The Body Detectives Season 1 Episode 3
The North Sea Man: Dave Grimstead from Locate International travels to Germany on the trail of a man found dead in the North Sea 30 years ago.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00There are almost a thousand unidentified bodies in the UK.
00:06The body was found floating on the sea.
00:10Mysteries, people found with no identification.
00:14These people who have died and then remained unidentified after death, they have no voice.
00:21Investigators 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.
00:34A team of top scientists and experts use cutting edge forensics to reinvestigate seemingly
00:40unsolvable cases.
00:42Any cases where unidentified remains are found, which include clothing or textiles, I could
00:48be 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, which may help identify them.
01:02Because for each unidentified body, there's a family whose loved one has disappeared without
01:07trace.
01:08Just to know that there's a place where he is, and at the moment we don't know where
01:15he is.
01:16I can get to say my goodbyes to my dad.
01:26This is almost the point where the body was found floating on the sea.
01:41German police detective Carsten Bettels is working with Dave Grimstad, head of Locate
01:46International, on a case that dates back almost 30 years.
01:51It's a suspected murder.
01:53It was the 11th of July, 1994.
01:58It was a federal police vessel.
02:02They saw the body by chance, so the captain decided to put him on the boat.
02:09It must have been really difficult to get the body out of the sea.
02:12Yes, but they had some equipment, for example nets.
02:17And what were their initial thoughts?
02:18They saw it was a very large man.
02:23They recognized that he might have been underwater for several weeks or months, floated by the
02:32waves and by the wind.
02:37They also saw injuries on the body, on the head and on the breast.
02:45They also wonder about some weights on the belt.
02:50They saw that something was not right with this man.
02:56Despite a thorough investigation, the German police couldn't identify the man.
03:01Is it unusual to find an unidentified body in the North Sea?
03:05I know that the captain, although he's an old man now, this was the only case where
03:11he found a dead body in the sea.
03:18The German police have now reopened the investigation.
03:23They hope that modern forensic techniques can finally unlock the case.
03:38Carsten runs the police academy in Lower Saxony.
03:43The cold case unit here reinvestigates unsolved mysteries on the police files.
04:13So, tell me a little bit more about the case.
04:21What were the initial findings from recovery of the body?
04:44So, that's indicating it might be a murder.
04:51So, if one of the hypotheses is that this is a murder, that means that there is a suspect
05:15that's not been identified that is currently free.
05:21Tell me about his physical characteristics, what stood out about North Seaman.
05:52One metre 97, nearly 6 foot 6, would put the man in the tallest 1% of the population.
06:03Photographs of the skull were used to make an image of what North Seaman might have looked like.
06:22The early investigation suggested a strong British link.
06:29And we can see the shirt and the tie.
06:33From what you're saying, the clothes are really important.
06:37Yes, they are.
06:40The clothes are very important.
06:43The clothes are very important.
06:46The clothes are very important.
06:51And we can see the shirt and the tie.
06:55From what you're saying, the clothes are really important.
06:59In terms of trying to help understand who the North Seaman is,
07:03understand them as a person and where they might have come from.
07:09Karsten has asked Dave and his team to investigate the British end of the case.
07:18This case is a real challenge.
07:20Since 1924, this has been unsolved for decades.
07:26This is a murder. There's somebody who's escaped justice.
07:29Somebody who is responsible for that murder.
07:37Any case that remains unsolved, particularly ones where you've not found an answer at all in the investigation,
07:44they always stay with you.
07:48You really get to understand the trauma that's caused by that not knowing.
07:58It's really those cases that inspires me to find a way to help.
08:11North Seaman's distinctive clothing is the place to start.
08:15Karsten knows just the person who might be able to help.
08:24My name's Amber Butchart. I am a forensic garment analyst.
08:31For any cases where unidentified remains are found, which might include clothing or textiles,
08:37I could be brought in to do analysis.
08:42I could glean any kind of clues or information that could help with the wider case itself.
08:50So immediately, although this man was found near Germany, we have a very strong link to Britain in terms of the clothing.
08:59So we've got these underpants, Marks and Spencer.
