Remember reading about this around the time the body was discovered.
Quite a fascinating story – and interesting presentation by the BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-e8c6cbab-da44-4a3c-8f9b-c4fccd53dd24
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-e8c6cbab-da44-4a3c-8f9b-c4fccd53dd24
Very good!
My question: if the cause of death was strychnine poisoning, which we’re told is very painful and causes convulsions, then how come the body was found with its legs straight and arms folded neatly across the chest?
I liked the line that even though they are sure it was a one way journey to commit suicide he bought a return ticket because it was only 1 pound more than a single. What?
I think that indicates he didn’t understand the system, which suggests he was foreign.
The bit that puzzles me is the worker at the tourist information not remembering having spoken to him. Is that plausible?
I don’t think you have to be foreign to find the myriad fare options on UK railways confusing
Well, it’s the job of the person on the information desk to talk to people all day. ‘Neil’ was a bit taller than average and had a large nose, but apart from that he was unremarkable. Blandly dressed, showing to emotion – just another gut passing through a very large, busy railway station. I don’t think it’s that remarkable that he didn’t stand out. The landlord in the pub, presumable a much quieter location and a man who keeps a close eye on who is in his establishment, probably only remembered him because he asked for directions for a journey he couldn’t possibly return from before dark in the middle of December.
They spoke for five minutes!
Okay, I’ll park that, but my strychnine query stands.
That’s nicely done – and yes, a strangely fascinating story. There was a lengthy piece in the Guardian a couple of weeks back by William Atkin who wrote a great book “The Moor” a couple of years ago celebrating these strange upland places. Spent a great deal of time walking to the south of Saddleworth – Black Hill and particularly Bleaklow – they are indeed lonely places – yet within a 30 mile radius of millions of people. Very odd.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/14/mystery-saddleworth-moor-who-was-neil-dovestone
I read the Atkins piece the other week, too, and was impressed by how much work he’d put into it.
Valparaiso and I have communicated at legth on this topic. His latest findings reveal that the pose he was found in is entirely consistent with strychnine poisoning, Poppy.
The key to the whole thing is his anonimity – his successful efforts to achieve it have made him headline news. “Front page anonimity” is an interesting concept.
Our full correspondence and possible solution is to be published in either Nature, Scientific American, or Craigslist.
‘Anonimity’, Saucecraft Minor? ‘AnonIMity’?? Twice? In consecutive sentences? Did brave men die in dirty wars so that you, YOU, Saucecraft Minor, could airquotes TURN OFF SPELLCHECK endquotes???
My study, after Games. And don’t even THINK about changing out of your shorts.
Soz, Jeff. It’s living in Siam what is ruining my heducation:
https://www.facebook.com/ANONIMITY-345102894724/
‘Anonimity is a hard-working rock band from Rockingham WA’. Wrong! As was demonstrated quite clearly just a day or two ago when we considered the Brinsley Schwartz example, the correct construction is ‘Anonimity ARE a hard-working rock band…’.
You sure about that, on the strychnine? What about the convulsions?
This apparent anomaly had me stumped too. The body is described in the press as having been found in a peaceful-looking “classic coffin” pose: legs straight and together, arms folded across chest. Yet the descriptions of strychnine poisoning suggest he should have been found twisted and doubled up in agony. It seems impossible to match one with the other. But that’s because one vital piece of information is missing from most descriptions of the moors body: his head was arched back “as if he was looking up at the sky directly overhead”.
This turns out to be a typical feature of a strychnine convulsion. The body arches up in spasms, using the head and feet as the fulcrum points. The spine and legs are extended. The arms sometimes cross over the chest in a type of self-hugging motion. Death is usually from asphyxia when the muscles required for breathing seize up. (Vomiting is rare.)
And that’s how he was found: stretched out straight, legs and feet together, head arched back, arms across chest. The apparently peaceful “classic coffin” pose was in fact perfectly consistent with a textbook description of how someone would look after strychnine convulsions.
Questions from the floor?
Good work, websleuth!
