The Forgotten Dead - Mary Ellen, Bolton UK.

[no1novice]

Woman's body found in Bolton cellar mystery reinvestigated

Published

3 days ago



An expert believes "Mary Ellen" may have looked like this
By Jane Wilkinson & Daniel O'Donoghue
BBC News

Exactly 40 years ago, a woman's partially mummified remains were discovered in the cellar of a house, wrapped in a newspaper from 1966.

Detectives still do not know the real identity of the woman they nicknamed Mary Ellen.

Now a new BBC Radio Manchester investigation, The Forgotten Dead, has re-examined the case in an effort to solve the mystery.
A house in Bromwich Street, Bolton

Her remains were discovered at a house in Bromwich Street, Bolton, on 14 December 1982

One of those originally involved in the investigation was Rick Armstrong.

"A fella called John Baxendale was renting the house at the time," the retired detective told the BBC.

"He went down to the cellar to explore and to clean up the rubbish. In one corner he found some cardboard and paper, and what he thought was a tailor's dummy. Then he realised a tailor's dummy doesn't have bones.

"So for reasons best known to himself, he picked up the head and put it in a carrier bag and walked it round to Castle Street police station."

The major police investigation launched that day, and it has never truly ended.

"The remains that were found were mainly bones, with the hands and arms in a mummified condition," Mr Armstrong explained.

"It was wrapped as if somebody had lain down and rolled over in cardboard and paper to keep themselves warm.

"It was speculated that this person was probably a vagrant or somebody who went from town to town and tried to get on someone's settee for a night's sleep. She'd just gone in there, gone to sleep and never woke up."
Bromwich Street cellar where the woman was found

The spot in the cellar where the woman's body was found

The News of the World found around the woman's body was dated 13 March 1966, naturally leading police to believe her remains could have lain undiscovered for 16 years.

A later forensic examination suggested the woman had been white, about 40 years old and possibly only 4ft 10in (147cm) tall.

The Home Office pathologist also revealed there had been no sign of anyone else being involved in her death.
'Somebody put her there'

But that's not what former Bolton Evening News crime reporter Steve Howarth believes.

Among the first people on the scene, he covered the Mary Ellen story from the beginning.

"There was absolutely no way this poor woman crawled in there and just died," he said. "Somebody put her there. I'm pretty sure of it.

"It's all pure speculation but my gut feeling is that she came to an unfortunate end at the hands of someone else or possibly as a result of an accidental drug dose.

"Somebody dumped her in a corner hoping that nobody would find her, and nobody did for 16 years."

It's not a view shared by Greater Manchester Police.

Its cold case review unit is confident in the original theory that she had been homeless.

It says there is simply no evidence that she was a victim of crime, or that anyone else was involved in her death.
'Pioneering'.

Back in 1982, Bolton CID's first concern was to learn Mary Ellen's real identity.

Descriptions of her clothing - a turquoise jumper, yellow cardigan and brown stretch trousers - were shared with the media.

It was also hoped her jewellery might yield some clues.

She was found wearing one gold cross earring, a gold eternity ring on her left hand, and black rosary beads.

Sadly the jeweller, traced by police to Birmingham, said most of it was mass produced and could offer no more help.

Three months later, the team still had no leads.

And so, in a ground-breaking move for the time, detectives turned to a pioneering new technique - facial reconstruction.

They asked forensic artist Richard Neave, then working for Manchester University, to create a likeness of Mary Ellen's face using scientific measurements of her skull and strips of modelling clay.
Richard Neave

Richard Neave created a likeness of Mary Ellen's face using ground-breaking techniques

Mr Neave said: "I do remember her. She had a wig and eyelashes glued on by a friend of mine who was a make-up artist at a TV company. Not something I'd tend to do now.

"It wasn't a portrait, it can never be a portrait, because I don't know exactly the shape of her chin and the tip of the nose. Or whether she has spots, pimples, scars, freckles. So It's not necessarily her face, but it's a face which is broadly similar."

When unveiled to the media in February 1983, it gained national attention since it was the first time the technique had ever been used in a public appeal by a British police force.

Mr Howarth was at the press conference.

"That's when the interest really took off," he said.

"Normally, it would just be me and the guy from the Manchester Evening News, but all the seats were full. All the nationals were there. So it was a good idea at the time, to broaden the publicity."

It worked. A tip did come in.

