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Manchester Canal: Corpse Repository?

Yithian

Yithian

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No, not an experimental death metal band, but a grim proposal based on some surprising figures:

Who is stalking the canals and streets of Manchester?
More than 60 bodies have been recovered from Manchester's canals in just six years - could a serial killer be on the loose?

By Sarah Rainey

8:25PM GMT 16 Jan 2015

A chill wind rushes down Manchester’s Canal Street, rippling the green slime on the surface of the water. Strings of fairy lights, remnants of the festive season, clatter in the trees as a lone pedestrian turns up the collar of his winter coat.

Overhead, the light is fading. Below, in the murky water, bubbles rise and burst amid a sludge littered with debris from nights gone by: takeaway boxes, empty beer cans, condom wrappers, needles. The walkway is dotted with tunnels, low-hanging and cobwebbed, where shadows lurk beyond the reach of street lights and the air is heavy with the stench of decay.

If the whispers that have surfaced this week are to be believed, this is not a place to be after dark. A serial killer – nicknamed “The Pusher” – is said to stalk these parts. In a plot that could come straight from the pages of the latest grisly thriller from Val McDermid, it has emerged that 61 bodies have been pulled from the city’s waterways in just six years.

A leading academic has suggested that the high death toll may not be coincidental, sparking fears among residents that something more sinister is at play. Reports of the canal killer have been published as far afield as Scandinavia, America and Australia, while stories of near-misses and eerie experiences have been shared under the hashtag #thepusher on Twitter.

Continued:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ing-the-canals-and-streets-of-Manchester.html
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A gloriously overwritten piece of sensationalism, but 61 bodies, 48 unidentifiable owing to advanced decomposition, and all male: it makes you wonder.
 
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Like they say, it does sound like the plot of a crime novel.
 
People have talked a little about this in the serial killer thread ... it's definitely a weird one so far .. without checking your link, a FT poster (rosebud) has reported the area is also a known popular gay hang out place so that might be relevant? .. is someone targeting gay men in this location?

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/serial-killers.11849/page-13
 
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Or is it just that a lot of pissed people walk that stretch of canal and perhaps due to the terrain it is just more easy to fall into it?
 
Depends what they've died of. If they -
- have drowned and have no injuries or only minor ones
- have all their valuables on them
- are found with their trousers unzipped
- were drunk at the time of death
then they may have wandered off towards the canal for a pee and fallen in. Intoxicated men are sometimes drawn to open water with an urge to urinate into it and they can easily overbalance.

Or they can mistake the water for a road or path and try to walk on it. I once did that and was dragged back from the edge barely in time by my only slightly less intoxicated brother. Silly moo.
 
Knew a guy who fell into the Grand Canal twice whilst drunk, was pulled out. Eventually died of a heart attack.
 
Escargot, you're right, of course, that there are plenty of options for non-suspicious deaths, but I just keep returning mentally to the fact that there were sixty-one in six years - it seems freakishly high.
 
A few years ago I was thinking about going on a canal barge holiday and whilst researching, I found that most canals are only about three feet deep. The advice given if you were to fall in was to stand up and walk to the bank.
I'm not saying this is the case in Manchester, could be deeper there of course, and if you have been drinking it's possible to drown in shallower water.
 
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davidplankton said:
A few years ago I was thinking about going on a canal barge holiday and whilst researching, I found that most canals are only about three feet deep. The advice given if you were to fall in was to stand up and walk to the bank.
I'm not saying this is the case in Manchester, could be deeper there of course, and if you have been drinking it's possible to drown in shallower water.
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Locks can be considerably deeper than that. I also surmise (although have no proof) that canals going through urban areas will have been deepened and their banks strengthened as the land around them is developed.
 
It's surprisingly easy to fall into rivers and canals. Many decades ago, I fell into the River Wear in Durham, and I wasn't even drunk. I made it to the side of the river, but swimming with all your clothes on and then clambering up the side of the riverbank is difficult - and I'm a good swimmer.
 
Yithian said:
Escargot, you're right, of course, that there are plenty of options for non-suspicious deaths, but I just keep returning mentally to the fact that there were sixty-one in six years - it seems freakishly high.
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There are more canals in Manchester than in Venice, we're frequently told, so ten accidents per year does not seem that surprising. But ten murders per year would be another thing...
 
