just kind of assumed that his new girlfriend had a kid and that's what it was the detectives however did not think it was something so innocent and so they decided to call for backup the operational search team arrived and they all met at the communal stairs of the flats to talk about what the next steps were and they decided that it was better to break in and find nothing than to not break in and turns out shannon is there it was really a risk of that they were willing to take so they broke his door down entered the hallway into a completely silent and still pass and they went around searching for any kind of signs of somebody being there chyna open all of the doors until eventually they got to a door that was locked and with one swift kick they knocked the door down and it smelt like fresh cigarette one of the detectives put his hand down on the bed and he said that the sheets were still warm and that is when they heard a small whimper and they heard a small child muffled saying stop it you're frightening me the bed was a different style bed which had drawers underneath and solid sides and it was really heavy so when the two police officers tried to lift it they couldn't even get it off the ground then they noticed something moving and a small girl crawled out from one of the drawers at the bed base she was too woozy to disoriented to stand so detective caterwaul picked her up and took her out of the room he asked her where Michael Donovan was which is when she told them he was also under the bed and when officers peered through the crack from the draw lo and behold there was Michael Donovan he was curled up in the fetal position in the corner of the bed no matter how much police yelled at him he just he wouldn't come out so they arrested him right there on the spot for suspicion of a kidnapping kidnapping eventually police did manage to get him out and after doing so they had to drag this man kicking and screaming all the way to the police car and as they were dragged him out all of the neighbors started kind of gathering around the communal area one of them yelled at is that Shannon - which kettle wool replied yes and the others were just kind of you know hurling abuse at Donovan rightfully so and he was placed in the back of a police car and Shannon was placed in the back of a separate police cotton taken straight to the police station a forensic team was then set up outside of Donovan's flat and they dusted the whole place for fingerprints swab for any DNA they found a long white tether coming from an opening in the ceiling and found it was tied to a beam in the roof and when Donovan would go out he would tie this around Shannon's waist to restrain her and it was long enough for her to reach the bathroom in bed but that was it under the bed they also found two Pan and travel sickness medication as well as 600 pounds in cash and the latest newspaper from the Sun which announced the 50,000 pound reward for Shannon's safe return they also found a piece of paper with a set of rules which Shannon had to abide by which read you must not make any noise or bang your feet you must not go near the windows you must not get anything or do anything without me being here keep the TV volume low only up to eight or lower you can play Super Mario games and you can play some DVDs and you can play the CD music and at the bottom of this letter it said IPU which means I promise you they also found a copy like this is kind of eerie and weird but they found a copy of this children's coloring book called arrive alive which is about basically about traveling safely as a child they also found two puck bags of clothes by the door so I mean it was pretty obvious to them that he was gonna flee yes you know the $600 the travel sickness medication the duffle bags full of clothes so yeah it was pretty obvious he was gonna flee and police truly believe that if he did flee they would not have found Shannon at all let alone alive police also discovered from his police records that the year before he had abducted his own daughter but the case was withdrawn from the court after Social Services took over police obviously started to tell people that Shannon had been found safe they told Leon and he just said the moment was like winning the lottery he was over the moon and he just thanked everybody who helped search the police offices everything and at the police station as well people were crying and hugging and one of the detectives named Annie Brennan also said that it was just like he'd never seen an incident room like it before that it was just so emotional I mean a lot of the police officer themselves had children so I can imagine like what what they would be feeling Giuli Bushby was at the Dewsbury Moore community center which was like just a house they had in the Moore side of State that was there for the community and the tenants association and that's where she found out and she just went crazy she started calling everyone texting everyone she was yelling and people gathering and crying and hugging each other and screaming and drinking and you know running around the streets dancing like it would have been insane like just reading about it I cannot imagine how people would have been feeling it sounds like that like everyone was just dancing and partying and celebrating they're also happy that the Scalf had been found you know people ran to Karen's house to tell her police were also at Karen's house telling her and there were news vehicles parked outside Karen's house who got the moment on camera and Karen's reaction was very different to everybody else's she stared blankly for a few seconds like completely shell-shocked and then just burst into tears