On the February 16, 1973, Peter and Christine Boxell welcomed their first child — a baby boy named Lee. The family lived in Surrey and soon after, the family welcomed another child, a baby girl named Lindsay.
Lee grew up and developed a sensitive and caring soul, with a massive passion for football. Living in Cheam, it is no surprise that the football mad Lee would come to support the local team of Sutton United. However, Lee just loved football and would attend different team games as a hobby at the weekend.
As Lee continued to grow, his caring personality led to him connecting with a good bunch of friends. His good behavior also led to him achieving good grades at school. As Lee hit his teenage years, his family reported how Lee was too trusting and not very streetwise. Yet, by 1988 when Lee was fifteen, his routine consisted of attending school Monday to Friday and then on a weekend, attending football matches with his friends.
As Lee was a trusting, sensitive and good-mannered young man, his family had no reason not to trust Lee with the independence he was given. Lee would also never stay out late and if his plans changed, he would always walk to a nearby payphone to inform his parents of the changes.
On the September 10, 1988, Lee’s family woke up early and prepared for the day ahead. Christine had decided to go and visit her mother and his thirteen-year-old sister had gone out to see a friend. Peter recalled that Lee had stayed in bed a little later than everyone else. During some time in the morning, Lee emerged from his room in his pajamas and sat in his armchair.
His father had plans to go to the local supermarket to do some shopping and had conversed with Lee about his plans before he left. The night before, Lee’s parents had heard him on the phone with a friend discussing the football — but this was just an idea and not a solid plan. Peter spoke of how Lee was still half asleep and so didn’t push him further with questions. Instead, he said goodbye to Lee and headed out of the door.
On the 10th September, Sutton United were playing away in Lancashire — a journey of 230 miles from Cheam and a journey a fifteen-year-old would probably not make for a football match. A close friend of Lee had got ticket for the match and was traveling on the supporter’s coach. Lee had made it clear to this friend that he was not going and instead, gave his friend some money to purchase a match-day program for him.
However, there was a game playing at the nearby Selhurst Park in Croydon. The weather on the day was estimated to be as high as twenty-degrees and Christine knew that Lee was a sun-lover. Therefore, the family knew Lee would end up going out — if not to the football then to meet some friends locally. It is later believed that Lee left his family home at around 10:30am.
Lee then walked the short distance from his home to the local high street of Sutton. Here, he met a friend at around 11am. The pair wandered around the area for a few hours — looking through windows and chatting like friends would. At around 1pm, the pair said their goodbyes. Lee mentioned before parting that he might go and watch the football game, but this was not a definite plan.
At around lunchtime, Peter returned home and wasn’t overly shocked that Lee was not there. Peter assumed that Lee must have gone to the football and normally when this happened, Lee would not return home until around 5pm. However, a witness spotted Lee outside the Tesco Supermarket on Sutton High Street at 2:20pm.
The boys knew of Lee and watched as he headed east from the supermarket — the direction towards Lee’s home. This sighting confirmed that Lee had probably not gone to a nearby match. The kick-off for the match was at 3pm and the train journey alone took half-an-hour. This meant that Lee would only have ten minutes to get to Sutton train station, walk from the other station to the stadium and then get into the stadium.
Christine Boxell decided to ring home at around 5pm to see if Lee was home and also check how the family was doing. Peter answered the telephone call and informed his wife that Lee wasn’t home yet, but they still were not worried and continued with their night. However, Christine was a little overprotective of her son and knew it was unlike him to not telephone and let the family know his whereabouts. Therefore, Christine decided to telephone every hour to see if Lee was back.
At the time, Cheam was one of the safest areas in London and so foul play never crossed the parent’s minds. Instead, they believed, that Lee was just delayed in getting home and would arrive back any minute. Yet, by late evening, Lee had not returned home and so Christine decided to get a taxi back home.
