• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

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

hunck said:
What's odd is that it's taken over a year to identify him when I remember reading about his Pakistan connection months ago - you'd think they would examine recent passenger records as a priority..
Click to expand...

I'm wondering if there has been a delay while next of kin were being traced and contacted - in cases where there is estrangement within the family this can take an awful long time. And possibly many more people than we realise have absolutely no family connections whatsoever - a situation which is bound to make formal legal identification even more problematic.

It's also the case that the press and police tend to treat suicides differently to murder: news stories regarding suicides are often a lot slower to generate because there still seems to be - even within the usually ruthless british media - a regard for the feelings of the family. I've noted in the past that many stories, which are initially reported with the usual urgency applied to violent death, sometimes disappear entirely from the news media once the motive is known, or implied, to be suicide.

There are certainly many elements to this story which make it very much more intriguing, and therefore newsworthy, than the average - but I do wonder if the reasons mentioned above are why it has simmered, rather than boiled, in the months since the incident occured.
 
Spookdaddy said:
It's also the case that the press and police tend to treat suicides differently to murder: news stories regarding suicides are often a lot slower to generate because there still seems to be - even within the usually ruthless british media - a regard for the feelings of the family. I've noted in the past that many stories, which are initially reported with the usual urgency applied to violent death, sometimes disappear entirely from the news media once the motive is known, or implied, to be suicide.
Click to expand...

It's less of a regard for feelings of the family, more to stop copycat suicides. A lot of people kill themselves at my workplace (not the staff, it's not that terrible a job! It's a quarry, so people break in to jump off the cliff), but it never gets reported in the press, more to stop giving other suicidal people the idea of killing themselves the same way.

(on the same subject, a few years ago a man was found dead in a field near me. Massive police presence, white tents, everything. As soon as it turned out he'd shot himself, not a peep from the media. Not even a mention of this big police operation in a usually quiet area.)
 
Urvogel said:
It's less of a regard for feelings of the family, more to stop copycat suicides...
Click to expand...

I'm sure there's truth in that - but there are other issues at play, not least of these being that suicide is not a crime and the police and legal paraphernalia that necessarily accompanies any violent death will end once murder has been ruled out (although different aspects of the legal apparatus may still be involved in non-criminal areas, like probate).

No investigation, no prosecution, no court case = no news: so, at this point, further investigation would be up to the individual news media outlets involved, who would have a job claiming that it was in the public's interest to pursue the case. This is possibly why most suicide related stories die quite quickly (no pun intended) - after foul play has been ruled out, the back story of motive and reasoning, the method and the result are effectively a private matter.

I strongly suspect that if Mr Lytton's suicide had not been accompanied by the additional mystery of his identity then it would have retreated very quickly from the limelight.
 
Last edited:
Spookdaddy said:
I strongly suspect that if Mr Lytton's suicide had not been accompanied by the additional mystery of his identity then it would have retreated very quickly from the limelight.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's surely the unusual aspect to this story - that someone can fly here, commit suicide within 2 days, then not be identified for a year. Seems he was something of a loner who didn't keep in touch with whatever family he did have, and it's surprising none of them could identify him from the plentiful CCTV pictures.

According to this report, he retired to Pakistan a decade ago & his family in this country have no idea why he came here before his death.

Mr Lytton’s family in the UK, who had not reported him missing, had no idea he was dead until December, when police made a breakthrough in the case.
Click to expand...

There's another story here of a 19 year old youth who died last Feb when he was hit by a car whilst crossing the A50. He was reported missing by his family at the time but it's still taken the best part of a year for police to formally identify him using DNA & cross checking with the national missing person database.
 
Strychnine is still what has me wondering. Are there not other poisons more readily available? Also wouldn't that leave a not so peaceful-looking corpse?

The people at the quarry, do they form an orderly queue on busy days?
 
Xanatic* said:
Strychnine is still what has me wondering. Are there not other poisons more readily available? Also wouldn't that leave a not so peaceful-looking corpse?

