The Body Detectives Season 1 Episode 1
The Norfolk Hero: Ex-detective Dave Grimstead and his forensics team investigate the disappearance of George Johnstone, who vanished off the Norfolk coast in 1984 while on a family holiday.
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00:00There are almost 1,000 unidentified bodies in the UK.
00:06The body was found floating on the sea.
00:09Mysteries, people found with no identification.
00:13These people who have died and then remained unidentified after death,
00:17they have no voice.
00:19Investigators at Locate International have files on these cold cases.
00:25All the work that's been done so far has failed to find a name.
00:29To try and solve them and put a name and a story to the bodies.
00:33It's a bit like a whodunit, isn't it?
00:35A team of top scientists and experts use cutting-edge forensics
00:39to reinvestigate seemingly unsolvable cases.
00:42Any cases where unidentified remains are found,
00:46which include clothing or textiles,
00:48I could be brought in to do analysis.
00:52To me, that would be a kind of blunt force trauma.
00:56You can find out so much more about an individual through science,
01:00which may help identify them.
01:02Because for each unidentified body,
01:04there's a family whose loved one has disappeared without trace.
01:08Just to know that there's a place where he is.
01:12And at the moment, we don't know where he is.
01:16I can get to say my goodbyes to my dad.
01:27On 30th August 1984, 26-year-old George Johnston
01:32went missing off the Norfolk coast.
01:41Head of Locate International, Dave Grimstead,
01:44has come to meet George's brother-in-law, Barry Trussell.
01:48Barry. Dave. Nice to meet you.
01:51Who's never given up trying to find George.
01:54Who's never given up trying to find out what happened.
01:59Almost 40 years ago, Barry came here to Hopton Beach on a family holiday.
02:05Tell me about what you were doing on that day.
02:08It was a beautiful sunny day like today,
02:12but a very windy day.
02:15George came to see us in the morning
02:19and said they were going to go down to the beach.
02:22I'd already made plans and said,
02:24I'll maybe see you later, but I'm going round the pool.
02:30George headed to the beach with his wife and two-year-old daughter, Lucy.
02:37Unfortunately, I saw a helicopter go over in the sky.
02:44I remember saying to someone that some poor person's out there.
02:48I turned and I saw my dad looking for me.
02:51I thought, what's he doing here?
02:54And he said to me, George has gone.
03:00Like, I don't get it.
03:03He says, George has gone. George has gone missing on the beach.
03:07And I got my bits and we were straight off towards the beach.
03:22It brings back emotions, just standing here.
03:27There was another family that the father and son were out in a dinghy.
03:33From what I've been told, they lost the oars and were drifting.
03:36The mother was panicking. She was calling for help.
03:40George was the one person that got up and he rushed out.
03:47He got to them, was with them.
03:50The lifeboat came out and picked him up.
03:54George was swimming back in.
03:57But then the wave went over him and he went under.
04:03And that was the last we ever saw of him.
04:10We waited with the police.
04:14You really believe somehow, oh, they're just going to find him.
04:19And we'll all be a family together and we'll go home.
04:23And it didn't end up that way.
04:32But you've still got a little girl, Lucy, who's just over two,
04:37that wants to know where her dad is.
04:40My dad was the first to go out there.
04:44He never went into that sea thinking that he wouldn't come back.
04:48It did tear the family apart.
04:51Because there was nothing we could do.
04:54As a child, I didn't really know who I really was
04:58because I didn't know my dad, not really knowing who he was.
05:03I think that was the hardest thing as a kid.
05:08But then Grandad and Barry were always there to step up
05:12and make sure I had everything I needed and wanted and more.
05:17But it's not the same.
05:19And I feel so blessed that Barry was there
05:22because I'm the person I am today because of Barry.
05:26And he's that dad that I just... I never had, but I did.
05:32There's nothing good about the sea. It's a cruel place.
05:37Barry and Lucy want Dave to see
05:39if he can find George's final resting place, even after 40 years.
05:45It's just to know where he's gone.
05:48And to bring him home, really, to be...
05:55..just to know that there's a place where he is.
06:01And at the moment, we don't know where he is.
06:09It means so much closure to know exactly
06:13what happened to him that day.
06:17I just think I'll find that peace of knowing that, you know,
06:21he didn't abandon us.
