Man’s identity remains a mystery after inquest into skeleton ends
AN inquest on a man whose skeleton was found on a peer’s Cotswolds estate two and a half years ago concluded - but his identity and cause of death remain a mystery.
Despite extensive investigations by police and a variety of medical experts, as well as DNA checks across Europe, nothing has been found to establish who the man was or how he came to die on Earl Bathurst’s 15,000-acre Cirencester Park Estate in Gloucestershire.
Assistant Gloucestershire Coroner, Roland Wooderson, drew a line under the investigation on December 17 by conducting an inquest in the absence of almost all the information that is usually considered at such a hearing.
At the start of the inquest in Gloucester he said: “Over the last 15 years or so while sitting as a Coroner I have not infrequently reminded myself at the start of an inquest that the role of a Coroner is to try to answer a number of questions: who the deceased is, and how, when and where the deceased came by his or her death. I am afraid that in this case I will fail to answer a number of those questions.”
The coroner read through police and medical reports which told him that the mystery man’s remains were found on May 1, 2018 by a forestry worker checking tree safety in a beech copse at the edge of the estate near Two Mile Lodge, alongside the A419 road between Cirencester and Stroud.
The coroner said he had received a number of statements from the police as the investigation proceeded, the latest from Detective Inspector Alistair Hammett on November 29 this year.
“There were no signs of skeletal trauma and the clothing was intact,” said the coroner. “The body was partly covered by leaves and was lying on his back. There was no blood seen on the clothing.”
The coroner said it was a remote part of the estate, rarely, if ever, visited by forestry workers, and it would not be easy for a vehicle to have dropped the man nearby because there were no pulling in places on that winding stretch of road.
The inquest heard the remains had been examined by anthropologist Dr Lucina Hackman and she found no signs of trauma. DNA was taken from a bone but no match was found in any British missing persons or police databases. Interpol was circulated with the DNA profile but no matches had been found there either, said the coroner.
Dr Hackman concluded that the man was of Caucasian ancestry and likely to be aged between 33-55. He would have been between five feet five and five feet eight inches tall.
“At some stage this man had been involved in physical activity but the extent of that cannot be determined,” Dr Hackman said. “The indications are that he died sometime in the latter part of 2017 or the early part of 2018.”
Mr Wooderson said a dental expert examined the dead man’s teeth which were healthy and well looked after and he concluded that the deceased would have been about 30 years old.
A plastic ‘hospital patient property bag’ was found with the body but checks with the British Polythene Industry found such bags are supplied to the NHS and are widely available.
The coroner said that Facelab experts used the dead man’s skull to produce an image of what he would have looked like and that was issued to the media in early 2019, leading to 74 calls from the public suggesting who he might have been.
“Enquiries have eliminated 54 of those suggested people. Of the remaining 20, insufficient evidence has been provided to enable any further investigations into 10 of them. Enquiries about the remaining 10 are still being continued at this time.
“Inspector Hammett says further consideration is being given to obtaining a YSTR (chromosome) profile which could help establish the ancestry and origin of the deceased.
“Unfortunately, for my purposes as a Coroner, that is the totality of the evidence that I have. The police have been most thorough in their investigations but despite their exhaustive enquiries and the efforts of other professionals, many, many questions remain.
“I am afraid I shall have to record the name of the deceased as unknown. The medical cause of death: all that can be recorded is ‘skeletal remains’.
“In terms of the date and place of death I will record as a formality that he died on May 1 2018 on the Bathurst estate close to Two Mile Lodge on the Stroud-cirencester road.”
Recording a narrative conclusion, Mr Wooderson said: “That concludes a most unusual inquest.”