The people at the quarry, do they form an orderly queue on busy days?
Click to expand...
That's a good point.
How did he have such a well-ordered body after a painful death?
 
Mythopoeika said:
How did he have such a well-ordered body after a painful death?
Click to expand...

Have I missed something? Some of the reports say he just lay down and died. Details such as "face hideously contorted in the rictus grin of strychnine-death," may have been omitted for numerous reasons.

I would go back and read that long-form piece again but it would take too long to load . . .

Meanwhile RIP, Mr Lytton, you remain almost as mysterious with a name. :(

While Pakistan may seem an unusual retirement destination for an Englishman, Lahore is one of the more liberal regions with lively and sometimes deadly subcultures:

Just a thought, given the "loner" label applied to the deceased. :confused:
 
If he's a serial killer, that might explain the access to strychnine.
 
JamesWhitehead said:
Have I missed something? Some of the reports say he just lay down and died. Details such as "face hideously contorted in the rictus grin of strychnine-death," may have been omitted for numerous reasons.

I would go back and read that long-form piece again but it would take too long to load . . .
Click to expand...
It said something about his arms being neatly ordered by his side.
 
I did not mean to suggest he was a killer! The subculture and the poison are interesting ideas in this connection, however. :confused:
 
Monstrosa said:
I believe that strychnine along with other poisons is readily available in Pakistan.
Click to expand...

There's every reason to believe this ...

Warmer regions of southern Asia are the native habitat for dozens of plant species that are natural sources of strychnine, and India was the source location for some of the - if not 'the' - oldest recorded references to the poison.

The question that occurs to me is whether he could and / or should have drawn scrutiny for bringing strychnine through customs checks when he last returned to the UK.
 
A former neighbour of Mr Lytton recalls him as a lonely tube-train driver.

His connections with Oldham - and Pakistan - remain obscure, though the town itself has a large Pakistani population.

Speculation about such a private man's life is bound to seem a little prurient, now he has been named. My guesses may be way-off the mark. Did he, perhaps, stake all on a late, mercenary-romantic attachment and return to England when things turned sour, around the time his retirement cash ran out? :huh:
 
There's a detailed report about him on the BBC TV news now. The artist's impression of him looks like the late Pete Postlethwaite.
 
I listened to the Radio 4 programme by Jon Manel following the investigation. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03wy14r

I hadn't realised the poor gentleman had been identified recently! I am glad that his family at least know he is dead and can give him a funeral.

As I remember it, the final part of the investigation was to narrow down the patients (from hundreds) at several hospitals in Pakistan who'd had a metal leg plate/part fitted during surgery made by a certain manufacturer and identified with a part number - I think this is what took the best part of the last 6 months.

The man had no ID whatsoever and only a medicine bottle from Pakistan in his pockets, but containing residue of strychnine instead of his medicine. They managed to back-track his movements to a train from London, but with a ticket bought with cash. I would suggest the time taken is because it's not a matter of life-and-death but a matter of personnel putting in many hours when they are available whilst also dealing with other cases.
 
Footage of Mr Lytton at a neighbour's wedding - with a close female friend.

Estrangement from his family, a change of name, a history of depression, intensely private lifestyle but also a steady relationship with a woman who attests to his kindness and intelligence. The move to Lahore remains mysterious, though he is said to have had a Pakistani bus-driver as lodger as some point.

His choice of the remote spot to end it all remains as enigmatic as before. :(
 
If he really wanted his death to be mysterious, he must have had his reasons and maybe we should respect that.
 
Yeah, I know, everyone has to know everything and what they don't know they make up.
 
escargot1 said:
Maybe he did, or maybe he didn't. We don't know. Right now it's an unexplained death, so it needs to be investigated.
Click to expand...

vm.jpg
 
And he woulda gotten away with it it too...
 
Always had a nagging feeling about the man in this case having some sort of link to the Brady & Hindley period. They frequented the area quite a bit. Maybe he went there for some form of forgiveness?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top