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Man Leaves London To Die On A Hillside (David Lytton; 2015)

kamalktk

kamalktk

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Police bid to solve riddle of man who travelled from London only to ‘lay down and die’ on a hillside

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/p...-lay-down-and-die-on-a-hillside-a3162456.html

More at link above

"Baffled detectives are trying to establish the identity of a smartly-dressed pensioner who was found dead on a remote hillside 24 hours after catching a rush-hour train from Ealing Broadway.

At 9.07am on December 11, amid a bustling crowd of commuters, the man with black slip-on shoes and receding grey hair bought a one-way ticket from the west London suburb to Euston station.

At 10.45am the following day he was found dead, lying face up with his arms by his sides, on the bleak slope of Indian’s Head, 200 miles away in the Pennines.

The mystery of the man’s final pilgrimage has sparked what detectives today called one of the most unusual investigations in living memory.

Sgt John Coleman said: “I’ve been doing this job for a long, long time and I have never known anything like it."
"
 
By strange coincidence, I was reading earlier about the Welsh writer Alexander Cordell (my Dad was a fan and met him once).
He died at the age of 83 after going for a walk in the mountains in Denbighshire. What would make a man that old get up and go walking in the mountains? Quote from the Wiki article:

It has been suggested that he had gone there with the intention of committing suicide with brandy and anti-depressants, but he died of a heart attack.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Cordell
 
GNC said:
Reminds me of that Adamski bloke found on a slag heap in the 70s. Not George, the other mystery man.
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Yes, that's what I was trying to think of! That's another similar case.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Yes, that's what I was trying to think of! That's another similar case.
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Try this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Godfrey#The_Zigmund_Adamski_Case

"Alan Godfrey was one of the two officers to inspect the body of the deceased Zigmund Adamski. Adamski's body was found lying on a heap of coal in Tomlin's coal yard in the town of Todmorden at 15:45 on Wednesday 11 June 1980. Godfrey's inspection revealed that the body had been crudely dressed: he was wearing an overcoat and a vest, but no shirt. His jacket was fastened unevenly, the fly of his trousers was unzipped, and his shoes were not tied properly. Godfrey thought that the shoes seemed as though they had been placed on Adamski's feet by someone else.[3] The forensic inspection of the body revealed that he had died of a heart attack, and had been dead for at least 8 hours before the police arrived.[3] There were other unusual circumstances as well..."
 
Thanks, Ryn, that's who I meant. Don't see a UFO connection to this recent case, though.
 
"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. For there is in London all that life can afford." - Samuel Johnson.
 
I love this sort of story. It fires up all sorts of imaginings.

He knew he was probably off to meet his maker, buying a one way ticket. Was he meeting someone? Settling an old score? Revisiting an important place? Being chased? Trying to find someone? Maybe he was unemployed but too proud to admit it so he told his wife he was going to work each day, only to buy a ticket for somewhere else and disappear for 8 hours?

I'm a sucker for a mystery.
 
There may well be a mystery here - but not necessarily.

I believe that the habit of wandering into the wilderness to die is (or has been) present in different cultures from all over the world - and that it is possibly much more common than people might think. My local Mountain Rescue team spends quite a bit of time searching for elderly and/or chronically ill people who have wandered up into the hills, sometimes in their night attire. This is often put down to the confusion common to some illnesses and age related conditions - but, in many cases, the act seems much more purposeful and planned than this would suggest. And, according to friends in the rescue services, some of these wanderers take considerable care to conceal their actions - in order, presumably, to prevent timely rescue.

On a personal note - on the occasions when I've considered what I might do if I get old and lonely and overtaken by the knowledge that I will soon be unable to care for myself - and decide to piss fate off a bit by choosing my own way out - a bottle of really good malt and a short walk in the hills is the idea I always, almost naturally, return to. (Generally speaking though, I'm a very positive individual - Plan A is to see out a century and then get lynched for sleeping with my neighbour's wife.) Euphoria, and a false state of well-being, is a symptom of hypothermia - I've actually witnessed this, and part of me wonders if those people who choose this way out are somehow instinctively seeking out that state as an accompaniment to their exit. (Total conjecture, obviously.)

At first glance, the distance factor adds an air of mystery. However, if I was looking to leave London for the nearest (or most easily accessed) wilderness with hills, I'd maybe do the same: head north from Euston. It's less than two hours to Macclesfield - spitting distance (or a bus ride) to the high moorland of the Peak District. And only another twenty minutes or so to Stockport or Manchester, and short connecting services to the South Pennines.

But, as Ringo suggests, it may be the significance of the place that prompted the final journey - and that we may never know.
 
Spookdaddy said:
There may well be a mystery here - but not necessarily.

I believe that the habit of wandering into the wilderness to die is (or has been) present in different cultures from all over the world - and that it is possibly much more common than people might think. My local Mountain Rescue team spends quite a bit of time searching for elderly and/or chronically ill people who have wandered up into the hills, sometimes in their night attire. This is often put down to the confusion common to some illnesses and age related conditions - but, in many cases, the act seems much more purposeful and planned than this would suggest. And, according to friends in the rescue services, some of these wanderers take considerable care to conceal their actions - in order, presumably, to prevent timely rescue.

