Edwards Richey, the Welsh rocker disappeared in 1995 at the age of 27 and has never been seen since then. He was officially declared “presumed dead” in 2008. It's the first book about the missing Manic Street Preacher written with the full co-operation of his sister. By Nick Reilly - NME
Withdrawn Traces: Searching for the Truth About Richey Manic, by Sara Hawys Roberts and Leon Noakes – sheds fresh light on events surrounding his disappearance - a story that, 24 years on, still endures as one of the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll mysteries.
But Withdrawn Traces: Searching for the Truth About Richey Manic offers a series of fresh clues that suggest that the guitarist may have carefully planned his disappearance.
His body has never been recovered. Edwards is widely presumed to have taken his own life at age 27 and was declared legally dead in November 2008. But there is no definitive proof that he died by suicide. And so a mystery has sprouted wings and taken flight. Just as Elvis sightings persisted years after Presley’s passing, so Richey Edwards has become the eternal spectre of early Nineties alternative rock. A tragedy and a conspiracy theory bound up in one. (Full article here indipendent.co.uk)
The new evidence includes previously unreported sightings of Edwards, alongside a long-held fascination with disappearance that he apparently enjoyed since his school days. The book also details an important meeting between Edwards and a woman at Cardiff’s Whitchurch Hospital, who later moved to Israel.
“By coincidence, the link came up again when co-author Leon went for a haircut in Cardiff and started talking about Richey”, WalesOnline reports.
“The lady cutting his hair said ‘he’s actually living in a kibbutz in Israel, everybody knows’,” Sara says. “As you can imagine it took him aback.
Source Walesonline.co.uk
This new evidence includes:
Members of Richey’s family who had similarly disappeared and isolated themselves from their relatives;
A fascination with disappearance seen in Richey’s schoolwork;
Richey’s extensive library of books which revealed many titles with pages turned over referred to subjects of disappearance and a life in exile;
His growing fascination with writers and characters in exile such as Arthur Rimbaud and JD Salinger;
A theory that Richey had undiagnosed Aspergers – one trait of which can be shutting out the world as a way of coping;
A new sighting by postman David Rasmus who claimed to have spotted Richey on the footpath of the Severn Bridge on February 1, 1995;
A meeting with a mysterious woman in Whitchurch Hospital who later left for Israel... and how, in his last weeks, he spoke of wanting to go to Israel even acquiring tattoos that pointed towards this;
A theory that Richey was forced to disappear after coming into confrontation with other people;
The contents of a box left on his hotel bed on the day he disappeared, containing items which referred to disappearance; and
The mystery of Vivian – the woman who was in the hotel room with him the night before he vanished – and how he apparently tried to give his passport to her saying “I won’t be needing this anymore”
“We gave this theory no particular credence until Rachel raised the same idea – yes Richey had been going on about heading to that part of the world just before he vanished.”
Other new strands of evidence include the theory that Edwards may have had undiagnosed Asperger’s Syndrome and disappeared in a bid to shut out the world as a coping mechanism.
