UK UK - Sudbury, Suffolk, River Stour, Male, athletic or muscular build, in bin bags, Aug'20

[RobinCAL]

Identity of bones discovered in Sudbury river still a mystery, inquest hears

Nothing new.

 

[RobinCAL]

Mystery surrounds identity of man whose severed legs were found in river after no DNA match | Daily Mail Online

• A bin bag inside a shopping trolley was washed up on the River Stour in August
• Inside the bag were a man's severed legs and police launched investigation

BBM

I don't remember seeing that it was just the man's legs. Just thought that was interesting.

 

[RobinCAL]

Sudbury bones probe: No identity of suspected murder victim six months on

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Thanks for the update. How sad he has not been identified yet.

 

[Grungster]

Appears to have been identified, no longer on UK MP Unit

 

[Jsizzle]

Appears to have been identified, no longer on UK MP Unit

Is there a way to find out?

 

[Grungster]

Is there a way to find out?

Yeah, by emailing the UK Missing Persons Unit, but I have tried to do that and I never got a response.

 

[elliefant]

Man arrested in Sudbury 'bags of bones' murder investigation

Suffolk Police said a 26-year-old man was arrested in Sudbury on Tuesday.

Police said a second man was also arrested in relation to drugs offences but not in connection with the discovery of the human remains.

Officers are searching a property in Sudbury following the two arrests and this work was expected to continue into Wednesday, the force added.

 

[Feme98]

Man arrested in Sudbury 'bags of bones' murder investigation

Suffolk Police said a 26-year-old man was arrested in Sudbury on Tuesday.

Police said a second man was also arrested in relation to drugs offences but not in connection with the discovery of the human remains.

Officers are searching a property in Sudbury following the two arrests and this work was expected to continue into Wednesday, the force added.

Hopefully the identity is uncovered, and that answers resurface!

 

[JuicyLucy]

What a completely bizarre case.

The 26yo man who was arrested has now been bailed without charge as far as the bones are concerned (though he was charged with PWITS), which suggests to me that if there is to be any charge at all it will be more in the order of unlawful disposal of human remains than murder or manslaughter (or nothing at all, of course). I'm only speculating though.

Man arrested in connection with discovery of human remains in Sudbury bailed

I must say, when I read the original story, with the remains being skeletal, partial, lacking any obvious CoD, the DNA not being in the UK DNADB, and having just appeared out of nowhere even though they must have been stored elsewhere previously (but where? and how did they decompose unobtrusively?) what it made me think of was the partial skeletons they give medical students.

It would be interesting (to my warped brain) to know exactly what bones they do and don't have. If all or most of the bones of only one leg were recovered, that would be what my money's on actually. [Edit to add that Sudbury comes under the West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, which is part of the Cambridge Uni graduate medical programme.] But not if bones were recovered from both legs of one person, because that's not how osteology samples are generally provided.

Probably a slightly left field way of looking at things, though it wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened. Weird case, though. I'm proper intrigued now.

JMO

 

[ChatteringBirds]

I assume medical students are supposed to leave the specimens in locked rooms at the school? Are you thinking a student stole a specimen, and the school didn't notice?
(That would be crazy, but better than alternative scenarios.)

 

[JuicyLucy]

I assume medical students are supposed to leave the specimens in locked rooms at the school? Are you thinking a student stole a specimen, and the school didn't notice?
(That would be crazy, but better than alternative scenarios.)

No, not a dissection cadaver/prosection limb, which would stay in the pathology department, you're right. But you get given a set of bones, usually different sets at different stages of your course. So you might get given a box of limb bones, or a box with a spine, sternum and set of ribs in it, or a skull, say. The idea is that you take it home and keep it to hand while you learn your anatomy. You have to sign for it, pay a deposit usually, and return it to the osteology store at the end of term. They issue dire warnings about how it's real human remains and how it would be illegal to do anything awful with it, but in reality every year someone leaves a box of bones on the tube or something.

A few years ago, I saw a thread elsewhere on social media by someone who had been assigned a whole skeleton during medical school and for some reason it had never gone back and she was now clearing out her loft and had no clue what to do with it without getting into trouble! I'm wondering if something like that happened to this set of bones and someone found it and disposed of it or played a prank, perhaps not realising it was actually human remains. Or, given they were found in August, maybe they belonged to someone who failed exams and couldn't hack the stress anymore!

I'm sure the police considered this though. Well, I'm knee-ly sure. (Sorry.)

[Edited to add lame joke.]