06:24I can get to say my goodbyes to my dad.
06:32Dave is now reopening the case to see if modern forensic techniques
06:36can discover what happened to George Johnston
06:40and bring some closure to the family.
06:45The first task is to check if any bodies washed up in the UK
06:49around the time George went missing.
06:52George was a white male, 26 years old,
06:55and that day, he was wearing blue swimming shorts.
07:00We've got a whole series of databases
07:02on missing persons and unidentified bodies.
07:06The teams will have to go into those databases,
07:08cross-matching information.
07:10The answers have been in those databases for decades.
07:14The databases draw a blank,
07:16nothing showing for bodies washed up in the UK at that time.
07:22But locate investigator Emma Tilley is heading to Norfolk
07:25to meet someone who might be able to help.
07:30These cases are cold for a reason.
07:33They are difficult cases to solve.
07:36Really, the focus is around ensuring no stone has been left unturned.
07:44Andy Guy is a cold case investigator for Norfolk Police.
07:48He's been looking into the George Johnston case,
07:51accessing European police files to see if they throw up any leads.
07:56Could you tell me about your initial actions on this particular case?
08:01The North Sea countries, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark,
08:06if they have a body found, they'll issue a school of black notice,
08:10and that goes through Interpol,
08:12and that's shared with all the affected countries.
08:15Andy has struck gold.
08:17He's been working on the case for a long time.
08:20He's been working on the case for a long time.
08:23Andy has struck gold.
08:25Two bodies found within the right time frame.
08:29One of those was a male that was recovered in the Baltic area,
08:34down sort of near Denmark,
08:36and the other was Ambertus, which is just south of Calais in France,
08:41pretty much the closest point to the UK mainland.
08:47And when you look at the dates, so the one in France was ten days,
08:51the body turned up ten days after George went missing.
08:54I think the one in the Baltic area was about the same time,
08:57but it's such a long way to travel.
08:59And because of the description of the body in France,
09:03a similar height to George and a similar age,
09:06it was then we thought, actually, this is potentially one of the same.
09:10OK.
09:11So in terms of the height, weight,
09:15this looked more like a potential match?
09:18Yes.
09:20With such a strong lead, Dave follows the trail to France.
09:26It's important to go to France now so that we check the information
09:30to see if there are people there who remember that day in 1984
09:35when that body was found.
09:40He's teamed up with local journalist Hugo Baio,
09:43who's been reinvestigating the case.
09:50Here we are in the hamlet.
09:53So back in 1984, would it look very much the same as it is now?
09:58I don't think it's changed a lot.
10:00Yeah, it's quite a bleak beach, isn't it? Yeah.
10:079th September 1984, there was a body found.
10:12There was a lot of people who walk with their dog in the morning
10:16and that's how someone found the body.
10:21The police papers of the old case were destroyed in 2014.
10:27The main information was found from an article of a local newspaper.
10:33Last Sunday, they found a man.
10:36The body wore a blue shirt.
10:40Height, 5'10".
10:42The body maybe was 30 years old, but we were not sure.
10:46I mean, we're not working with a lot of information at the moment.
10:49We have limited information, but we have little things.
10:53At least the blue shorts is our major information.
10:56But, unfortunately, that's all we know.
11:06It's not much to go on, but the fact that the description of the man,
11:10especially the shorts, matches George Johnston, is promising.
11:14And through the local police, Hugo's made another discovery.
11:22This way.
11:30The last one there.
11:32OK.
11:37Thank you, Hugo.
11:39It's quite emotional seeing the actual spot
11:43where the man who was found on that beach that day has been buried.
11:48You can see there's a place where it's written,
11:51un autre ami, it means to our friend.
11:54And somebody's put flowers on the...
11:57Yeah.
11:59..on the grave as well.
12:03Having spoken to Barry and Lucy and not knowing where George is,
12:08to think there is...
12:10Maybe he's here. Possibly.
12:12This could be where he is.
12:14I think it would mean a lot to them.
12:18Finding the grave is a breakthrough.
12:21If they can obtain DNA from the remains,
12:24they can see if it's a match with Lucy, George Johnston's daughter.
12:28But that would mean exhuming the body.
12:31It's a really big deal to do the exhumation
12:33because this is somebody's final resting place
12:36and they've been there for decades.
