So lets have a talk about this whole pusher thing. I am an open minded kind of guy and would never deny that many people have met a grizzly end along Manchesters waterways. Murders, dumped bodies, failed robberies, people walking along treacherous towpaths intoxicated, dangerous locks in wet conditions. The potential ways people die involving waterways are numerous. To pull them all together and invent a serial killer theory with no real evidence takes away from the real safety concerns and potential solutions. Yes, the number of deaths in the last 6 years has been very high, but we are living in a decade where the use of waterfronts for leisure activities is higher than it has ever been. I really dont think it is productive to indulge the idea of a serial killer for the following reasons: - Aside from being found in the water there is little to connect the victims or the circumstances of their death, they were found in locations all over the city (not just the cruising ground). They were not all gay men, they were of different ages, races. There is no consistency of injuries, some had them, others not. Head trauma is not unusual in drowning cases particularly round the canals as hidden currents can push people down into the water rapidly and they may be knocked unconscious as a result. We might argue that someone simply has a fetish for pushing people in?? However... -Being pushed in doesnt always mean you will drown. If there was a creepy character who had gleefully knocked 60 unsuspecting vulnerable waterway wanderers to their death we would expect a fair few failed attempts to have occurred; complaints made to the police along the lines of this nutter pushed me into the canal, I swam to the other side, here is a description, do something about it. -Trying to push random strangers walking round the city at night is not a smart thing to do. Some of them will object, not be as vulnerable as you thought and will beat the shit out of you. -There dont seem to be any witnesses to these pushing incidents or people being followed on CCTV etc. There have however been witnesses to people falling in over the years. Simply saying...oh theres been a lot of deaths here...must be a serial killer is a bit of a rubbish way to form a hypothesis, there are all sorts of other factors at play in all of these deaths and the methods of the pusher havent really been properly thought out. It is a good story though and might land your name in the papers....Prof Jackson will be getting a good boost on his next REF for the growth in google traffic. rt/uk/222655-serial-killer-manchester-canals/
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 11:12:01 +0000
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