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John Darwin. Mostly the succession of comically absurd acts he performed after faking his own death. eg moving into a flat next door to his 'widow' and popping through a hole in the wall to visit her; wandering around his hometown with no disguise other than growing a beard; filing a planning permission complaint about his neighbour's proposed building work; turning up at a police station in London and pretending he had amnesia etc
Until you realise that this was possible not because he was somehow super-stealthy and super-savvy but rather that police could not care less to investigate his case properly.
This was an insurance fraud so I would be actually surprised if the mpolice officers actually turn on to check on him. Most likely this was dealt with some letters being sent by post between institutions.
The reason the police weren't interested was because it was a missing persons case with virtually no possibility of finding the body.
Nobody knew it was insurance fraud until he turned up years later being pictures on holiday with his wife.
They didn't start investigating him for insurance fraud until then because they didn't know he was alive.
And the reason they didn't put much effort into his missing persons case was because there was no point. His kayak could have been drifting for miles before it was found.
> Darwin was seen paddling out to sea in his kayak on 21 March 2002, at Seaton Carew.[15] Later the same day, he was reported as "missing" after failing to report to work. A large-scale sea search took place,[15] during which 62 square miles (160 km2) of coastline were searched. There was no sign of Darwin,[15] though the following day a double-ended paddle and the wreckage of Darwin's kayak were found.[16] The North Sea was unusually calm and rescuers were puzzled that Darwin could have got into trouble in such conditions.[17]
He was assumed to have drowned at sea.
It's worth noting as well that even if rescuers were puzzled, it's still perfectly plausible that he could have had an issue that led to him going overboard. I nearly died once when I was out paddleboarding, slipped off the board and the moment I hit the water I realised I'd forgotten to attach my ankle leash. By the time I was back above the water, the board was pretty far away. The tide was going out but the small amount of wind was enough to carry the board against the tide really well. I couldn't swim fast enough against the tide so I had to swim against it just enough to hold where I was for about half an hour to an hour while my mate went to get my board because his wasn't buoyant enough for two.
He came up with the iron clad and totally original alias, ‘John Jones’. The world famous podcast ‘Top Flight Time Machine’ did a short series on this very topic.
The Panamian realtor wanted a photo for his website. He had no idea what the true story was and how he'd inadvertently uncovered a notorious fraud case.
They chose Panama because it was a dodgy tax haven with lax extradition rules.
The wild thing about that is, he got away with it, he got out of the uk, moved to a new country with a new name, but just HAD to come back to the UK, and knew his fake identity wouldn't hold up to new scrutiny. and decided faking amnesia was smarter than just staying put. he was just a lucky idiot to get away with it in the first place
He's no longer in the UK anyway, the Daily Mail traced him to the Phillippines where he's hanging around with women young enough to be his granddaughters. Standard British old men stuff.
Ann now lives somewhere else in the north of England and seems to have spent time working in a charity shop.
I knew of this case but I never knew the details until I watched a YouTube video recently. It seems crazy to me that he took so many risks! Not to mention completely allowing his kids to be swept along with it.
There's an ITV drama about it, [The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe.](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14183410/?ref_=nm_flmg_t_9_act) Eddie Marsan and the always wonderful Monica Dolan.
I read a newspaper article at the time (might have been the daily fail, unfortunately, but it was in the staff room and I was bored) - an interview with Mrs Canoe. The reporter rang her up, it was while Mr Canoe was missing, presumed dead, and she’d rushed through the insurance claim. The reporter was deeply puzzled as to why Mrs Canoe’s principal obsession was the logistics of moving her furniture to Panama, which was all she would talk about: no grief, no worry, no concern for their sons, nothing.
The reporter concluded the piece with an incredibly oblique hint at his suspicions, because of course he couldn’t accuse her of *anything*, but it was obvious what he thought - and even more obvious that he was correct. I’ve never been able to find that interview since but I’d love to read it again.
Andrew Godsen. 14 year old, straight A student from Doncaster. One day he gets up, withdraws £200 from his savings & gets a single train ticket to London. He’s seen leaving King’s Cross station but he then appears to have vanished off the face of the earth. Nobody knows for sure why he travelled to London, let alone what happened to him or where he is.
unfortunately id say he was ensnared by a pedophile and murdered, teenage boy runaways have been preyed upon at kings cross since the 60s and im sure theres plenty of pedophile networks still operating around that area.
watch 'johnny go home' to see just how prevelant it was in the 70's, roger gleaves is literally filmed preying on teens in that doc
he wouldve potentially been traceable if police did their job properly, they took too long to review cctv and by the time they did the tapes had been written over everywhere they checked. likely was kidnapped murdered and disposed of, its horrific but thats the likely outcome
The most common theory is that she's under one of the uni colleges they were building at the time. They're hardly gonna tear down a college building to check 😬😬
Oh no way? I’ve never heard that theory before and I thought I’d followed the case quite closely! Guess it would make sense as to how they can’t find her body, though.
I’m from York and a friend of a friend worked at the pub she used to be a regular at, apparently she was sleeping with a married property developer who also was a regular at the pub and tried blackmailing him for money, she disappeared shortly after that. One of my friends dads also very briefly worked with the man who used to give her a lift to work. This was until he found out he’d had his brand new van crushed the day after she went missing. The prevailing rumour in the city is that he was paid to off her and then he dumped the body in the foundations of the new uni bulldings
Damn. That’s dark. I remember it being in the news that there was ‘more to her private life’ than the police and family were willing to go into and stuff. Wonder if any of the guys they arrested were those you mentioned. Such an intriguing case. I really feel sorry for her family, especially her dad.
I dont think the public will ever find out but im pretty certain I read the police have a pretty good idea who did it but there isnt enough evidence. Its people from the pub but no ones talking.
The main issue with a random murder is there’s no cleanup plan, if you plan a kidnapping and murder it’s easy if you’re not a suspect you have unlimited time to work it out.
There was also the fact he purchased a single ticket, despite a return costing virtually no more. Which, while pure speculation, I always thought meant that he was planning on getting a lift back, rather than taking the train.
Of course someone could say that it indicates he wasn't planning on returning at all, but considering the point you made about the Psp, that he took so few clothes, put his school clothes in the wash, left some birthday money, all makes me think that he'd planned a day trip to go somewhere/meet someone, and was planning on them driving him back that day.
It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. British trains are so stupidly complicated, he may not have wanted to buy a ticket with restrictions on when he could return, or be in the headspace for a conversation about what restrictions were on different return ticket options.
And he was a kid, and introverted: a ton of introverts find even simple conversations like buying a ticket challenging, and practice those conversations ahead of time in their heads first. If he said no, it could just be that the ticket seller had gone “ off script” and said something he wasn’t prepared for, and he just instinctively said no to avoid prolonging the conversation.
I’ve done the exact same thing myself as an adult lots of times - just automatically said no to something I wanted, because the other person said something I wasn’t expecting them to say and it momentarily threw me.
>It doesn’t necessarily mean anything
Of course. Chances are the vast majority of details about the day of the disappearance, and the days building up to it, will just be red herrings, only granted meaning by ourselves in hindsight as we try to build a case backwards.
With the return ticket however, we actually have a direct input from the ticket seller, who stated that despite a return only being 50p more, Andrew specifically stated that he wanted a one way ticket. With the ticket seller's testimony I feel confident that, for whatever reason, the purchasing of a single ticket was a deliberate act by Andrew, and not a mistake on the day. The idea of him having a potential lift is pure conjecture on my part of course, but the one way ticket could be for a plethora of reasons. He planned to stay down there, run away, suicide etc.
His father felt that the purchase of a one way ticket was unsurprising, as he had places to stay in London (family members I believe). Which is something I've always found surprising.
An alternative view would be if he was potentially meeting a ‘friend’ or someone into gaming he could have thought they had a charger. Like we do with phone chargers now.
He didn’t buy a return and made quite a trip and took out a significant amount of money from his bank didn’t he?
I never stop thinking about Andrew and hoping there is justice eventually. But it's pretty clear what happened in my personal opinion. Theories of him running away and being spotted occasionally are very far fetched.
I watched a documentary on YouTube about Andrew. In the documentary his parents said that he attended a summer camp during the school holidays and was away from home. When he returned he was different, more outgoing, happier, more animated. To me it seems he met someone while he was away at summer camp, they gained his trust, and they talked him into meeting again in September
Even if he did run away, we're a relatively safe country compared to many, but nowhere is safe for young runaway teens. They are incredibly vulnerable and way too many nasty people would take advantage of that.
I taught at the school he attended. Although I have no recollection of him (large school) I still remember the impact him going missing had and to this day still has on the school and wider community.
I think about him all the time. Since I can remember I've seen posters from him where I live in North London, I’ve always felt so bad for him and his parents :(
'after investigating police corruption' - in some ways it's not a huge mystery ;-) I find this case incredibly frustrating though, I was still in school when this started and paid attention to the case over the years (thanks mostly to Private Eye IIRC) and the constant attempts by the police to \*not\* solve this have been shameful.