12:38And that shouldn't be disturbed without good reason.
12:46Everybody realises the gravity of the situation.
12:49This requires working with the local lawyers
12:53to make an application to the president of the court,
12:56the local judge,
12:58to make sure that everything that can be done
13:01has been done to this point.
13:04It's not something that's given lightly,
13:06so there will be questions, there will be challenge,
13:09and it's certainly not a given that the application will be approved.
13:23Dave Grimstead is investigating the case of George Johnston,
13:27who went missing off the Norfolk coast in 1984.
13:30He wants to know if a body that washed up ten days later
13:34in northern France could be George.
13:37So he's asked Emma to go and see one of Locate's network of experts.
13:45My name's John Rees and I'm a forensic oceanographer.
13:50Forensic oceanography is the prediction
13:52and the tracking of bodies in the marine environment.
13:57John works with wind and tide data going back decades
14:02to model what happens to objects when they enter the sea,
14:05anything from oil spills to human bodies.
14:10Welcome to CFAS Endeavour. Thank you. Please come on board.
14:15And this is the bridge.
14:17This is where the whole of the ship's operations are run from.
14:22John has made a model to estimate where George Johnston
14:25might have drifted after he entered the sea at Hobton.
14:29So what I had to do was go back to some of our climate archives
14:33that are available from European data centres
14:36and use the winds from that particular archive
14:40and put those into the modelling situation.
14:43Would you be able to show me that? Yeah, absolutely.
14:46What I've got here is the output of the numerical model.
14:49So I've got the position of where the individual went in here
14:53and then I've got the Dutch coastline on the far side over here
14:57and in the top right-hand corner I've got the wind direction.
15:00And so what I do is I put 5,000 particles into the numerical model
15:05and track each one of those particles going forward in time.
15:09Now, what that gives us is what's called a probabilistic forecast.
15:13That shows you the movement of the body over those ten days
15:18between entering the water and coming ashore on the French coastline.
15:23So I can start the model now
15:25and you can see that these black particles
15:28represent the position of the body.
15:31The individual comes off the coast and then moves up and down
15:35on the flood and edd tides
15:37and they slowly move eastwards on the prevailing westerly wind directions.
15:42And they eventually end up at Imoeden on the Dutch coastline
15:47where I think the missing person would have come ashore.
15:51And the individual on the French coastline
15:54is probably from another incident
15:56further down the French coastline towards Normandy.
16:00So a body that washed ashore in Amble Tours
16:04is likely to have travelled southern up to northern?
16:08That's what I would suggest, yeah.
16:12It's difficult to, I guess,
16:16visualise the fact that it might not be George.
16:19Are there any external factors
16:22that could have had an influence on the possibility it could be George?
16:27The only things that I can think of are if he's caught on a vessel.
16:32There's been several cases where clothing is snagged
16:35on the bottom of a hull of a vessel
16:37and they've taken them into different directions.
16:40So that's a possibility.
16:42OK.
16:50This, of course, creates some sort of doubt,
16:55which I guess is healthy for us as investigators working on the case
17:01to also have an element that it might not be the outcome that we want it to be.
17:07But nevertheless, you don't know what the key piece of the puzzle will be.
17:12John's mentioned external factors such as clothing,
17:15getting caught on a ship or a vessel
17:18could have took the body in a southerly direction.
17:23And you need to keep an open mind as to, you know, what might have occurred.
17:35So Emma sent through the forensic oceanography model.
17:40With all the cases that we look at,
17:42we tend to get that rollercoaster with the different information
17:45that comes into the system, some of the expert opinion that comes in.
17:49So you think you've got that answer,
17:51but then you get information and opinion which makes you rethink.
17:56And there's still nothing that would rule out us going ahead with the excavation.
18:01We've still got a man roughly the same age as George,
18:06we've still got a man roughly the same height, blue shorts,
18:12and found 10 days after George disappeared from that beach in Norfolk.
18:20The information that we've got from the forensic oceanography is not certain,
18:24but it does help us manage the expectations of the family.
18:29We've been doing some research on the forensic oceanography,
18:32and that means looking at the different tidal flows.
18:35And it just doesn't seem likely that... Right.
18:39..George could go from Hopton Beach to Ambletooth.