Sorry, we’re too busy dealing with our own mystery body…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taman_Shud_Case
If I may just step in here and go into the anonymity thing? We have time? Nod from the producer, so here we go! Our man (whom Archie and I refer to as Nutbar) went to some lengths to ensure his anonymity; divesting himself of all items one usually carries as ID. He even wore the blandest one-stop shop high street clothes (a bit like what chiz wears, spookily enough).
Why? I give the question its double-spaced emphasis, for emphasis.
His anonymity is the only sensational aspect of the case (as we’re referring to it). If he’d left ID, his suicide would have made page 94 of the newspapers, if that.
OK so far?
Right. Yet he chooses to die in a place that would ensure media attention. And he must have known that an anonymous corpse would be an attractive mystery in itself. This is the most crucial aspect of the case, not the minutiae of exactly how he reached the spot, bus times, sandwiches eaten, boring stuff like that (that Archie concentrated on, bless, while I considered the more abstract aspects that eluded him.)
We have this paradox of anonymity creating celebrity. Why would anyone engineer his death in such a fashion? Because it was certainly planned and executed with calm precision.
Preliminary results of our report seem to indicate (all POSSIBLES, all conjecture):
– Home in Pakistan, family roots in the UK. Poss. English/Pakistani parents.
– Some kind of temporary base in the UK, poss. London
– Some family connection with Saddleworth Moor
Various scenarii (?Jeff?) could accommodate the “headline anonymity” aspect, but they’re all pretty far-fetched.
It’s my guess that this (the question of identity) will only be solved by extensive sleuthing in Pakistan (pop. 185 million-or-something) – so that’s not going to happen.
The interesting thing about the lack of ID, wallet, credit cards, phone, etc. is not so much what was missing – anything that could be used to identify him – but what was still there:
– a return train ticket
– 130 quid in cash (tenners)
– his little bockle of strychnine
A reasonable assumption is that he kept only what he’d need for a tail-between-legs return to London if he bottled out or the plan went tits up in some other way (losing the strychnine, for example). He had money for cabs, buses or tubes and to get something to eat, and his train ticket back to the Smoke.
This suggests to me that must have had either a home or at least temporary accommodation in London where he left his ID and other belongings he didn’t want his body to be found with. I thought briefly about a left-luggage locker but, if so, where was the key. Another possibility is that he left a jiffy bag containing them with an acquaintance in London, saying “If I’m not back to collect this in 24 hours, bin it.” But he’s unlikely to have thrown them away himself before reaching the moor, because in that case why not throw away the train ticket and money too?
Somewhere in London there may well be a suitcase containing his wallet, credit cards, a passport, a phone and possibly a return plane ticket to Pakistan, but nobody has yet made the connection with the man on the moors.
Maybe he threw locker key off the train? Or it has a combination?
Yes, but that’s my point. He wanted to keep just enough to be able to back out, if necessary. He’d need the key to reclaim his stuff later, so why store it in a locker anyway. If he was hell-bent on a no-turning-back mission, wouldn’t he have chucked everything?
He wasn’t sure he would go through with it, when he was he threw the key away.
“A reasonable assumption is that he kept only what he’d need for a tail-between-legs return to London if he bottled out or the plan went tits up in some other way (losing the strychnine, for example). He had money for cabs, buses or tubes and to get something to eat, and his train ticket back to the Smoke.”
That’s brilliant, Archie!!!!!!!!
But he had his ticket back to the Smoke. That was a quid down the drain.
He’s kicking himself now. there’s probably some sort of Customer Care program in the afterlife for cases like this. He’ll probably get a voucher or something.
Railcard Dullards: Assemble!
On the unlikelihood of filtering down Pakistan’s vast population to something that’s workable with.
They’ve now narrowed down the titanium bone prosthesis in his leg to 12 hospitals in Pakistan, at one of which he had it fitted at some time between 2013 and December 2015. If the medical records of all the patients who received those devices over than period can be searched, applying the filter of simultaneous treatment for hypothyroidism, the resulting number could be small enough to make tracing and discounting all of them – all but one, hopefully – a feasible thing to attempt.
Feasible for anyone but the combined Plod Forces of Pakistan and Saddleworth Moor.
Was he standing on a block of ice?
Update – https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/26/identity-of-man-found-dead-on-saddleworth-moor-in-2015-is-confirmed-david-lytton