Please note this chronology is badly incomplete.
We plan to continue developing this list until it contains all information we can find. Please feel free to email us any extra information you have that would help complete this chronology.
These are some of the events leading up to, and following, Richey’s disappearance:
1967
22 December: Richard James Edwards is born in Blackwood, Caerphilly, Wales to Graham and Shelly Edwards.
1969
Richey’s sister Rachel is born.
1979-1984
Richey attends Oakdale Comprehensive School in Caerphilly, where he meets future bandmates Nicky Wire, Sean Moore and James Dean Bradfield.
1986-1989
Richey attends University of Wales, Swansea, and graduates with a 2:1 degree in political history.
He is initially the driver and roadie for Manic Street Preachers before being accepted as the band’s main spokesman and fourth member. He plays rhythm guitar but his primary input is in lyrics, design and direction of the band.
1991
21 January: The Manics enter the charts for the first time with the single “Motown Junk.”
15 May: After the band perform at the Norwich Arts Centre, NME journalist Steve Lamacq questions Richey about how serious he is about his art. Richey responds by carving the words “4 Real” into his forearm with a razor blade. The injury requires eighteen stitches.
1992
10 February: The band’s debut album “Generation Terrorists” is released.
1993
21 June: The band’s second album “Gold Against The Soul” is released.
25 September: Nicky Wire, Richey’s bandmate and best friend, gets married.
October: Manic Street Preachers tour Japan and Germany. In Germany, Richey goes through a self-admitted “bad period.” He begins to stub out cigarettes on his arm, and his drinking increases. The band send him to a health farm when they return to Britain. This is the second time Richey goes there.
26 October: The single “Roses In The Hospital” is released.
7 December: The band’s manager, Philip Hall, dies of cancer at age 34.
1994
January – 5 February: Manic Street Preachers tour in the UK.
7 February: The single “Life Becoming a Landslide” is released.
2 March: Manic Street Preachers play a benefit concert at the Clapham Grand, London, for cancer research. The band are joined by Bernard Butler for several songs.
8 April: Kurt Cobain, a favourite artist of Richey’s, is found after killing himself approximately three days earlier. Cobain was 27.
22-23 April: Manic Street Preachers play two shows in Bangkok, Thailand. The second night, Richey is given a set of knives by a fan, which he uses to cut his chest before the show. He also stops eating around this time. Richey is sent to a health farm for the third time when they return to Britain. The band will see, in retrospect, the Thai concerts as the beginning of the serious trouble with Richey.
Spring (perhaps April?): Richey’s friend from university, Nigel, hangs himself.
31 May: The single “Faster/PCP” is released.
24 June: Manic Street Preachers play at the Glastonbury festival.
July: Richey disappears for 48 hours. Shortly after he returns, following two days of drinking and self-mutilation, in an apparent suicide attempt, he is committed to Whitchurch Hospital, Cardiff, then the Priory Clinic, Roehampton, for ten weeks of rehabilitation.
30 July: Manic Street Preachers honour their commitment to play at the T In The Park festival, without Richey.
8 August: The single “Revol” is released.
19 & 21 August: Manic Street Preachers honour their commitment to play at festivals in Germany and Holland, without Richey.
27 August: Manic Street Preachers honour their commitment to play at the Reading festival, without Richey.
30 August: The band’s third album, “Holy Bible”, is released. This has been seen by some people as Richey’s suicide note.
Early September: Richey checks out of the Priory Clinic.
September – October: Manic Street Preachers tour in France, as the support act for Therapy?. Richey is performing with them again at this point.
3 October: The single, “She Is Suffering”, is released.
October: Manic Street Preachers tour in the UK.
7 November – December: Manic Street Preachers tour in Europe, as the support act for Suede.
Sometime during the tour, Richey buys a meat cleaver, apparently intending to chop off his fingers, so that he doesn’t have to play onstage, in emulation of Steve Clark, guitarist for Def Leppard. The cleaver is taken away from Richey before he can use it on himself.
22 November: Simon Price, a reporter for Melody Maker music weekly, interviews Richey in Paris. It is the last time Richey will speak to the British press.
24 November: Nicky discovers after a show in Amsterdam, that Richey has cut himself vertically down his chest, an injury which requires thirty-six stitches.
29 or 30 November: The last TV interview with Richey is recorded in Stockholm for a Swedish TV channel.
1 December: Nicky finds Richey outside the group’s hotel in Hamburg, Germany, repeatedly banging his head on the wall, blood streaming down his face. The European tour is ended, despite several more shows on the schedule.
19-21 December: Richey’s last three shows with the Manic Street Preachers, at the London Astoria. The group smashes their equipment at the end of the last show.
1995
January: Manic Street Preachers begin rehearsals for their fourth album. Richey takes £200 a day from his bank account for the two weeks before his disappearance, for a total of £2800.
14 January: Richey and his sister, Rachel, bury the dog they had for 17 years, Snoopy. It is the last time Rachel sees Richey.
Mid-January: Richey attends a show at TJ’s in Newport. This is the last time he is seen at a public event.
23 January: Richey gives his last ever interview, for the Japanese magazine, Music Life, with Midori Tsukagoshi.
23 January: Richey sees his parents for the last time.
29-30 January: Manic Street Preachers spend these days rehearsing for their upcoming tour of America.