18:43We knew... We've always prepared ourselves that there's that chance
18:46that it's not going to be Dad.
18:48We always know that it's possibly not going to be the outcome
18:52we would really hope for. Yeah.
18:54But the good news is that the exhumation application's been approved now.
18:58Wow. Puts you in a...
19:01It's a double at the moment, because the news you just said
19:05sort of sways not to possibly.
19:08You've got George disappearing at Hopton Beach,
19:12you've got the man being found in Ambletooth, the description's so similar.
19:17There's certainly not anything there that says,
19:20So I think it's only right to make sure you're aware
19:23that there is information out there that might suggest it might not be George.
19:28And the description as well, kind of, is that it's a, you know...
19:32Yeah, let's hope that side's wrong. Yeah.
19:38Just remember that you're not on your own for the next part.
19:41Whatever happens, we're here to do our part.
19:45Remember that you're not on your own for the next part.
19:48Whatever happens, we're here to support you
19:52and make sure that everything's done that can reasonably be done, really.
19:56Thank you. OK?
19:58Yeah.
20:10It has to come to an end one way or another.
20:13And if it's George... Amazing.
20:17..then that's better news for us. Yeah.
20:19But if it's not, then it's hopefully good news for someone else.
20:35So the science, as far as human identification is concerned,
20:39has moved on leaps and bounds.
20:41Not only have you got DNA, but you've got phenotyping,
20:44you've got isotope analysis,
20:46you've got the ability to use CT scans to create facial reconstructions.
20:51You can find out so much more about an individual through science.
20:57The team, they've managed to remove the concrete from on top of the grave
21:02and then they're going to work on the preparation
21:05ready for the exhumation first thing tomorrow morning.
21:09The only way that we're now able to find the answer
21:12for Lucy, for Barry and the family
21:15is to conduct an exhumation and to do that cross-matching.
21:24It's an early start tomorrow because it's such a sensitive thing.
21:27I mean, you look at the cemetery here at Umbletoos,
21:31there are houses around, there are people around from the community.
21:35There's a real opportunity to be able to resolve this case
21:39using the latest science to pursue an answer for the family.
22:05I think most people, if you had disappeared from somebody's life
22:10and you were buried in a place where nobody knew where you were,
22:15you would want to be reunited with your family
22:18and to be brought closer to them
22:21and be a place where your family can remember you.
22:25I think that's what we're trying to do.
22:27I think that's what we're trying to do.
22:29I think that's what we're trying to do.
22:31I think that's what we're trying to do.
22:33I think that's what we're trying to do.
22:35Now is a really tense time because you never know
23:03if you're going to be able to extract DNA.
23:08And then, if you are able to extract the DNA,
23:13will that DNA hold the clue to who Umbletoos' man is?
23:19We just don't know what the answer's going to be.
23:33The remains have arrived for the autopsy.
24:04Dr Marie Provo is the pathologist.
24:09She finds bone fragments suitable for DNA extraction.
24:18As well as looking for any other clues the remains could provide.
24:33Is this what you would expect after more than 30 years of the body being in the grave?
25:04This is the femur.
25:07And we're going to cut it right here?
25:09Yes.
25:15Otherwise we're going to put it on top.
25:18Bring it here.
25:20It's better to do it in the mouth.
25:24We're going to cut the femur to look for the tissue inside.
25:33We're going to cut the femur to look for the tissue inside.
25:41This is the orifice.
25:44The bone marrow is in this orifice with the cells.
25:47And this is what we're extracting to look for the DNA.
25:51The bone looks pretty good.
25:55We might be able to see it.
25:57This is where you're going to see it.
26:00We found it in the bathroom.
26:06There is an elastic belt with two cords to tighten the pants.
26:13And it has the shape of a bathtub.
26:29We're going to cut it.
26:36Oh, shit.
26:38These are old sneakers.
26:43The front is here.
26:45I'm going to put it here.
26:48Where did I see the label?
26:52R-O-D-A-O
26:54The shorts are navy blue with three white stripes.
27:01There are places where it's discolored.
27:03The brand is Rodeo.
27:0681, 86 centimeters.
27:09Size 32, 34.
27:14It's not always certain that the clothes that somebody's found in
27:17are those that they're going to be buried with.