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Man whose bones were found in Sudbury river may have died up to 13 years ago

Police investigating the discovery of human remains found in a Sudbury river a year ago believe the victim may have died between 2008 and 2012.

Two black bin bags containing human bones were found in the River Stour on the afternoon of Thursday, August 27 last year.

 

[RobinCAL]

Man whose bones were found in Sudbury river may have died up to 13 years ago

Police investigating the discovery of human remains found in a Sudbury river a year ago believe the victim may have died between 2008 and 2012.

Two black bin bags containing human bones were found in the River Stour on the afternoon of Thursday, August 27 last year.

Thank you for the update! What an interesting development - I wonder what's happened here.

 

[JuicyLucy]

Man whose bones were found in Sudbury river may have died up to 13 years ago

Police investigating the discovery of human remains found in a Sudbury river a year ago believe the victim may have died between 2008 and 2012.

Two black bin bags containing human bones were found in the River Stour on the afternoon of Thursday, August 27 last year.

They've done some interesting forensic work on this since last year then.

To have narrowed the search for his identity down from 'male' (and presumably dead) to male, went missing around 2008-12, was late 50s/early 60s at the time, was around 5'6" tall and of athletic build, is pretty good going imo.

I wonder if the bones are amenable to isotope analysis to see what they could tell us about where he grew up. 5'6" is very short for a man. Unless his DNA shows some familial reason for that, it may well have been to do with extreme malnutrition in childhood.

It's amazing how much can be discerned from so little.

JMO

 

[MarziPanda]

They've done some interesting forensic work on this since last year then.

To have narrowed the search for his identity down from 'male' (and presumably dead) to male, went missing around 2008-12, was late 50s/early 60s at the time, was around 5'6" tall and of athletic build, is pretty good going imo.

I wonder if the bones are amenable to isotope analysis to see what they could tell us about where he grew up. 5'6" is very short for a man. Unless his DNA shows some familial reason for that, it may well have been to do with extreme malnutrition in childhood.

It's amazing how much can be discerned from so little.

JMO

5'6 isn't especially short. The average height for men in the UK is 5'9, so there are loads of men around 5'6. I'm a 5'7 woman and I've met plenty of men shorter than me - none of which suffered from malnutrition in childhood.

 

[Antonia]

I was surprised to see this appeal two years after discoveryof the bones - the chances of finding the two people and them remembering anything useful after so long seem very remote. In a case as difficult as this, it's a bit odd if the police have delayed asking for these witnesses to come forward.

Witness images released after bones found in bags in river | ITV News

Suffolk Police say the witnesses are the latest part of a thorough investigation into the potential murder discovered two years ago. | ITV News Anglia

www.itv.com

 

[dotr]

Like a scene from a creepy movie, imo.rbbm.

Witness images released after bones found in bags in river | ITV News

Suffolk Police say the witnesses are the latest part of a thorough investigation into the potential murder discovered two years ago. | ITV News Anglia

www.itv.com

Suffolk Police want to speak to these two people, who they believe to be potential witnesses in a Sudbury murder investigation.Credit: Suffolk Police

''Suffolk Police have now released a CCTV image of a man and a woman they would like to speak to in connection with the investigation.

They are being treated as potential witnesses, but are not suspects.

They were seen on Wednesday 19 August 2020, walking two dogs and pulling a shopper trolley bag along Melford Road in Sudbury.

Forensic tests have been continuing to identify the victim. It is known he was an adult male, of an athletic or muscular build, who likely died between 2008 and 2012, and was aged in his late 50s to early 60s.''

''Latest test results have indicated the victim was a white male, approximately 5ft 9in tall, of medium build and North European, said police.''

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Like a scene from a creepy movie, imo.rbbm.

Hmmm...

 

[JuicyLucy]

Oh gosh, this again! Looks like we're going to get one new fact every August for the rest of our lives. I see they've revised his height upwards to approximately 5'9" and confirmed he was Caucasian.

I think if you were the couple in the images you would recognise yourself but I agree it might be a bit desperate to hope they'll remember much. I doubt police have delayed asking them to come forward, though, so much as that in a case with a long-dead, unknown victim it perhaps has been difficult to justify (ahem, pay for) the hours and hours it must have taken to scour all the local cctv looking for useable pictures of potential witnesses. I might be wrong though. Perhaps they've made the appeal locally before and are just releasing it nationally for the anniversary.

There's more information in the police release: Sudbury – Murder inquiry continuing two years on from discovery of human remains

Thank you for bringing it to the thread's attention, @Antonia.