and kind of turned her face away from everybody and away from the camera which is something she hadn't done in the entire 24 days that Shannon had been missing Julie Bushby actually yelled out to her was like smile woman why aren't you smiling and then other people as well started yelling at her like smile the gods sake woman smile answer Karen turned to the camera and like smiled officers who were there to inform Karen also offered to drive her to the police station to see Shannon where she wouldn't be able to see her like face to face one on one she would have to see her through like a window just in order to preserve any forensic evidence because it still was an ongoing investigation but Karen's behavior just it seemed super off to everybody around her she showed no emotion her face was completely flat she didn't ask any questions she didn't say anything show any emotion put a hand up to the glass even she just said oh she's got new clothes that was it that was all she said she's got new clothes I I know people have different reactions but like what is that John was then taken into a majesty care by social services and placed under police protection they exercised I think it was like section 46 of The Children's Act 1989 which allows a child to remain a subject of police protection 72 hours and police released a statement saying that Shannon wouldn't be going home until their investigation is complete Karen and Craig will also put up in a hotel that night to give them a break as well from all of the media that was constantly camped outside of their house at this time the day that Shannon was found a massive party erupted on the more side of stayed that was also assembly held at Shands school to tell all of the children that Shannon had been found safe and so many of these kids just burst into tears like with happiness on their walk home from school a bunch of the kids like walked arm-in-arm and like a bunch of them were crying the whole way home one of Shannon's friends Kelly had 22 letters that were written to Shannon from all of her friends while she was missing and the children I supposed treated the party a little bit the party went on all night local shops donated a bunch of champagne everyone was getting drunk not the kids of course maybe the kids I don't her I doubt it though because they were like nine years old that was strobe lights and someone was playing really really loud music from their house for everyone to dance to that was like this massive bedsheet that had been hung up from a window which had massive web saying welcome harm on it Michael Donovan was taking to the hellofax police station and initially he refused to speak but eventually came up with a statement with his lawyer his statement basically implicated Karen he said that Karen had come to him with a plan he looks after Shannon Karen pretends Shannon's missing they went for the reward pool to co-op and then they share the money he said that when the reward pool reached 25,000 pounds that Karen contacted him to say I'll contact you with some further instructions once it reached 50,000 pounds and then she just never contacted him again once it reached 50,000 pounds before he was arrested he said that the reason he had to do it is because Karen threatened him and she said that if he didn't do it she would get these three guys onto her him that she knew one of which he knew had actually killed somebody he said that he didn't hurt shot in there at all and had even gone out to buy her clothes and toy and never once you know harmed her Donovan was actually born as Paul Drake and he was the youngest of nine children he grew up on an estate not far from the flat that Shannon was found at and he started getting in trouble with the law at age 11 his first offenses were Austin and shoplifting and then when he was 16 he was convicted of causing criminal damage after which he ran away from home and never returned and then at 19 he changed his name by deed poll to Michael Donovan after his hero of the same name from his fav TV show which I think was called B he found black as a labor and delivery job at an engineering company where he apparently showed very little common sense and he was described as a bit of a loner a bit of somebody who mostly kept themselves he had met her in the previous November at the wake for Karen's father and they kind of just hit it off drinking beers in the kitchen and another like family member walked in while Karen was like apparently falling all over him and like sitting on his knee and there were rumors that they'd been having an effect so I heard this and I really tried to look into you know who Karen and Craig's son was that wasn't Craig's who the actual father was and it couldn't find anything but if Donovan and Karen did have an affair is it possible that it's his anyway the next day after he came out and said this to the police police confirmed that Shawn was doing well she was being gently questioned by police to try and figure out what happened and over the following weeks she had 10-minute sessions a day in the special room that was made to resemble children's classroom eventually when Shannon ceased to be under police protection she was given over to the calculus family service and was eventually moved away from the Jewsbury area on the 17th of March of 2008 three days after Shannon was fan Michael Donovan was officially charged and remanded into police custody he appeared in Leeds Crown Court by a video link and a trial date was officially set for the 11th of November eight months later now back at the estate while all of this was going on neighbors friends family really started to question Karen and some of her moves