The Nude In The Nettles Mystery

A Strange & Unsolved Mystery From Yorkshire

This case has baffled many minds for almost 40 years

A small headstone simply inscribed with the number 4601 marks the final resting place of an unknown female whose skeletal remains were found near to Sutton Bank in Yorkshire on Friday, August 28th 1981 after an anonymous phone call was made to the Thirsk Police.

The male caller who refused to give any details saying that he could not reveal his identity due to matters of "National Security" gave the police an almost exact location for a badly decomposed body. The description of the location was "A lay-by on an unclassified road leading from Sutton Bank towards the villages of Scawton and Rievaulx"

During the phone call, the man said "Near Scawton Moor House you will find a decomposed body among the willow herbs" 

The road where the lay-by is located is in a rural location and used mainly by local people and caravanners on route to a nearby campsite. The surrounding area is mostly made up of fields with some conifer plantations. The area where the remains were found was actually set between two of those plantations with a great deal of ground cover mainly made up of willow herbs. 

The original investigation spanned some 18 months and was lead by Detective Chief Superintendent Strickland Maunsel Carter who wanted to establish why and how the remains of a woman had ended up at such a location and most importantly who the woman was. 

An in-depth examination of the remains established that the person had been left there naked without even any jewellery or other personal effects to help with making an identity. The area close to where the remains were discovered was searched thoroughly but nothing was found to give police any clues.

It was confirmed that the body was definitely female, approximately 5 feet 2 inches in height, aged between 35 to 40 years old and was a mother to 2 or 3 children. It was also estimated that the dead woman had at some time suffered a broken right ankle and she had short dark hair. She also had an abnormality of her neck vertebrae which would have caused her regular back pains and her head to sit at an unusual angle.

The pathologist from the Home-office said that it was most likely the body had been in situ in that place for as much as two years based on the decomposed state of the body, the established plant growth and a yoghurt pot lid which was dated 1979. It was not possible to confirm a cause of death but it was said to be clear that the female had not been killed by a blow to the head or stabbed, in fact, there was no actual evidence to confirm the female had been a victim of murder, but it does seem most likely. Despite all of this coupled with an intensive investigation spanning 18 months neither the deceased nor a killer were ever identified.

In more recent times it has been suggested that the caller who made the report may have been a local rambler or botanist, who for one reason or another felt it best not to reveal his identity. I am of the firm belief that the unknown male should, in fact, have been sought out as he remains the most likely suspect in the case.

The reasons given for the mystery caller most likely being a rambler are:

1. He must have had a map with him as he was able to give a full six-figure grid reference 

2. He had a good knowledge of local plants

3. His accent identified as that of a local but well-spoken

4. It was a weekday in the holiday season, August

The reasons for these suggestions were, that if the caller had identified himself then he would have had to lose a lot of his holiday helping the police, he may have been made a suspect and had to have provided an alibi, hence he remained anonymous. 

I'm sorry but whilst I can see some possibility in the reasoning, I feel the mystery caller did not identify himself due to his involvement in a murder i.e the killing of the unidentified person that he directed the police to, pure and simple. In my opinion, the police had more than likely spoken to a murderer on the telephone on that August afternoon, if he wasn't the murderer I would say he almost definitely had connections to the unknown woman.

Police discovered three separate fresh tracks toward the remains, indicating that someone had approached the body, not just once but three times. Even the officer that lead the investigation, Detective Chief Superintendent Carter said that he 'very much doubted' that the remains had been stumbled upon purely by chance and that he believed the three fresh tracks indicated someone had been looking for the body.

There were suggestions that the deceased may have been an escaped prisoner, Geraldine Crawley who had absconded from an open prison, HMP Askham Grange in 1979 and had never been apprehended. Crawley had been known for joyriding up and down the A1 and A19 roads both near to the location where the body was found. 

