Twenty-three-year-old Laurence Winstanley was an auto mechanic who owned his own shop in Sholver, Oldham, Greater Manchester, England. He had just moved to the area a year prior.
On the evening of Sunday, October 2nd, 1988, Laurence was having a drink at his local pub, The Windsor. According to other patrons, he received a phone call that seemed to bother him and left the establishment shortly afterward.
Thereafter, he went to his mother’s house, a journey that normally would have only taken a few minutes, but on this occasion took over an hour. Investigators would later speculate that Laurence had stopped somewhere else along the way but are still at a loss as to where Laurence went during that time, or with whom.
The young man was seen at The Windsor again later on that night, but after he left the pub a second time, he disappeared.
Two days after he vanished, a man calling himself Burrows dropped Laurence’s red Ford Cortina off at a scrap merchant in Oldham.
It would be nearly a year, though, before Laurence’s fate would be revealed. On September 26th, 1989, the victim’s mutilated and partially burned remains were discovered in Baitings Reservoir outside of Ripponden, West Yorkshire; the water level in the reservoir was unusually low because of a dry spell in the area. The body had been wrapped in a carpet and weighed down with the head of a pick-axe. An autopsy determined that Laurence had been killed by a gunshot wound to the head.
Authorities believed the murder resembled a gangland-style hit and that there was possibly more than one killer. In 2017, the case got a renewed push in the media after police divers searched a Littleborough pond for clues, but it doesn’t appear that any new leads were generated by this endeavor.
Despite a massive investigation, a reenactment on Crimewatch, and a large reward for information, the brutal crime remains unsolved as of 2024.
Crime Immemorial 