Disappearance of Genette Tate

Genette Louise Tate was a 13-year-old schoolgirl who disappeared on the afternoon of Saturday, 19 August 1978, in the East Devon village of Aylesbeare, about eight miles east of Exeter. Born in Taunton, Somerset, on 5 May 1965, she lived at Barton Farm Cottage with her father, stepmother, and stepsister. That week she had taken on a newspaper round as a favour, covering for a paper boy who was away on holiday.

Shortly after 3:28 pm, two schoolfriends saw Genette pushing her bicycle up Withen Lane. She had delivered fourteen papers, spoke briefly with the girls, then rode ahead over the crest of the hill while they paused to read. Roughly seven minutes later they came upon her bicycle lying in the middle of the road, newspapers scattered around it, with no sign of Genette. Her father reported her missing at about 5 pm.

Police mounted one of the largest searches in the history of Devon and Cornwall Police. Dozens of uniformed officers and detectives, mounted police, underwater units, dogs, Royal Marines, and thousands of volunteers combed fields, woodland, and ponds within a five-mile radius over the following weeks. Investigators ruled out the possibility that she had run away, finding that she had left behind her holiday savings and carried only the clothes she wore and the money collected on her round. A hit-and-run was also discounted, as her bicycle was undamaged and no tyre marks were found. Despite the scale of the effort and extensive publicity, no trace of her was recovered.

In the decades that followed, the inquiry was periodically reviewed. In 2002 a DNA profile was obtained from a jumper kept by Genette's mother, providing a means of identification should remains ever be found. Attention later centred on a convicted serial child killer, since deceased, who had worked as a long-distance delivery driver in the region during the 1970s; police examined whether he could be placed near Aylesbeare that day. Prosecutors concluded in 2008 that there was insufficient evidence to bring a charge, and a further file compiled after his death in 2016 produced no posthumous charging decision.

Genette's family lived for decades without resolution. On the 25th anniversary in 2003, both of her parents said they believed she was no longer alive. Her father continued to appeal for information, seeking proof of what had happened and hoping to give his daughter a dignified burial; he died in 2020 with the case still unresolved.

Genette Tate's body has never been found, and no one has ever been charged or convicted in connection with her disappearance. Devon and Cornwall Police have treated the matter as a murder investigation, and it endures as one of Britain's longest-running and most widely known unsolved cases involving a child.