Herbert Wilkinson

is advised. On October ninth, nineteen sixty seven, two men were walking in the area of Wcraft in Northwich, in Cheshire. After walking close to Whatcroft Hall, the men headed down towards the banks of the Mersey and Trent Canal. They were looking to prepare the ground for hunting season and were looking carefully at different areas along the waterway in order to find fox holes. While examining a copse, the

two men discovered something lying on the ground. It was the badly decomposed body of a man, which looked to have been there for a while. This was an alarming sight and immediately it was reported to the police. Police arrived at the scene to find that the body had been partially buried in a shallow grave along the canal bank. This was something that the officers quickly noted and immediately implied that this was most probably a murder that they

were looking at. There was a problem from the outset of the investigation. The body was very decomposed, and trying to identify the man was going to be an issue given that there wasn't much that they could use to do that. There didn't seem to be any identify find belongings with him, and his clothing was ragged and tattered. They could see that this was a middle aged man of a small stature, and that there were clear injuries to the body, but they could not make out what

these injuries were. Divers began searching the canal close to where the body was found, and officers with police dogs were sent to search the area. The man's teeth were analyzed, as well as pieces of the tattered clothing and his shoes in the hope that something could be found out about them. Police also began looking into local missing person reports.

Given that they did have a loose time frame for when this person could have gone missing, they knew that the body must have been lying there for several months before being recovered. One of the missing person reports which quickly drew the attention of detectives was that of fifty two year old Herbert Wilkinson. Herbert lived at seventy nine Nantwich Road in Middlewich, around seven miles from where the body had been recovered. Herbert has been described as a

bachelor who lived alone in his home. He worked as a solicitor up until March nineteen sixty seven, when he was struck off the role of solicitors. It's reported that Herbert had been struck off as working as a solicitor due to irregularities in procedure. Nothing more has been reported about what exactly that meant. On June the second, nineteen sixty seven, Herbert's housekeeper had attended the home to clean when she found a note that he had written to her.

The note stated that Herbert had gone to Manchester for the weekend. He never returned. His home was left with all of his belongings in it, and there was no indication as to why he hadn't returned. This led to

a missing person report being filed. By October, when the body was recovered, Herbert had still not been located and he was still a missing Person head of cheshasea ID Detective Chief Superintendent Arthur Benfield, would initially not say if they believed the remains to be that of Herbert Wilkinson, saying at this stage we cannot assume that this is the body of Herbert Wilkinson. The body is so badly

decomposed that physical identification is impossible. Just a few days later, it was reported that police now did believe that the body that was found was Herbert Wilkinson. It was later corroborated by identification of clothing by his sister in law, along with evidence of her sewing on the tattered pieces that had been found. The question now was what had Herbert been doing around the time that he had gone missing, and how had his body ended up on the canal

banks in a shallow grave. It was known that Herbert lived alone, and he was described as a lone wolf by those that knew him or saw him around Middlewich. The note to his housekeeper was certainly strange, as from the recovery of his body there was a strong possibility that Herbert had not gone to Manchester as he had said. Protects were able to narrow down a time frame for

when Herbert had last been seen. Given that the housekeeper had found the note on the second of June, police began to make inquiries by distributing Herbert's image and a description of him in the hope that someone could fill in any of the gaps that they had in his movements around this time. On June the sixth, just four days after Herbert had left the note for the housekeeper, a report was filed to the police. A housewife reported that she had seen Herbert in odd Fellow's passage in

Middlewich on June the fifth. This witness said that she recognized him as she knew him, but she said that he didn't look his usual self. He looked ill, vacant and harassed. This was quite a credible sighting, given that the witness knew him and she reported it immediately after she saw him. This meant that Herbert may have been in the Middlewich area after Dune. The second one aspect of the case that perplexed investigators was how Herbert's body got to the location at the banks of the canal.

To get to the location, a person would have had to walk through a mile of fields past the dairy house farm, and this didn't seem like a plausible way that his body could have got there. Police quickly came up with the hypothesis that Herbert may have been transported via the canal, perhaps on a boat. Detectives put a lot of their efforts into investigating the Mersey and Trent Canal and its waterways. In fact, they conducted one of the biggest investigations in history of the waterways that had

been done to that point. They began looking into anyone that had been on the water around that time. In June, as well as interviewing every man and boy over the age of fifteen in Middlewich. They began appealing for information about people that had been on the canal during that time, including a couple in an orange canoe that had been seen on June the second, and an appeal for anyone that saw a boat near Bridge one seven seven. In

early June. They even went to Grenada Studios to watch a program called The Flower of Gloucester, which had filmed some scenes on the exact bank of the canal where the body had been found. No stone seemed to have been left unturned by the police force, and it reported that they sent seven thousand questionnaires out to boat owners in the hope that they would know something. They were also interested in finding Herbert's belongings, which were not found

with his body. They didn't recover his wallet, his watch, or any of his personal items. They had also not recovered his glasses, which was odd, and so they had a mock up of his glasses made so they could show the public what they looked like in case they had come across them. The fact that none of these things were found also indicated to police that Herbert had come across someone who wanted to harm him and possibly

rob him of his possessions. In the months that followed, the investigation continued, but it began to slow down and grow cold. Police continued to investigate all lines of inquiry, including heading up to the Midlands after a tip off about a couple that might have information. It didn't appear that this tip off panned out. The inquest into Herbert's death was concluded in March nineteen sixty eight, when the Central Cheshire Coroner, Mister John F. Hibbert, revealed a verdict

of murder by person or persons unknown. The post mortem established that Herbert had a dent in his skull which had been caused by a bunt instrument. He also had lacerations to his skull and the suggestion of pressure applied to his neck. As well as this, there was a hole about four x two in diameter above his right ear. It was officially confirmed that the remains were that of Herbert Wilkinson. It was clear that this was a murder, but the reasons why we was still unknown and the

motive had not been established by the police. This was a frustration for the detectives, who believed that someone in the local area knew something and that the answer lay with those people who had been on canal boats that June. They returned to the area a year after the murder to interview boat owners again. Once again, however, there was no new information provided. Police also investigated a tip off which had been provided by officers at Risly Romand Center

in Warrington. They had discovered a note in a cell which related to Herbert Wilkinson's murder. The note had been left by nineteen year old William Lawrence Ansell and he had committed suicide in his cell before they had found it. William Lawrence Ansell had been interviewed by police in the initial investigation However, this had not gone much further. He told police that he had met Herbert in a Manchester cafe. However, this could not be confirmed and there was no confirmation

that Ansell had ever visited Middlewich. Ansell's diaries were examined, as was the note, but it was reported that there was nothing material found in it relating to the case. Since the initial investigation in the year after the body had been recovered, there has not been much movement or progress on the case. Herbert's murder is still unsolved many decades later, and despite the large investigation that was done by police, little of what was uncovered has been published.

As a result, there are many questions left unanswered, such as where are Herbert's belongings, how did he get to the location, what was he doing during the days between the second of June to the fifth of June. Had it really been Herbert that the witness had seen on the fifth in Middlewich? Why had he been struck off, the role of solicitors and how had it affected him. There are so many questions which have not had answers, and unfortunately, as the years have passed, is become harder

and harder to solve. Despite the passage of time, there is always hope that someone will know something about the crime and may be able to help Herbert's family get the answers that they deserve. If you know anything about the murder of Herbert Wilkinson in nineteen sixty seven, then please contact police on one oh one. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you'd like to support the podcast further, then you can on Patreon and contribute to

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