Ben Needham

On July 24, 1991, twenty-one-month-old Ben Needham was playing outside his grandparents' farmhouse in Iraklis, a small village on the Greek island of Kos. His mother Kerry had traveled from Sheffield, England, with Ben to visit her parents, who were renovating a farmhouse on the island. Ben vanished while his mother was inside.

Initial theories focused on abduction, with suggestions that Ben may have been taken by a childless couple. Greek and British police conducted extensive searches and interviews on Kos. The investigation was hampered by language barriers and jurisdictional complications.

In 2012, South Yorkshire Police took a more active role in the investigation. New forensic work was conducted at the farmhouse site. In 2016, police explored the theory that a construction worker at the property may have accidentally killed Ben with a digger and buried the evidence. The worker, Konstantinos Barkas, had died before he could be questioned.

Ben's mother Kerry has campaigned for over three decades to find her son. The case remains the subject of periodic police operations, but Ben has never been found.