09:02We also have a tie from Marks and Spencer.
09:05Relatively smart appearance, white shirt.
09:08The shirt and the tie itself is the classic marker of someone who works in an office.
09:18We've contacted the archive at Marks and Spencer,
09:22and they have let us know that these particular numbers, this 060 configuration on the label for the tie,
09:32means that this particular model was made in mid-1990 and was likely in stores for about a year.
09:39So that is really consistent with the timeframe that we're looking at.
09:43What is interesting, I think especially interesting, is the shoes.
09:49Church's brand, made in England, we're really considering a sort of luxury product here.
09:55And we can infer from this, you know, middle-class socioeconomic background.
10:01The upmarket shoes aren't the only evidence in this case connected to footwear.
10:10I mean, North Sea Man was weighed down by these iron weights.
10:13It's not something I've come across before.
10:15OK, so these are shoe lasts, and they're for specifically making shoes or for repairing shoes.
10:23Now, shoe lasts, I think, are something that today maybe not too many people are really familiar with shoe lasts.
10:31So how, in conjunction with the body, were these shoe lasts found?
10:35They were inside the socks that were then tied to the belt.
10:43This is not an accidental configuration, is it? This is very deliberate.
10:49I think that is a really interesting and really essential line of investigation.
11:02So we have not only the clothing and accessories found on North Sea Man himself,
11:09but there's also the very real possibility these shoe lasts have actually been used in the murder of this person,
11:16if we're looking at a murder case.
11:19I haven't come across people that have shoe lasts outside of people working in the shoe industry.
11:26It would be interesting to know if that was also the case 30 years ago.
11:31So there's kind of double intrigue.
11:34It's definitely something that requires further investigation.
11:47Almost 30 years ago, an unidentified body was found floating in the North Sea.
11:55Forensic expert Amber Butchart is investigating the clothing the man was found in.
12:04In particular, his expensive English shoes.
12:09So we've arrived in Northampton, the home of shoemaking in Britain,
12:14and we're here to visit the museum here and to meet the curator, Rebecca Shawcross,
12:19who is one of the country's foremost experts in shoes,
12:25to find out what insight she can give us into these churches.
12:30Shoes, quite an old British brand, now owned by Prada,
12:34so now very clearly situated within the luxury market.
12:39Now how many shoes do you have in the collection?
12:41Oh, about 15,000 pairs of shoes.
12:44The entire collection is probably 70,000, 80,000 items,
12:48all relating to the making of shoes and then all the sort of associated subjects as well.
12:55So we're considering these churches.
12:58They're very expensive shoes to buy now, aren't they?
13:01They are indeed, yes.
13:03I mean a sort of similar style today is £700 to £800.
13:08That's quite a lot.
13:09That's quite a lot.
13:10So even back in the sort of 1980s, 1990s in particular, they still would have been expensive items.
13:18So obviously churches have been going for a very long time, since 1873.
13:25They make really durable, particularly like high-end men's shoes.
13:31Shoes that are meant to last, really.
13:33And it's traditional shoemaking, isn't it?
13:35Yes.
13:36It's not what you would get in, you know, fast fashion.
13:38No.
13:39High street stores, the antithesis of that.
13:41No, most definitely.
13:42These are the sort of shoes that you spend a lot of money on,
13:45but they last and you wear them and wear them and wear them.
13:49Yes.
13:50The shoes obviously had a lot of wear and you can see as well that they've been repaired.
13:55So they have a Philip sticker sole on the sole.
13:57You could have gone into your sort of cobbler on the high street
14:01and he would have attached this Philip sticker sole.
14:04Or you could do it at home.
14:06So you get your little packet of two with some glue
14:09and then you would just stick them on the sole to prevent more wear.
14:15Rebecca may also know more about the heavy weights that were attached to the man's belt,
14:20which would have made sure that his body sank.
14:25These shoe lasts were found with the body.
14:29Now, shoe lasts like this,
14:32I don't think that this is something that just like everybody has around the house.
14:40No, certainly they're not overly common.
14:46So this is your traditional wood one, what a shoe is made on.
