Could murder victim have had long hair like this, or worn specs, or even have been a she?
COLOURISED DEPICTIONS OF FRED THE HEAD CAST FRESH LIGHT ON MYSTERY OF 50-YEAR-OLD UNSOLVED KILLING
THE killing of an unidentified man who became known as Fred the Head has gone unsolved since his body was first discovered 50 years ago in Burton.
And while there have been facial reconstructions of the man, both when he was discovered in 1971 and more recently in 2016 in a bid to find out who he was - he has never before been seen in colour.
Burton resident Kim Macbeth, a member of the Who was Fred the Head? Facebook group, which was set up in an attempt to finally solve the case, has colourised the picture based on a detailed reconstruction from the skull of the victim - and gives a detailed glimpse of what Fred would have looked like.
Work has also been done to show what Fred might have looked like with longer hair as was the fashion in the 70s. He has also been pictured wearing glasses, while smiling and even as a younger man in the hope that someone may recognise their long lost relative or friend and the mystery of who he was can finally be solved
An image has even been created of Fred as a woman - as has been recently theorised by the group but this has been dismissed by the detective in charge of the case at Staffordshire police. Fred is Staffordshire Police’s oldest missing person case and unsolved murder. While exhaustive investigations have been carried out since he was found buried on an island, off Newton Road, Winshill, in Burton, he remains a mystery.
Fred the Head was given a face by Professor Caroline Wilkinson, an expert in facial reconstruction at Liverpool University. In the past, the professor has reconstructed the features of Richard III, Robert the Bruce and even Father Christmas.
It is Professor Wilkinson’s reconstruction that Kim Macbeth has based her colour images on.
The victim was found buried in a kneeling position. He was naked except for socks and a wedding ring strangely on his right hand. His hands and ankles had been bound.
The degree of decomposition suggested the body had been buried a year earlier. He was aged between 23 and 39 when he was slain.
He had short, brown hair no more than three inches in length. He had undergone extensive dental work. He suffered from torticollis, a condition that would have meant his head lolled to the right. His lower jaw jutted out.
Detectives have also said they will look in a theory that he could have been the first to fall foul of notorious Camden serial killer Anthony Hardy.
Hardy, dubbed The Camden Killer, was born in 1951 in Winshill the area in which Fred’s skeletal remains were found. Hardy killed Sally White, 38, Bridgette Macclennan, 34, and 29-year-old Elizabeth Valad, and was finally brought to justice in 2002 when a homeless man found some of the dismembered remains of two women, stuffed into bin-liners.