On a personal note - on the occasions when I've considered what I might do if I get old and lonely and overtaken by the knowledge that I will soon be unable to care for myself - and decide to piss fate off a bit by choosing my own way out - a bottle of really good malt and a short walk in the hills is the idea I always, almost naturally, return to. (Generally speaking though, I'm a very positive individual - Plan A is to see out a century and then get lynched for sleeping with my neighbour's wife.) Euphoria, and a false state of well-being, is a symptom of hypothermia - I've actually witnessed this, and part of me wonders if those people who choose this way out are somehow instinctively seeking out that state as an accompaniment to their exit. (Total conjecture, obviously.)

At first glance, the distance factor adds an air of mystery. However, if I was looking to leave London for the nearest (or most easily accessed) wilderness with hills, I'd maybe do the same: head north from Euston. It's less than two hours to Macclesfield - spitting distance (or a bus ride) to the high moorland of the Peak District. And only another twenty minutes or so to Stockport or Manchester, and short connecting services to the South Pennines.

But, as Ringo suggests, it may be the significance of the place that prompted the final journey - and that we may never know.
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Please never kill yourself, it's not as easy or pain free as it sounds but your post made me laugh anyway about the neighbours wife bit :D
 
Having lost a relation to suicide I help run the local suicide bereavement group that helped me back then, and I hear some bizarre stories of how people have killed themselves. They must be truly psychotic to want to harm themselves in these awful ways, and to not care about the effect their deaths will have on others; not least the people who find their bodies.

Several families of my acquaintance through this group have had a family member go a long way off into the countryside to kill themselves.
Without breaking any confidences, I can say that a suicidal person is perfectly capable of secretly planning the act and travelling any distance to do it. Even a person who has agreed not to carry any cash in case they do something rash with it can secretly procure enough to pay for a taxi to a remote high bridge.

Perhaps going off into the wild is a way of shaking off the people who'd stop them doing it, who knows?
It's not as rare as you'd think, that's for sure.
 
JamesWhitehead said:
The air-crash theory was probably wrong. A new candidate, Hugh Toner, missing for 20 years, is in the frame. :confused:
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I'm inclined to say that this man is not the man on cctv as seen in a previous link for no other reason than his ears aren't sticking out as much. And to be missing for twenty years only to end your life in such a public way? People missing for such a length of time usually end up being declared dead. Don't they?

But I'm not going to argue with Greater Manchester Police about it.
 
kamalktk said:
Police bid to solve riddle of man who travelled from London only to ‘lay down and die’ on a hillside

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/p...-lay-down-and-die-on-a-hillside-a3162456.html

More at link above

"Baffled detectives are trying to establish the identity of a smartly-dressed pensioner who was found dead on a remote hillside 24 hours after catching a rush-hour train from Ealing Broadway to the Wealthy Affiliate on https://affmountain.com/my-wealthy-affiliate-review-and-results now.

At 9.07am on December 11, amid a bustling crowd of commuters, the man with black slip-on shoes and receding grey hair bought a one-way ticket from the west London suburb to Euston station.

At 10.45am the following day he was found dead, lying face up with his arms by his sides, on the bleak slope of Indian’s Head, 200 miles away in the Pennines.

The mystery of the man’s final pilgrimage has sparked what detectives today called one of the most unusual investigations in living memory.

Sgt John Coleman said: “I’ve been doing this job for a long, long time and I have never known anything like it."
"
Click to expand...

It actually sounds like the guy knew he didn't have long left and just wanted to get out of the city in his final time.

Probably got to end his days looking up at the stars.
 
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So why was he poisoned? How long does it take for the poision to act and would he have time to get to the hillside before it did? Or did he poison himself at the location once he was there? Or did someone else poison him then dump the corpse?
 
He may have poisoned himself while climbing up, and threw the bottle away over the edge.
A search for the bottle may turn up some fragments.
 
He may have, but if it was fast acting rat poison that's not going to give him much time to arrange himself artfully on the hill.
 
Rat poison (AFAIK) doesn't act that fast.
 
Can't do you much good on a hike, though!
 
I think some of the more recent findings about the man are on the Strange Deaths thread. His medication and hip-surgery hinted at another ethnicity but he may have been a health-tourist.

It's a tragedy for someone. The rest of us have an absorbing puzzle. :confused:
 
There was another piece about him in the Evening News yesterday. It was just a renewed appeal to the doctors in Pakistan who may have carried out the hip replacement. Still a mystery! :confused:
 
I thought this bump was going to be a new nugget of information :/
 
People usually go to tall hills or mountain tops when they die to be closer to their God. In many cultures, I believe. Maybe he chose to go up there to end his life in a strange city for religious reasons. Perhaps he wasn't certain and that's why he had so much cash, but no ID, and then the weather helped him along? Maybe he travelled to kill himself because suicide is not allowed in his culture? Very curious but I hope he found the peace wanted.
 
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