Twenty-nine-year-old Russell Marsom was a hairdresser who lived in Hunstanton, West Norfolk, England. On the evening of Saturday, March 30th, 1996, he traveled to Cambridge to go clubbing with a friend. This was a journey of about sixty miles.
It’s not clear which establishment or establishments he went to that night, though one club called Dot Cotton’s was mentioned. It was also not known whether Russell had driven his own car, ridden with someone else, or used public transportation. Whatever the case, though, something mysterious and horrifying happened to him at some point overnight.
On Sunday morning, a dog walker found Russell’s lifeless body in a water-filled ditch in Milton, about four miles from Cambridge. He was partially clothed, with a ripped shirt and his jeans thrown some distance away.
Though his cause of death was discovered to be drowning, it was unknown how he had gotten to Milton in the first place and what had happened to disorder his clothing; authorities therefore suspected the death was a homicide.
At first, police hypothesized the killing may have been ritualistic, as it was a full moon on the night Russell was killed and Russell had reportedly “dabbled in the occult.” His mother June claimed this was nonsense, however; though Russell had once borrowed an occult book from a friend, he didn’t appear to be involved in witchcraft in any way whatsoever.
There was also speculation that Russell might have been followed and slain by someone he’d had an altercation with at one of the nightclubs he visited that night. Alternately, he may have been specifically targeted because he was gay, and thus was a victim of a hate crime.
A thirty-four-year-old man was arrested in connection with the crime in 2007 but was subsequently released without charge. Since then, there has been no further progress in the investigation.
Crime Immemorial 