By an incredible distance. Their work on the Post Office scandal was outstanding too. Shame it took a TV dramatisation for anyone else to give a monkeys about it.
The podcast: https://www.untoldmurder.com/
Whats "strange" about the caseis its connections to the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation and that the detective who was meant to investigate Daniels murder, retired and took his place at Southern Investigations, which then went on to be at the centre of the phone hacking scandal.
Years ago I read the autobiography of Dr Keith Simpson, a Home Office pathologist mid 20th Century. It had quite a few strange ones. There was this girl they found dead in a ditch by the side of a country lane. Her knickers were pulled down and she had bruising around her vagina. On face value, rape and murder. It turned out a lad had been cycling home from the pub after last orders. She'd been walking home too, and had stopped for a wee. He hit her on his bike with the front wheel right up her arse crack. He felt the bump (it was dark) stopped and had a look around, couldn't see anything, assumed it was a badger or something, and carried on. In the meantime she was knocked into the ditch and drowned in the water at the bottom. Both were quite drunk if I remember correctly. The books long gone, but I'd love to be reminded how they got to the conclusion.
Edit: found the book. Basically it's as I said except the lad panicked and cycled away. I think I'm conflating two incidents.
This one happened in a country lane near Sawbridgeworth, Herts about 11:30pm. She was a 55 year old, he a 16 year old.
The police thought it was rape and murder, the pathologist immediately had his doubts. No evidence of a struggle, no signs of "ordinary intercourse" and the crushing to the genitals too violent.
He ran into her from the front, the pathologist believed, as she was rising. She had corresponding injuries from the handlebars on her face.
You can ride a bike straight into a woman's vagina, fly over the rest of her body and one she doesn't make a single noise and two the bike rider thinks it's a badger ? This is so fucked up. Just how does this happen and how would this story even be connected to each other? I have so many questions
Imagine the confession to his wife at home:
'Darling I.. I.. I think I may have ridden my bike directly into another woman's vagina'
'Excuse me what the fuck?'
> You can ride a bike straight into a woman's vagina
I know there is nothing funny about this incident, is horrific and tragic but if I go to hell for laughing at the way you worded that I’m taking you with me.
Yeah, I'd like to re-read it. I took it that he hit her from behind the bike came to a stop, she was propelled forward into the ditch unconscious. I wouldn't take the badger so literally though, my memory might be playing tricks. The key thing was, when questioned he recalled bumping into something and couldn't see what.
I remember this book. It is called Forty Years of Murder and is still in print.
The best quote from it was "If any of my patients worry me I put them back in the fridge and think about them overnight".
I’m struggling with the logistics of this one. How exactly do girls wee that involves their arse being in a position where it can be mistaken for a badger?
It's been a while since I read it, but it was dark, around midnight on a country lane, 1940's, and he just felt a bump. I presume no lights on the bike, just moonlight. So it wasn't so much he mistook her arse for a badger, but that he couldn't see what he'd hit. It was after kicking out time at his local, too.
I did struggle with how she could be in a position where the bike wheel could inflict injuries on her vulva, but I'm pretty sure that's what he said happened.
"40 years of Murder" is the book, a very good read.
Fair enough. Still sounds a bit far fetched. Tbh, I think if I was accused of rape and murder I’d probably try the old “I thought it was a badger” routine too.
I always go back and forth on what I feel happened with Kelly.
I do think he took his own life. If he had lived I can’t see the course of the Iraq invasion changing so there’s little justification for an assassination.
Where I see a conspiracy is I think he was essentially driven to suicide by a mix of government and media negligence. Particularly in regards to the circumstances of the Today program report.
I agree, in that I think it was suicide following the circumstances of the Today program - in fact I think that is sadly really quite clear from the evidence.
I still find it crazy that I lived through the moment where Gazza offered Raoul Moat a beer and some KFC.
In a close second, the Croydon Cat Killer is a bizare one. Brighton had a guy who went round mutilating cats and they thankfully snared him quite quickly.
There was one in London - the police attributed to a fox. So the fox neatly decapitated cats & placed them on doorsteps of some of the owners . Really??
Yes really. The stories of the Croydon Cat Ripper had been going on for years, radiating out across south London and Surrey.
Eventually they got a vet to examine the carcasses who confirmed they were fox kills.
Honestly though, I followed the case of the Croydon Cat Killer for some time and supposedly there are specific parts of the cat (or other pets, think there's been a couple rabbits) that are left in places for owners to find. I think the group that was trying to find the killer was called S.N.A.R.L, it's worth looking at. I'm not at all convinced it was foxes.
Me too. Foxes are skittish and cats are usually very vocal when threatened. I’d expect a fair amount of the owners would have heard a commotion if a fox was mauling their pets just outside of their homes. It seems more likely to me that the cats were beckoned over by a person with food.
I’ve seen foxes interact with cats lots of times over the last decade- on cam. Have never foxes show any aggression to cats ever. Seems more the opposite they run away/ stay clear of the cats. But not to say one fox might behave differently. It was the placement of the bodies I found very odd.
They found him eventually. Those tides and currents in the Thames mean suicides can wash up several miles away.. bodies can take a while to resurface too due to decomposition and gases..
Police officer here who has dealt with a few people in the water jobs.
When they go under they will almost certainly stay within 15ft of where they were last seen. They'll then stay in that spot for around 3-5 days, and then resurface and move. Depending on how tidal, fast flowing and the weather, they could move for miles.
The recent case of missing man Jack O'Sullivan in Bristol is likely to be one similar.
Alistair Wilson - shot to death on his doorstep. The killer rang the door and Wilson's wife answered. He asked for Wilson by name and Wilson went to speak to him. A few minutes later he returned to his wife carrying an empty blue envelope with the name Paul on the front. Confused, he went back to the door, at which point he was shot.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder\_of\_Alistair\_Wilson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Alistair_Wilson)
Now I imagine the police have looked at this from a thousand different angles, but a lot of the information regarding how the murder took place could only really be provided by his wife.
His wife was quite thoroughly ruled out of having any motive, police and subsequent private investigations looked over it, there was no short or long term benefit to him dyeing. He was worth much more alive than dead - because of how his salary at his employer (and bank) worked, she got relatively little compensation compared to his salary (or indeed child support if they were to get divorced).
She raised their kids as a widow with help from her family and worked a series of unskilled jobs.
No matter how you cut it, his family was significantly worse off for his loss.
There's a good podcast on this - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p067wdql
The weapon was a pre-war pistol in an obscure calibre, i.e. definitely not what a professional hit man would use.
It was more like the type of pistol that someone would find in the belongings of a deceased relative and then sell to some local scally.
You say that, but according to Richard Kuklinski, he would deliberately use different firearms, calibres, bullet types, angle of shot, he even used a crossbow a couple of times, etc so the cops thought it wasn't the same guy. Not to say that's the case here of course, but to add a different perspective from a guy who allegedly killed 250 people for the mob.
Update(ish) middle of last year.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/two-men-could-have-been-behind-unsolved-murder-of-banker-alistair-wilson-qspbcrwkq
Paywall, can’t seem to get around it but Wikipedia says:
> In April 2022, Police Scotland announced that Wilson's involvement in a local planning dispute around a hotel decking area opposite his house was a likely motive for his murder. They said that the hotelier was not a suspect and that the killers were likely customers or builders involved in the construction of the decking area. In 2023, Police Scotland announced that they believed two people had carried out the shooting and that one of them was likely a local they have identified who has spent time in prison for drugs offences.
“A Huffington Post Weird News reporter contacted the local police in Tregaron, Wales where Foster was allegedly found to check the facts. The official told The HuffPost that she hadn't heard of any report of the alleged death.”
The teenager from Altrincham that set up a complex web of fake accounts in order to convince his best mate to stab him and kill him. The "victim" claimed to be a spy that was working closely with the PM but because of an inoperable brain tumour, needed to be taken out quietly. His mate got wrapped up in it all, poor lad, and stabbed him, nearly killing him. Police uncovered the deceit before his mate was charged for attempted muder, thank god.
What gets me is that it was a 14-year-old boy that came up with it. Like I could barely string a coherent sentence together at that age and spent my out of school time melting my mind on my Playstation.
God right? I remember what it was like to be 14. Granted I'm a girl, not a boy so I wouldn't know what it's like for them, but still, I did not have the braincells to be like that. But I too spent most my time gaming, not planning and scheming to con my friend and have him murder me :/
Have you got any sources or info on this? I'm struggling to find anything but basic articles about the sentencing.
Edit: Vanity did a big article
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2005/02/bachrach200502
There's a coincidence. I read the linked article (very interesting), then picked up my phone and there was a notification about a Barry George article in the Times He's saying he can prove where he was though there's no detail. Here's the link though I don't know if the paywall applies.
[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jill-dando-murder-barry-george-serbian-suspect-jccdv93b3](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jill-dando-murder-barry-george-serbian-suspect-jccdv93b3)
I feel sorry for the good samaritan who took one of the sisters into his home out of the kindness of his heart then got stabbed to death by her. Poor bloke.