14:50So all the shoe factories in Northampton still have like racks and racks and racks of these.
14:55Okay, so these are lasts for making shoes on.
14:58Yeah.
14:59And so I guess this one with the slot in the heel is most similar.
15:03I mean, yes, not by any means exactly the same, but it's most similar, isn't it?
15:08Can I try the weight?
15:10They are really very quite heavy.
15:14Yeah, I mean, if you wanted to weight something down, that would certainly do the job.
15:20Definitely.
15:22In which case, if we are looking at a murder case,
15:25it seems that maybe the murderer, do you think,
15:29could have potentially had some connection with the shoe trade?
15:32To have, you know, two heavy sort of repairer's lasts on hand,
15:36it's odd that they are just, you know, hanging around for somebody to use.
15:41It's not like, you know, picking up a kitchen knife, you know,
15:45which is obviously common to almost all households.
15:50Oof.
15:52I think it's really interesting that Rebecca had kind of arrived
15:56at the same hypothesis as I had regarding the shoe lasts.
16:01And so this idea that it was the perpetrator, if there was a perpetrator,
16:05but assuming there was, who was maybe somehow involved in the shoe industry,
16:10that makes these lasts really important to find out more about, I think.
16:20While Amber works on a possible link to the shoe industry,
16:24Dave focuses on how North Sea Man died.
16:34He's in Dublin to visit forensic anthropologist René Gapert.
16:39So here are now photographs of the body inside the mortuary.
16:45René has gone through the autopsy photos and reports from 1994.
16:52So from what you're seeing at the moment in the images,
16:55any ideas around how long the body might have been in the water?
16:58There is severe decomposition.
17:01I would say under two months, maybe.
17:04So now what they did is try to find out the age at death of that person.
17:09They are sending the teeth to the Institute of Human Genetics
17:13and Anthropology at the University of Freiburg.
17:16And there they are using a method called tooth cement annulation.
17:22It's almost like tree rings.
17:24These rings are laid down in the enamel.
17:27And there they are using a method called tooth cement annulation.
17:32And there they find that the age at death of this person
17:37was somewhere between 45 and 50 years,
17:40which points to a birth year for the person of, like, 1944, 1945.
17:46Here now a picture of the body from the left side.
17:51And the view that we see here, the show here on this model,
17:55from the right side towards the left side.
17:58Inside we can see this serrated rib fracture here.
18:04Several of the ribs here on the left side that have fractures.
18:09The damage looks like it occurred along this row of ribs.
18:12And it's not multiple fractures in each rib.
18:15It's multiple fractures in a series of ribs.
18:18So it's just one fracture in each of the ribs here on this side.
18:22Also interesting that it occurred on the left side,
18:25but it doesn't look like the arm was involved in it as well.
18:29OK.
18:33So we're looking into the skull.
18:35What we can see here is very dark discolouration,
18:39which is suggestive of an intracranial bleed.
18:44Now we have a view into the skull.
18:48And there we can clearly see there are fracture lines running.
18:52OK.
18:54So the injury that we see, it's situated on the outside here.
18:58And that would be an area in the skull model
19:01that's running around here on the left side.
19:03So in your experience, what's that telling us about that injury?
19:07So that, to me, is a blunt force impact
19:11onto the side of the head on the left side.
19:13OK.
19:15And that's interesting to see because we also have the trauma
19:18on the left ribs, on the left side of the ribs.
19:21It's quite a circular fracture.
19:24Does that tell you anything in terms of what the blunt force might have been?
19:28Because it curves around here slightly,
19:30but the point of impact is probably around here,
19:32it doesn't look like a signature break.
19:34There's nothing that left a signature like a hammer
19:37or another object that has very sharp defined edges.
19:41OK, so having seen the pathology report
19:44and gone through the images in some detail now,
19:47what would be your opinion based on your experience?
19:50There is clear evidence visible on the photographs
19:55that show the blunt force injury to the left side of the body.
20:02But I think it's difficult to say
20:04if it was some violent act that caused it
20:08or if it was something that happened to the body on the way into the water.