and the way that she was acting they thought it was weird that she wasn't asking after Shannon she wasn't asking any questions she wasn't you know angry that the person who had abducted her daughter was a family member and the way that she was behaving was making people look back at the way that she had been acting while Shannon was missing for example she would just like laugh and you know hang about with Craig at the house and you know not really care in the world while her daughter was missing but then as soon as the cameras would come on she would completely change she would start crying she would look you know sad and whatever and I guess at the time while all of it was happening people weren't really scrutinizing and grieving mother they were just trying to find this girl this nine-year-old girl who had gone missing they went like looking at how many times karen Matthews cried and even when police told Karen that Shannon wouldn't be under their home and that they were running like tests for signs of abuse Karen literally just responded okay like that was it I feel like most normal mothers even if they understood that that you know child had to still be in police custody for whatever reason would still you know fight to try and see their child or one that child harm or ask some sort of questions show some sort of emotion you know try and give that kid a message or you know something like that and you know obviously police are telling this to Karen but the real reason she's allowed home is one because of Donovan's I could get accusations against Karen which police actually already during the you know 24 days Shannon was missing were actually already suspicious of Karen but we'll get into that a little later on top of that they're on the 2nd of April Craig was arrested under suspicion of having child pornography because if you remember I said they searched the houses they also police took their computers and searched through that computers as part of the investigation and they found child pornography on his computer he was remanded in custody the next day and was charged with 11 counts of possessing indecent images of children the next day Craig's sister was also arrested on suspicion of aiding an offender Craig's mother Alice who was Donovan's sister was also arrested for assisting an offender or suspicion of assisting offender but also on attempting to pervert the course of justice both of whom were released on bail though some of town's friends by this point as well was starting to get really antsy really frustrated they were asking caring questions and getting really vague answers and after Craig was arrested is when you know their suspicions just went into overdrive they decided that they needed to confront her julie Bushby and Karen's friend Natalie decided that they were going to confront her they were both aware of Donovan's statement against her but on top of that they already had their own suspicions of Karen so they decided to contact the like family liaison officer who was dealing with Shannon and the Matthews family her name was Christine Freeman who agreed to help them so Christine picked Parana who sat in the passenger seat of her car front passenger seat of a car the two of them then went to pick up Julie Bushby and parents from Natalie and they started to tell her about the rumors that people you know that they've been hearing and people have been spreading that she had something to do with Shannon's abduction and then Julie just decided to ask her flat out like you know were you involved in Shannon's abduction and Karen just started subbing she said it's true and she was just like crying hysterically with I mean more emotion than she had shown in any of the weeks while her daughter was missing so karen was immediately arrested on the 6th of April in 2008 47 days after Shannon's disappearance and she was charged with or arrested on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice and child neglect and Craig as well was not charged with anything to do with Shannon's disappearance the day that karen was arrested police also announced that they were searching and investigating into the fact that Karen's family had been contacting the Madeleine McCann fund trying to ask for money Kate and Gerry McCann received multiple phone calls and emails from Shannon's family asking for them to donate money to the fund Shannon appeal and the McCann families like spokesperson Saints Clarence Mitchell said that they were super blunt about it and saying things like Madeleine's fund has got loads of money can't you just give us some police actually think that Madeleine McCann disappearance inspired Karen to abduct her and daughter for money and the McCanns themselves are on the verge of giving 25 thousand pounds to Karen until police got in contact with them and said you know some things have come to light now investigation and we really think it would be better if you didn't so Michael Donovan and Karen both had you know their own version of events that aren't stories and police managed to piece them together to come up with what they think was the real story so what police believe happened from piecing these two stories together is that in a small local cafe Karen plan to meet Donovan she showed up with her youngest two year old daughter strapped into our buggy and over a mug of tea it presented her plan to Michael Donovan initially she asked Donovan to look after her eldest son and what would be a staged kidnapping as well which Donovan refused and then karen was like you know what you're right I think we would actually probably get more money if we abducted Shannon Karen explained to him that she would report Shannon