The Nude in the Nettles – aka Sutton Bank Jane Doe (It’s 1981 and we almost killed Bucks Fizz)

Everyone Dies In Sunderland: A podcast about growing up terrified in the eighties and nineties

At 8am on Friday August 1981 the phone rang at Ripon police station.

A voice announced police would find “a decomposed body among the willow herbs” at a particular grid reference close to Sutton Bank top. The caller refused to give a name “for reasons of national security” and hung up.

Police attended the scene and, at popular picnic site, found the bones of a naked woman in a large patch of Rosebay Willow, in a case that became known as “the nude in the nettles”.

Even though it wasn’t nettles.

We know she wore pink Max Factor Nail Varnish. We know she might have had some yoghurt prior to her death. We’ve even got a good idea what she looked like. But to this day, we don’t know how she died, how she got there, or even who she was.

We also take a look back at 1981, when simply everyone was trying to assassinate world leaders! Along the way: Riots! Royal Weddings! Motorway pile-ups involving Eurovision winners! The disadvantages of owning a Delorean! Harrison Ford suddenly turning up in North Shields! The best joke ever told in the history of this podcast!

Claire congratulates Beyonce for not dying! John recreates the iconic rapping of Pitbull! Gareth tries to make sure that not even 23 and Me will sponsor us! Captain America crashes a six form leaving do!

If you know anything all about this case, please call the North Yorkshire Cold Case Review Unit on 01609 643292 or email at [e-mail]. Let’s hope if nothing else that one day this woman gets her name back.

You can reach us on email [e-mail], on Twitter at @everyonediespod, on Facebook and Instagram.

Our theme music is the song “Steady Away” by Pete Dilley and can be found on his album Half-truths and Hearsay which you can/should buy/stream here: https://petedilley.bandcamp.com/album/half-truths-and-hearsay

You’re always there when I’m lost for words, just thinking up more to finish the verse, it’s done!