46 - The Angel of the Meadow

In January 2010 builders began works on the carpark located between Angel Street, Danztic Street and Muller Street in Manchester. On January 25th 2010 builders at the site made a bone-chilling discovery. As they were working, one of them came across a human skull. When they dug further they found the rest of the skeleton wrapped in sections of blue carpet. As of 2021, the remains are still unidentified and she is known only as "The Angel of the Meadow".

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Episode Transcript

(00:21):
Good evening, friends. I'm yourhost, Emma, and you're listening to
the True Crimewitch Podcast, the podcastthat takes you into everything murderous, mysterious
and I'm right MacCabe. If youlike what you here, please give me
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which will be linked down below.I also have a Patreon for those
who want to make contributions to thepodcast and help make this my full time

(00:44):
job. I'm eternally grateful for allof my listeners and supporters. This episode
contains graphic content, and listener discretionis advised. With that in mind,
let's get into the episode. Manchester'sworst slum, described by Frederick Engels as

(01:10):
hell upon Earth, was located onthe edge of Manchester in Angel Meadow.
The slum span for over thirty threeacres, encompassing Rochdale Road, Mulla Street,
Cheatamull Road and Gold Street. Thisslum, known as Angel Meadow,
was called home by over thirty thousandIrish immigrants who had fled the Great Famine.

(01:32):
Little did they realize that they wouldbe swapping one hardship for another,
and the conditions for the residents ofAngel Meadow and other areas in Manchester really
didn't improve until well into the nineteenseventies or eighties. Angus Reach, a
London journalist, visited the Angel Meadowin eighteen forty nine and wrote quote,

(01:53):
the lowest, most filthy, mostunhealthy and most wicked locality in Manchester is
called singularly enough Angel Meadow. Itis full of sellers, inhabited by prostitutes,
their bullies, thieves, cadges,vagrants, tramps and in the very
worst styes of filth and darkness bythose unhappy wretches the low Irish end quote.

(02:16):
In January two thousand and ten,builders began works on the car park
located between Angel Street, Danzig Streetand Muller Street in the city center of
Manchester. The plan was to redevelopthe land into office spaces for the Cooperative
Group. The Cooperative Group are asmall supermarket. They're a corporate chain in

(02:38):
the UK. They have banking services, travel agents and lots of other different
services. Was a huge name inthe UK before going bust sometime around the
mid two thousands. Since then they'vejust kept along supermarkets, banking etc.
Brought back in two thousand and tenand sort of before all that they were

(03:00):
a big deal in the UK.On January twenty fifth, two and ten,
builders at the site made a bonechilling discovery. As they were working,
one of them came across a humanschool. When they dug further,
they found the rest of the skeletand wrapped in sections of blue carpet.

(03:21):
I'll talk about the carpet later onas it becomes a very important clue.
Shocked by what they had discovered,they called nine nine nine and summoned the
Greater Manchester Police to the scene aroundten to four. The Greater Manchester Police
weren't all surprised to be receiving acall about skeletal remains found in the area
previously known as Angel Meadow. Aswell as being a large slum, Angel

(03:45):
Mudow was home to Saint Michael's Church, which contained the mass graves of forty
thousand paupers. Forty thousand people whosefamily simply could not afford to bury them,
so they were just tossed into amass grave and forgotten out. It
was when the Corona began their inquestthat the GMP realized that they were dealing
with something very different. To theirsurprise, the Corona estimated that the body

(04:11):
had been there since the nineteen seventiesor the nineteen eighties. The report further
detailed how the body belonged to awoman between the ages of eighteen and thirty
five, and that she was eitherEuropean, Indian or Middle Eastern. The
woman, who has become known asthe Angel of the Meadow, suffered a
very violent death. The Corona foundthat she had a fractured neck, clavicle,

(04:34):
nose and jaw, indicating that shehad most likely been beaten to death
or had suffered through a savage beingbefore she died. It was also revealed
that Angel may have been sexually assaulted. Although the Greater Manchester Police and the
coroner have not revealed anything further inregards to this, they do say in

(04:59):
a BBC the article the Angel wasfound naked from the waist down, which
was how they possibly do their conclusions, but in terms of other physical evidence
they've never released a statement. Angelsfound naked from the waist down and the
clothes that she was wearing maybe oneof our biggest clues in identifying her.

(05:20):
She was found wearing a blue jumper, a blue bra and a green pinafore
dress with a very very distinctive nineteenseventies pattern on it and one black Stillito
court shoe. The pinafore pattern showsa man and a woman in what appears
to be like a nineteen twenties ornineteen thirties attire. To me personally,

(05:42):
the print screams Art deco, asthe woman in the print is wearing like
a fancy wide brimmed hat, she'sgot a first shawl on and she's holding
a cocktail glass, and the manis very dressed, like very dapper,
wearing a hat, and it justscreams like Art deco nineteen twenties to me.
Greater Manchester Police haven't released any furtherinformation about the pinafore, so we

(06:05):
don't know if there were labels insidewith brand information or you know, anything
like that, but online slaves haveestimated that the woman wore a Side's twelve
clothing. Also found with Angel wasa Guinness measuring chart dating back to the
nineteen sixties. As you can imagine, these items have been buried for quite

(06:28):
some time, so they were notin the best condition where they were discovered.
Photographs of the pinafore, the Guinnesssign, and Angel's reconstruction will be
available on my social media for youto have a look at. Let's go
back to the carpet that Angel hadbeen wrapped in. The Greater Manchester Police
commented that the carpet was in factthree different types of carpet, not just