27:19It's such a rare thing.
27:25Now we just don't know if this is George
27:28or whether Amblachew's man is somebody else's loved one.
27:32And it's by no means certain that we will be able to extract DNA
27:37from the samples that we have.
27:55No, no, no, no, no, no.
28:19Yes, good.
28:24The skull and jaw will be put back in
28:28and the rest of the bones will be left in the grave.
28:45I now have the samples from Dr. Prévost
28:49so that we're able to go back to the UK
28:54to work with the forensic providers to extract the DNA,
28:58compare that with the familial DNA from Lucy and the family.
29:05For me and for the whole team at Locate,
29:08we always have that emotional rollercoaster
29:12in terms of the cases that we are working on.
29:16Everyone has a hope that we're going to be able to solve these cases.
29:25Five weeks later...
29:29..Dave is taking Barry and Lucy
29:31to meet Special Investigator Andy Guy...
29:36..for news of the DNA results.
29:41Yeah, it feels really surreal today, actually.
29:43Yeah. Scary, in a way.
29:46Yeah, because all that time we've been talking about
29:49and now it's the reality, isn't it? Yeah.
29:51That kind of moment.
29:52Actually, you've got to find out, yeah.
29:54One way or the other. Yeah.
30:03Hi, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
30:05Andy. Andy. Heard a lot about you.
30:07Thanks for coming. Please take a seat.
30:10I'll come straight to the point.
30:12You know we took your DNA, Lucy,
30:15and we compared that with the results
30:17that Dave's team got from the grave at Ambletooth's.
30:21I'm sorry to tell you that's not a match.
30:23There is no familial link,
30:25so the man in Ambletooth's is not George.
30:31So, we're going to have a look at the DNA
30:33and we're going to have a look at the DNA
30:35and the man in Ambletooth's is not George.
30:44Come on.
30:51My personal thoughts were it was your dad
30:54because of the shorts and the time,
30:57but that isn't the case. OK.
31:02Thank you for all the work you've done.
31:04It's the least we could do and I'm just sorry
31:06it wasn't the result we wanted to hear.
31:08It might not be the outcome we wanted,
31:10but someone will benefit, I hope.
31:14This is somebody's loved one.
31:16This is their equivalent of George.
31:18And without this work,
31:20the DNA of Ambletooth's man would not have been retrieved
31:25and there might be an answer on the database out there.
31:29I don't think any of us, including yourselves,
31:32have done this lightly. No.
31:34You know, you're taking a body out of a grave. Yeah.
31:38But you've got to look at the bigger picture
31:40and hope it's for a good reason,
31:43and I think it was for a good reason.
31:45So we'll be able to work to get this loaded up
31:47onto the national and international databases,
31:50continue to do more research,
31:52and we won't give up on George's case either.
31:55Oh, it never ends. No.
31:57It never ends. No.
31:59And we'll still hope something somewhere comes along.
32:03You never say never. Yeah.
32:05It's brought us closer together. Yeah.
32:08Yeah. Yeah, it's helped.
32:10I think if we hadn't have done this, Lucy, we'd always won, Dad.
32:13Oh, definitely. And you never know.
32:15It's not the result we want, but it is a closure of that...
32:18Yeah, definitely, yeah.
32:20I mean, your profiles are on the missing person database as a kinship,
32:24so if there ever was a recovery somewhere,
32:27they would automatically be searched. OK.
32:29So you never know what's around the corner.
32:31So they're permanently there, they're not going to go anywhere.
32:34Thank you. Bye.
32:35Yeah, we can't thank you both enough for everything you've done,
32:38even though it's not what we really hope for, at the end of the day.
32:42But it is for someone. It is for someone.
32:44It is for someone. Yeah.
32:46I just want to give you a hug.
32:48Thanks, Maurice. No, thank you.
32:58I think it's always going to be highly emotional for everyone,
33:02for all of us that are engaged in hoping that this was George.
33:10Lucy's DNA will now be uploaded
33:12to the International Database of Missing People.
33:17If George's body is ever found,
33:19the DNA will be used to identify the missing person.
33:24If George's body is ever found,
33:26the DNA will instantly direct investigators to the family.
33:34Now, Dave has a new case on his hands.
33:39Having exhumed the body, he needs to find out who is Omblateur's man.