20:14Looking at, of course, the shoelaces that were tied tightly around the body,
20:19again, there's a possibility here
20:22that maybe someone wanted to weigh down the body,
20:25make sure it doesn't come up.
20:27But I've also seen cases where people who self-harm,
20:31who go to that length,
20:34they know if they enter the water,
20:37they might struggle or they want to, you know,
20:41in the last moment, save themselves.
20:43And to be absolutely sure that this is not the case,
20:46they weigh themselves down with different means.
20:49René thinks the man could have taken his own life
20:53by tying the weights to himself and jumping into the sea,
20:57sustaining the injuries as he fell.
21:00With a case like this, we don't know if this man was murdered
21:05or whether it was suicide.
21:08And I've seen cases where a murder has been made to look like a suicide,
21:12so it's really important to keep an open mind.
21:17Every aspect of the case is surrounded in mystery,
21:20even how this man died.
21:22The best route to identifying him
21:24could be to build a picture of his life, his job
21:27and where he may have come from.
21:30The team have a profile of the man found floating in the North Sea.
21:35He was unusually tall, nearly 6ft 6in.
21:39He was between 45 and 50 years old.
21:42He had fractures to his ribs and skull.
21:45Most intriguingly, he had a scar on his arm.
21:49He had a scar on his arm.
21:51He had a scar on his arm.
21:53He had a scar on his arm.
21:55He had fractures to his ribs and skull.
21:58Most intriguingly, he had expensive shoes that had been repaired
22:03and his body was weighted down with heavy iron shoelasts.
22:09Amber is investigating whether the man had any connection
22:12to the shoe repair trade.
22:16George. Hi.
22:18She's come to meet George Stavro,
22:21a traditional cobbler in North London.
22:24You've been here quite a while, is that right?
22:271976, I was 18 when I took over the shop.
22:30At the time, there was an old gentleman here who,
22:33well, I thought he was old at the time, he was 40.
22:36So we took it on and I've been here 46 years nearly.
22:39It feels like I've been doing it all my life.
22:41And you have quite a long relationship with churches.
22:44We're the authorised repairer for church's shoes.
22:47Yeah. Wow.
22:50We specialise in bespoke repairing,
22:52so we can take a shoe apart and rebuild it.
22:55This is the sort of thing that we get.
22:57At the moment, it looks like just a piece of leather,
23:00but eventually we're going to reline it,
23:02we're going to put a new sole in it, we're going to re-weld it,
23:06put a sole on it and then it'll be a shoe again.
23:09It's incredibly skilled work, isn't it? Yeah.
23:12Amber wants to know whether the repairs carried out
23:15on the man's shoes were done by a professional.
23:20So this is a picture of the kind of church's shoe that we're looking at.
23:25What's really interesting about these shoes
23:27is that they have been repaired.
23:29Well, this is a Philips stick-on sole done by a shoe repairer,
23:33probably a local shoe repairer that he's gone to.
23:35OK, that's interesting, because that's something we were wondering.
23:38As soon as Rebecca mentioned that this is a stick-on sole
23:41that can be used at home,
23:43it sort of threw a different kind of light
23:46onto the sort of person we're potentially looking for.
23:49Done by somebody at home,
23:51you probably wouldn't see such a correct position of the sole,
23:55because it's quite to the edge and the heel as well,
23:58because that's been nailed on and the nails have been punched in,
24:02so it wouldn't be something that you would do at home.
24:04George thinks these shoes have been professionally repaired,
24:08but his expert eye has noticed something else about the workmanship.
24:12I thought it looked quite clumsy, to be honest, on that shoe.
24:15If I was to repair something like this with a stick-on sole,
24:18I would put something fine, so you'd hardly notice it's on there.
24:22Right.
24:23And it doesn't change the feel of it, you still have the flexibility.
24:26That, to me, looks quite thick and clumsy.
24:29Yeah.
24:30I would sack that guy.
24:32If he worked for me!
24:34Now, this case, the body was found with two metal shoe lasts.
24:39These lasts, they're shoe repairer's lasts, they're a cobbler's last.
