Risk analysts often use death as the worst-case scenario when measuring the outcome of risky events. However, as is often the case with risk communication, people's perceptions don't match the thinking behind the experts' calculations. The recent discovery by police of 2 bodies, buried at a house in the south of England, allowed us a unique insight into the reality of personal tragedy.

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The police had decided to search the property after a tip-off that they might find the body of Dinah McNicol, who went missing at the age of 18 on her way home from a music festival in 1991. The first body to be unearthed was not Dinah McNicol, but the corpse of another young woman, Vicky Hamilton, who had also disappeared in 1991.

I heard Mr. McNicol, speaking to BBC Radio, before the discovery of the second body. These are his words, as reported in The Guardian:

"Having someone go missing is worse than someone dying. I lost my wife in a car accident in 1980. I went through hell but got over it. With Dinah, I can't get over it because I don't know what happened."

The second body has now been identified as that of Dinah McNicol. Let's hope that the McNicol family can finally come to terms with her death, a terrible fate... but apparently not as bad as a terrible uncertainty.

Ian McNicol's words as reported in The Guardian