Once Christine was home, the couple decided to telephone all friends and family in the area to see if anyone had seen Lee. The results turned up nothing. Panic began to set in and so Peter and Christine decided to telephone local hospitals — fearing that Lee had been injured. These calls turned up nothing. By now, the family saw no other option but to ring the police. At first, the police did not fully co-operate. Instead, they gave off the assumption that Lee was a young lad who was probably breaking the rules for once.
By early next morning, Lee had not arrived back home and so his parents contacted the police again. They stressed how Lee would never stay out late and if he did, he would telephone and inform his parents. This time, the police decided to send a police officer round to speak to the family. The police asked about Lee and what his plans were for the day before.
The family mentioned how Lee had said he might go to the football, but they were not 100% sure that he had gone. Lee’s friend also confirmed that Lee had mentioned the match, but again could not be definite that Lee had gone. It was at this point, that the police officer asked Peter to escort him in the car. The pair then searched around the local area and high street.
Peter later recalled how they drove around every place Lee was familiar with or would have potentially gone but unfortunately, there was no evidence that Lee had been there. The police returned to the family home and distributed a description of Lee — five-foot-six, light brown hair and last seen wearing black jeans, a white Flintstones T-shirt and brown suede shoes.
For the beginning of the investigation, the police focused heavily on the concept that Lee may have ran away. The police knew that Christine was quiet over-protective of her son and had uncovered that when Lee began high school, Christine had got a job at the same school to keep an eye on him.
However, by the third day, the police conducted an assessment of the home and family. It was after this, the police concluded they had no reason to believe Lee had ran away. He had a decent childhood and everyone who knew Lee, knew he had a decent relationship with his parents.
With this information of Lee’s early movements from his family and friends, the police decided to focus on the football matches that had been on that day. At this point, the police did not know Lee had been seen outside Tesco and so spent time and resources on searching CCTV of the football matches. They also appealed for witnesses at the game to come forward.
Christine and Peter were called in to look at the CCTV footage of the Croydon game. Christine later reported that it was like, “looking for a needle in a haystack”. They were unsuccessful in finding any evidence of Lee and after endless days of searching for leads around football, the police were finally informed of Lee being spotted at Tesco.
This caused some damage to the investigation, as all the appeal posters stated that Lee was at the football. Therefore, witnesses probably disregarded any sightings they believed of Lee — as the police had stated Lee was in a different place at the time. After three months of constant dead-end leads, it was decided to feature Lee’s disappearance on Crimewatch. Lee’s appeal posters were also featured on milk cartons and finally, Lee was included in a video for the missing kid anthem Runaway Train.
With all this, the police believed they might have received one small piece of information, but no new leads came to light. The police now knew that Lee had been in Sutton at the time of his disappearance and searched on databases for any possible suspects who may have taken Lee.
The search highlighted a man living close to Lee, had just been released from prison following a sentence for sexually abusing young boys. The police paid him a visit and the man provided an alibi. He was later released.
The case into Lee soon fell cold.
However, in 1990, the police gained a lead that required serious attention. An off-duty police officer had attended a party and while there, he met a male bank worker. The man spoke openly about how he and others had beat up and killed a boy. The man then stated they had buried him in a graveyard. The man was brought in for questioning and following this, a co-worker informed the police she had heard of the tale the man had told. Although this lead led to a dead-end, a big lead was to come. However, it would take twenty-one-years for this to come to light.
In 2011, a local gravedigger named William Lambert was exposed as a pedophile and jailed for eleven-years for sexually abusing young girls aged eleven to fifteen. During his trial, the court heard how Lambert had raped a child on a tombstone and told her that she would get the power from ‘the black floating monk’ who haunted the church. Another time, a girl told Lambert that she believed she could be pregnant.
Lambert then tricked the girl into having sex with him. He claimed that after they had sex, she would no longer be pregnant. Following his conviction, many came forward to state that at the time of Lee’s disappearance, an unofficial youth club was being run in the annex of St. Dunstan’s Church in Cheam. This club was run by William Lambert — many only coming forward now that he was behind bars.