Loquaciousness said:
It's surprisingly easy to fall into rivers and canals. Many decades ago, I fell into the River Wear in Durham, and I wasn't even drunk. I made it to the side of the river, but swimming with all your clothes on and then clambering up the side of the riverbank is difficult - and I'm a good swimmer.
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Two students have drowned in the Wear since late 2013, and there is currently another one missing - last seen on cctv heading down to the river bank.
 
rynner2 said:
There are more canals in Manchester than in Venice, we're frequently told, so ten accidents per year does not seem that surprising. But ten murders per year would be another thing...
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I thought I had seen my new neighbour somewhere before! :eek:

dwarfwoman.jpg
 
rynner2 said:
There are more canals in Manchester than in Venice, we're frequently told, so ten accidents per year does not seem that surprising. But ten murders per year would be another thing...
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Ten extra murders in Manchester wouldn't surprise me at all, it is one of those places that often seems to host serious crime on a regular basis. Which leads me to think that a serial killer could go unnoticed there more easily than some other cities.
 
The canal in the west of the city is the Manchester Ship Canal, which runs from the Mersey up to Salford. That used to take sea-going ships, so is obviously deeper than 3 feet!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Ship_Canal

(In the 1980s I sailed with a man who had worked as a pilot on the MSC.)
 
rynner2 said:
There are more canals in Manchester than in Venice, we're frequently told.
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I've heard that about Birmingham (and St Petersburg, for that matter). Anyway, we should establish a baseline: how many bodies do they fish out of Venetian canals each year?
 
I read somewhere that the water in Venetian canals is so polluted that it blinds.
 
"In Italy, data are not available on the morbidity associated with drowning. However, national mortality data available from the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) permit an evaluation in trends and characteristics associated with drowning deaths for 1969 to 1998, the most recent year for which data are available. For purposes of this analysis, those deaths with an ICD-9 code of E910 were identified. Additionally, those with the codes E830-E838, which refer to deaths secondary to injury sustained during water transport, were included in the analysis.

Between 1969 and 1998, 24,496 persons died from drowning, of whom 81.9% were males. Relatively few of these deaths (approximately 10% during the last 10 years) resulted from water transport accidents. Approximately 42% of the deaths occurred outside the victim’s province of residence...."

http://www.epicentro.iss.it/ben/pre_2002/lug-ago02/2_en.htm

24,496 / 30 years = approx 817 per year.

I assume these figures are not just for Venice but I cannot find anything more specific.
 
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Population levels are quite different too:

Manchester > 400,000

Venice < 60,000
 
davidplankton said:
Two students have drowned in the Wear since late 2013, and there is currently another one missing - last seen on cctv heading down to the river bank.
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Ack, one of my children is at school there. :eek:

Before I send my child an annoying email about avoiding rivers - I've had the impression that Manchester is a high crime city. Is this true, or just a misperception on my part?
 
Ulalume said:
Ack, one of my children is at school there. :eek:

Before I send my child an annoying email about avoiding rivers - I've had the impression that Manchester is a high crime city. Is this true, or just a misperception on my part?
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Do you mean they are at Durham or Manchester? We went a bit off topic.
 
There's been a steady number of students falling into the Avon in Bath when drunk, a couple very recently. However, the difference is that their disappearance gets reported very quickly and the bodies also quickly found through active search. These bodies in Manchester are, I presume largely unidentified, which tends to suggest underworld crime to me. Unidentified bodies get fished out of the Thames on a fairy regular basis don't they?
 
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Surely if they were all drunk people falling in it's just as notable that they all died.. I mean surely you would expect many such incidents which DIDN'T result in death from which to deduce the common nature of such falls. Are there dozens of survivors of such episodes in the manchester canals too?
 
"along the 213-mile long Thames, a body is retrieved from the river on average every week."
http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2004/dec/15/features11.g2
Secret London suggests most of these are suicides.

Various sources put the population of London at around 8.5 million, so over 3 times that of Greater Manchester, although do we know the length of the canal stretch in question? At first glance, then, Manchester is actually doing quite well: back-of-the-fag-packet suggests par would be 17 per year. (I'm sure there are loads of variables I'm missing, but London is perhaps a better benchmark, in that UK waterways play a much less significant role in its residents' lives than is the case in Venice.)

ETA GMP statistical analysis
 
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Population comparisons between Manchester and Venice are surely highly misleading as they relate to tax paying residents, not numbers of people physically present.. Venice teems with millions of tourists and dayd trippers all year long.
 
gattino said:
Population comparisons between Manchester and Venice are surely highly misleading as they relate to tax paying residents, not numbers of people physically present.. Venice teems with millions of tourists and dayd trippers all year long.
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And as such they would be more wary of the water, plus someone is far more likely to notice if they do fall in!
 
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