UK UK - Manchester, 'Angel of the Meadow' WhtFem Skeletal, 16-30, buried, Jan'10

alllads

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Skeletal remains of woman 18-35 found in Angel Meadows, Manchester in January of 2010.
She was a Caucasian woman aged 18-35 and between 5”1’ and 5”7’ in height. She was discovered with a distinctively patterned pinafore style dress, wearing a blue bra, and a blue jumper. A black high-heeled shoe was also found. A white plastic Guinness measuring chart, thought to be used in pubs, was also uncovered along with a long off-cut of an orange carpet.

She was murdered sometime between 1960 and 2009 (based on the clothing I am assuming closer to 1960).

Here is the link at Crimewatch: http://www.bbc.co.uk/crimewatch/appeals/2010/02/angelmeadows_murder.shtml which has a video

And some more recent information about the case:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-10933380
 
I agree, I think her clothes and that orange carpet suggest the 1960s or 1970s. The pinafore with the "lady and gent" pattern survived intact remarkably well while the rest of the clothes were fairly disintegrated. The fabric weave suggests it might be double-knit polyester, a synthetic that presumably would last longer.
 
The latest article indicates that they're ,looking at someone that might recognise the cuttings in the carpet. My personal theory is that this young woman worked in a local pub and was killed after work by either a coworker, customer, or maybe someone that saw her leaving through a back entrance alone after work... The carpets might have been the pub's old carpets that had just been replaced with new ones.

If she hasn't been reported by friends or family as missing, it's possible she was out of touch with family and any coworkers thought she had moved away - especially if it was one of her last days at work, or she had talked about leaving earlier, or maybe even if the pub itself closed soon after and the staff didn't keep in touch?

The fabric seems extremely distinctive, I hope someone that knows vintage fabric seems it somewhere and knows what year it was made, maybe recognises anything specific about it...

They do have this woman's DNA profile so hopefully they'll at least find out who she was, if not who killed her...
 
This article was posted today but it looks like she was found sometime in Feb. 2010.I'll post what I find.

Unsolved Murder: Unidentified woman's body, found at Angel Meadow
June 07, 2011


Forensic artists are producing a facial reconstruction of a murdered woman found dumped in the city centre – in a bid to finally identify her.

The M.E.N. can reveal that experts at Dundee University are recreating the victim’s face using her skull, which was found by workers on a building site on Miller Street.

Detectives are also waiting for the results of new tests which should help narrow down the woman’s year of birth.

It is thought the remains belonged to a white female aged anywhere between 16 and 30.

Her body could have been lying there for between 12 months and 50 years.

A team led by Dr Caroline Wilkinson, from Dundee University’s forensic and medical art department, is using state-of theart facial mapping
techniques to reconstruct the woman’s features.

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereve...nidentified-womans-body-found-at-angel-meadow
 
Woman's bones found in a carpet in Manchester TV appeal
Page last updated at 22:09 GMT, Thursday, 25 February 2010


Detectives investigating the discovery of a woman's skeleton on a building site in Manchester have made a fresh appeal on BBC's Crimewatch.

The victim's bones were discovered wrapped in a carpet by workmen at a site in Miller Street, near the CIS Tower on 25 January.

A post-mortem examination found the woman had a fractured neck, collarbone and jaw.

Police, who are treating it as a murder inquiry, believe she died in the 1970s.

A blue jumper and blue or green bra were recovered among the remains, while a green pinafore with large buttons was found nearby.

The pinafore has a distinctive design and police are hoping someone recognises the items

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/8535879.stm
 
Woman's skeleton found on Manchester building site
Page last updated at 14:46 GMT, Tuesday, 9 February 2010


A murder inquiry is under way after a woman's skeleton was found wrapped in carpet on a building site in Manchester city centre.

The bones were unearthed after a skull was spotted by workmen at a site on Miller Street, near the CIS Tower.

