Unidentified body on the moors near Manchester, 2015

[CGP]

Here's an interesting account of the efforts to identify a man found dead on the moors near Manchester last December:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/...b-c4fccd53dd24

The police investigation seems to have been rather thorough, though bizarrely the article implies they are uncertain whether the man was Caucasian or of Pakistani ancestry!

[Robert Linford]

Very, very weird.

As an amateur Sherlock Holmes, I'd say

1. I didn't know there were blue-eyed Pakistanis.
2. His body was surely lying too neatly to have suffered strychnine convulsions.
3. Have they checked his brain? His wandering behaviour and lack of ID may have been the result of Alzheimer's.

[Phillip Walton]

There is very little difference between Caucasians and people from the Northern Indian sub continent as this is where the Caucasions and Anglo Saxon peoples originated from.

[Robert Linford]

But blue eyes?

If he came here from abroad, would there be any record of the metal plate? Wouldn't he have had to explain it to get through the machine?

[Debra Arif]

Something i read suggested police were making inquiries in Pakistan as a thryoid treatment he had in his possession had the instruction label written in Urdu. The Titanium plate in his leg was also supposed to be manufactured there.

[CGP]

I think this case does have possibilities for the armchair detective.

If the times given in the article are accurate, it doesn't look as though he could have got from Manchester to Greenfield in the time available by either train or bus.

[Debra Arif]

The story that he may have been a child survivor from a 1949 air crash at the same place, returning to the area to die, are interesting, although it doesn't look as though it will pan out as I think both boys of the right age who survived have been traced.

[Christer Holmgren]

But blue eyes?

Just for you, Robert - a girl from Peshawar, Pakistan:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...744d0ef41d.jpg

Not all that uncommon, actually.

[Robert Linford]

He could of course have been a relative of someone who died - not involved in it but affected by it.

[Robert Linford]

Fish, is that mixed race or pure Pakistani?

[Debra Arif]

Fish, is that mixed race or pure Pakistani?

Hi Robert
The Kalash tribe of Northern Pakistan have fair skin and sometimes blue eyes naturally too. They have their own language and culture but there must be some members who've intergrated into the Muslim, Urdu speaking population of Pakistan over the years.

[Robert Linford]

Thanks Debs.

[CGP]

My confidence in DS Coleman's thoroughness has been dented a bit by the fact that more than a month and a half after the discovery of the body he believed the writing on the medicine label was Arabic (in fact it is Urdu):
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...th-man-7279584

[Jon Simons]

There is no mention of an accent when he asks the landlord of The Clarence how to get to the top of the mountain.

I`d have asked the landlord, Melvin Robinson if he noted any accent, or dialect.

[Robert Linford]

The reported swagger may have been an effect of the metal plate, though no other walking peculiarities were mentioned.

It's a shame we can't get Johnny Oxford on this.