• March 18: Sian O’Callaghan goes for a night out with girl friends in Old Town – she goes for a meal at the Harvester on Drove Road, then on to Baker Street and The Spot, before heading to Suju in High Street.
  • 2.52am March 19: Sian is caught on CCTV leaving Suju. The flat she shared with her boyfriend, Kevin Reape, 25, is just a half-a-mile walk away from the club. She does not make it home.
  • 3.24am: Kevin sends a text message to her mobile phone. Cell site analysis reveals her phone was in the Savernake Forest area, near Marlborough, when the message was received. She could only have got from Swindon to the Savernake area – a distance of about 15 miles – by car within the 32-minute time period, police said.
  • 9.45am: Kevin contacts police and reports his girlfriend missing. He has been unable to contact her after she failed to return home.
  • March 20: Police issue an appeal for information and release a description of the 22-year-old. Detectives say the office administrator’s disappearance is out of character and that her family are “extremely worried”. Police also reveal they had been searching the 4,500-acre Savernake Forest.
  • 10am March 21: Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher, leading the investigation, says he has been trying to establish Sian’s movements between 3.15am and 4am on Saturday in the Savernake area. He says analysis of mobile phone sites established that Sian’s LG E900 Optimus mobile phone had activated in a six-and-a-half mile radius of the mast at Cadley.
  • 3pm: Kevin, supported by Sian’s family, makes a tearful appeal at a police press conference for information to find her. He said: “I just want to say how very worried we are about Sian. She has been missing now for over two days and it’s not like her to not come home or contact any of us for such a long time. We all want to know where Sian is and we want her home safe and well.” Police rule out Kevin as a suspect in the inquiry. Detectives also released CCTV of Sian leaving the Japanese-themed club on Saturday morning.
  • March 22: Around 400 people, including friends of Sian and her boyfriend, join the search of Savernake Forest after police appeal for help in combing the dense woodland. An anonymous benefactor offers a £20,000 reward for information.
  • March 23: Using mobile phone technology, police are able to narrow the search of the forest having identified “hot spots” of particular interest. The public are asked not to join today’s searches. Det Supt Fulcher says the inquiry was moving at a “rapid pace” with “significant lines of inquiry being developed”.
  • March 24: Specialist dog teams are drafted in to help in the search through woodland. Police appeal for sightings of a green Toyota Avensis estate with taxi markings seen between 3am and 4am and noon to 9pm on Saturday between Swindon and Savernake and later seize a car matching the description.

A man is arrested on suspicion of kidnap.

A white police tent is erected in the front garden of a semi-detached house on Ashbury Avenue in Nythe. The house is cordoned off and three police vans are parked outside.

Police close off a stretch of road near the village of Uffington, east of Swindon.

  • 5.20pm: Det Supt Fulcher announces that two bodies have been found, including one believed to be that of Sian. He says a 47-year-old man from Swindon is being held on suspicion of kidnap and two murders.