Karen Milsom

Status:

Open

Missing From:

Saint-Gourson, Charente, France

Summary:

Karen Milsom, a Bristol-born care worker described as caring and empathetic, moved to France with her husband Steven and their two sons 16 years before her disappearance, working in the hotel and restaurant trade and later as a carer for an elderly British woman. She has not been seen nor heard from since around 20th August 2019.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

Karen's husband said that she had taken €6,000 and some clothes and driven off in her car, and before she left she had an outburst in the house, with him saying she had been fishing for an argument. He reported her missing after she had been gone for three weeks, saying they wanted to give her time to sort herself out. Three weeks later, Steven received a text telling him that the car was at Ruffec station (40 km away), and he recovered the car in which he found a bag of men's clothing, possibly for a charity store, which he disposed of. On 14th September, four weeks after going missing, Karen replied to a text message from her best friend Claire saying, "Hi, Claire, missing you too. We'll be back in December to explain things."

Additional Details:

Karen's mother had committed suicide when she was a teenager. Before she vanished, Karen was down and in a rut, and an argument with her husband led to her wanting a few days to herself. Steven received two phone calls from withheld numbers and said Karen had taken the sim card from his late father's phone. At a restaurant in Bristol in June before her disappearance, Milsom told a friend: 'If I had to leave, I would go very, very far'. Steven has been interviewed by police on a number of occasions, and most recently, gendarmes emptied the septic tank at the house and searched the property and surrounding areas using sniffer dogs trained to find human remains. Jean-Charles Le Floc'h, a former French police commissioner and family friend, said it was very regrettable that the police investigation only got under way two months after Milsom's disappearance, and said there were three main theories. Karen Milsom is one of more than 800 Britons listed as missing abroad by the Lucie Blackman Trust. Her car reappeared long after she disappeared.

Case Last Updated:

Oct 27, 2026