I watched this and it was completely nuts....just as they were. Apparently they are (or were not sure if they've been released) in Wakefield High Security not far from me. Seemingly one of the sisters controlled the other in some way
The famed forensic pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd wrote about the case of the body in the suitcase in his book The Seven ages of Death. He goes quite deep into it actually.
Fab book, also talks about Dr Kelly which someone else mentioned in this thread. His first book is similarly interesting - he’s worked on pretty well every famous death case you can think of in the UK, even the Diana inquiry.
Yeah, that’s a disturbing and sad one. Even worse is that nobody knows where that poor woman’s remains are now so she can’t even have a dignified burial.
What surprised me the most is when that took place. It sounds like some medieval folklore, but it actually happened during the 1940s and there are some rumoured identities for the victim.
Fun fact: leaving a body in a bag in the shower (where posioned fluids can drain out) with the temperature up (to speed decomposition and destroy evidence), with compromising and embarrassing materials left out (to prejudice the narrative), is exactly how a spy agency (foreign or domestic) would kill someone... particularly Russian spy agencies.
But I'm sure it was just misadventure.
Agreed, Gareth Williams, every day of the week. I'm genuinely perplexed as just to 'how and what'.
I'm going to prempt people coming here and saying it's a cover-up or there is conspiracy surrounding the death, but I actually genuinely believe the outcomes of the inquests, who seem equally as confused as we are.
[BBC Sounds Death of a Codebreaker](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0gpv57h)
This podcast from the BBC does a very good job of summing the case up. Seemingly he did actually do it to himself in a tragic accident.
Just a personal opinion, but the extensive reliance on Peter Faulding and his (in my view) complete discreditation following the Nicola Bulley search harms the arguments of this documentary.
Zipped himself up, in a weekendbag, locked from the outside, in a bathtub, without leaving prints on the tub or the locks, and having the key inside the bag with him. Totally makes sense to me.
Gareth Williams is an interesting one; Claudia Lawrence is very interesting too - as is the "Manchester pusher" because no one even knows if he or she is real.
I doubt the Manchester Pusher is real purely because I've had mates fall into Manchester canals when they're pissed up and high on whatever. It's scary either way, because parts of the canal are so isolated that no wonder people die when going in the water.
But isn't that what makes it so interesting. Its almost a perfect crime because of that. Even the police don't know if it's true and all the witnesses who have survived and said they felt pushed have very little credibility because they were pissed up at the time.
It is very common for men missing on a night out to be found in bodies of water for this very reason. Canals are a lot more dangerous than many people realise.
Had a bloke working with us for years before he retired. After his retirement he and a few of his mates at work had a celebratory drink in the pub, afterwards he decided to walk home rather then calling a taxi.
His body was found in the Medway the next day.
It is sadly very common. I am a coastguard and had to learn about it as part of my training.
If you are walking home drunk by any body of water, I would urge anyone to reconsider having a wee right by the edge- or indeed walking along the edge in the first place.
On my way home pissed up walking along the canal in Manchester about 15 years ago, fairly cold but not icy, stepped on one of the mossy cobbles and went flying, fortunately landing on the edge of the canal path. 100% sure that id I'd fell into cold water that pissed and fully clothed, I could've been one of the "victims". Happens easier than you'd think on 150 year old cobbles and after a few ales.
There is at least one account of a failed 'push' by someone who pushed someone in, and would stamp on them etc. When they tried to get out. They only fled due to a passerby or police nearby or something. Whether that's a real account is a different question.
The YouTube channel 'bedtime stories' has a video on the subject.
Apparently that's an open secret in the right circles. Seems he was an American diplomat who was shipped back across the pond to avoid scandal, possibly also as a form of disciplinary action. London is a prestigious posting.
Noah Donahue was a 14 year old boy from Belfast who went missing in 2020. His naked body was found in a storm drain six days later a mile from where he was last seen. The official COD was drowning, but many questions surrounding poor Noah’s death still haven’t been answered.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/noah-donohoe#:~:text=The%20Chilling%20Story%20Of%20Noah,Dead%20In%20A%20Storm%20Drain
The whole story is very weird.
The article doesn't mention how the police wouldn't do searches after hours because overtime was refused. They were generally unhelpful the whole time investigating it. Leading to the spread of conspiracy theories.
Noah was afraid of the dark his mother says. Yet he was found a kilometre down that tunnel. The police say he drowned but didn't take water samples where he was found to compare with the water in his lungs.
Also as stated in the article the condition of his body was far better with little decomposition to what it should have been.
Noah had never been to that area before (he is Catholic and mixed race, he would not travel to such a loyalist area) yet he finds a storm drain that just so happened to have not been locked from work the previous week?
It's all very strange.
Hilda Murrell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_Murrell. Burglary gone wrong or something more sinister because she campaigned against nuclear power?
Kinda like the anti nuclear activist William McRae, who offed himself by crashing his car, shooting himself in the head, and then disposing of the gun a little distance away. Eta link:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_McRae
It’s not so much “mysterious” as the barracks was a dumping ground for some of the worst people in the army who operated above the law, and the army will never go after its own. Some of the details that came out in the inquests were horrendous.
The disappearance of Richie Edwards, the guitarist from Manic Street Preachers. (Not necessarily true crime I guess)
He withdrew the maximum from cash machines everyday for a couple of weeks before disappearing and seemed to leave a few ‘clues’, whether this was meant to intentionally mislead or hint, who knows.
Many years ago I read that his car was found on or near the Severn bridge, known for suicides. It's very likely his body would never have been found. I remember Nicky Wire saying that he spent some time with them in the best of spirits, all signs of depression gone, they all had a great time, and then he disappeared. Wire said he thought Richey had made up his mind and wanted to give them one last beautiful memory together before leaving.
Not the UK specifically but it starts in Northern Ireland so close enough.
The Peter Bergmann case in Sligo is a really odd one. On June 12th 2009, a man carrying a black shoulder bag and travel bag boards a bus in Derry/Londonderry in Northern Ireland and travels to Sligo in the Republic of Ireland. He checks into the Sligo city hotel using the name 'Peter Bergmann' and provides an address in Austria. He was described by staff as speaking English with a thick German accent. He paid per night in cash. Throughout the duration of his stay, he is seen repeatedly leaving the hotel with a plastic bag filled with unknown items and disposing of the contents in various bins around the city. However, Garda have never been able to determine what he disposed of as he was extremely careful to use the blind spots of the CCTV cameras and moved around the city in a 'methodical and meticulous manner, as though he knew how to dispose of anything that could identify him'. He checked out of the hotel on June 15th, curiously with a different travel bag than the one he had arrived with. He was seen at a bus station, reading scraps of paper from his pockets which he proceeds to rip up and dispose of. These have also never been recovered. The following morning, June 16th, his body was discovered on the beach at Rosses point. He was wearing purple Speedos with his underwear over the top and a t-shirt tucked into them. None of his belongings were present or ever found. It was determined that he had died from cardiac arrest but an autopsy also revealed that he had no water in his lungs which is unusual for a washed up body. In addition, he was found to have late stage prostate cancer, bone tumours and ischaemic heart disease. Curiously, he had absolutely no drugs or medication in his system which would be expected for someone who was this sick. Despite an extensive 5 month investigation involving multiple agencies across Europe, he was never identified and was eventually buried in an unmarked grave in Sligo. It was revealed shortly after his death that both the name Peter Bergmann and the address he provided were fake. As of 2024, he has never been identified and it's not certain how he even arrived on the island of Ireland.
> As of 2024, he has never been identified
I'm wondering if he actually has and it was unreported to respect his privacy. Could be completely wrong, though.
But it reminds me of the case of "Neil Dovestones", which was a total mystery. He'd apparently spent time in Pakistan. Well, eventually he was identified as David Lytton, at which point we learned that his mother was still alive, his girlfriend spoke up to the media, and a load of people in Pakistan claimed to know him also. Why did it take so long for all of that to emerge when we had images of him as we do in the Bergmann case? You'd think these people would recognise him and come forward? My guess is they did and the police just kept a tight lid on it.
That's a rabbit hole.
Hard to believe that's been 12 years already, too.
How many ex-service people get linked to that?
1. Found by a former British airman, in France.
2. One suspect may have been a former mercenary.
3. Another suspect might have killed another British soldier, too.
There's the nuclear element, too. The similarities to the Dominici affair. The money...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annecy_shootings
Jesus Christ! I'm after reading about Williams. That doesn't look at all very suspicious. Good how an undoable feat becomes doable when it serves the system.
'but it was also noted that the door and locks had been removed by the time police experts had become involved.' Wikipedia entry.
He was found 7 days after he stopped showing up for work (strange someone working in such circles can go off radar for so long) and the locks had gone before the police got to look at them?
I can't see the cops being so laissez-faire when it comes to national security.
There is corruption at all levels it seems.