missing and then after the reward pull got to 50,000 pounds she would contact Donovan in order to discuss what the next steps were and then Donovan was going to take Shannon to Dewsbury market out of sight of CCTV and then he was going to you know inside of CCTV magically find her take her to the police and claim the reward money police thought it was very likely that Karen didn't realize that it would take three weeks she thought that maybe it would be a matter of days and she ended up giving Michael Donovan a a full piece of paper which detailed you know what the plan was he had to memorize this and then she told him that he had to flush it down the toilet and when he said that he didn't want to do it she threatened him with these three dudes he's three like belly bath of dudes that she knew one of whom Michael had heard or Donna Michael Donovan had heard that had killed somebody after the arrests took place police actually have to go around the estate and hand out these like anti-vigilante flyers because I mean as you can imagine everyone was feeling really betrayed and they had started attacking Karen's house thankfully the other three children had been taken into care but the walls and the windows of Karen's of what used to be house had to be boarded up they had to put metal screens against the windows to prevent any further damage and it was it was a really sad time for you know Shannon's friends the people that knew her the people in the neighborhood because it was almost like losing her again you know they felt this extreme happiness of finding her only to find out that they're never gonna be able to see her again because it was her own mother that abducted her and so she had to be placed elsewhere they actually end up giving her a completely new identity and none of her friends family ever got to see her again her grandparents June and Gordon never got to see her again and dad Leon Rose never got to see her again not entirely sure why she wasn't placed with them and her grandparents like they were so sad and they really they hurt that when she's old enough to do so that she can reach out and contact them but they besides a few updates from social services haven't heard from her haven't been able to see her she was given a completely new life new name everything it's funny because it turns out that Karin Matthews abducting her own daughter was actually the best thing that she ever could have done for anybody in her family because now all of her children have new homes and well the children that were with her all have new homes shannon has a new home and I'm sure they're better than what cam was providing with them will I hurt sir like me him pleaded not guilty to his 11 counts of possession of indecent images of children however he was convicted and sentenced to 20 weeks but because the time that he was in custody waiting for his trial was longer than 20 weeks he was released straight away Karen and Donovan were both charred together on November 11th in 2008 at Leeds Crown Court in court it was told that Shannon knew nothing of the plan and that she was tricked into getting a lift with Donovan after school and he said he was going to take her to a fair when actually he took her and abducted her and kept her in his house for 24 days and tied her up so that she could only get to the bedroom in the bathroom and due to the report in court of him tying her up and whatever else despite the fact that he claimed he treated her well and like took her for walks in the park with her hood on and brought her clothes and whatever he was beat up in prison after these you know that allegations came out and the fact that he tied her up in the house came out and so in court he had a broken jaw from being beat up in prison a forensic toxicology report also came out saying that she had been given two Matapan and travel sickness medication to keep her subdued while she was in captivity but it also showed that these drugs had been given to her for up to 20 months before she was abducted which would definitely explain why she had a lack of concentration and couldn't really focus that well in school because these medications would have been messing with her and she was only nine years old so she would have just probably thought that this was normal this was a normal feeling to just not be able to concentrate ever it was likely that these drugs are made her feel fuzzy confused and also slow and unable to concentrate Perrin in court was like crying she was denying that she had anything to do with the disappearance she gave like five different stories of events so at the end of the trial after jury deliberated for six hours both Michael Donovan and Karen Matthews were convicted or found guilty of perverting the course of justice false imprisonment and kidnapping and both of them were served or sentenced to a measly eight years like they're literally both out now and Karen's engaged just you know just abducted my daughter no worries now I'm engaged check out my ring like if I'm just eight years I get that she wasn't like severely harmed or anything but that's so cooked and the way that she just like neglected her children and social services came out with a statement saying there was no way we could have known that she was going to do what she was going to do and it just reminds me of the Gabriele Fernandez case if you guys have heard of that I strongly recommend watching the Netflix documentary on it but that's it that's the entire case I would love to know your thoughts in the comments down below as always please feel free to leave me case suggestions down there and thanks for watching guys hopefully I will see you in my next video bye guys