With all this information, the police decided to look further into the church and the youth club, believing that Lambert may be behind the disappearance of Lee. To support this theory, an inmate close to Lambert came forward and reported how Lambert had remarked he had killed Lee and buried him in a graveyard. However, Lambert later denied this allegation. Yet, the police believed they had enough evidence and decided to perform a yearlong and £1 million operation to excavate the graveyard — fearing Lee’s body could be there. In 2013, the excavation began.
However, because of certain laws, the police were only allowed to dig up land around graves and under no circumstances were they to dig up any graves. This caused a problem for the police, as they believed it would be a lot easier and less suspicious for Lee’s body to be placed in a grave with another person. Therefore, after a year, the operation was complete. Yet, no evidence was found to suggest Lee was there.
With the information about the youth club ran during Lee’s disappearance being run by a pedophile and the report from the fellow inmate, the police decided to make further arrests. In 2014, three men aged seventy-eight, fifty-two and forty-one were arrested and interviewed on suspicion of Lee’s murder, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and indecency with children. Shortly after, a forty-two-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to the crimes.
It may be possible that these four individuals were arrested after being named by the victims as being adults who worked at the youth club. However, after questioning, they were all released without charge. With all the information and arrests, the police did state to the media that they were wanting to figure out exactly what happened at the youth club — known by the local youths as The Shed.
Just over thirty years from when Lee was last seen, Channel 5 aired Missing or Murdered? Which explored the disappearance of Lee in depth. The documentary highlighted new discoveries that had been found since the graveyard excavation. The documentary also explained how the police had known quickly after Lee’s disappearance that the youth club existed and that it was a popular meeting place for teenagers in the area of Cheam.
However, the police did not know at this point that the main leader was a pedophile and that the youth club was holding many dark secrets. On the program, many spoke of The Shed.
One woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, spoke of how The Shed became popular due to the fact that under-age children could drink and smoke freely. She also reported to the producers, how from the moment you began going to the youth club, you would be bombarded with inappropriate and creepy questions. This included being asked if the girls were virgins by older men running the club.
The woman also went on to say that in 1993, a man would tell girls that if they slept with him, they would have neater handwriting — tricking young girls into believing that sex with this man would aid their schoolwork. Again, during the documentary, a man who attended school with Lee reported how he got the vibe that boys weren’t really welcome at The Shed and that it was mostly used by young girls.
He also remembered how on one occasion when he was there, he had noticed a mattress in the back room. This statement proved to be something consistent, as the woman also recalled how young girls would be invited to a private place where there was a mattress. The anonymous woman chillingly recalled how she had been invited into the private room and that she was told Lee was not going to be seen again as he was dead — buried in grassland not far from The Shed.
Police then formed the idea that Lee had attended The Shed on the day of his disappearance, witnessed abuse and tried to stop it. He was killed due to what he had seen. Peter responded that if Lee had seen abuse happening, it was in his character to come to the victim’s aid.
In most recent years, Peter has spoke of his heartbreak as he begged someone to tell him where Lee is so that his son can be finally laid to rest.
In an interview with a newspaper Peter spoke, “We just still hope after all this time someone will come forward and let us know what really happened to him. The ultimate thing I would like to see happen is to find his remains if Lee was murdered. I’m not interested in justice or hatred for who killed him, I just want to see finally see him laid to rest and to have closure. Regrettably, I’m as sure as I can be that Lee is no longer alive. For me, it’s a case of finding a body. If there is anybody who can help us to find Lee, the please don’t keep that information to yourself anymore and come forward and tell us or the police or Crimestoppers. Let us know somehow so we can find Lee and find his remains before it’s too late and I pass away and his mother passes away. We’re in our 70’s now so we won’t be here for very longer so we need to know and his sister and niece and nephew need to know what happened to him”.
A huge thank you to True Crime England, Vice, and Missing or Murdered for the information provided in this artical.
Be sure to check out my podcast Leave The Lights On for episodes like this and more!