It was treated as non suspicious until post-mortem tests found the woman had a fractured neck, collarbone and jaw.

Police are unsure how long the body has been there and are now looking through missing persons files

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/8505435.stm

_47265663_pinafore.jpg

Some items of clothing were found near the skeleton

_47269387_pinafore_closeup226.jpg

Police are hoping someone recognises the clothing
 
Woman's bones 'named' by viewers on BBC's Crimewatch
Page last updated at 08:29 GMT, Friday, 26 February 2010


Detectives trying to identify a woman whose remains were found rolled up in a carpet are investigating possible names given by Crimewatch television viewers.

The murder inquiry was aired on the BBC programme on Thursday night.

A piece of plastic found near the skeleton on a building site in Manchester may also hold clues.

Det Ch Insp Jeff McMahon told the programme: "We've had a good response, with some new names that are fresh to the inquiry."

He said police would continue to look into the new names as well as extracting DNA from the body

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/8538095.stm

_47376394_-1.jpg

The court shoe was found near the remains and is thought to belong to the victim


_47376395_-4.jpg

The piece of plastic may hold 'vital clues' , detectives have said
 
article-1390707-0C417C4000000578-974_468x621.jpg

article-1390707-0C417C4700000578-706_468x310.jpg


Another specialist has carried out Carbon14 testing on her teeth and bones and concluded the victim was born sometime between 1950 and 1954. She is believed to have been killed in the 70s or 80s.

...

The woman was between 5ft 1in and 5ft 8in tall when she was killed. She was a modern day size 12 and is most likely European but could have come from the Middle East or Indian sub-continents.

She had a number of fillings in her teeth and had a missing first upper right pre-molar, meaning it would have been visible when she smiled broadly.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-years-murdered-sex-killer.html#ixzz1XIWHhsGC


Determining this female's ethnic background is difficult, but it is believed that she is more likely to be a European female, but they are unable to exclude her from being from the Middle East or Indian Sub- Continents.
..
Along with the skeleton, officers found a pinafore dress that had a distinctive pattern featuring a man and a woman with the words 'Madam' and 'Monsieur'.

Police now know that numerous prints of this type were manufactured and worn between 1973 and 1976.

The method of manufacture and the type of fabric used would tend to suggest that the pinafore was cheaply made and mass produced for the lower end of the high street, possibly a market stall.

Also found was a blue 'skinny-rib' jumper, this was typically worn under pinafore in the mid-seventies and a pair of tights.

...

The dark blue carpet was cut to fit inside a Ford Cortina
http://www.bbc.co.uk/crimewatch/appeals/2011/05/angel_meadows_murder.shtml

The shoe and the jacket have been dated to the 1980's but the BBC site says it's not certain if they are linked with the victim.
 
That apron is very unusual.. ive never seen anything like it.
 
This is certainly an interesting case and practically every article has a different estimated tod-1980 being about the average. Surely they have a better way to determine how long she has been dead than just looking at her style of clothes. There was a murder several decades ago where an individual was murdered and dressed up in a medieval costume with the hope that people would think the skeleton was hundreds of years old however the ruse didn't work-hopefully someone else recalls it or I'll post the name of the case if I remember or find it. At any rate, I do remember reading somewhere that the Angel, although Caucasian, may have been raised in East Africa. I assume this was determined from a mineral analysis of her bones and teeth. The British got out of East Africa in the early 1960s so that might push her back a bit in time. The most famous East African murder, unsolved, was the killing of Lord Erroll in 1941 and all the lurid stories about the notorious Happy Valley Gang.
 
She has now been buried...

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/angel-meadow-murder-mystery-victim-8846364

Angel of the Meadow murder: Mystery victim finally laid to rest five years after remains found in Manchester

06:00, 16 March 2015

The unidentified ‘Angel of the Meadow’ murder victim has been laid to rest in an unmarked grave – five years after her remains were discovered in Manchester city centre.