24:43They're men's, I'm pretty sure they're men's,
24:45because ladies, especially in those days, would have a higher heel,
24:48and you've got a left and a right.
24:50Nowadays, a lot of shoe repairers use these lasts,
24:52where you can put a left foot or a right foot on there.
24:55So I haven't seen these for years.
24:58They go onto a circular pin, which has a rectangular top to it,
25:02which fits into here, and they would have different sizes.
25:05Actually, when I took over the shop, the old boy used to use these,
25:09and they used to annoy me, because after a while,
25:12the more you work with it, this becomes quite loose on the pin.
25:15So over time, when you're moving the lasts around, it starts to wear away.
25:20So after a while, it pulls off quite easily.
25:22But these have hardly been used.
25:24You can see the slit in here is still quite new.
25:28That's really interesting, because they're not new lasts.
25:32They have the initials AJK on them.
25:35They're a company in Bristol, and they're maybe from the 20s or 30s.
25:39So by the time we come across them in 1994, they're pretty old.
25:44Yes, but hardly used.
25:46But hardly used.
25:47He wasn't a very busy shoe repairer.
25:49Would these have been something that you would only find in a cobbler's in the 90s?
25:53Is this something that people might have at home, do you think?
25:56No, no, this, I think, is definitely used by a professional shoe repairer.
26:00And so if we were going to try and find someone that was repairing shoes in the 90s,
26:04assuming there are these links to the shoe repair world...
26:07In the old days, there was a lot of shoe repairers.
26:0950s and 60s, I think there was more shoe repairers in those days.
26:12Right.
26:13But nowadays, people don't repair shoes like we do today.
26:16There's very few of us around.
26:20Absolutely invaluable contribution from George.
26:25It does seem like this is someone who was involved with the repairing of shoes.
26:31Was North Seaman a cobbler?
26:35Or maybe he was murdered by a cobbler.
26:38With that in mind, Amber needs to approach the small community of British cobblers
26:42to see if anyone remembers him.
26:45Dave remains focused on the body.
26:50Now he's trying to find out where the man might have come from.
26:56We've seen the place where North Seaman was found in the water,
27:01but that could be completely different from where he entered the water,
27:05which, for us as investigators, is really important.
27:10He's in Lowestoft to meet another of Locate's network of experts.
27:15My name's John Rees, and I'm a forensic oceanographer.
27:21Forensic oceanography is the prediction
27:23and the tracking of bodies in the marine environment.
27:27Welcome to the CFAS laboratory.
27:29This is where we set up equipment that goes out to sea.
27:33We've got an ADCP around.
27:36We're actually funded to work on oil spill response around the UK,
27:40so we've got sophisticated models that can actually predict
27:43where the oil is going to come ashore.
27:45This is one of our key instruments, one of the water samplers,
27:48and you can see all the instrumentation driven by satellite communication.
27:52So you must be collecting a massive amount of data.
27:55Absolutely.
27:56And so we started to think a bit more laterally
27:59about how can we use these models in a different situation?
28:02From the autopsy, it's estimated that the man could have been in the water
28:06for up to two months.
28:09Based on this, John has constructed a computer model
28:12to try and predict where he would have entered the sea.
28:17So I've extracted the data from some big international databases
28:22of the currents and the winds from the time in 1994 of the case.
28:27What are the factors that affect how you do your modelling?
28:31So one of the key factors is the buoyancy associated with a missing person.
28:36The shoelasts are really critical
28:38because they will be holding the body onto the seabed.
28:42They are considerably heavier than the buoyancy that a body can create,
28:48so it's very slow moving in this situation.
28:51As it got taken by the tide.
28:57So this is the model.
28:59The location where it was found is where that cross is,
29:02there in the centre of the map.
29:04And now if I start the model now,
29:06you can see the particles moving around these little black dots
29:11that are moving with the tide,
29:13so they're moving backwards on the flood and ebb tide.
29:16The way that I actually do the modelling
29:19is I actually put in 5,000 points to represent the body.