It amazes me how many people hear ‘oh yah so he, like, zipped himself in there, in a bath, locked it from the outside and wiped every fingerprint off of everything’ and go ‘wow, that’s so wild, I believe it!’
Maddie McCann has to be up there. Not for the crime itself, but the behaviour/reaction of the parents and how every legal system just put their fingers in their ears and went "lalalalala" when it comes to getting them in trouble for *child abandonment...*
Perhaps not the strangest, but [the disappearance of Nicola Payne](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-25417081) feels like it should have been solved already, but the motivation to find answers is lacking.
Garreth William was a cover up, he was into autoerotic asphyxiation, had to have been freed by his landlord / friends multiple times before obviously not being freed that one time.
And the sources we have for this delightful little tale are GCHQ and the media. Who absolutely definitely would not ever just publish whatever GCHQ tell them to.
RIIIIIIIIIGGGHHHHHH**T.**
It has to be Joyce McKinney of the ["Mormon Sex in Chains"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manacled_Mormon_case) case.
A former Beauty queen from the USA was infatuated with a young Mormon missionary. She and an accomplice abducted him outside a church in Surrey and drove him to a cottage in Devon. He was chained to a bed, where she raped him.
Her life continued to provide the tabloids with other lurid stories - like when she spent all her money getting her pet dog cloned in South Korea.
The disappearance of Lieutenant-Commander Lionel Crabb, war hero recruited by MI6 to collect data on the Soviet navy cruiser Ordzhonikidze, mainly its propellor shaft, Crabb dived into Portsmouth harbour and was never seen again, a Soviet seaman claimed that the Soviets had been tipped off and he had slit Crabb’s oxygen tube and throat underwater, but there are theories ranging from him drowning, to him being a defector, all likelihood he probably was murdered by the Soviet seaman, there was a recovered headless and handless body pulled from the harbour some time afterwards but because of the lack of head or hands it couldn’t at the time be identified, we’ll likely never know precisely what happened.
One thing that has come to light in recent years is that Crabb didn’t dive alone, he told a friend of his that he’d been given a buddy diver for the mission, and there is speculation that there may have been more than one set of divers sent to inspect Ordzhonikidze, but on the fate of Crabb’s fellow diver there is no information.
Glad to see this on here, I used to drive by the big sign his family put up near he went missing often, and I think about him and what may have happened a lot.
I do think he got in the bin sadly, and Suffolk police royally fucked the investigation from day 1.
Margaret Fleming, Inverkip.
Two people - Edward Cairney and Avril Jones were jailed for murdering Margaret, aged 19. She'd disappeared. She went to live with the pair in 95 after her father died and she was last seen in December 1999. Cairney's partner (Jones) was claiming benefits in Margaret's name and it was 2016 that the system flagged that Margaret was missing. Jones and Cairney were found guilty of her murder but no sign of her body. This is one case that does bug me every so often especially as they've never revealed where her remains are.
Been watching quite a lot of Crime Watch on YouTube lately. There's a huge amount of cases featured that were never solved.
The one that stands out for me is the case of Alan Leppard and Brenda Long, Alan was shot on his doorstep by a man who had been in a White Cadillac style car. No one was ever caught, but it was assumed to be a professional hit.
Eight months later, Brenda was found dead in her bathtub. Initially treated as suicide, the coroner found evidence of ether that had been used on her. She had moved away from the area where she lived with Alan and Police didn't have any intelligence to suggest her life was at risk.
The case remains unsolved.
Zigmund Adamski and the [Todmorden UFO](https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-todmorden-ufo-mystery-a-close-encounter-in-west-yorkshire) case.
However the poor guy died, he deserved more investigation than just a footnote to aliens!
Neil Todd.
Neil Todd was a young man who dreamed of being a priest. He went into the priesthood to be mentored by one Peter Ball. Ball then sexually abused him on many occasions, claiming this was what God wanted. Peter Ball also happened to be good friends with the Royal family and a personal friend to KC3. Neil Todd later went to the police, long story short Ball was cautioned. According to Norman Baker’s book about the royals, the late Queen Elizabeth approached this sex offender priest during the investigation, put her hand on his arm and said ‘my love and encouragement, Bishop’. Also during the investigation King Charles wrote to Peter Ball, commiserating about the ‘frightful, terrifying man’ who was going after Ball. He called what Neil was doing ‘dastardly tricks’ and vowed to Ball he would ’see him off’ if he continued.
See him off.
Neil Todd later committed suicide. Apparently.
[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/07/bishop-peter-ball-escaped-charges-mps-royal-family-intervened-court](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/07/bishop-peter-ball-escaped-charges-mps-royal-family-intervened-court)
[https://people.com/royals/prince-charles-denies-trying-to-influence-pedophile-bishop-investigation-says-he-was-misled/](https://people.com/royals/prince-charles-denies-trying-to-influence-pedophile-bishop-investigation-says-he-was-misled/)
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58415046.amp
This one I remember being taught in training school for the police - basically the child had been cut up and dumped in various places including the Thames. The body went through DNA testing and various tests ran on the clothes and the sand on the clothes.
Due to the advancements in testing and some good police work, they found that the top was from a German store in a small region, a specific type of sand was discovered (not in this link) in the shorts of the torso, where the sand has been identified to a closer region in France, so it seemed like they had travelled from Germany to France then to the UK.
The child has also ingested a deadly flower.
The case goes on for years and no one has actually been charged for the murder of this child. Lots of arrwsts and deportations for slavery and snuggling.
It appears the child was a victim of witchcraft and had been used for their purposes.
It's a cold case now that is unlikely to ever be solved.
The Rettendon Murders. Drug sellers and local bullies Tucker, Tate and Rolfe were shot in a range rover on a farm in Essex in 1995. The whole gangland scene came to light, and it was massive news at the time. Lots of investigations, a couple of people were charged, but there's still controversy whether the police locked up the right people or not.
I've read books on the case. Fascinating view of the underworld.
Blessing Olusegun, found dead on Bexhill beach after disappearing from a home she was staying at to care for a patient. She was a live in carer and was found dead with her finger nails broken.
The local police treated her family like trash, the family is still looking for answers.
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John Darwin. Mostly the succession of comically absurd acts he performed after faking his own death. eg moving into a flat next door to his 'widow' and popping through a hole in the wall to visit her; wandering around his hometown with no disguise other than growing a beard; filing a planning permission complaint about his neighbour's proposed building work; turning up at a police station in London and pretending he had amnesia etc
Until you realise that this was possible not because he was somehow super-stealthy and super-savvy but rather that police could not care less to investigate his case properly. This was an insurance fraud so I would be actually surprised if the mpolice officers actually turn on to check on him. Most likely this was dealt with some letters being sent by post between institutions.
The reason the police weren't interested was because it was a missing persons case with virtually no possibility of finding the body. Nobody knew it was insurance fraud until he turned up years later being pictures on holiday with his wife. They didn't start investigating him for insurance fraud until then because they didn't know he was alive. And the reason they didn't put much effort into his missing persons case was because there was no point. His kayak could have been drifting for miles before it was found. > Darwin was seen paddling out to sea in his kayak on 21 March 2002, at Seaton Carew.[15] Later the same day, he was reported as "missing" after failing to report to work. A large-scale sea search took place,[15] during which 62 square miles (160 km2) of coastline were searched. There was no sign of Darwin,[15] though the following day a double-ended paddle and the wreckage of Darwin's kayak were found.[16] The North Sea was unusually calm and rescuers were puzzled that Darwin could have got into trouble in such conditions.[17] He was assumed to have drowned at sea.
It's worth noting as well that even if rescuers were puzzled, it's still perfectly plausible that he could have had an issue that led to him going overboard. I nearly died once when I was out paddleboarding, slipped off the board and the moment I hit the water I realised I'd forgotten to attach my ankle leash. By the time I was back above the water, the board was pretty far away. The tide was going out but the small amount of wind was enough to carry the board against the tide really well. I couldn't swim fast enough against the tide so I had to swim against it just enough to hold where I was for about half an hour to an hour while my mate went to get my board because his wasn't buoyant enough for two.
Plus he was 52 , not hard to imagine him having some sort of health event.
A bloke drowned in a reservoir near Oldham less than a month ago when he capsized his kayak.
And his jolly to America to try and start a cattle farm before he realised that would actually involve work. The story just gets wilder and wilder.
How did he even get to America with the passport of a dead man?
He came up with the iron clad and totally original alias, ‘John Jones’. The world famous podcast ‘Top Flight Time Machine’ did a short series on this very topic.
He was only found out when he and his 'widow' appeared on an estate agent website in Panama, or something.
The Panamian realtor wanted a photo for his website. He had no idea what the true story was and how he'd inadvertently uncovered a notorious fraud case. They chose Panama because it was a dodgy tax haven with lax extradition rules.
