Sonia Forsythe was often described as wise beyond her years, a 13-year-old girl with a maturity that belied her age. Yet, she was also known for her sentimental nature, someone who easily got homesick if she was away too long. Sonia attended the Girls’ Model School in north Belfast, Northern Ireland, and lived with her mother, Audrey, her stepfather, and younger sister on Sydney Street West.
On the 30th of June, 1991, Sonia left home in the early afternoon to visit some friends, as she often did. She returned home for dinner, spending a few hours with her family before heading out again around 7PM. It was a typical summer evening, and there was no reason for her mother to worry as Sonia left the house. But that night, Sonia never made it home.
Audrey grew concerned when the hours passed without any sign of her daughter. By the time midnight approached, her worry had turned to fear. Audrey promptly reported Sonia missing to the police, setting off an search that quickly became the focus of the entire city. Local newspapers soon picked up the story of Sonia’s disappearance, featuring her photograph and a detailed description in hopes of generating leads.
The Belfast News Letter described her as a girl with dark hair and brown eyes, wearing black jeans, a burgundy jumper, and white training boots the night she vanished. The plea for information resonated throughout Belfast, but despite the public’s awareness and the widespread distribution of her image, few tips came in. As days turned into weeks, the silence became deafening. By the 18th of July, police openly expressed their concern for Sonia’s safety, fearing that something terrible had happened. 1
A special investigation team was set up at Tennent Street RUC station, north Belfast, and their search for Sonia expanded from the streets of Belfast to Cavehill and other areas of forestry. Tennent Street sub-divisional commander Superintendent Charles Robinson said there was a possibility that Sonia had been abducted. “There was no family conflict and in fact, Sonia had bought new clothes the day before and didn’t take them with her,” he said.2
By the 19th of the month, police had a new theory: that Sonia had been taken to Scotland by orange bandsmen. They commented in the media that Sonia had always had a keen interest in marching bands, and when she disappeared, 60 bands were heading over to Scotland for the Orange Walk season. Superintendent Robinson stated: “All the bands are now back, but there is a possibility she may have stayed on in Scotland, which is a magnet for Ulster youngsters.” Working on this theory, police kept a close on the ferry port at Stranraer to try and see if they could see Sonia arriving, but there was no sign of Sonia.3
Over the next couple of days, a handful of tips came in from people who believed they had seen Sonia in both Scotland and Bangor, a seaside town about 14 miles from Belfast. However, police couldn’t find any evidence that Sonia was ever in either place. Superintendent Robinson said on the 23rd of July: “We have completely searched the Shankill and Woodvale areas, and a search of the Oldpark area has also proved negative.” The police had also conducted a poster campaign throughout various areas of Co. Antrim and Co. Down.4
The weeks slowly morphed into months, and Sonia’s family were left to pick up the pieces of their life and move on as best possible. Her mother, Audrey, commented in January 1992 that she was mystified by her daughter’s disappearance. She said to Sunday Life: “I have nightmares where I’m lying in bed when the police come knocking at the door and ask me to come down to the morgue and identify my daughter.”5 Audrey had lost four stone since her daughter had disappeared, and said to the Belfast News-Letter that same month that she hadn’t heard from police in months. “I had hoped that Christmas might have brought something, a card or even a scribbled message. But nothing,” she said.6
Towards the end of January, there was a potential lead in the case when a 15-year-old girl reported to police that she had been the victim of a paedophile ring. Her allegations sparked what was one of the biggest child abuse investigations in Northern Ireland. According to the girl, a handful of houses in the Shankill were “frequently being used by paedophiles to abuse children for more than 18 months.”
Among the homes was one in Upper Charleville Street, less than a quarter of a mile where Sonia had vanished from. When the home was searched, child sexual abuse images were discovered, and an unnamed 53-year-old man was arrested and charged with the rape of two girls. One neighbour said that she had seen Sonia near the house in the past, but couldn’t recall seeing her there the day she vanished.7 Despite a thorough investigation, police could never find any connection between the paedophile ring and Sonia, leaving them back at square one.