31 January: Richey talks to his mother for the last time. He tells her that he isn’t really looking forward to going to America.
31 January: Richey and bandmate James Dean Bradfield check into the London Embassy hotel on Bayswater Road in London in preparation for leaving for their promotional tour of America the next day.
1 February: 7 AM (GMT): Richey checks out of the Embassy Hotel. It is certain that he drives to his apartment in Cardiff where he leaves some things before driving away again. By some accounts, he does not enter Wales for eight hours after leaving the hotel. Meanwhile, James goes on to America, believing Richey might return after a few days.
2 February: Martin Hall, the Manic Street Preachers’ manager, files a missing person report on Richey with the Metropolitan (London) police. Richey’s family places an advert in their local paper. It reads: “Richard, please make contact. Love Mum, Dad and Rachel”. The advert runs for three days.
February: Sometime during the two weeks following his leaving the Embassy Hotel in London, Richey is supposedly spotted at the passport office in Newport.
5 February: David Cross, a fan from Mid-Glamorgan, supposedly sees Richey at the Newport bus station. Cross was unaware that Richey was missing. They are reported to have discussed a mutual friend, Lori Fidler, before Edwards departed. Fidler was head of the band’s American fan club.
7 February: Anthony Hatherhall, a taxi driver from Newport, supposedly picks up Richey from the King’s Hotel in Newport, and drives him around the valleys, including Blackwood. Hatherhall claims the passenger spoke in a clearly fake Cockney accent, which kept slipping into a Welsh one. The passenger gets off at the Severn View service station and pays the £68 fare in cash.
14 February: Richey’s Vauxhall Cavalier arrives at the (Aust) Severn service station.
15 February: The South Wales Police issue a public statement about Richey’s disappearance. Also, Richey’s father, Graham Edwards, appears on Cardiff’s Red Dragon Radio to appeal to Richey to get in touch. The Manic Street Preachers issue an official band statement.
17 February: Richey’s Vauxhall Cavalier is reported abandoned at the (Aust) Severn service station. Apparently, Richey has been living in it for a time. The battery is run down, and burger wrappers and pictures of his family, which were taken the month before, are found in it.
May: Manic Street Preachers and Graham and Sherry Edwards, Richey’s parents, meet to decide about continuing the group.
29 December: Manic Street Preachers make their first public appearance since Richey’s disappearance, as support for The Stone Roses at Wembley Arena.
1996
15 April: The single, “A Design For Life”, is released.
20 May: The band’s fourth album, “Everything Must Go”, is released. This contains songs Richey worked on with the group just before he disappeared.
October: Channel Four airs the television programme, The Vanishing of Richey Manic, as part of a series called Fame Factor.
November: Vyvyan Morris, a lecturer from Neath College in South Wales, claims to see Richey in a hippie market in Goa, India. The man seen is apparently the spitting image of Richey. Vyvyan speaks to some of the hippie group that Richey is supposedly with, asking them about their friend. They state that his name is “Rick” and he’s been with them for about 18 months (this would mean he joined them around May 1995.)
1997
17 March: Rachel Edwards, Richey’s sister, hits out at the police for not properly handling the investigation of her brother during the BBC Radio Wales documentary Eye On Wales.
April: The English group, Ideal, receive notice for a song they wrote called, “Richey Is Dead”. The song is considered to be in bad taste.
1998
November: Tracey Jones, a British-born barmaid on the island of Fuerteventura, supposedly sees Richey in the Underground Bar in the town of Corralejo.
1999
May: It is reported by PC Michael Cole of the Metropolitan Police, that more work has been done on Richey’s case in the previous year than in the three years before.
2000
February: Sherry Edwards, Richey’s mother, writes a letter to Richey in the Sunday Mirror newspaper. She also appears on television to appeal to Richey to come home.
2002
January: With the seventh anniversary of Richey’s disappearance near, his parents, Graham and Sherry Edwards, have the legal option of declaring Richey presumed dead. However, they state they will never have their son declared dead.
March: A pair of trainers, along with some bones, are found washed up by the Severn River. They are later determined to not be Richey’s.
2003
July: A skeleton is found in the Bristol channel. It is determined to not be Richey’s.
14 July: “Judge Y’rself”, the last song written with Richey, is released on the album, Lipstick Traces – A Secret History of the Manic Street Preachers. The song was originally recorded for the Judge Dredd movie soundtrack, but never released.
2004
October: It is reported that Lee Wilde supposedly saw Richey on Famara beach, Lanzarote.
6 December: The album, “The Holy Bible”, is re-issued in a special 2CD and DVD 10th anniversary edition.
2005
1 February: 10 years since Richey’s disappearance. The media cover the anniversary and appeal for any new information.
2008
4 November: It is reported that Manic Street Preachers have been recording a new album, due out in Spring 2009, which will contain only the lyrics Richey left with them before he disappeared.
23 November: It is reported that Richey’s legal status has been changed, by court order, to “presumed dead”. His parents, Graham and Sherry Edwards, have been granted control of his estate, and the missing person case on Richey is now officially closed.
2009
18 May: The album, “Journal For Plague Lovers”, is released. It contains only the last lyrics Richey left with the band before he disappeared.
2015
1st February: 20th anniversary of Richey’s disappearance.
2025
1st February: 30th anniversary of Richey’s disappearance.
English