MAKE ME DISAPPEAR!

Katie* knew she had to escape after her partner put her in a chokehold during an argument over pasta. She’d been with Mark* for four years, and married for 18 months. Both successful professionals (her in IT, and him in banking), living in London, the relationship turned violent shortly after their honeymoon, when arguments, mostly over money, spiralled into physical abuse…

- Rob Crossan

FACE SLAPPINGS, KICKING and coercive sex became the norm in their marital home, with Katie having to call in sick from work on two occasions, so that her friends and colleagues wouldn’t see her bruises.

When Mark complained that Katie had undercooked the pasta she’d prepared for an evening meal and attempted to strangle her, she knew drastic measures were necessary.

Fearing the prospect of further violence if she told the police and wasn’t believed, she began searching online for an answer to her increasingly frightening predicament. This is how she found Eileen Horan.

Based in Florida, Eileen has helped between 15 and 20 women from the US, Britain, Germany and more to disappear over the last two decades; enabling women who feel the police have failed them or who simply don’t want to involve the authorities, to vanish without a trace, so that their violent partners can never find them.

“To ‘disappear’ can mean many different things,” explains Eileen. “But for me, it’s making sure that somebody whom you don’t want to find you, absolutely never can if you don’t want them to.”

Eileen’s skills in making women disappear stem from the working relationship she had with her ex-partner, whose job was to work with the police to find criminal suspects who had skipped bail and were on the run.

“His work in finding people made me realise that there are actually people who need help to make sure that they can’t be found as well,” says Eileen. “Though I think finding people is a lot easier than making people vanish effectively.”