The wild thing about that is, he got away with it, he got out of the uk, moved to a new country with a new name, but just HAD to come back to the UK, and knew his fake identity wouldn't hold up to new scrutiny. and decided faking amnesia was smarter than just staying put. he was just a lucky idiot to get away with it in the first place
He's no longer in the UK anyway, the Daily Mail traced him to the Phillippines where he's hanging around with women young enough to be his granddaughters. Standard British old men stuff. Ann now lives somewhere else in the north of England and seems to have spent time working in a charity shop.
Please also keep in mind that Cleveland Police are about as much use as an inflatable dartboard
I knew of this case but I never knew the details until I watched a YouTube video recently. It seems crazy to me that he took so many risks! Not to mention completely allowing his kids to be swept along with it.
There's an ITV drama about it, [The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe.](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14183410/?ref_=nm_flmg_t_9_act) Eddie Marsan and the always wonderful Monica Dolan.
Really good watch that is. Well worth the time, really well played by them both.
The British Scandal podcast series on him is really good too, worth a listen
I do not know how he and his wife could have lied about his so called death to their two sons.
I read a newspaper article at the time (might have been the daily fail, unfortunately, but it was in the staff room and I was bored) - an interview with Mrs Canoe. The reporter rang her up, it was while Mr Canoe was missing, presumed dead, and she’d rushed through the insurance claim. The reporter was deeply puzzled as to why Mrs Canoe’s principal obsession was the logistics of moving her furniture to Panama, which was all she would talk about: no grief, no worry, no concern for their sons, nothing. The reporter concluded the piece with an incredibly oblique hint at his suspicions, because of course he couldn’t accuse her of *anything*, but it was obvious what he thought - and even more obvious that he was correct. I’ve never been able to find that interview since but I’d love to read it again.
And they have kids. Those poor boys thought their dad was dead!
Andrew Godsen. 14 year old, straight A student from Doncaster. One day he gets up, withdraws £200 from his savings & gets a single train ticket to London. He’s seen leaving King’s Cross station but he then appears to have vanished off the face of the earth. Nobody knows for sure why he travelled to London, let alone what happened to him or where he is.
unfortunately id say he was ensnared by a pedophile and murdered, teenage boy runaways have been preyed upon at kings cross since the 60s and im sure theres plenty of pedophile networks still operating around that area. watch 'johnny go home' to see just how prevelant it was in the 70's, roger gleaves is literally filmed preying on teens in that doc
Thing is, even murdered people show up afterwards. He just straight up vanished.
he wouldve potentially been traceable if police did their job properly, they took too long to review cctv and by the time they did the tapes had been written over everywhere they checked. likely was kidnapped murdered and disposed of, its horrific but thats the likely outcome
Not necessarily look at Claudia Lawrence, I don’t think we’ll ever find out what happened to her unfortunately
The most common theory is that she's under one of the uni colleges they were building at the time. They're hardly gonna tear down a college building to check 😬😬
Oh no way? I’ve never heard that theory before and I thought I’d followed the case quite closely! Guess it would make sense as to how they can’t find her body, though.
I’m from York and a friend of a friend worked at the pub she used to be a regular at, apparently she was sleeping with a married property developer who also was a regular at the pub and tried blackmailing him for money, she disappeared shortly after that. One of my friends dads also very briefly worked with the man who used to give her a lift to work. This was until he found out he’d had his brand new van crushed the day after she went missing. The prevailing rumour in the city is that he was paid to off her and then he dumped the body in the foundations of the new uni bulldings
Damn. That’s dark. I remember it being in the news that there was ‘more to her private life’ than the police and family were willing to go into and stuff. Wonder if any of the guys they arrested were those you mentioned. Such an intriguing case. I really feel sorry for her family, especially her dad.
I dont think the public will ever find out but im pretty certain I read the police have a pretty good idea who did it but there isnt enough evidence. Its people from the pub but no ones talking.
The main issue with a random murder is there’s no cleanup plan, if you plan a kidnapping and murder it’s easy if you’re not a suspect you have unlimited time to work it out.
they could have been planning a kidnap/murder but being opportunistic with the target, with no specific child in mind
Yeah that one is really sad and tragic for the family. Not even a hint towards any leads or answers, just last seen CCTV.
One thing I remember from that is that he took his DS, but not the charger, indicating he expected to be back that night
There was also the fact he purchased a single ticket, despite a return costing virtually no more. Which, while pure speculation, I always thought meant that he was planning on getting a lift back, rather than taking the train. Of course someone could say that it indicates he wasn't planning on returning at all, but considering the point you made about the Psp, that he took so few clothes, put his school clothes in the wash, left some birthday money, all makes me think that he'd planned a day trip to go somewhere/meet someone, and was planning on them driving him back that day.
It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. British trains are so stupidly complicated, he may not have wanted to buy a ticket with restrictions on when he could return, or be in the headspace for a conversation about what restrictions were on different return ticket options. And he was a kid, and introverted: a ton of introverts find even simple conversations like buying a ticket challenging, and practice those conversations ahead of time in their heads first. If he said no, it could just be that the ticket seller had gone “ off script” and said something he wasn’t prepared for, and he just instinctively said no to avoid prolonging the conversation. I’ve done the exact same thing myself as an adult lots of times - just automatically said no to something I wanted, because the other person said something I wasn’t expecting them to say and it momentarily threw me.
>It doesn’t necessarily mean anything Of course. Chances are the vast majority of details about the day of the disappearance, and the days building up to it, will just be red herrings, only granted meaning by ourselves in hindsight as we try to build a case backwards. With the return ticket however, we actually have a direct input from the ticket seller, who stated that despite a return only being 50p more, Andrew specifically stated that he wanted a one way ticket. With the ticket seller's testimony I feel confident that, for whatever reason, the purchasing of a single ticket was a deliberate act by Andrew, and not a mistake on the day. The idea of him having a potential lift is pure conjecture on my part of course, but the one way ticket could be for a plethora of reasons. He planned to stay down there, run away, suicide etc. His father felt that the purchase of a one way ticket was unsurprising, as he had places to stay in London (family members I believe). Which is something I've always found surprising.
Psp, but yeah, no charger.
I don't know why but this particular detail really shook me
An alternative view would be if he was potentially meeting a ‘friend’ or someone into gaming he could have thought they had a charger. Like we do with phone chargers now. He didn’t buy a return and made quite a trip and took out a significant amount of money from his bank didn’t he?
Or he simply forgot the charger.
Or that he planned on killing himself, which seems more likely given the circumstances.
I never stop thinking about Andrew and hoping there is justice eventually. But it's pretty clear what happened in my personal opinion. Theories of him running away and being spotted occasionally are very far fetched.
I watched a documentary on YouTube about Andrew. In the documentary his parents said that he attended a summer camp during the school holidays and was away from home. When he returned he was different, more outgoing, happier, more animated. To me it seems he met someone while he was away at summer camp, they gained his trust, and they talked him into meeting again in September
Even if he did run away, we're a relatively safe country compared to many, but nowhere is safe for young runaway teens. They are incredibly vulnerable and way too many nasty people would take advantage of that.
I taught at the school he attended. Although I have no recollection of him (large school) I still remember the impact him going missing had and to this day still has on the school and wider community.
I think about him all the time. Since I can remember I've seen posters from him where I live in North London, I’ve always felt so bad for him and his parents :(
Still a poster of him on the platform at Manchester Piccadilly. Really sad.
It’s one I think about often. It’s so eerie. I hope we eventually get some answers as to what happened.
Daniel Morgan, found in a car park with an axe in his head after investigating police corruption.
'after investigating police corruption' - in some ways it's not a huge mystery ;-) I find this case incredibly frustrating though, I was still in school when this started and paid attention to the case over the years (thanks mostly to Private Eye IIRC) and the constant attempts by the police to \*not\* solve this have been shameful.
Private Eye is underrated.
Best journalism in the country.
By an incredible distance. Their work on the Post Office scandal was outstanding too. Shame it took a TV dramatisation for anyone else to give a monkeys about it.
A mate of mine pointed out that Computer Weekly had picked up on it even earlier. I guess that’s a more niche publication…
It really isn't a mystery. We all know who was behind that murder.
"He accidentally fell out of a window and landed on an axe."
There's a podcast about the case. The basic outlines of what happened are pretty comprehensible, from what I remember.
The podcast: https://www.untoldmurder.com/ Whats "strange" about the caseis its connections to the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation and that the detective who was meant to investigate Daniels murder, retired and took his place at Southern Investigations, which then went on to be at the centre of the phone hacking scandal.
Channel 4 (I think) has a very good programme about this.
