In late September of 2017, a woman was overseeing a kitchen extension on her four-bedroom Victorian house on Cowdrey Road in Wimbledon, southwest London. To her shock, the workmen unearthed something far more sinister than dirt or old pottery shards: the skeletal remains of a dismembered man.
The body was discovered only a foot down into the clay, and was still dressed in well-made, remarkably preserved clothing, including a striped shirt, a red silk tie, trousers, socks, and shoes. The style of the garments, as well as the carbon dating of the bones, suggested the man had been murdered sometime in the 1960s.
The victim is believed to be of Asian descent, aged between thirty-five and fifty-five, and standing around five-foot-seven, with a muscular build. He likely had a good diet, as his teeth bore no signs of unusual wear or corrective dentistry.
From the state of the skull, it is theorized that the man was killed by a severe blow to the head, after which his killer or killers dismembered him and buried him in the back garden of the home. All former occupants of the house were tracked down and questioned, but all were eliminated as suspects. Further, DNA taken from the victim does not match the DNA of the family who lived in the residence in the 1960s, meaning the unidentified man was not a relative and likely did not live there.
A thorough investigation could find no record of anyone matching the victim’s description in the missing persons reports from the time.
A 3D image of the victim was released to the public in the hopes that someone would be able to identify him and provide some insight into who his murderer may have been. Who the man was and why he was so brutally slain remains a mystery.
Crime Immemorial 