New appeal to identify body in wetsuit reservoir mystery

The body of a man wearing a wetsuit was found in Claerwen Reservoir in October 2024

Police have issued a fresh appeal to help identify a man whose body was found at a reservoir a year ago wearing a wetsuit.

The body was pulled from Claerwen Reservoir in a remote area of Powys on 18 October 2024, after a walker spotted it. It is estimated the body had been in the water for up to 12 weeks beforehand.

A post-mortem examination found the man was aged between 30 and 60, was about 6ft (1.83m) and wearing a Zone 3 Agile wetsuit. But there were no clues as to how he got there or what route he took and no personal belongings were left behind.

Following 12 months of inquiries, Dyfed-Powys Police say they are "no closer" to identifying the man or determining what happened to him.

As the anniversary of the discovery approaches, the force asked members of the public to come forward with any information that might help.

Det Insp Anthea Ponting, who has led the investigation, said it was "highly unusual" not to have been able to identify a body one year on from it being found.

"But all lines of inquiry have drawn a blank," she said.

She explained police were "no closer to finding out who this man is, where he came from, or how he came to lose his life".

A police photo of the extra large Zone 3 Agile wetsuit in which the body was found

"This is someone's son, possibly someone's partner, brother or father, and we would like to be able to return them to any family or loved ones who might be missing them," she added.

Police found no personal belongings around the reservoir, and the man was not wearing a watch or jewellery.

The only item available to officers to try to solve the mystery was the wetsuit.

Det Insp Ponting said the "extra large" Zone 3 Agile wetsuit indicated the man could have been 6ft to 6ft 5in, about 202lbs to 220lbs (91.5kg - 99.5kg), with a 44in to 48in chest.

"There were no vehicles, bikes or other modes of transport in the area that might have indicated how he got there, or that we could have used to establish a route of travel," she said.

She added that over the past 12 months, officers had checked his description against lists of missing people from Dyfed-Powys and all other UK police force areas, liaised with international police and conducted inquiries with fingerprint and DNA databases.

"There must be someone out there who is missing this person," she said.