In 1996, it had been five years since Sonia was last seen, and in March of that year, police announced that they had stepped up their search for her. According to a police source: “What we have been doing is taking a fresh look at her disappearance.”8 Police were unaware of it at the time, but the unsolved cold case was about to be blown wide open.
At about 1AM on the 19th of March, 1996, a fire erupted at a flat on Sydney Street West. The blaze lit up the night sky, drawing the attention of nearby residents and, soon after, the fire brigade. The responders acted quickly, extinguishing the flames before they could spread to adjacent buildings. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and the initial assessment suggested that it was a minor incident—a few scorched walls, some smoke damage, nothing more.
The tenants of the flat had been away, sparing them from any harm, but the damage was significant enough to require repairs. Contractors with the Housing Executive were called in to clear out the site to get it ready to be re-let. It was a routine job, or so it seemed, until they ventured into the back yard. At the far end of the yard stood an old coal bunker. Inside, they discovered a rolled up carpet but there was something inside – it was the remains of Sonia Forsythe.9 There was little left of Sonia other than her skull and bones. She was nude other than for several pairs of socks over her legs.
On the 2nd of April, police flew to Liverpool in England where they arrested 24-year-old James Craig. He had lived in the flat when Sonia vanished and worked in a shop that was run by his mother in Tennant Street. A neighbour informed police that they had seen him with a girl outside the flat the night that she disappeared. The neighbour was so curious about the couple that from her dark bedroom window, she watched them enter the home and sit on a sofa in the living room.
For years, neighbours on Sydney Street West had noticed a foul smell coming from somewhere behind their homes. They had hired plumbers thinking that it was a faulty pipe, but they could never figure out the source of the stench. Yet Craig claimed that he had never noticed it.10
After Sonia’s body was discovered, it was revealed that police had searched the home a fortnight earlier, yet they hadn’t found the remains. Local politicians demanded to know how police had missed the body when they had searched all of the flats in Sydney Street West. West Belfast MP Joe Hendron said: “I am not attacking the police but I do feel the situation warrants a more definitive statement from them.” Detective Superintendent Sam Kincaid responded to the criticism and said that when they searched the flats, they were not looking for a body at that stage. He said: “We were looking for some evidence that Sonia had been in the premises at some stage. The remains today were found in a yard adjacent to those flats.”11
In fact, this wasn’t the first time that Craig’s flat had been searched and he had been questioned in relation to her disappearance. After the neighbour informed police she had seen Craig with a girl that looked like Sonia, he was questioned and even cooperated with a police construction of Sonia’s disappearance. At the time, he said he saw Sonia that night, but she hadn’t come into his flat.
After police searched his flat in 1996, Craig firebombed it and then fled to Liverpool. On 3 April, he was charged with the murder of Sonia Forsythe in Belfast Magistrates Court.
Just over two weeks later, Sonia was laid to rest. Her family said their final farewell to her during a private service at their home on McCandless Street. They had since moved away from Sydney Street West as it held too many memories of Sonia. In a statement read by Rev. Gregory Dunstan, Audrey and her second husband, George Boomer, thanked those who had offered their support over the past five years.12 Following the service, Sonia was buried in Carnmoney Cemetery.
James Craig was ordered to stand trial for Sonia’s murder and it began on the 21st of April, 1998. During the opening statements, Prosecutor Pat Lynch said that Craig had “beat the life” out of Sonia with a poker. She had been killed on the night that she vanished, and had sustained a fractured skull, cheek and jaw. After the murder, he said that Craig hid her body in a cupboard before wrapping it up in a carpet and dumping it in the coal bunker behind his flat.
Prosecutor Lynch acknowledged that the case against Craig was circumstantial, but told the jury they would have no doubt he was the man who “beat the life out of Sonia Forsythe.” He said that when his flat was searched in March of 1996, two cupboards were found to contain blood, and a carpet was also missing. They had also found a metal poker. Despite this, police never searched the coal bunker in the back yard. 13
The pathologist, Dr. Crane, noted: “Having examined the metal poker found in the flat in Sydney Street West and having compared the configuration of the elliptical-shaped end of this with the pattern, size and shape of the depressed skull fracture, I have no doubt that this implement or one of identical shape and size was responsible for the injury. Also I am satisfied that the other skull fractures could also have been inflicted with this poker, with those on the back of the skull in particular having been caused by the right-angled edge of the poker shaft.”