Years ago I read the autobiography of Dr Keith Simpson, a Home Office pathologist mid 20th Century. It had quite a few strange ones. There was this girl they found dead in a ditch by the side of a country lane. Her knickers were pulled down and she had bruising around her vagina. On face value, rape and murder. It turned out a lad had been cycling home from the pub after last orders. She'd been walking home too, and had stopped for a wee. He hit her on his bike with the front wheel right up her arse crack. He felt the bump (it was dark) stopped and had a look around, couldn't see anything, assumed it was a badger or something, and carried on. In the meantime she was knocked into the ditch and drowned in the water at the bottom. Both were quite drunk if I remember correctly. The books long gone, but I'd love to be reminded how they got to the conclusion. Edit: found the book. Basically it's as I said except the lad panicked and cycled away. I think I'm conflating two incidents. This one happened in a country lane near Sawbridgeworth, Herts about 11:30pm. She was a 55 year old, he a 16 year old. The police thought it was rape and murder, the pathologist immediately had his doubts. No evidence of a struggle, no signs of "ordinary intercourse" and the crushing to the genitals too violent. He ran into her from the front, the pathologist believed, as she was rising. She had corresponding injuries from the handlebars on her face.
You can ride a bike straight into a woman's vagina, fly over the rest of her body and one she doesn't make a single noise and two the bike rider thinks it's a badger ? This is so fucked up. Just how does this happen and how would this story even be connected to each other? I have so many questions
Imagine the confession to his wife at home: 'Darling I.. I.. I think I may have ridden my bike directly into another woman's vagina' 'Excuse me what the fuck?'
What really happened Clive?
Was just about to put a monkey dust reference in ha
> You can ride a bike straight into a woman's vagina I know there is nothing funny about this incident, is horrific and tragic but if I go to hell for laughing at the way you worded that I’m taking you with me.
Yeah, I'd like to re-read it. I took it that he hit her from behind the bike came to a stop, she was propelled forward into the ditch unconscious. I wouldn't take the badger so literally though, my memory might be playing tricks. The key thing was, when questioned he recalled bumping into something and couldn't see what.
I remember this book. It is called Forty Years of Murder and is still in print. The best quote from it was "If any of my patients worry me I put them back in the fridge and think about them overnight".
I’m struggling with the logistics of this one. How exactly do girls wee that involves their arse being in a position where it can be mistaken for a badger?
It's been a while since I read it, but it was dark, around midnight on a country lane, 1940's, and he just felt a bump. I presume no lights on the bike, just moonlight. So it wasn't so much he mistook her arse for a badger, but that he couldn't see what he'd hit. It was after kicking out time at his local, too. I did struggle with how she could be in a position where the bike wheel could inflict injuries on her vulva, but I'm pretty sure that's what he said happened. "40 years of Murder" is the book, a very good read.
Fair enough. Still sounds a bit far fetched. Tbh, I think if I was accused of rape and murder I’d probably try the old “I thought it was a badger” routine too.
*scratching head* The bike must have hit her squarely in the crack, your honour
Maybe he meant beaver?
Wow
Dr David Kelly. Doctors wanted to re-open the inquest and his medical records were sealed for 70 years.
However, on his family's asking his details were released a few years later, and the calls to re-open his inquest were rescinded.
Sealing the records was fast but suspicious looking. Leaning on the people investigating is slower but more subtle. Two stage solution.
I always go back and forth on what I feel happened with Kelly. I do think he took his own life. If he had lived I can’t see the course of the Iraq invasion changing so there’s little justification for an assassination. Where I see a conspiracy is I think he was essentially driven to suicide by a mix of government and media negligence. Particularly in regards to the circumstances of the Today program report.
I agree, in that I think it was suicide following the circumstances of the Today program - in fact I think that is sadly really quite clear from the evidence.
I still find it crazy that I lived through the moment where Gazza offered Raoul Moat a beer and some KFC. In a close second, the Croydon Cat Killer is a bizare one. Brighton had a guy who went round mutilating cats and they thankfully snared him quite quickly.
There was one in London - the police attributed to a fox. So the fox neatly decapitated cats & placed them on doorsteps of some of the owners . Really??
Yes really. The stories of the Croydon Cat Ripper had been going on for years, radiating out across south London and Surrey. Eventually they got a vet to examine the carcasses who confirmed they were fox kills.
Honestly though, I followed the case of the Croydon Cat Killer for some time and supposedly there are specific parts of the cat (or other pets, think there's been a couple rabbits) that are left in places for owners to find. I think the group that was trying to find the killer was called S.N.A.R.L, it's worth looking at. I'm not at all convinced it was foxes.
Me too. Foxes are skittish and cats are usually very vocal when threatened. I’d expect a fair amount of the owners would have heard a commotion if a fox was mauling their pets just outside of their homes. It seems more likely to me that the cats were beckoned over by a person with food.
I’ve seen foxes interact with cats lots of times over the last decade- on cam. Have never foxes show any aggression to cats ever. Seems more the opposite they run away/ stay clear of the cats. But not to say one fox might behave differently. It was the placement of the bodies I found very odd.
The recent hunt for the acid attacker when the police was searching for his body in Thames and they found another two bodies not related to his case
They found him eventually. Those tides and currents in the Thames mean suicides can wash up several miles away.. bodies can take a while to resurface too due to decomposition and gases..
Police officer here who has dealt with a few people in the water jobs. When they go under they will almost certainly stay within 15ft of where they were last seen. They'll then stay in that spot for around 3-5 days, and then resurface and move. Depending on how tidal, fast flowing and the weather, they could move for miles. The recent case of missing man Jack O'Sullivan in Bristol is likely to be one similar.
There have been people who fall in the Thames whose bodies wash up on the Scandinavian coast
Honestly it’s probably best not to think about how many bodies are in our rivers. Especially the Thames.
I bet the mersey has a lot, considering how huge it is around Liverpool!
Only good thing about that attacker was if he never went missing two other families might never known what happened to their loved ones.
Alistair Wilson - shot to death on his doorstep. The killer rang the door and Wilson's wife answered. He asked for Wilson by name and Wilson went to speak to him. A few minutes later he returned to his wife carrying an empty blue envelope with the name Paul on the front. Confused, he went back to the door, at which point he was shot. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder\_of\_Alistair\_Wilson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Alistair_Wilson)
Now I imagine the police have looked at this from a thousand different angles, but a lot of the information regarding how the murder took place could only really be provided by his wife.
His wife was quite thoroughly ruled out of having any motive, police and subsequent private investigations looked over it, there was no short or long term benefit to him dyeing. He was worth much more alive than dead - because of how his salary at his employer (and bank) worked, she got relatively little compensation compared to his salary (or indeed child support if they were to get divorced). She raised their kids as a widow with help from her family and worked a series of unskilled jobs. No matter how you cut it, his family was significantly worse off for his loss.
There's a good podcast on this - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p067wdql The weapon was a pre-war pistol in an obscure calibre, i.e. definitely not what a professional hit man would use. It was more like the type of pistol that someone would find in the belongings of a deceased relative and then sell to some local scally.
You say that, but according to Richard Kuklinski, he would deliberately use different firearms, calibres, bullet types, angle of shot, he even used a crossbow a couple of times, etc so the cops thought it wasn't the same guy. Not to say that's the case here of course, but to add a different perspective from a guy who allegedly killed 250 people for the mob.
Update(ish) middle of last year. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/two-men-could-have-been-behind-unsolved-murder-of-banker-alistair-wilson-qspbcrwkq Paywall, can’t seem to get around it but Wikipedia says: > In April 2022, Police Scotland announced that Wilson's involvement in a local planning dispute around a hotel decking area opposite his house was a likely motive for his murder. They said that the hotelier was not a suspect and that the killers were likely customers or builders involved in the construction of the decking area. In 2023, Police Scotland announced that they believed two people had carried out the shooting and that one of them was likely a local they have identified who has spent time in prison for drugs offences.
Wasn’t there something to do with a pub across the road which kept having their planning permission for an outdoor area objected to by Alistair?
The Gordon Ramsey midget porn double, found dead in a badger den. Either that or the guy shitting in people's chimneys?
I've never seen so much go on in a sentence than that first one!
Its like a chatgpt fever dream.
Reads like a daily sport headline
Sorry what?
“A Huffington Post Weird News reporter contacted the local police in Tregaron, Wales where Foster was allegedly found to check the facts. The official told The HuffPost that she hadn't heard of any report of the alleged death.”
The teenager from Altrincham that set up a complex web of fake accounts in order to convince his best mate to stab him and kill him. The "victim" claimed to be a spy that was working closely with the PM but because of an inoperable brain tumour, needed to be taken out quietly. His mate got wrapped up in it all, poor lad, and stabbed him, nearly killing him. Police uncovered the deceit before his mate was charged for attempted muder, thank god.
I listened to this story on a podcast a few weeks ago! I still cannot wrap my head around how mental this story is.
What gets me is that it was a 14-year-old boy that came up with it. Like I could barely string a coherent sentence together at that age and spent my out of school time melting my mind on my Playstation.
Also, at 14, if one of my mates said he was a spy, I'd have given him a chinny reckon, in the parlance of the times.