29:23And also you can see this black blob is getting bigger and bigger,
29:28so the uncertainty in the model
29:30is adding to the potential location that the body has come from.
29:35So as time goes through,
29:37and we're approximately halfway through the 30-day run that I've done here,
29:42this is 12 days,
29:44you can see that the flock of particles moves in that south-westerly direction.
29:50So you can see now we're approximately 18 days into the model,
29:54and it's starting to head towards the Dutch islands,
29:58the Frisian islands, there's a group there called the Frisian islands.
30:01But it's not showing any indications of coming ashore
30:05or starting from the shoreline, I should say.
30:08Now we're starting to come towards the end of the run,
30:11and so it looks like it's going to be somewhere around the Dutch islands
30:16is where he could have come from.
30:20Because of the sheer volume of data, the model only goes back 30 days.
30:25But Dave is keen to know what happens if they work back as far as two months.
30:32Extrapolating from your experience of this area
30:36and what you've got on the modelling,
30:38can you tell us what kind of direction that you think that's going to be heading in?
30:42Yeah, absolutely.
30:44So what I would expect, if you were to extrapolate backwards another 30 days,
30:49is that it would be from the site more in the west,
30:53above Texel Island, the first island in the chain.
30:59This is on a typical transport pathway from the UK to the Dutch coastline.
31:06North Sea Man almost certainly fell into the sea from a boat,
31:10right in the middle of a busy shipping route.
31:14When you look at the map here, you can see how busy that waterway is.
31:18It could be fishing vessels, it could be passenger ferries,
31:22it could even be oil rigs.
31:24So there's just so many different places where somebody could get lost at sea.
31:29So that now needs to be researched fully
31:33so that we can see where people have been lost from ships
31:38and begin to track that back to see whether any of those have the potential to be North Sea Man.
31:43So that's a huge research task for the team.
31:56The investigation to identify the man found in the North Sea
31:59has now been going on for over a year.
32:03Dave is still working closely with the German police.
32:07And there's news on some test results.
32:10Carsten, I understand there's some results from the isotope analysis.
32:14Yes, it was a very surprising result for us.
32:20They shed a totally different light
32:23on the origin of our unidentified victim of the North Sea.
32:30Isotope analysis is a cutting-edge forensic technique.
32:34It involves looking at microscopic traces of elements
32:37like lead and strontium in the body.
32:40This can provide clues about where in the world a person grew up.
32:45When you look over all results,
32:47it is very likely that the man came from Australia.
32:53So this is very, very interesting and surprising for us all.
32:58You can see maybe it's somebody who's travelled from Australia to the UK,
33:02lost touch with their family, and nobody's reported them missing.
33:06So are the police uploading the DNA from the profile to the Australian databases?
33:13Yes, they contacted Interpol
33:16and asked the Australian police to support in this case.
33:22We'll see next week, I think, in the next meeting.
33:25Yes.
33:26OK.
33:27Good to speak to you.
33:28Bye.
33:29Take care.
33:30Bye, Dave.
33:31It is a real surprise to get the Australia connection
33:34for somebody who has drifted away perhaps from their family or friends or work.
33:40And that big distance between Australia and the UK
33:43might explain some of that lost contact.
33:48The investigation is widening.
33:51The connection to the shoe trade,
33:53the examination of shipping records
33:55and now the potential link to Australia.
33:59With so many leads to follow, Dave and Amber take stock.
34:03This investigation has been going for some time.
34:06There's some intensive research that's been conducted.
34:10So the police in Germany have been able to identify
34:14So the police in Germany have been able to upload the DNA
34:17into the Australian database and it's been negative.
34:20There's been no match against that DNA database.
34:24Well, we've been looking into the origin of the shoe lasts.
34:27So we also actually reached out to the cobbling community
34:30to see if we could reach anyone who could give us any information
34:34about these links to shoe repair, the footwear trade in general.
34:39And so far, unfortunately, nothing.
34:42The team have been working on researching
34:45all the missing persons databases across in the UK and in Europe.
34:50They started looking at the number of accidents at sea.
34:54People have been lost overboard, shipping disasters.
