Cold case mystery: Only clue to man's identity is a ring inscription

How did the unidentified man end up near here, Porth Minick on the Isles of Scilly in 1979?

As cold cases come, this is freezing - a 41-year-old unsolved mystery.

A middle-aged man washed onto an Isles of Scilly beach had been dead in the water for months.

The only real clue to his identity was a ring bearing the inscription: "Georgio And Katrina 1956".

Now a team of experts, including a Welsh university criminologist, hope to focus their efforts on discovering who the individual was, where he was from and why he died.

It is one of the very first 'Unidentified Found Remains' cases being investigated by the newly established community-interest service called the Locate Centre for Missing People Investigations.

The partnership brings together police, academics and students with the aim of helping families find their loved ones.

Dr Cheryl Allsop from the University of South Wales is one of the experts investigating

Experts from the University of South Wales (USW) and the University of Central Lancashire have joined forces with Devon and Cornwall Police, and are already working on several live missing people cases.

But this unsolved case is one of the toughest it faces.

"The mystery of the man found on the beach on the Scilly Isles has stumped investigators for more than four decades," said Dr Cheryl Allsop, who is a senior lecturer in criminology and and criminal justice at USW.

"But we're hoping that modern ways of communication, including through social media, might bring renewed hope that the conundrum could now be solved."

What do they know?

The body of the man was discovered on 21 February 1979. It was towards the end of the 'Winter of Discontent' and a few months before Margaret Thatcher would be elected the UK's first woman prime minister.

He was found at Porth Minick beach, and had been in the sea for an estimated four months.

Aged between 40 and 60, he was white, with dark brown, greying hair, and was 5ft 4in tall (1.63m), and wearing a two-tone blue and white short-sleeved shirt with a woollen Eltex vest underneath.

The only other information is the ring he wore with the inscription on the ring finger of his right hand - thought to be a wedding band.

But where did he come from, who were Georgio And Katrina, and what was the relevance of 1956?

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The Scilly Isles lie about 25 miles (40km) off the Cornish coast, and on the fringes of large bodies of water - the Irish Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the English Channel. The Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary with its massive tidal ranges is only about 100 miles away.

"There are probably very few reasons why the man ended on that particular beach at that particular time," said Dr Allsop.

"But to find out these reasons and to put them together so we can solve the mystery, we need people to come forward with even the smallest bits of information that could help us complete the jigsaw by opening up whole new lines of enquiry."