The Dyatlov Pass incident is the story of the death of nine student hikers in the Ural Mountains. It’s often referred to as Russia’s greatest mystery. In 1959, after failing to report back, nine students were found frozen to death in sub-polar conditions. Found without their winter clothes, miles from their shredded tent, and with no sign of an avalanche or natural disasters. Yet somehow they suffered injuries that crushed their bodies, and horrifically for some, their tongues and eyeballs were missing. An Unknown Compelling Force: The True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident, Amazon Prime 2024
Mysterious lights were seen in the sky, and the Russian KGB swarmed the site, clouding the whole story in 60 years of mystery. ibid.
Something goes terribly wrong. In the middle of the night, for reasons unknown, the hikers cut their way out of the tent. Tracks showed they fled down the mountain in freezing conditions without clothes or boots. ibid.
Each one suffering inexplicable injuries. ibid.
None are as mysterious as the famous 34th frame. ibid.
‘The first theory of Ivanov [investigator] was murder.’ ibid.
Just what were the hikers fleeing from? ibid.
Postmortem: [First five hikers] All found to have suffered various cuts and bruises to the body. Specific injuries included bruising, cuts and abrasions to the nose, eyebrows and cheeks. Further bruising and abrasions were found on the knuckles and the back of the hands. ibid.
Under public pressure the officials were forced to return the hikers home. ibid.
Postmortem [four hikers found together]: Thibeaux, although found dressed warmer than the first five hikers, had suffered a mysterious and devastating blow to the right side of his head … The unexplained crushing impact to Zolotaryov’s chest … Lyuda wore ski pants which were badly fire-damaged … her tongue was missing … Lyuda suffered a brutal impact to her chest. ibid.
Some of those found in the ravine showed above normal levels of radiation. ibid.
‘I have doubts about the fact that the tent was cut by the hikers.’ ibid. Natalia Sakharova, expert criminalist
The lights in the sky are a red herring. ibid.
How come radiation wasn’t found on any other member of the team? ibid.
Why was the military still so eager to be involved? … They now knew that the hikers had not defected as spies. ibid.
The Mansi [indigenous] people are the original prime suspects. ibid.
DYCE, WILBERT ANTHONY: When Life Means Life TV - BBC online -
The ultra-violent sexual predator, 1982, Hackney, London: something terrible had happened. Inside the apartment Rhodene’s mother, Norma Richards, and her two sisters, Samantha and Syretta, lay dead. They had been horrifically murdered. When Life Means Life s1e5, BBC 2012
The murders came just months after the Brixton riots. ibid.
The crime remained unsolved for twenty-seven years. ibid.
A cold case review was ordered ... The DNA database came up with a name – Wilbert Anthony Dyce. ibid.
He was found guilty and told his crimes were so extreme that he would never be released from prison. ibid.
A man has been given three life sentences for killing a woman and her two daughters in east London in 1982.
Norma Richards, 27, and her daughters Samantha, nine, and Syretta, seven, were found murdered at their home in Dalston, 28 years ago in July.
Wilbert Dyce, 54, of Forest Gate, was convicted at the Old Bailey.
A cold case review began after a journalist requested details on footballer Laurie Cunningham’s brother Keith’s murdered family.
The killer was caught after the reporter who was writing a book on Laurie Cunningham, the first black football player to be in an England squad, asked for details about the killing. BBC News online article 17th December 2010, ‘Three life sentences for 1982 murder of Dalston family’
DYER, AMELIA: Jeremy Paxman: The Victorians TV - Mail online -
She was what the Victorians called a baby farmer … Over the space of thirty years she took in more than fifty babies and she killed them all. Jeremy Paxman: The Victorians: Home Sweet Home, BBC 2009
The advertisement in the Miscellaneous column of the Bristol Times & Mirror newspaper was poignant.
‘Wanted’, it read, ‘respectable woman to take young child’.
It was a sadly common request in Victorian Britain, where life was particularly hard for unmarried mothers.
The ad had been placed by 25-year-old Evelina Marmon, who two months earlier, in January 1896, had given birth in a boarding house in Cheltenham to a little girl she named Doris.
Evelina was a God-fearing farmer’s daughter who had gone astray, left the farm for city life and resorted to work as a barmaid in the saloon of the Plough Hotel, an old coaching inn ...
Evelina handed over a cardboard box of clothes she had packed – nappies, chemises, petticoats, frocks, nightgowns and a powder box – and the £10, and received in return a signed receipt.
She accompanied Mrs Harding to Cheltenham station and then on to Gloucester, where she stood weeping amid the choking steam on the platform as the 5.20pm train took her little girl away. She returned to her lodgings a broken woman.
A few days later, she had a letter from Mrs Harding saying all was well. Evelina wrote back straight away. She never received a reply. Mail online article 28th September 2007
DYSON, PAUL: Faking It: Tears of a Crime TV -
A boyfriend’s tears but where is Joanne Nelson? A secret journey and the marks that pointed to murder. Faking It: Tears of a Crime s2e5: Paul Dyson
Hull, Humberside, February 14th 2005: Joanne Nelson aged 22. Reported missing from her home. ibid.
According to her boyfriend, he’s said goodbye to her the following morning. His name Paul Dyson. ibid.
He agreed to be interviewed on camera. ibid.
‘Behind close doors he was a violent bully who had a history of abuse against partners.’ ibid. reporter
Now I getting suspicious because the sadness is just being pulled off the face in the fraction of a second … We start to see a smile come on his face. ibid. Cliff
From the moment he contacted the police, Paul Dyson’s story started unravelling. ibid.