34:58There were some really promising leads in terms of the investigation
35:01that we all thought at that point might be a good match.
35:04But they've been ruled out.
35:07I feel like we've got so much information now about North Sea Man
35:11and there's also such a kind of huge geography that we're covering.
35:15If there's the likelihood he grew up in Australia,
35:18we've got the German police, the obvious UK connections as well.
35:21There are so many people we could potentially be reaching out to.
35:25I feel like it's time to take everything we've got
35:28and just get it out to a much broader public,
35:31just to let everyone know and see if anybody can come forward
35:34with any information that can help us to identify North Sea Man.
35:38It's such an important case. I mean, this is a murder investigation.
35:42So we've got a man with traumatic injuries
35:44where there's no explanation for those injuries
35:47and can't rule out other options like suicide.
35:51Let's get this out into the media.
35:53Let's get this out into the right places
35:55where we might be able to find that one person
35:57who might have that information about who North Sea Man is
36:00that might help us find the answers
36:02as to what happened to North Sea Man on that day.
36:06The most important part of a public appeal is a lifelike picture.
36:11The image produced by the FBI in the 1990s is very out-of-date.
36:16Modern forensic techniques can produce something much more realistic.
36:23In Dundee, Dr Toby Holton is an anthropologist
36:27who specialises in facial reconstructions.
36:35OK, so what we have on the screen here is a facial approximation
36:40that was produced in the late 90s by the FBI for the German police.
36:45So it's very rough.
36:47They would have had a photograph of the skull.
36:50They had the tissue depth data
36:52already applied onto the skull through pegs.
36:55The lips, for instance, at that time,
36:57they would have roughly estimated lip height according to the enamel.
37:03And they would have basically used tracing film overlays
37:07in order to sketch the development of the face
37:10and then produce that in a final sketched image.
37:14With the advancement in technology,
37:16we can create a face that looks more realistic.
37:20You can take various bony measurements,
37:22enter those measurements into the equations that we now apply,
37:26and then it gives you a calculated reference
37:29to what the soft tissue feature is supposed to be.
37:43We can superimpose certain textural details
37:46from a photo bank of actual faces,
37:50superimpose those into the reconstructed image of the face.
37:55And I think this has been a good development
37:58from the first example that was generated by the FBI in the 90s.
38:03It will hopefully be a bit more useful in terms of how people engage
38:07and recognise certain elements of the face,
38:10as well as the clothing that has been applied as well.
38:15With a new, more realistic picture, the media campaign begins.
38:23We know that national newspapers have great traction,
38:27they've got a great online presence these days.
38:30Here's the latest article from The Guardian,
38:33which covers the case in depth.
38:35There's another article here from The Daily Mirror.
38:38Then it's the responsibility of the team to make sure
38:41that that news story gets out in front of as many people as we can,
38:46to place in Facebook groups, to share amongst friends on social media.
38:52Welcome to Friday's show.
38:53We're coming to you live from our studios in Cardiff.
38:56We've been able to identify him,
38:58so the charity Locate International have picked up the case
39:01and are asking for your help in their investigation.
39:04So now it's about appealing to the public,
39:07and there's some really unusual things about this case,
39:09particularly with his height and his clothing.
39:11So this is Cutting Edge magazine.
39:13This is a trade magazine for shoe repairers in the UK.
39:17There's about 4,000 subscribers,
39:20so we're really hoping we might be able to reach into the cobbling community.
39:25Expensive shoes with a repair that wasn't that great.
39:28So I currently have about 50,000 followers on Instagram.
39:32A lot of the people that follow me are interested in the history of clothing.
39:36So we've created a campaign page called A Tall Mystery,
39:39which encourages people to come forward,
39:42submit information on the website.
39:44Do you have any clues as to who this man might be?
39:56The media appeal has thrown up several leads,
39:59but all of them have proved to be dead ends.
40:02It's frustrating for everyone involved.
40:04North Sea Man is proving to be one of the toughest cases
40:08Locate International has taken on.
40:11Dave and Amber need to reach a wider audience to help crack the case.
40:16To get advice, they're visiting another of their clients.
