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BlackRiverFalls said:
So good i posted it on this thread nearly 3 months ago
BlackRiverFalls said:
THE death of a teenager who was crushed under a huge gravestone remains a mystery.
A coroner has appealed for someone whom she believes knows what happened to come forward.
Father-of-two Adam McNamara, aged 19, from Winton, Eccles who was just over 5ft and weighed six stone died after a one-and-a-half tonne six foot stone fell on to him.
When he was found in the graveyard of Monton Unitarian Church in Eccles last November a total of 17 graves had been damaged.
An inquest was told it would have been impossible for Adam to topple the stone alone and that three of the graves had been damaged before Adam arrived at the churchyard.
Recording an open verdict coroner Jennifer Leeming said: "I'm satisfied that he was not there alone. It is very sad that whoever was there has not seen fit to come forward and I beg them to do so for the sake of his family. I have to record an open verdict because there is insufficient evidence to reach any other conclusion."
Adam's footprint from his Rockport boot was established to be on one gravestone by a forensic scientist. It was probably his on another two, according to expert Mr Graham Baxter.
But the hearing was told Adam had the utmost respect for churchyards as he was a regular visitor to the grave of his younger brother Callum at Agecroft Cemetery.
Nightclub
Adam, a plasterer, had spent a night out with friends and workmates including a visit to Ikon nightclub in Bolton to celebrate his boss's birthday.
He was last seen by his boss at 12.45am on November 17 in the club and said he would be staying longer as he was having a good time.
It is believed he left the club sometime after 1am but police have been unable to establish how he got back to Monton. His body was found at about 8.30am on that day by a group of children.
A friend of Adam's, Ian Appleyard, from Winton said that he had joined a group of up to 15 youths drinking in the churchyard at about 10pm on November 16. When he arrived he noticed that three graves had already been vandalised.
Det Sgt Bruce Stead said Adam's death was a "puzzling case" but there was no evidence to suggest his death was suspicious.
He agreed with the coroner that on the balance of probability it was likely someone else had been in the graveyard when the stone fell on Adam.
Consultant forensic pathologist Dr Charles Wilson said: "It was a huge headstone. Adam was a small man. I can't see how he would have pushed it over alone."
Adam suffered broken ribs and fractures of the spine due to the stone falling on him but Dr Wilson said he had no other injuries which would have suggested he had been attacked before he was crushed.
23/09/2003
Each year in England 25,000 gravestones are lost and with them the important historical information they contain.
if we don't change our current practices of interment - don't you think we'll need a LOT more land. Vast cities of the dead?
rynner said:BBC reveals Britain's most unusual epitaphs
By Martin Beckford
Last Updated: 3:04am BST 24/09/2007
Another runner-up, found in a churchyard in Brighton, East Sussex, details the long and eventful life of Phoebe Hessel, who died in 1821 aged 108.
As her gravestone relates, she joined the British Army and received a bayonet wound to her arm in the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745, during the War of Austrian Succession.
http://tinyurl.com/24ognp
drbastard said:Found this in my local church and thought it interesting. I don't have a clue what it's about- any ideas welcome!
rynner said:A gravestone found in Milton Regis, Kent, records the death of Simon Gilker in 1696, aged 48.
The date of his death, 5 Nov, and the cause given – "by means of a Rockett" – suggest he died at an event to commemorate Guy Fawkes's attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605.
He was one of the first batsmen to use pads. A pair that he used in the 1840s are the oldest to survive. His reputation also gave him a role in George MacDonald Fraser’s Harry Flashman novels. In Flashman’s Lady, Pilch is caught and bowled by the bounder in a fictional match between Rugby Old Boys and Kent in 1842.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 207856.ece