'I started clearing round through the muck and found a hand and then an arm'

Unsolved mystery of the mummified body wrapped in newspaper found in cellar

The discovery of a mummified woman wrapped in newspapers found in a cellar has baffled police for decades.

The grisly discovery was made by Jack Baxendale in a semi-detached house on Bromwich Street, Bolton, on December 14, 1982. Mr Baxendale, who was an unemployed painter and decorator at the time, was the house's new tenant and was clearing the cellar accompanied by his Alsatian dogs Rebel and Sheba when a cardboard box gave way to reveal a human skull.

Following the discovery, he told the Manchester Evening News: "I picked it up thinking it was a dummy but then realised that the teeth were false. I started clearing 'round through the muck and found a hand and then an arm."

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He also found rosary beads, traces of a bra, a woollen cardigan and trousers. After placing the skull in a bag, Mr Baxendale took the remains to Castle Street police station. At the time, the street was part of town's 'bedsit land', and authorities believe the property may have been used by homeless people.

Forensics found the body was of a small woman aged around 40-years old. Nicknamed Mary Ellen, her partially-mummified remains were discovered on a makeshift bed of newspapers and cardboard hidden behind furniture.

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Investigators believe 'Mary Ellen' had been sleeping rough in the house and could have been there since around 1966 due to the date on the newspapers she was wrapped in. With no luck in finding 'Mary Ellen's' identity, police turned to experts on Egyptian mummies who were asked to create a facial reconstruction of what she might have looked like in the hope somebody would recognise her.

Using techniques developed on one of Manchester University's mummies, The Guardian newspaper reported a facial reconstruction made of plaster was built. And, with the aid of Mrs Ruth Quinn, from Granada TV's make-up department, hair and colouring in a mid-1960s style was added.

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When the image was circulated a woman from Pinner, in Middlesex, came forward claiming it was her mother, Ruth Hanratty, who went missing in 1960. The body of the woman was exhumed from an unmarked grave in Heaton cemetery in the hope that new DNA techniques would establish who she was. But tests found that she was not Mrs Hanratty.

Police were also given a tip that the woman was called Brenda and was a regular at the town’s Gypsy Tent pub who worked as a machinist. But she remains unidentified to this day.

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The reconstructed likeness of 'Mary Ellen' remains on display at Greater Manchester Police Museum to this day. She's also listed on the National Crime Agency's missing person website.

She is believed to be a white European woman aged between 40 and 60 and had false teeth. She was wearing a pair of red knickers, a red bra, a turquoise jumper, a mustard coloured cardigan and brown elasticated trousers with straps for feet.

She was wearing gold crucifix earrings, black rosary beads minus the cross and a gold eternity ring with small stones set all the way around which was on the third finger of her left hand.

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