Ten years after Shannon Matthews was reported missing by her mother Karen Matthews, the truth behind the kidnapping hoax remains a disturbing tale of deception. Matthews played the tearful victim for 24 days before the nine-year-old was found drugged in a flat. Now, her former best friend Natalie Murray has revealed how she suspected Matthews from the very start.
Murray lived two doors away and knew Matthews well. She recalled that on the day Shannon disappeared, Matthews was acting abnormally calm, tidying the house and laughing with her partner Craig Meehan as if nothing had happened. 'My gut was telling me something wasn't right,' Murray said.
Despite police warnings not to speak to the press, Matthews gave a televised appeal the following evening. Murray confronted her, but Matthews pleaded not to be shouted at. Murray also noticed that the teddy bear Matthews clutched during the appeal did not belong to Shannon, and that Matthews called her 'beautiful princess daughter'—a phrase she never used before.
West Yorkshire Police launched one of its largest operations, with over 300 officers and three-quarters of the UK's specially trained 'body dogs' searching for Shannon. But amid the community's efforts, Murray pieced together the suspicious behaviour that eventually led to Matthews' confession after Shannon was found.