Some months later Crawley got in touch to say that she was still alive and in fact sent fingerprint evidence and a signature to confirm that. It seems likely that the letter was in response to news stories suggesting that she was the deceased woman and she was somehow taunting the police by proving that she was alive but still on the run. 

There was another possible lead in the early days of the investigation suggesting that the dead woman may have been Gloria Bielby, a secretary from Hull who had been missing since 1979, but the possibility was dismissed after it was established that there were dissimilarities between the two, the main one being that Bielby had blonde hair whilst the mystery woman had dark hair. 

Several people that have worked on the case have submitted that the mystery woman was from a poorer background, judged from the fact she had badly stained and missing teeth, suggesting poor health as a result of heavy smoking and drinking alcohol. I would not necessarily agree with those presumptions as there could also be simple explanations for the teeth problems including the woman may well have suffered mental health issues and not cleaned them, she may have suffered a low pain threshold or held a childhood fear of dentists. This can be part of really studying cases like this, people presume far too much.

During the time of the original investigation Detective Superintendent Carter decided to request the help of scientists and the special effects make-up department at Granada Television. He asked them to reconstruct the head and face to see if pictures could be posted and in the media that would help identify the mystery female. 

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post in 2011 DS Carter said: "I had been reading an article in a magazine about a month earlier, where a doctor had rebuilt the head of an Egyptian mummy and wondered whether I could do the same for the head in this case". 

The Reconstructed head and face of the unknown woman

Unfortunately, although the reconstruction helped police to locate 164 other missing women through assistance from the general public, it did not help to get any closer to the identification of mystery female or indeed to ascertain how she had died.

There were theories that suggested the remains may have belonged to a local sex worker or possibly some kind of nomad with little or no family or friends that would care about her if she had failed to return home or make contact 

The case is particularly baffling as not only is so little known about the identity of the woman or the cause of death. The current lines of investigation are using modern science to gather biological clues to the mystery woman's identity whilst also reaching out to genealogists in hope that a "black sheep of the family" missing from someone's family tree may lead to an identification. 

Unfortunately, a great deal of police time has been wasted in this investigation including the early belief of it being the prison absconder to looking at a yoghurt pot lid that could possibly have been placed under the body to throw police off establishing an accurate date, I mean to be fair, who would be eating yoghurt then promptly dump a body? 

A similar tactic to the yoghurt lid was used in the 1978 murder of Yvonne Pearson, a victim of The Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe using a pre-dated newspaper placed underneath the body as a stratagem to deceive the police. 

This particular mystery woman was almost certainly not a victim of Peter Sutcliffe as there were no skull injuries at all. The Modus Operandi of Sutcliffe was killing by hammer blows to the head, he did also strangle and stab victims but his 'signature' for killings that he confessed to was the hammer to the skull. It is also fair to say that all of Sutcliffe's attacks were frenzied in nature with multiple wounds inflicted. 

Peter Sutcliffe was officially excluded from this investigation by Sir Lawrence Byford who was at that time the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary Chief Constabulary and in my opinion, he was absolutely right in doing so.

The original enquiry into this case was wound down in 1982 and remained cold and pretty well ignore until 2011 when North Yorkshire Police appealed for information on eight cold cases that it felt could still possibly be solved. 

A new investigation headed up by Detective Superintendent Lewis Raw eventually arranged for the dignified exhumation of the remains in 2012 in order that DNA samples could be obtained, which was successful, here is the BBC Story on that. Sorry to say that despite a full DNA profile being successfully created and being checked against databases it has not assisted in discovering the identity of the mystery woman that lies in a grave simply marked 4601.

If you have any information about this case at all or maybe you are missing a family member from your family genealogy search then do get in touch with Crimestoppers 0800 555 111 or contact them on The Crimestoppers Website both methods of communication are absolutely confidential

That's all for this time, I am writing some already working on some very interesting research, some of which I will be bringing to you in future blogs, so I will see you all again very soon.

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