(06:49):
one type of blue carpet. Itwas an orange patterned carpet, a dark
blue carpet and a blue carpet.One of the pieces of the carpet had
been cut out from a Ford Quartinawith a hole for a gay stick that
was still intact. Ford Cortinas werevery very popular in the nineteen seventies to

(07:13):
say the least, and they wereactually in fact the cheapest car in the
nineteen seventies, making it almost impossibleto narrow down suspects based on car ownership.
Around two point six million Ford Cortinaswere sold in the UK, and
like most working class families would havehad either a Ford Quartina or something very
very similar a bit like based onthat design, so it would be very

(07:34):
difficult to narrow down a suspect whoowned a Ford Cortina in the nineteen seventies.
In the years following Angel's discovery,a facial approximation was created by digital
forensic artists and it shows what Angelmay have looked like in life. DNA
was also extracted from her remains andit was sent for further analysis. The

(07:56):
analysis revealed that Angel was Caucasian inthe nineteen fifties and was between five foot
one and five foot seven. Afterthis new information was discovered, the Greater
Manchester Police began reaching out to familiesin Tanzania, Texas and the Netherlands.
The Greater Manchester Police has not reallydisclosed any further information about this and they're

(08:20):
keeping the cards very very close totheir chess in Angel's case. In January
twenty twenty, the Manchester Evening Newsreleased an article titled the Haunting Information provided
to the Police investigating the Angel ofthe Meadow murder. Reporter Beth Abbot spoke
to Alec Whittle, who is convincedthat he met Angel in the Stanley Grove

(08:41):
pub in Longsight, Manchester. Alectold the EMI End that he believes he
met her in the early nineteen seventieswhen he was around twenty two years old
and he was fresh out of thearmy, and in this article he says
quote she started talking straight away.He showed me what happened to her.

(09:01):
She was on her own at thebar, and the place was practically empty.
I did know her a bit fromprevious times I've been there. She
showed me all these injuries down herface and shoulder, and she said that
she had no relatives here. Iwanted to help her. I wanted to
take her home to my parents house, but she refused and said she couldn't.
I told her that nobody had theright to do something like that to

(09:22):
her. I wanted to take awayon my motorbike. We were talking,
and then this bloke came up andshe told me to shut and sit down.
When Beth asked Alec about the distinctivepinafore the angel was found wearing,
he said, quote when the reportcame out, there was a body rolled
in a colored carpet with injuries toher face and neck, and there was

(09:43):
a beer mat with her and apinafore dress. It just sounded right.
I remember the dress. It wasa distinctive pattern, a great Gatsby type
pattern. I remember that pattern well. I used to doodle it. I'm
sure it was hung up near thebar, in the club or in a
last room. She wasn't wearing thedress. It was definitely hung up.
End quote. Alec recalled that thewoman he met that night looked nothing like

(10:09):
the approximation image, but created bydigital forensic artists. He commented that she
was very, very attractive, andhe also went on to say, quote
she's not local, but she's soundedEnglish or maybe Dutch, but she wasn't
a manke Union. I'm so convincedit's her. I probably saw her on
the night she died. She openeda shirt and showed me all down her

(10:31):
left side. I do regret notreporting it to the police at the time,
but I thought I could have gother in trouble, and I certainly
didn't think it would go any furtherend quote. In twenty fifteen, Angel
was laid to rest in the SouthernCemetery. It is the largest cemetery in
the UK and the third largest cemeteryin Europe. I contacted the cemetery personally

(10:58):
because I lived quite close by,and I was informed that Angel is buried
in the m to public section.I don't have a plot number, I
don't have anything else. All Iknow is that she's buried in the public
section and it wasn't until this year, so twenty twenty one, the Angel
was finally given a headstone. Shewas given a headstone, I believe by

(11:22):
volunteers like a Facebook group to helpbring John and Jane Dooe's home. So
thank you so much. Without thegenerosity of them, in the generosity of
everyone, Angel probably wouldn't have hada headstone. Whilst I haven't had the
chance personally to visit her due tothe current situation, we find ourselves in

(11:43):
other kind monks and you know,people passing through the area to visit their
loved ones there have adorned her graveof lots of flowers, and that's a
true testament to like the monk spirit, like monk community spirit. You know,
everyone was just so nice and itjust really makes me feel good that

(12:03):
she's being remembered, even though wedon't know her name. The Angel of
the Meadow is described as a Caucasianfemale between the ages of eighteen and thirty
five. Is believed that she wasborn in the early nineteen fifties, with
her estimated date of death being inthe nineteen seventies or the nineteen eighties.

(12:24):
She was found wearing a distinctive pinaforea blue jumper, a blue bra and
was found with a Stillet o'court shoeone and a Guinness sign and all photographs
of themes will be available on socialmedia. If you have any information,
you are urged to contact the GreaterManchester Police on one six one eight seven

(12:46):
two five zero five zero. Alternatively, if you wish to remain anonymous,
you can contact Crime Stoppage UK oneight hundred five five one one one.

(13:09):
That was this week's episode. I'mglad to be back. I'll be setting
up episodes to go out every otherMonday, six AMGMT time or BST time,
whatever we're on. You can findme on social media. It's just
true chrome whips. I'm just searchit. I'll come hop I'm everywhere.
But with that being said, staysafe, but most importantly stay spooky.