40:20My name's Fiona Gabbott.
40:21I'm a professor of psychology here at Goldsmiths University of London.
40:25I'm also director of the cold case investigation team that we have.
40:30All the work that's been done so far has failed to find a name.
40:35So we use our knowledge to help people remember and report information
40:39that might be useful to help provide leads or evidence.
40:43We're trying to get people to remember
40:47Your challenge is that it happened a long time ago.
40:51Fiona and her team have developed psychological techniques
40:55to help people recover forgotten memories.
40:59I think our advice is really to create an engaging appeal
41:04that grabs people's attention, maybe because of the specifics of the case.
41:09I think it's important for people to remember
41:12that grabs people's attention, maybe because of the specifics of the case
41:16and to provide them with the retrieval cues to take them back to that time in 1994.
41:21To activate your memory of where you were and who you knew at that time.
41:26You might have been at a concert or you might have remembered a favourite film.
41:30What was number one for the longest period of time.
41:33Or just world events.
41:35Because memory is associative, the more they sit themselves and think
41:38where was I living at the time or working at the time?
41:41It might well be that along with the more unique cues
41:47about what the man looked like, they might start thinking
41:51maybe I had a neighbour that matched that description
41:54or maybe he reminded me of a teacher at the time or somebody who worked nearby.
41:59That's interesting as well because I feel like there's quite a big nostalgia
42:03for the 1990s at the moment.
42:05So you could kind of use that, couldn't you?
42:08You could use the sort of popular interest in the decade, I guess.
42:12Yeah, then they go down the rabbit hole of 1994.
42:15So they're really, really engaging.
42:17You could be quite creative on how to engage members of the public.
42:21Get them to enjoy trying to help you solve this.
42:24And even if they don't know who the person is, they can help by sharing.
42:28And of course, if they share and other people share,
42:31then if you're lucky it will reach a wider and wider audience.
42:34And someone somewhere must know who this person is.
42:47Now, Dave and Amber can put this advice into practice
42:51and film their new appeal video.
42:58OK, when you're ready.
43:01In July 1994, the body of a man was pulled out of the North Sea near Germany.
43:06We need your help to identify him.
43:10His clothes suggest he was based in the UK.
43:16It may help jog your memory if you think back to that time in your life.
43:20What were you doing in the spring of 1994?
43:25It was the time Love Is All Around was in the charts for 15 weeks.
43:30And a peace deal was signed in Northern Ireland.
43:33For the first time in nearly two decades,
43:36soldiers walked the false road with no need to fear the IRA.
43:40We have forgotten our differences.
43:42We are now busy healing the wounds of the past.
43:48The North Sea man may have grown up in Australia.
43:50We think this man was around 50 years old,
43:53so he would have been around 80 now.
43:55We know he was tall, possibly as tall as 6ft 6.
43:58He's someone who would have really stood out.
44:00When he was found, he was wearing expensive shoes that had been repaired.
44:05He was also weighed down with shoe lasts.
44:09Do you know anyone who worked in the shoe repair business around this time?
44:18He was found in the water near Germany, but we think he drifted from the west.
44:22This is on a busy shipping route between the UK and Europe.
44:25Did you or anyone you know work or travel on the ferries and see anything unusual?
44:30Is there anyone from your family who went missing around this time?
44:34Someone who resembles the man in this picture?
44:37If you have any information, go to the Locate International website below
44:41and tell us what you know.
44:44Even if you don't have any information, someone you know might.
44:48Find this appeal on social media, share the clip and help us to solve the case.
44:52You might be able to help a family that's been looking for their missing loved one
44:56for nearly 30 years.
44:58Help us work out, who is North Sea Man?
45:07Great, thank you very much.
45:13The team will now wait for some more information.
45:16The team will now wait for someone to come forward with information.
45:20Meanwhile, the investigation goes on.
45:23For us, the search continues.
45:26You imagine that if somebody goes missing from your life,
45:29that sense of not knowing what happened leads to a huge amount of trauma for families.
45:36So we continue that search, trying to find those answers
45:40and trying to find a name for unidentified people.