Family's 'ice cold reality' retracing Daniel's footsteps

SON AND BROTHER HAS BEEN MISSING FOR A YEAR

- OLIVIER VERGNAULT

THE family of a Plymouth man missing for more than a year have shared their ‘ice cold reality’ after revisiting the last place he was seen. Daniel Mizzi vanished on December 8, 2023. His last known moments were captured on CCTV in St Ives.

Daniel’s family have been questioning why he was in the Cornish seaside town ever since. His mum, 58-year-old Karran Minchinton, Daniel’s younger brother, Jake Hughes, and Sean McEvoy, Karan’s carer and father figure in Dan’s and Jake’s lives for many years, have been searching for answers over the last twelve months.

Devon and Cornwall Police have searched the South West Coast Path from the point where the then 35-year-old was last seen on doorbell footage of a house overlooking Porthmeor Beach.

Drones and the coastguard helicopter have been used where the cost path became impassable and RNLI lifeboats have scoured the cliffs, buit have found no trace.

“It’s like Daniel vanished into thin air,” Sean told us when we met him and Jake in a cafe in St Ives just over a year on from Dan’s unexplained disappearance.

“He had no connection to St Ives. It’s not like we ever came here on holiday. His ex partner moved to Cornwall but they lost touch. It’s all a big mystery for us.”

Jake remembers the day his big brother never came home like it was yesterday. “Everything was normal,” he said over a coffee. “Dan wasn’t at home which is not unusual as he likes to go on walks. The next day and on Sunday he still hadn’t come home so I called Sean and my mum and that’s when we thought Dan is missing.”

A close-knit family, Jake and Sean laugh and joke even about Dan going missing because it’s just too hard to think about it. It’s a way to cope but even to their own admission, it masks an ice cold reality that no-one knows what happened to him.