According to Craig, he hadn’t killed Sonia. He claimed that he had seen her the night she disappeared and that she had asked him for a cigarette. They lived in the same neighbourhood and he knew her to see, but didn’t know her name. Craig said that Sonia then accompanied him to the Diamond Bar, where he bought cigarettes for his mother and a couple of cans of beer for himself. In regard to the neighbour seeing him with a girl that night, he acknowledged that Sonia had accompanied him back to his flat but maintained she never entered. He alleged that he saw her later that same night with two other girls sitting on the windowsill of a derelict home on Tennant Street.
During the trial, a forensic scientist testified that it was possible to link the bloodstains found in the flat to Sonia by comparing them to DNA samples that had been taken from her parents. He further said that it was also possible to link the carpet in which the body was wrapped to that which had been discovered in the flat.14
After a two week trial, it took the jury just 37 minutes to return with their verdict. They found James Craig guilty of the murder of Sonia Forsythe. From the packed public gallery in the court room, somebody called out: “Rot in hell, Craig!” One an tried to rush forward, but was held back by friends. Lord Justice MacDermott then handed Craig a life sentence.15
In the wake of the verdict, Det. Sgt. Mervyn Bryand admitted that they may have made mistakes during the investigation into Sonia’s disappearance. He said that it had initially been treated as that of a missing person, and acknowledged that they had overlooked the bunker where Sonia’s body was ultimately found.16
In 2019, it was revealed that Craig had been released from prison and was living in an ex-offenders’ hostel Portadown. Audrey posted on Facebook that the anniversary “never gets any easier and this year has been even more difficult because we have just fun doubt that the murdering scumbag is free.”17 Two years later, he was arrested again after being convicted of sex attacks on two girls in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The two girls, who were under nine-years-old at the time, had been assaulted in the same fault where he had killed Sonia.
He was released from prison again two years later, and Sonia’s family received the news just the day before the 32nd anniversary of her murder. Her sister, Nikki, said to Sunday World: “It sickens me to think a convicted child killer/sex offender is now free, living on the streets with so many innocent souls around. If anyone sees him around I suggest being very careful and keep your kids away from him. He’s one evil, twisted man. No one else should have to suffer at his hands.”18
Footnotes:
- Belfast News Letter, 6 July, 1991 – “Police Hunt Missing Girl”
- Belfast News Letter, 18 July, 1991 – “Abduction Fears for Missing Girl”
- Daily Record, 19 July, 1991 – “Orange Band Link to Lost Girl”
- Belfast News-Letter, 23 July, 1991 – “RUC Lead on Missing Girl”
- Sunday Life, 5 January, 1992 – “Missing!”
- Belfast News-Letter, 31 January, 1992 – “The Long, Lonely Wait”
- Belfast News-Letter, 31 January, 1992 – “Hunt on for Child Sexual Abuse Ring”
- Belfast News-Letter, 22 March, 1996 – “Missing Girl Rumours Quashed”
- Burton Daily Mail, 2 April, 1996 – “Girl’s Body Found”
- Killer Left Girl’s Body in Bunker for Five Years”
- Belfast News-Letter, 2 April, 1996 – Why Did RUC Not Find Sonia?
- Belfast News-Letter, 23 April, 1996 – “Farewell to Sonia After Five Years of Anguish”
- Birmingham Daily Post, 21 April, 1998 – “Man Beat the Life out of Young Girl”
- The Queen v. James Junior McKinstry Craig
- Irish Independent, 6 May, 1998 – “Man Gets Life for Battering Schoolgirl”
- Belfast News-Letter, 7 May, 1998 – “Police Admit Sonia Case Mistakes”
- The Sun, 2 April, 2019 – “Sonia’s Family Fury”
- Sunday World, 10 July, 2023 – “He Will Kill Again”
Comments: