Tracy Meade

Tracy Meade was found dead in the Grand Union Canal having been stabbed and having then drowned.

She was last seen on 22 January 1992 at about 5pm with a boy underneath the Hapenny Steps Bridge by the Harrow Road.

The boy was described as a bit taller than Tracy Meade and with fair hair.

However, there was another possible sighting of her around 31 January 1993 at about 1.30pm in Shepherds Bush. A woman said that she saw Tracy Meade standing in the street and asked her if she was alright and said that the girl then asked her if she would still be in Shepherds Bush if she went further down the road, and the woman said that she told her that if she went further along the road that she would be in Acton and then asked her what she was looking for and said that the girl told her that she was looking for Adams Cafe.

The woman said that she told Tracy Meade that she didn't know where Adams Cafe was but advised her to try the market and said that they then walked there together. She said that on the way the girl told her that she was expecting to meet her boyfriend and his mates.

There was a further possible sighting of Tracy Meade at 4.30pm the same day, 31 January 1992 when she was thought to have been seen with another girl going into the A Cooke Pie and Eel Shop on the Goldhawk Road. The woman in the cafe said that she remembered the girls, saying that they looked as though they had been sleeping rough. She said that they were very clean and tidy but looked very tired. The woman said that the girl that was thought to have been Tracy Meade's friend had dark bobbed hair and looked very young and pretty and ordered pie and mash. She said that the girl that was thought to have been Tracy Meade looked as though she had something stuffed under her jacket.

The police later appealed for the young girl that was thought to have been with Tracy Meade in the cafe to come forward and released a photofit of her.

Tracy Meade was found dead the following afternoon on Saturday 1 February 1992 in the Grand Union Canal in Kensal Rise having drowned quite recently after having been stabbed.

Tracy Meade was described as a streetwise child and it was thought that she had gone to the canal with a friend or friends and that whatever happened there got out of hand and she ended up being stabbed and going into the canal. It was noted that her stab wounds were relatively superficial and thought that she had then either stumbled into the canal herself or had been pushed.

It was also noted that when she was found she was only partially clothed and that the rest of her clothes were found elsewhere on the canal bank. It was also thought that she had gone to the canal with the people that she had gone with sex or something of that nature in mind and that it was that that had got out of hand resulting in her being stabbed.

The police said that as such, they felt sure that there were a number of children in the area that were involved with what happened and knew what had happened, including close friends of Tracy Meade.

The police said that amongst other things, they wanted to find out where Tracy Meade had been staying in the two weeks after she was last seen by her mother. They noted that Tracy Meade had not been kidnapped and had left on her own volition and knew that she had been seen in a number of places including the Harrow Road area and Paddington.

Her brother, Peter Petrou, was stabbed to death in London in July 2020 outside a McDonalds fast food restaurant.