Lily Jones was watching a TV news report at her home in Liverpool, and was sure Mary Ellen could be her mother, Ruth, who had been missing since the 1960s.

But there was no proof, only speculation, until 2009, when Mr Armstrong was asked to re-open the investigation.

In a rare move, he secured permission for Mary Ellen's body to be exhumed from Bolton's Heaton Cemetery, where she'd been buried in an unmarked grave.

A DNA sample - a science which had not been available back in 1982 - was taken. But would it prove that Mary Ellen was Lily's missing mother?

"If there was enough points of match then we could positively say she was Ruth," Mr Armstrong explained.

"But it didn't match. It wasn't Ruth in the grave."
'Mystery'

Today, Mary Ellen's facial reconstruction is on display at the Greater Manchester Police Museum where she still attracts a huge amount of attention.

Curator Katie Henderson said: "When you come into the crime room, her case is directly in front of you so she is one of the first things you see. I think the face looks quite serene. She has a calm expression as if she is steadily observing everybody so I do think she draws you in.

"Often young children will ask if she is real. And we say she's real in that she was a person who was alive once but her real name is a mystery. It's something that people always remember."

A 1983 inquest recorded an open verdict, which effectively means the cause of her death remains as much of a mystery as her real identity.

There is a glimmer of hope though, as The Forgotten Dead investigation has discovered.

A new technique known as investigative genetic genealogy could help identify her once and for all.

Find out more by listening to The Forgotten Dead: The Body in the Cellar, on BBC Sounds.

And if you have any information about Mary Ellen please email [e-mail].



www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-63726889

Podcast www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dnycg2

[greysfang]

This is pretty horrifying. Who was living in the house in 1966?

[no1novice]

IKR?!

I'm surprised that they haven't done more with the DNA (unless they have as it could be still open case).
I've not seen anything about who lived in the house at the time, could have been anything from a settled family/person to a flop house/rent-by-the-room, etc .


From an old newspaper report
"Dozens of people who had lived in the house, which was then converted into five flats, were traced -- but no one knew who the woman was. "



Also it appears that the cellar has direct access to the outside (down some steps at the side of the house), if I have the right house.

[no1novice]

The haunting mystery of Greater Manchester's unknown dead

From the mummified woman known as 'Mary Ellen' to the murdered ‘Angel of the Meadow’ they have never been identified.
ByBeth Abbit

18:31, 10 MAR 2019Updated10:07, 11 MAR 2019

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'Mary Ellen' (L) And a facial reconstruction of the 'Angel of the Meadow' murder victim.

From the mummified woman with the rosary beads found beneath the floorboards of a cellar, to the man found dead wearing a pair of slippers behind a hospital - these are Greater Manchester’s unknown dead.

Police have been left with just a few scraps of information to try and identify the region’s mystery bodies.

A one-way bus ticket, scraps of carpet and a pair of slippers are amongst the items found alongside people who have never been identified.

These items of clothing and personal possessions are the last few clues of their former lives. But their names, ages and how they died remain an unsolved riddle.

Some of these cases have struck a chord with Mancunians and are well known. While in other cases, there is barely any information for investigators to go on.

Among them is ‘Mary Ellen’ - a woman found partially mummified in a cellar in Bolton.


The ‘Angel of the Meadow’ is another name that will resonate with many. Her remains were discovered on a building site in Manchester city centre. Police say she was murdered, but until she is identified, there is little hope of finding her killer.

In some of these cases decades have passed without a lead - and though many lie dormant on police files, officers have never given up hope that those discovered can finally be identified.

The National Crime Agency’s Missing Persons Bureau lists nine cases of unidentified bodies found in Greater Manchester.

The online database lists information about bodies or remains found and is the first online database of unsolved deaths in Britain. It is part of a UK wide attempt by police forces across the country to put names to hundreds of people found dead.

WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES
Site of the former Westwood Power Station, Wigan - January 15, 2013
Police released this e-fit of the man found in Wigan

This young man was discovered by a passing dog walker who spotted him hanging from an electricity pylon in a deserted area of wasteland on a freezing winter morning.

The shocked witness first thought the man was standing on a mound of land before realising that he was in fact hanging from a strut of the huge metal tower, ten feet above the ground.

Clean and casually dressed, he was carrying £85 cash and a packet of Amber Leaf tobacco containing a few roll-up cigarettes.
The site of the former Westwood power station

In his pocket was a one-way Stagecoach bus ticket for the 600 service from Leigh to Wigan dated from the previous day - 6.38am on January 14, 2013.