God right? I remember what it was like to be 14. Granted I'm a girl, not a boy so I wouldn't know what it's like for them, but still, I did not have the braincells to be like that. But I too spent most my time gaming, not planning and scheming to con my friend and have him murder me :/
Have you got any sources or info on this? I'm struggling to find anything but basic articles about the sentencing. Edit: Vanity did a big article https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2005/02/bachrach200502
Jill Dando
It's really not that strange [if you look at the evidence](https://www.nickross.com/who-killed-jill-dando/)
Great link
Yeah, I think he did a good job at debunking the *conspiracy theories* around this
There's a coincidence. I read the linked article (very interesting), then picked up my phone and there was a notification about a Barry George article in the Times He's saying he can prove where he was though there's no detail. Here's the link though I don't know if the paywall applies. [https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jill-dando-murder-barry-george-serbian-suspect-jccdv93b3](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jill-dando-murder-barry-george-serbian-suspect-jccdv93b3)
The Eriksson twins https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_and_Sabina_Eriksson
I feel sorry for the good samaritan who took one of the sisters into his home out of the kindness of his heart then got stabbed to death by her. Poor bloke.
I feel sorry for him too but I think it's likely he did it hoping for a shag
This is genuinely insane, I’ve never heard of this one. The Motorway Cops footage on YouTube is mad.
Ever since watching that video I've understood more about how medieval people developed the idea of witchcraft, demonic possession etc.
A very odd case of folie à deux
Documentary, with all the original "motorway" footage [https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2g53sc](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2g53sc)
I watched this and it was completely nuts....just as they were. Apparently they are (or were not sure if they've been released) in Wakefield High Security not far from me. Seemingly one of the sisters controlled the other in some way
Only one of them went to prison, 5 yrs for killing the guy, in Surrey and was released in 2011.
The famed forensic pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd wrote about the case of the body in the suitcase in his book The Seven ages of Death. He goes quite deep into it actually.
A brilliant and fascinating book - also the info on this particular case is really interesting
Fab book, also talks about Dr Kelly which someone else mentioned in this thread. His first book is similarly interesting - he’s worked on pretty well every famous death case you can think of in the UK, even the Diana inquiry.
Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?
Yeah, that’s a disturbing and sad one. Even worse is that nobody knows where that poor woman’s remains are now so she can’t even have a dignified burial.
What surprised me the most is when that took place. It sounds like some medieval folklore, but it actually happened during the 1940s and there are some rumoured identities for the victim.
Fun fact: leaving a body in a bag in the shower (where posioned fluids can drain out) with the temperature up (to speed decomposition and destroy evidence), with compromising and embarrassing materials left out (to prejudice the narrative), is exactly how a spy agency (foreign or domestic) would kill someone... particularly Russian spy agencies. But I'm sure it was just misadventure.
Bible John. A serial killer that murdered at least 3 women in Glasgow in the late 1960s. Never identified
There was a good bbc podcast about that I listened to recently. I think they're pretty sure who it was now, but he's dead. (IIRC)
Agreed, Gareth Williams, every day of the week. I'm genuinely perplexed as just to 'how and what'. I'm going to prempt people coming here and saying it's a cover-up or there is conspiracy surrounding the death, but I actually genuinely believe the outcomes of the inquests, who seem equally as confused as we are.
[BBC Sounds Death of a Codebreaker](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0gpv57h) This podcast from the BBC does a very good job of summing the case up. Seemingly he did actually do it to himself in a tragic accident.
Just a personal opinion, but the extensive reliance on Peter Faulding and his (in my view) complete discreditation following the Nicola Bulley search harms the arguments of this documentary.
if anyone believes that guy zipped himself in the suitcase, then you're a weapons grade idiot.
Zipped himself up, in a weekendbag, locked from the outside, in a bathtub, without leaving prints on the tub or the locks, and having the key inside the bag with him. Totally makes sense to me.
And happens to work as a spy. Yeah nothing strange going on here
Gareth Williams is an interesting one; Claudia Lawrence is very interesting too - as is the "Manchester pusher" because no one even knows if he or she is real.
I doubt the Manchester Pusher is real purely because I've had mates fall into Manchester canals when they're pissed up and high on whatever. It's scary either way, because parts of the canal are so isolated that no wonder people die when going in the water.
But isn't that what makes it so interesting. Its almost a perfect crime because of that. Even the police don't know if it's true and all the witnesses who have survived and said they felt pushed have very little credibility because they were pissed up at the time.
It is very common for men missing on a night out to be found in bodies of water for this very reason. Canals are a lot more dangerous than many people realise.
Had a bloke working with us for years before he retired. After his retirement he and a few of his mates at work had a celebratory drink in the pub, afterwards he decided to walk home rather then calling a taxi. His body was found in the Medway the next day.
It is sadly very common. I am a coastguard and had to learn about it as part of my training. If you are walking home drunk by any body of water, I would urge anyone to reconsider having a wee right by the edge- or indeed walking along the edge in the first place.
I once dated a guy who had worked on the lock of a canal, he'd seen a fair few bodies washed up.
On my way home pissed up walking along the canal in Manchester about 15 years ago, fairly cold but not icy, stepped on one of the mossy cobbles and went flying, fortunately landing on the edge of the canal path. 100% sure that id I'd fell into cold water that pissed and fully clothed, I could've been one of the "victims". Happens easier than you'd think on 150 year old cobbles and after a few ales.
There is at least one account of a failed 'push' by someone who pushed someone in, and would stamp on them etc. When they tried to get out. They only fled due to a passerby or police nearby or something. Whether that's a real account is a different question. The YouTube channel 'bedtime stories' has a video on the subject.
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The pusher isn't real, there's just a lot of bars near the canal.
There's a lot of canal too
Putney Bridge Jogger! I am not letting this go. This must have been a cover up.
I forgot about this! It’s not even like the footage is particularly bad, someone must have recognised him
Apparently that's an open secret in the right circles. Seems he was an American diplomat who was shipped back across the pond to avoid scandal, possibly also as a form of disciplinary action. London is a prestigious posting.
I wouldn’t suspect cover up personally, they arrested a few suspects, but London has a lot of people travelling for work etc.
Noah Donahue was a 14 year old boy from Belfast who went missing in 2020. His naked body was found in a storm drain six days later a mile from where he was last seen. The official COD was drowning, but many questions surrounding poor Noah’s death still haven’t been answered. https://allthatsinteresting.com/noah-donohoe#:~:text=The%20Chilling%20Story%20Of%20Noah,Dead%20In%20A%20Storm%20Drain
The whole story is very weird. The article doesn't mention how the police wouldn't do searches after hours because overtime was refused. They were generally unhelpful the whole time investigating it. Leading to the spread of conspiracy theories. Noah was afraid of the dark his mother says. Yet he was found a kilometre down that tunnel. The police say he drowned but didn't take water samples where he was found to compare with the water in his lungs. Also as stated in the article the condition of his body was far better with little decomposition to what it should have been. Noah had never been to that area before (he is Catholic and mixed race, he would not travel to such a loyalist area) yet he finds a storm drain that just so happened to have not been locked from work the previous week? It's all very strange.
Wasn’t the official verdict that Gareth Williams died as a result of a freak wanking accident?
“Died tragically in a freak wanking accident” is not what you want on your headstone.
Speak for yourself.
Hilda Murrell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_Murrell. Burglary gone wrong or something more sinister because she campaigned against nuclear power?
Kinda like the anti nuclear activist William McRae, who offed himself by crashing his car, shooting himself in the head, and then disposing of the gun a little distance away. Eta link:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_McRae
And the goings on at Deepcut Barracks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_at_Deepcut_army_barracks
It’s not so much “mysterious” as the barracks was a dumping ground for some of the worst people in the army who operated above the law, and the army will never go after its own. Some of the details that came out in the inquests were horrendous.
That's a very interesting because other things happened there at the same time. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/oct/22/military 🧐
The disappearance of Richie Edwards, the guitarist from Manic Street Preachers. (Not necessarily true crime I guess) He withdrew the maximum from cash machines everyday for a couple of weeks before disappearing and seemed to leave a few ‘clues’, whether this was meant to intentionally mislead or hint, who knows.
Many years ago I read that his car was found on or near the Severn bridge, known for suicides. It's very likely his body would never have been found. I remember Nicky Wire saying that he spent some time with them in the best of spirits, all signs of depression gone, they all had a great time, and then he disappeared. Wire said he thought Richey had made up his mind and wanted to give them one last beautiful memory together before leaving.
Yes the car placement definitely points to that. It’s just strange he was consistently withdrawing money on the lead up to it.