33:54The mystery of the body washed up on a beach in northern France
33:58dates back nearly 40 years.
34:02So, when we started, we knew very little about this person
34:05other than being found on a beach on the 9th of September, 1984,
34:09wearing blue shorts.
34:11So, being able to do the exhumation
34:13and establish that he was buried in these blue shorts,
34:16and then we were able to work with Dr Pruvo
34:19to make sure that we got a good CT scan of the skull.
34:22That means that we can work towards a facial reconstruction
34:26where we can bring those features to life that somebody may recognise.
34:34With a CT scan, modern forensic science should allow Locate
34:38to produce an image of what the man looked like.
34:43In Dundee, Dr Turner and his team are investigating
34:47the possibility of facial reconstruction.
34:51In Dundee, Dr Toby Holton is an expert in reconstructing
34:55facial images from this kind of data.
35:00Facial approximation is a means of predicting the facial form.
35:06Typically, it's performed when your standard forms of identification
35:10are not available, the likes of dental records
35:13Dave has passed on the CT scan taken of the skull
35:17during the autopsy in France.
35:21The quality looks fantastic.
35:23This is exactly everything that we need,
35:25because the more detail that I can actually see,
35:28the more likely I'll be able to generate
35:30a more reliable facial approximation.
35:34When importing the scan, the first thing that we want to do
35:37is think about applying the facial soft tissue thickness reference data.
35:42Over the decades, people have compiled databanks
35:46of average tissue depth and give you a gauge
35:50as to approximately how thick those tissues are
35:53in order to generate the general face.
35:58After tissue depth placement, what I like to do is import the eyes.
36:04So, eyes on average are about 24 millimetres in diameter.
36:10The sphere shape will be placed into the bony orbit,
36:15and then once the eyes are positioned in place,
36:18we're now in an ideal situation to start building up the muscles.
36:23We have some pre-modelled muscles
36:26that we can actually just guide into the correct placement.
36:33It's going to have quite a square jaw, got a very strong brow ridge,
36:36quite a masculine sort of face, you could say.
36:41The next thing is to generate the skin
36:45to give you a better idea of how the individual would have looked
36:49with a bit more of a realistic texture.
36:52We keep the image black and white.
36:55We avoid a reference to colour.
36:57If we don't have those details of colour,
37:00then it's best not to assume that,
37:02so we create a very neutral-looking image.
37:06So, one thing that does stand out about him
37:09is that he has what we call a clear sign of diastema,
37:13which is referring to the spacing between the teeth.
37:16There's a very distinct gap between his two front teeth,
37:20so that is going to be quite a unique feature for him.
37:24So, bearing that in mind, I'll go about the facial approximation,
37:28not only with his face rested with the mouth closed,
37:33but I'll also introduce a degree of expression
37:36in order to show the mouth open,
37:38because that could be a very useful feature for them to refer to.
37:46With this new image, Dave can prepare a public appeal.
37:54First, he needs to pull together everything they know about the man.
37:59So, we know now that we've done the exclamation
38:02that he was buried in the shorts that he was found in.
38:05They are blue shorts,
38:07but they've got these three white stripes down the side.
38:10They're not in a great state,
38:12so what we are able to do is try and find some clothing
38:15that is exactly the same as the image that we're looking at here.
38:19The label gives it a make of Rodia.
38:23Just quickly looking online before we give this to Dave,
38:26you look at the Rodia brand that looks like it's from C&A,
38:31predominantly a brand that was sold in France.
38:34We've been able to go back to John
38:36and look at the forensic oceanography based on his experience.
38:40Homblitude's man may have drifted to Homblitude's from Normandy,
38:44from the Le Havre area.
38:46It really gives us reason and a purpose to go to France
38:50and begin to work with the media
38:53Now we've got a face.
38:55It makes it a human story, I think.
38:57It means that we can show this to the public
38:59and they can relate to something.
39:07So I've come back to France
39:10to get the story of Homblitude's man out into the French media.
39:16So this is the new facial reconstruction.
39:20It seems like a real person.
39:22So now the key is the public appeal.
39:25Yes, so we have here the article in our newspaper.
39:28So it said a public appeal for the missing man of Homblitude's.
39:32And there we have the website version.