The unknown man was found at around 7.30am on January 15, 2013 at the site of the former Westwood Power Station.

Initial fingerprint and DNA checks produced no results from any database in the UK and nobody fitting his description was ever reported missing.


Police believe the olive-skinned man may have been of Middle Eastern or Eastern European heritage.

A widespread media appeal with an e-fit image was circulated nationally and internationally via the UK Missing Persons Bureau.

He was around 5ft 8ft-tall with short cut brown hair and aged in his late 20s or early 30s. Police believe he had been deceased for about 12 hours when his body was discovered. He had a one one inch scar on his back and two crescent shaped scars on his chest.


He was wearing blue Nike tracksuit bottoms, a blue padded gillet, a McKenzie hooded blue top with grey cuffs, a light blue Fred Perry T-shirt and blue Adidas trainers.

His body was discovered on waste ground between Westwood Cemetery and Westwood Way.
Pomona Dock, Trafford - March 17, 2013


Very little is known about the man, wearing only thermal long johns and a black North Face t-shirt, whose body was recovered from the Bridgewater Canal six years ago.

He was found close to the Pomona Dock, in Trafford, on March 17, 2013.

Detectives say the white European man could be aged anywhere between his twenties and forties. He was of medium build, with short brown hair and between 5ft 6 and 5ft 8 tall.

At the time, police said clothes and documents had been found on a nearby canal bank on February 16. These included a light blue Montaine fleece and a number of religious documents, containing self-compiled notes.
Angel Meadows, Manchester - January 25, 2010
A facial reconstruction of the 'Angel of the Meadow' murder victim

It was a cold morning in January 2010 when builders - who were working to create the Co-op’s swanky new £100m headquarters - discovered a woman’s body.

The ‘Angel of the Meadow’ as she became known was eventually laid to rest in an unmarked grave, five years after her remains were discovered in Manchester city centre.

Her funeral at Southern Cemetery was attended only by two Greater Manchester Police detectives who had spent years working on the case.

But her identity remains a mystery.

Detectives believe that the woman, who was covered by a blue carpet, was murdered.


The carpet she was covered by appeared to have been cut to fit a Ford Cortina, with a hole for the gear stick.

A post-mortem concluded that she had suffered a fractured jaw, neck, collarbone and nose shortly before her death.

Detectives previously told the M.E.N that she could have been beaten to death and possibly sexually assaulted, as she was naked from the waist down.


Her remains were unearthed by workers on January 25 that year off Miller Street, in the area historically known as Angel Meadow.

In a bid to identify the woman police made international enquiries, even speaking to families in Tanzania, Texas and Holland.

Forensic artists also produced a facial reconstruction in the hope that relatives would come forward.

Forensic tests showed the woman was Caucasian, born in the early 1950s and was between 5ft 1in and 5ft 7in.


It is believed she was killed between 1975 and 1988.

A 1970s-style green pinafore dress with large buttons and an unusual design on the front, a jumper, a blue bra, a jacket, tights and a handbag were also found near her body.

A black high heel stiletto was also found nearby along with a piece of Guinness memorabilia.

Trafford Park, Trafford - February 22, 2003


A sketch of the man found in a skip in Trafford Park

Only scraps of detail are known about this tragic case, believed to involve a homeless man.

A man’s body was found inside a skip at Trafford Park on February 22, 2003.

He had previously been seen in the area and was believed to be a rough sleeper.

The white European man, who was 5ft 5 tall, is believed to have been aged between 45 and 60.

He had a full beard and a surgical scar to the left of his abdomen from a possible hernia operation.


Near Manchester Royal Infirmary, Manchester - January 10, 2003


This man was found wearing ragged clothes and a pair of slippers when his body was discovered in bushes behind Manchester Royal Infirmary.

When the discovery was made, on January 10, 2003, investigators said they believed he may have been a rough sleeper.

He was wearing a green three-quarter length mackintosh, a beige jumper with a diamond pattern, a blue short sleeved shirt, blue checked Marks and Spencer trousers and a pair of dark slippers.

The white European man, who had grey collar length hair, had a number of teeth missing and his remaining teeth were in a poor worn down condition.

Police couldn't pinpoint an age so say only that he was aged between 40 and 100 years old.

