Crime O

[McCloy]

Ha! what a thread...

Indeed orienteering is the silent detective in the wilderness. Once came across a very clean black duffle bag under a bush whilst out training in a very unused forest, I was intrigued and went back the next day to check it out, but it was gone. I would swear I have stepped on some hollow sounding polythene covered with sticks several times! and if you watch the paramilitary propoganda videos on YouTube, you might just recognise some of those areas!

It's funny too hearing stories of Scout Groups who have been taken into the police station under suspicion of being a youth paramilitary training camp!

[deebee]

Sometime in the early Eighties a female body was found in Wass Forest the week before the White Rose. Rumour has it that an Orienteer who wasn't supposed to be there had discovered it and refused to leave his name when he telephoned the law.

[bendover]

the backpacker murders...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpacker_Murders#First_and_second_cases

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australian-serialkilling-hearing-opens-1444855.html

[Klebe]

Person found hanging from a tree one morning on the Chase, although that was more likely self inflicted rather than a crime!!

[frog]

Geocaching has the potential to come across bodies as well. Son and I were in Saline Glen looking for a cache, it was getting dark and my son who had been bounding ahead suddely ran back and looked frightened. Down the hill in the wood ahead of us was what looked like a mummified body. I put the rational part of my brain nto gear, telling myself wrapped, mummified bodies don't just turn up in Scottish woods and went to investigate. It turned out to be a duvet that just looked like a sprawled body viewed from the angle we were initially at.
It was still creepy though, and we were probably thinking of dead bodies as it was an info cache and we had had to spend half an hour in a graveyard gathering clues for the cache here http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_de ... 5f6f9dffad before going into Saline Glen and saw no-one all afternoon..
We never found the cache either.

[Copepod]

Arriving at a Lake District lakeside car park very early one Sunday morning to set up an adventure race transition area, we discovered a car with its engine running, person sitting in driver's seat and tube from exhaust pipe into back of car. Sadly, the person was long dead. Called police and set up transition area in field next to car park.

[frog]

That sounds awful. Good job there was a handy field nearby.

[yted]

An IRA arms cache was found in a North York Moors forest (Langadale or Barnscliff or Broxa??) in the 70s - it's now a pit.

[Red Adder]

Hanratty was supposed to have a good alibi (in Blackpool) but a fairly recent review of evidence using DNA put him very firmly back in the frame.

Its not suprising that orienteers meet with the seamier side of life as a lot of unfortunate or covert activity appears to take place under the seclusion offered by Woods. Even in sleepy Suffolk I am aware of several deaths - by murder / suicide / unusual accident in our mapped woodlands and whilst mapping I've come across the results of poaching, fly-tipping or things dumped after robbery, and even interupted what appeared to be a drug deal (if I could sustain that speed over 15km I'd be a M21E champion). I was also aware of the congretion of some unsavory characters as we clreared up after an evening event. The "friend of a friend" who evidently knows about these things said the woods are well known in dogging circles and we should have stayed on for the "cabaret".

And finally if you wish to visit Rendlesham (Tangham map) we have our real own UFO site (if you believe all that ****).

[drobin]

Mitchedever Forest in Hampshire was a crime scene in 2005

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/HUSBAND+ARRESTED+IN+HUNT+FOR+MISSING+MUM%3B+Body+found+dumped+in+woods.-a0137303021


and Minley Woods, near Yateley was where the body of Amanda Dowler was found in 2002.

[Tatty]

Unfortunately the person in drobins first mention waas the parent of 2 children at my school. She was a lovely lady - murdered by her husband who continued to bring the children to school as if nothing mattered.

[Mrs H]

Hopefully this will not turn out to be another one to add to the list

[Tatty]

That bought back horrible memories of the hungerford shootings. He started here and one of his first victims was the mother of another 2 children who later came to my school. They were both with her when it happened. The daughter, who was 5 at the time, had a lot of problems coping even at 11.

[AlanB]

What would the map symbol be for a half-covered corpse???

[King Penguin]

At the FCC Final (2007 I think), WCH had one for a dead dog found near the start. I think it was a simple animal symbol with its legs in the air and the bent arrow for "ruined" (as in wall or fence) next to it.