39:36I will send it right away.
39:38I'm going to send it right away.
39:40I'm going to send it right away.
39:42I'm going to send it right away.
39:44I will send it right away.
39:50I'm just going to share this on Facebook page.
40:05So with this case, we know that the DNA has been uploaded
40:08into the international system.
40:10So we know there's not a match with any existing DNA
40:13that's in the Interpol databases.
40:16We're reliant on reaching out to the public.
40:20Having that image may just be the spark for somebody.
40:27The appeals work because it's about getting this story started
40:31and then seek to amplify it.
40:34Now we've got this out in the newspaper.
40:36This will get picked up by social media.
40:38It will get picked up by other media outlets.
40:41This is what we call a cold case.
40:43A non-elucidated case.
40:45This one dates from 1984.
40:47On the French coast, an unidentified body was found.
40:52What do we know about what happened here?
40:55All we know is that we've got a body that washes up
40:58on the 9th of September, 1984.
41:01Somewhere out there, there's a family,
41:03the equivalent of Barry and Lucy, over here in France.
41:12After several weeks, there's a breakthrough.
41:15Dave is contacted by a woman living in northern France
41:19who thinks she recognises the picture.
41:22She hopes it's her brother who went missing six months
41:25before the body washed up in Oblateurs in 1984.
41:29The woman, who doesn't want to be identified,
41:32is translated by Hugo.
41:35In February 1984, family finds that he was missing
41:40and never had any news from him.
41:44So when she saw the facial reconstruction,
41:48she does this for her parents who have now died.
41:52All their lives, they tried to find their son
41:55and she wants to do it for them.
41:59So the only way now to make a formal identification
42:06will be by comparing your DNA with the DNA obtained
42:12from the man found in Oblatures.
42:18A DNA sample from the sister is sent off to the lab.
42:22For now, Dave's done all he can.
42:27We know that the direction of travel fits with that tidal flow.
42:33When you listen to the story, you listen to the age,
42:36you listen to the timing,
42:38the comparison between the facial images that we've got there,
42:42it remains a possibility.
42:57A week later, the news comes in.
43:01Despite all the coincidences, a similar-looking face,
43:05the right time frame and the right location,
43:09the DNA match is negative.
43:13Dave has hit another dead end.
43:17But he has one more forensic trick up his sleeve.
43:22The DNA from Oblatures' man was analysed by forensic science company
43:27Dr Mark, based in Oxfordshire.
43:32Andrew MacDonald is their head of forensic testing.
43:36Hi there, Andrew. We'll take you up to the DNA laboratory.
43:39OK. Using cutting-edge new techniques,
43:42he should be able to provide much more detail
43:45about what the man looked like.
43:48There's a lot that we can start to do now
43:50that we have the DNA material to work from.
43:53And the technique we would be looking at
43:55is massively parallel sequencing that looks at
43:57a number of different areas of DNA all at the same time.
44:02In the forensic context, it's brand new.
44:05We've already used it on a number of cases so far.
44:08And in one of those cases,
44:10it changed the course of the investigation quite significantly.
44:13So in terms of Oblatures' man,
44:15where do you think massive parallel sequencing
44:18will potentially make a difference to that investigation?
44:22We should be able to get a good indication of the individual's ancestry,
44:26both bi-parental and paternal line.
44:29We should also be able to get a good prediction
44:31for their eye colour and their hair colour.
44:35There are new tests within the technique
44:38that will identify someone's predisposition
44:41to having straight hair or non-straight hair.
44:44In males, whether they're predispositioned to going bald.
44:48And if we put that information into the facial reconstruction,
44:53that will hopefully provide a more accurate image
44:57for any appeal that then subsequently goes out.
45:06With these new details, including hair and eye colour,
45:09Toby Holton can produce an even more realistic image.
45:14The new picture offers a chance to relaunch the appeal.
45:28Dave and the team will not stop searching.
45:34Trying to give solace to the families
45:37who still don't know what happened to their loved ones.
45:44Everybody working in this field has a passion
45:47for trying to find that name, find that answer,
45:50and be able to reunite people who are unidentified
45:53with their family, with friends.
45:59Not knowing what happened
46:01leads to a huge amount of trauma for families.
46:06It's quite emotional.
46:08So, for us, the search continues.