Year-long mystery of man found dead at Dovestone is solved

CCTV of the dead man police have now identified.

Reporter: Stuart Littleford

Officers who have worked tirelessly around the clock for the past 13 months, were today able to name the man whose body was discovered at the Dovestone area of Saddleworth in December of 2015.

A detective who worked very hard to identify the mystery man found dead on a track near Dovestone Reservoir told Saddleworth News how his team’s painstaking work helped to solve the mystery.

The man had just £130 in cash, three train tickets and an empty medicine bottle with Arabic writing on the side.

Detectives worked around the clock to solve the puzzle of the man who had died from strychnine poisoning.

A search for clues led to London, Ireland and eventually Pakistan after a post mortem revealed he had undergone surgery in that country.

There were early suggestions of his possible identity coming Ireland after a passenger aircraft had crashed in the area in many years ago and it was thought he could be related to one of the passengers that had perished at the scene.

Today the man, previously known as Neil Dovestone, was named as 67-year-old David Lytton.

Officers had used CCTV to trace Mr Lytton’s movements backwards from Saddleworth, to Piccadilly Station then Euston and back to Ealing Broadway.

Detectives assumed he may have started his journey on the Piccadilly Line at Heathrow Airport and began to search flight records for older men who had flown into the country from Pakistan in the days just before his death.

Det Sgt John Coleman said identifying the country as a clue became key to solving the case.

Officers checked through thousands of passenger records to identify Mr Lytton and also checked airport and train station CCTV to confirm his movements.

The Dovestone area of Greenfield.

Eventually they were able to compare DNA from the mystery body with that of a relative to confirm a match.

Det Sgt Coleman told Saddleworth news: “Ealing station is on the Piccadilly line which goes to Heathrow so we thought he could have come into the country through Pakistan.

“We set up a profile for a male aged between 65 – 75, possibly travelling alone from Pakistan to Heathrow between December 8 and 10, 2015.

“We could only go back a few days – we could only go back that far because of the enormous number of people travelling through the airport each day.

“There is a massive number of travellers and a number of flights to and from Pakistan each day, so we asked for the names and came back with a male that might be a match.

“His passport picture was 10 years old so we got an image from Lahore Airport from the previous day’s CCTV.

“We discovered that Mr Lytton had travelled over here from Pakistan on December 10.”

Mr Lytton was finally named at a short hearing at Heywood coroner’s court today.

Praising the small team of officers who worked on the case, Det Sgt John Coleman said Mr Lytton has finally been given “the dignity he deserves”.

He added: “It is just fantastic that it’s come to a final conclusion. I’m happy for the family and the public and happy I can finally move onto something else.”

Police say that Mr Lytton boarded a plane in Lahore, Pakistan, on Thursday December 10 and travelled to London Heathrow.

It has not been revealed why he was in the country, his occupation or any of his family details.

After arriving at Heathrow, he travelled to Ealing Broadway train station where he bought a return train ticket.

He then boarded a train to Manchester Piccadilly via Euston on Friday, December 11.

He then travelled by train to Greenfield where he visited The Clarence pub and asked landlord, Mel Robinson for directions to get up to the top of Indian’s Head.

Mel was the last person to see Mr Lytton alive and he had warned the man that he would not make it back before dark if he was to go up there. Despite this he set off towards the area.

His body was later discovered by a walker at 10.45am the next day on December 12 lying face upwards with his head pointing towards the summit, his legs together and his arms by his side.

A post-mortem examination later revealed that the man had been poisoned by strychnine. It is thought he took the toxic substance himself.

Author: Jude Gidney - Editor

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