British TV chef who ‘ghosted' pregnant wife found in under 16 hours by internet sleuths following online manhunt

10 April 2024, 10:54 | Updated: 10 April 2024, 11:20

A British chef who "ghosted" his pregnant wife has been tracked down by amateur internet sleuths in less than 16 hours after he "vanished without a trace".

Ashley McGuire claims her husband, British television chef Charlie Withers, 30, upped and vanished in March 2023 from their Massachusetts home, leaving their son and unborn child without a father.

Employing the help of TikTok and Facebook sleuths, Ms McGuire says the internet - including an army of single mothers - rallied around her, eventually tracking him to the nearby state of Texas.

The viral public post, one year on from his disappearance, followed a number bid by Ms McGuire to serve her estranged partner with divorce papers after she was left unable find him.

The mother-of-four - who had two children before meeting Withers - says the celebrity chef hasn't seen his children since "last April".

"He decided that being a husband and a dad wasn't the lifestyle he wanted anymore," she wrote in the now-viral Facebook post.

Mr Withers is yet to respond publicly to the claims made against him.

"Divorcing someone who's completely unreachable is really tough," she wrote in her Facebook post.

According to Ms McGuire, he stopped answering messages on his old phone number following his disappearance, leaving her completely unable to trace him.

Mr Withers and Ms McGuire met after the chef moved to the US in 2012, attending Boston College, Massachusetts according to his LinkedIn profile.

Appearing on a 2022 episode of US reality TV series “Chopped”, the appearance saw his career blossom.

Utilising the help of online sleuths, some claim to have matched with the chef, who is allegedly going under the name "Charlie" on internet dating sites including Bumble.

Claiming she has received "hundreds" of detailed tip-offs following her appeal, which suggested he was now living a 30 hour drive from the family home.

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The original post has now been deleted, with Ms McGuire noting it was taken down after Mr Withers reached out and requested his employer's details be removed due to unwanted attention.

With new information coming to light, Mr Withers is now reportedly working as a personal chef for Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan, according to the Mail Online.

Sheridan's wife Nicole, 41, appears to have shared a clip of the chef online, before quickly deleting the clip.

But a screenshot was quickly snapped up by TikTok sleuths, who later reposted it online.

Claiming her absent husband "dipped" and "took off" while she was pregnant, Ms McGuire has since given birth to their second child.

The single mother of four stressed that she now just "wants to move on".

Subsequent internet videos revealed her heartache, as the mother-of-four added: 'I don't want any ties, I don't want any connections, I just want the next chapter of my life to start."

Speaking on the JAM'N Morning Show about the story, Ms McGuire said: "I hope he's good. For somebody to turn their life this upside down, there's obviously some internal struggles there, there's a lot going on."

"But at the same time to just walk away from all responsibility, just walk away like it never happened is just - you can't do that.'You need to be held accountable.

"There needs to be some respect for the situation, and if you're a guy out there who has somebody that's taking care of your kids.

"You're hands off, you're not involved or vice versa if you're a mom and you have a dad who's taking care of your kids, have respect for them."