The mystery woman has been buried in Southern Cemetery in a state-paid service that was attended only by two Greater Manchester Police detectives who have spent four years working on the unsolved murder case.

Her remains were unearthed in January 2010 by builders working on the Co-op’s new £100m headquarters off Miller Street in Manchester city centre – an area historically known as Angel Meadow.....
 
From my recollection, pinafore dresses were very much a thing of the early 1970s, but were around from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s.

I wonder if it had a lable in it. Even clothing turned out cheaply for sale on a market stall would have some sort of manufacturer's lable in it. Without a lable I'd assume the dress was home made, which still quite common in those days. As to the design on the fabric, I can remember my mother buying cotton or polycotton with various European landmarks such as the Coloseum and Eiffel Tower on and making my sister a shirt with it.
 
The British got out of East Africa in the early 1960s so that might push her back a bit in time. The most famous East African murder, unsolved, was the killing of Lord Erroll in 1941 and all the lurid stories about the notorious Happy Valley Gang.

It's true that the UK's African colonies became independent in the late 1950s to mid 1960s, but it's not necessarily true that all Brits left East Africa at that time. Many stayed on for some years in technical and administrative roles, so it's not inconceivable that the daughter of one of the remaining ex-pat families could have come to the UK to study or work. If her family were still out in Africa there might have been nobody in the UK to report her missing.
 
I really hope she gets her name back. I've wondered about this case for years. I found a more recent article, from earlier this year, but it doesn't seem to have much/if any new information.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-38950166


Police determined to identify Angel Meadow skeletal remains

13 February 2017
Police say they will never give up trying to identify a woman whose body was found in Manchester about 30 years after she was killed.
The skeletal remains of the woman were found by workers at a building site in Angel Meadow, near the city centre, in January 2010.
She had a fractured neck and jaw and suffered a violent death, police said.
The head of Greater Manchester Police's cold case review unit said they would "never give up hope".
"I think she was strangled and beaten about the head and then unceremoniously wrapped in a carpet and dumped on a derelict building site. No-one deserves that," Martin Bottomley said.
"She deserves a proper burial, which she's now had, and she also deserves justice."
He appealed for people to help identify the woman who, despite facial reconstruction by forensic experts in 2011and DNA and isotope testing, remains unknown.
"This lady might have [been] put out of somebody's mind temporarily but she will never be forgotten.
"There will be a family member out there somewhere who knows who she is and who can unlock that key and identify her and perhaps that will lead to the murderer.
"We are determined to get a just outcome for the victim, and for any family member out there, and we will never give up hope."
Post-mortem tests revealed fractures to her neck and jaw and that she may have been sexually assaulted.
Her body was found alongside a green pinafore dress with large buttons, a jumper, bra and a pair of stiletto shoes, and a Guinness sign. Three different carpets - orange, blue and dark blue - were also found.
Tests have established she was aged between 18 to 35 and is most likely European but could have come from the Middle East or Indian subcontinents.

Someone must know something! Echoing what a previous poster said about the possible East Africa connection, I'm sure I remember reading an older article saying the police were looking into a possible family connection. I wonder if they ruled it out via DNA? The more recent article above doesn't mention anything about it. Could it have possibly been a domestic dispute between a husband and wife, or boyfriend/girlfriend, and potentially she was never reported missing?
:thinking:










 
Old article from The Sun; I really don't know how reliable the information in the article is, so take it by a grain of salt (or three). There are other UID's in the link as well.

The dead ends: Take a chilling tour through Britain's most puzzling and mysterious cold cases

Pathologists found she died in 1972 – almost 40 years before she was found in the city’s Angel Meadow area.

She had been sexually abused and murdered.

Forensic artists produced a facial reconstruction, with the strongest lead suggesting she was from Tanzania.

How did they narrow it down to 1972, specifically? Other sources have stated that certain clothing found with JD was manifactured in and after 1973. It could be a typo, though. It is -after all- The Sun.
 

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