He was around 5ft 5” tall and had a large bony growth on his left arm at the side of a fractured bone, where a new bone had formed at the humerus. He also had previously fractured ribs.


Linnyshaw Moss, Walkden, Salford - December 25, 1991


A gruesome Christmas Day discovery back in 1991 was made by a man walking his dog on Linnyshaw Moss, in Walkden. 

The dog walker was strolling along the area of rough land, in Salford, when he came across a severed head and legs.

An artist's impression of the man's face was circulated around the country, but he has never been identified.

Police say the man had been toothless for about 20 years before he died and may have worn dentures.

His head was used to create a facial reconstruction.

At the time of the discovery investigators carried out extensive work interviewing local people and looking at missing persons profiles, to no avail.

The white, European male is believed to have been aged between 40 and 60 years old and was around 5ft 6 tall.

He had brown hair, which was receding, and the nail on the big toe of his left foot had been surgically removed.

The male was found with a plain black shoulder bag that had a white 'Nike' tick.



Bolton, Greater Manchester - December 14, 1982
The first ever facial reconstruction was produced to try and identify the woman nicknamed 'Mary Ellen'

The mystery of the mummified woman with the rosary beads has baffled police for decades.

Nicknamed Mary Ellen, she was found lying on a makeshift bed of newspapers and cardboard at number 27 Bromwich Street, Bolton on December 14, 1982.

Her partially-mummified remains were hidden behind furniture in the cellar of the property, in The Haulgh area of the town.

Investigators believe ‘Mary Ellen’ could have been there since around 1966.

She may also have been homeless as the address was often used by rough sleepers.

In a bid to identify her the first ever facial reconstruction was produced.

When the image was circulated a woman from Pinner, in Middlesex, came forward claiming it was her mother, Ruth Hanratty, who went missing in 1960.


The body of the woman was exhumed from an unmarked grave in Heaton cemetery in the hope that new DNA techniques would establish who she was. But tests found that she was not Mrs Hanratty.

Police were also given a tip that the woman was called Brenda and was a regular at the town’s Gypsy Tent pub who worked as a machinist.

But she remains unidentified to this day.

Believed to be aged between 40 and 60, the white European woman had false teeth and was wearing a pair of red knickers, a red bra, a turquoise jumper, a mustard coloured cardigan and brown elasticated trousers with straps for feet.

She was wearing gold crucifix earrings, black rosary beads minus the cross and a gold eternity ring with small stones set all the way around which was on the third finger of her left hand.



River Irwell, Salford - June 13, 1973


This smartly-dressed man with distinctive grey eyes was pulled from the River Irwell, in Salford, in the summer of 1973.

His body was discovered in water close to Regent Bridge on June 13 that year.

A white European man, he had a scar on his chin and was believed to be aged between 30 and 40 years old and was between 5ft 6 and 5ft 9 tall.

He was wearing blue trousers, a blue shirt, a grey herringbone 'Burton' jacket, green socks and black shoes. He was also wearing a grey raincoat with a 'J.W. Balfour' label and a thistle emblem as well as a Bulova watch.

A keyring in the shape of a stirrup with a horse's head was also found on his person as well as a broken Yale type key, three padlock keys and a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles.


Rochdale Road, Manchester - January 19, 1970

Not much is known about the man found dead in derelict buildings in Collyhurst, Manchester, back in the winter of 1970.

Found in a building on Rochdale Road on January 19 that year, Investigators say he may have been a rough sleeper.

But in recent years a number of people have come forward with compelling reasons why the man could have been part of their family. And they even provided photos showing uncanny likenesses to the deceased.

Wearing a brown jumper and grey trousers, the man was aged between 65 and 75 years old, white European, 5ft 5” tall with stubble and blue eyes.


His cause of death was ruled as pneumonia, his face photographed and his details recorded before he was buried in a mass paupers’ grave at Southern Cemetery.

In 2012 three different families came forward saying they believed the mystery man could be their relative.

None of the families believe their missing relatives - William Veevers, George Mellors and Bertram Jackson - are still alive and none had been by their families since the mid 1960s or earlier.

However the mystery man's details still remain on the archives of the UK Missing Persons Bureau.


Anyone with information about any of these cases can contact Greater Manchester Police on 101, or or Crimestoppers, anonymously on 0800 555 111. You can also report details to the NCA here: www.missingpersons.police.uk/en-gb/home


Photos on the page www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/haunting-mystery-greater-manchesters-unknown-15942922