Mummified body parts found in weighted bags identified as victim of violent killing
Mummified remains found in weighted bags in a river in Suffolk belong to a man who was unlawfully killed.
Two mummified legs and feet and two mummified arms without hands were found by a dog walker in black bin bags in the River Stour at Sudbury on August 27, 2020. Skull fragments, facial bones and two loose teeth were then found in a thin blue plastic bag by police divers two days later.
The second discovery was made 150 metres further along the river. An inquest in Ipswich today concluded the remains belonged to an unidentified man who was unlawfully killed.
The victim was named the Croft Man for the purposes of the inquest, after the area of Sudbury where his remains were found. Suffolk’s senior coroner Nigel Parsley recorded that the Croft Man died as the result of a "violent assault".
No matches have been identified after checks were run against national and international databases for missing people and for criminal activity, the coroner said. He said that radiocarbon dating indicated the Croft Man was born before the early 1950s and died in about 2008 to 2012, and it was therefore estimated he was in his late 60s to 70s at the time of his death.
The removal of the man’s hands and the injuries to his head and face "appear to have been an attempt to hamper his identification", Mr Parsley said. He concluded it was "more likely than not the Croft Man was unlawfully killed".
The coroner said: "We must remember that the Croft Man was somebody’s son. He lived for 60 to 70 years. He may well have had family, he almost certainly had friends.
"It’s a tragedy we cannot identify him as there must be some loved ones somewhere wondering where their loved one is." In a statement read to the court, dog walker Julie Dunn-Beechin said that she saw two black bin bags in the water on a stretch of the River Stour by water meadows.
Her dogs started sniffing the area, which she said "didn’t seem right to me", and so her attention was drawn to the bags. Park ranger Samuel Morgan, whom Ms Dunn-Beechin called, said: "She said she didn’t know if she had been watching too many Midsomer Murders and had a concern about what could be in the bags."
He said the bags had rocks and bricks in and "what looked like a toilet Duck soap that had partly dissolved". Mr Morgan said he saw "through a small hole in the bag what I thought looked like mummified skin and bone" and what appeared to be the ball joint of an arm, and he called police.
Superintendent Mike Brown, of Suffolk Police, said it was estimated the bags were deposited between August 13 and August 19. He said a volunteer litter picker who regularly uses a canoe in the area reported the site was clear on August 13.
A first sighting of the bin bags was made on August 19, but this was not reported to the police at the time. A fingertip search of the riverbed was carried out and a dive team found further human remains in a thin blue bag on August 29.
Supt Brown said the "remains from the first deposition site and the second deposition site are the same person" and this was confirmed by DNA testing. The air fresheners in the black bin bags were made in north Wales at a site that closed in early 2012, it was established.
The bricks found in the bags were made in the 1970s, were "very common" and millions were produced, Supt Brown added. The officer said: "The biggest challenge we have is we do not know the identity of our victim so we’re unable to work around the associations they would have had and then look at those wider lines of inquiry."
DNA testing indicated the Croft Man was a white northern European male, likely to have been born with blonde or light hair which may have darkened naturally, and blue or green eyes. Supt Brown said: "The most likely and preferred hypothesis is that there’s a criminal element."
He added that the injuries inflicted on the skull supported this. He said the manner of dismemberment of the body could suggest someone with "skill in butchery".
"Our victim has likely met a violent and unnatural death," he said. Supt Brown continued: "Because of the length of storage, the individual could have been found in a state by somebody who doesn’t want to come to the attention of police and has tried to dispose of them by throwing them away."
Home Office pathologist Dr Ginni Fitzpatrick-Swallow said the limbs in the black bags were mummified but there was no skin on the skull fragments in the blue bag found by police divers. Regarding the skull pieces, the pathologist said there were "at least 14 linear cuts".
These could have been caused by a "heavy weapon with a sharp edge" such as a meat cleaver, axe or machete. She said there had been "multiple blows to the head".
"The appearance is consistent with repeated strikes in rapid succession due to their uniformity," she said. She said it was not known if the skull injuries were inflicted in life as there was no soft tissue remaining.
"To completely destroy a skull like that seems, from a dismemberment point of view, unnecessary," she said. She said that "to remove the hands and destroy the facial features" can be associated with disguising the identity of the deceased.
The pathologist said some of the remains "may have been frozen" and may have been wrapped in plastic for a period of time. She gave the medical cause of death as unascertained.
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