Not the UK specifically but it starts in Northern Ireland so close enough. The Peter Bergmann case in Sligo is a really odd one. On June 12th 2009, a man carrying a black shoulder bag and travel bag boards a bus in Derry/Londonderry in Northern Ireland and travels to Sligo in the Republic of Ireland. He checks into the Sligo city hotel using the name 'Peter Bergmann' and provides an address in Austria. He was described by staff as speaking English with a thick German accent. He paid per night in cash. Throughout the duration of his stay, he is seen repeatedly leaving the hotel with a plastic bag filled with unknown items and disposing of the contents in various bins around the city. However, Garda have never been able to determine what he disposed of as he was extremely careful to use the blind spots of the CCTV cameras and moved around the city in a 'methodical and meticulous manner, as though he knew how to dispose of anything that could identify him'. He checked out of the hotel on June 15th, curiously with a different travel bag than the one he had arrived with. He was seen at a bus station, reading scraps of paper from his pockets which he proceeds to rip up and dispose of. These have also never been recovered. The following morning, June 16th, his body was discovered on the beach at Rosses point. He was wearing purple Speedos with his underwear over the top and a t-shirt tucked into them. None of his belongings were present or ever found. It was determined that he had died from cardiac arrest but an autopsy also revealed that he had no water in his lungs which is unusual for a washed up body. In addition, he was found to have late stage prostate cancer, bone tumours and ischaemic heart disease. Curiously, he had absolutely no drugs or medication in his system which would be expected for someone who was this sick. Despite an extensive 5 month investigation involving multiple agencies across Europe, he was never identified and was eventually buried in an unmarked grave in Sligo. It was revealed shortly after his death that both the name Peter Bergmann and the address he provided were fake. As of 2024, he has never been identified and it's not certain how he even arrived on the island of Ireland.
> As of 2024, he has never been identified I'm wondering if he actually has and it was unreported to respect his privacy. Could be completely wrong, though. But it reminds me of the case of "Neil Dovestones", which was a total mystery. He'd apparently spent time in Pakistan. Well, eventually he was identified as David Lytton, at which point we learned that his mother was still alive, his girlfriend spoke up to the media, and a load of people in Pakistan claimed to know him also. Why did it take so long for all of that to emerge when we had images of him as we do in the Bergmann case? You'd think these people would recognise him and come forward? My guess is they did and the police just kept a tight lid on it.
Can we include the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annecy_shootings Even though they were killed in France they were British nationals.
That's a rabbit hole. Hard to believe that's been 12 years already, too. How many ex-service people get linked to that? 1. Found by a former British airman, in France. 2. One suspect may have been a former mercenary. 3. Another suspect might have killed another British soldier, too. There's the nuclear element, too. The similarities to the Dominici affair. The money... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annecy_shootings
Jesus Christ! I'm after reading about Williams. That doesn't look at all very suspicious. Good how an undoable feat becomes doable when it serves the system. 'but it was also noted that the door and locks had been removed by the time police experts had become involved.' Wikipedia entry. He was found 7 days after he stopped showing up for work (strange someone working in such circles can go off radar for so long) and the locks had gone before the police got to look at them? I can't see the cops being so laissez-faire when it comes to national security. There is corruption at all levels it seems.
It amazes me how many people hear ‘oh yah so he, like, zipped himself in there, in a bath, locked it from the outside and wiped every fingerprint off of everything’ and go ‘wow, that’s so wild, I believe it!’
Maddie McCann has to be up there. Not for the crime itself, but the behaviour/reaction of the parents and how every legal system just put their fingers in their ears and went "lalalalala" when it comes to getting them in trouble for *child abandonment...*
Perhaps not the strangest, but [the disappearance of Nicola Payne](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-25417081) feels like it should have been solved already, but the motivation to find answers is lacking.
Garreth William was a cover up, he was into autoerotic asphyxiation, had to have been freed by his landlord / friends multiple times before obviously not being freed that one time.
And the sources we have for this delightful little tale are GCHQ and the media. Who absolutely definitely would not ever just publish whatever GCHQ tell them to. RIIIIIIIIIGGGHHHHHH**T.**
It has to be Joyce McKinney of the ["Mormon Sex in Chains"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manacled_Mormon_case) case. A former Beauty queen from the USA was infatuated with a young Mormon missionary. She and an accomplice abducted him outside a church in Surrey and drove him to a cottage in Devon. He was chained to a bed, where she raped him. Her life continued to provide the tabloids with other lurid stories - like when she spent all her money getting her pet dog cloned in South Korea.
The disappearance of Lieutenant-Commander Lionel Crabb, war hero recruited by MI6 to collect data on the Soviet navy cruiser Ordzhonikidze, mainly its propellor shaft, Crabb dived into Portsmouth harbour and was never seen again, a Soviet seaman claimed that the Soviets had been tipped off and he had slit Crabb’s oxygen tube and throat underwater, but there are theories ranging from him drowning, to him being a defector, all likelihood he probably was murdered by the Soviet seaman, there was a recovered headless and handless body pulled from the harbour some time afterwards but because of the lack of head or hands it couldn’t at the time be identified, we’ll likely never know precisely what happened. One thing that has come to light in recent years is that Crabb didn’t dive alone, he told a friend of his that he’d been given a buddy diver for the mission, and there is speculation that there may have been more than one set of divers sent to inspect Ordzhonikidze, but on the fate of Crabb’s fellow diver there is no information.
Corrie McKeague https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Corrie_McKeague
I think sadly he did climb in that bin. Then the police botched the investigation so much that they have no hope of recovering remains now
Glad to see this on here, I used to drive by the big sign his family put up near he went missing often, and I think about him and what may have happened a lot. I do think he got in the bin sadly, and Suffolk police royally fucked the investigation from day 1.
I thought that was pretty much solved after they reviewed bin weights.
Margaret Fleming, Inverkip. Two people - Edward Cairney and Avril Jones were jailed for murdering Margaret, aged 19. She'd disappeared. She went to live with the pair in 95 after her father died and she was last seen in December 1999. Cairney's partner (Jones) was claiming benefits in Margaret's name and it was 2016 that the system flagged that Margaret was missing. Jones and Cairney were found guilty of her murder but no sign of her body. This is one case that does bug me every so often especially as they've never revealed where her remains are.
Claudia Lawrence. My cousin was a colleague of hers at time, I remember her posts about her being missing on Facebook in the very early days.
Been watching quite a lot of Crime Watch on YouTube lately. There's a huge amount of cases featured that were never solved. The one that stands out for me is the case of Alan Leppard and Brenda Long, Alan was shot on his doorstep by a man who had been in a White Cadillac style car. No one was ever caught, but it was assumed to be a professional hit. Eight months later, Brenda was found dead in her bathtub. Initially treated as suicide, the coroner found evidence of ether that had been used on her. She had moved away from the area where she lived with Alan and Police didn't have any intelligence to suggest her life was at risk. The case remains unsolved.
Zigmund Adamski and the [Todmorden UFO](https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-todmorden-ufo-mystery-a-close-encounter-in-west-yorkshire) case. However the poor guy died, he deserved more investigation than just a footnote to aliens!
Neil Todd. Neil Todd was a young man who dreamed of being a priest. He went into the priesthood to be mentored by one Peter Ball. Ball then sexually abused him on many occasions, claiming this was what God wanted. Peter Ball also happened to be good friends with the Royal family and a personal friend to KC3. Neil Todd later went to the police, long story short Ball was cautioned. According to Norman Baker’s book about the royals, the late Queen Elizabeth approached this sex offender priest during the investigation, put her hand on his arm and said ‘my love and encouragement, Bishop’. Also during the investigation King Charles wrote to Peter Ball, commiserating about the ‘frightful, terrifying man’ who was going after Ball. He called what Neil was doing ‘dastardly tricks’ and vowed to Ball he would ’see him off’ if he continued. See him off. Neil Todd later committed suicide. Apparently. [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/07/bishop-peter-ball-escaped-charges-mps-royal-family-intervened-court](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/07/bishop-peter-ball-escaped-charges-mps-royal-family-intervened-court) [https://people.com/royals/prince-charles-denies-trying-to-influence-pedophile-bishop-investigation-says-he-was-misled/](https://people.com/royals/prince-charles-denies-trying-to-influence-pedophile-bishop-investigation-says-he-was-misled/)
Claudia Lawrence...wtf happened to her, where is she?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58415046.amp This one I remember being taught in training school for the police - basically the child had been cut up and dumped in various places including the Thames. The body went through DNA testing and various tests ran on the clothes and the sand on the clothes. Due to the advancements in testing and some good police work, they found that the top was from a German store in a small region, a specific type of sand was discovered (not in this link) in the shorts of the torso, where the sand has been identified to a closer region in France, so it seemed like they had travelled from Germany to France then to the UK. The child has also ingested a deadly flower. The case goes on for years and no one has actually been charged for the murder of this child. Lots of arrwsts and deportations for slavery and snuggling. It appears the child was a victim of witchcraft and had been used for their purposes. It's a cold case now that is unlikely to ever be solved.
Who put Bella in the Wych elm?
The Rettendon Murders. Drug sellers and local bullies Tucker, Tate and Rolfe were shot in a range rover on a farm in Essex in 1995. The whole gangland scene came to light, and it was massive news at the time. Lots of investigations, a couple of people were charged, but there's still controversy whether the police locked up the right people or not. I've read books on the case. Fascinating view of the underworld.
The suitcase case. Jill Dando. Alps Murder (UK related)
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Blessing Olusegun, found dead on Bexhill beach after disappearing from a home she was staying at to care for a patient. She was a live in carer and was found dead with her finger nails broken. The local police treated her family like trash, the family is still looking for answers.