Bone found in garden reignites ‘murder’ probe into beloved pub landlady who mysteriously vanished on way home from work
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A BONE found in a garden has reignited a "murder" probe into a beloved pub landlady who mysteriously vanished on her way home from work. Deborah Steel, known as Debbie, disappeared after a shift at the Royal Standard in Ely, Cambridgeshire, on 27 December, 1997.
![[The Royal Standard in Ely where Debbie Steel was working before she disappeared]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/1997-despite-extensive-investigations-excavation-960541953.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Despite extensive investigations, the excavation of multiple properties and three arrests, her body has never been found and no one has been charged. A recent discovery of a human leg bone in a garden in the city - which wasn't Debbie's - however has brought the case back into focus.
![[Debbie who vanished from her pub in 1997 is believed to have been murdered]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/1997-despite-extensive-investigations-excavation-960541964.jpg?strip=all&w=624)
The 37-year-old was not initially recorded as missing as her partner, Brian McDermott, thought she had travelled without notice to see friends in London, which she had done before. She had just secured the finance on a new catering business and had no reason to disappear.
Detectives believe she was murdered in Longfields where she had taken a taxi for the mile-long journey home in the early hours of December 28. Nine years ago, police dug up the pub’s patio in the hope they might find something but were again thwarted.
Her dad Bill’s last words on his deathbed in 2010 were ‘Find out what happened to my girl.’. Deborah’s sister Gini Secker, 61, said she was certain her sister had been murdered. She told the BBC in 2017: “I've always been a massive lover of Christmas, but it fills me with sadness now.
