lit a candle 8h agoSaw the appeal shared round so many times before they found him. 18. My heart goes out to his dad Alan, I can't imagine those two days not knowing. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.
Their story
James Corlett was an 18 year old from Swadlincote, Derbyshire, England, whose death became national news after he went missing following a night out and was found dead two days later. He was not a public figure before his death, and he is not to be confused with James Ian…
James Corlett was an 18 year old from Swadlincote, Derbyshire, England, whose death became national news after he went missing following a night out and was found dead two days later. He was not a public figure before his death, and he is not to be confused with James Ian Corlett, the Canadian voice actor known for playing Goku in the original English dub of Dragon Ball Z, who shares the same name but is a different person and is alive.
Corlett left his home on the evening of Thursday, 29 October 2026 for a night out in the nearby town of Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire. When he did not return home, his family reported him missing, and Leicestershire Police and Derbyshire Police launched a search involving officers, volunteers and appeals shared widely on social media. The search ended two days later when a body was found in the Ashby area and formally identified as James Corlett.
Leicestershire Police initially said his death was being treated as unexplained while officers worked to establish what had happened to him. As inquiries continued in the days that followed, police said the death was not being treated as suspicious, though no cause of death has been made public and an inquest is expected to be opened in due course.
The case drew widespread local and national attention because of the scale of the search for him and the raw grief expressed by his family while he was still missing. His father, Alan Corlett, thanked everyone who had helped search for his son and spoke publicly of the family's devastation once James's body was found.
Little else about James Corlett's life has been reported publicly. He was not known for any particular achievement, career or public role before his disappearance, and what made him known to the wider public was the circumstances of his death rather than anything he had done in life. His family and community in Swadlincote are left to grieve a young man whose life was cut short at 18, with many of the facts surrounding his final hours still under investigation.
Biography adapted from News reports and the sources cited on this page; death reported by BBC.
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1by People Forever
Those two days must have been unbearable for that family.