Police are continuing to investigate the discovery of human remains found by a passerby in Kersal Wetlands on Thursday evening.
At this time, detectives are still working hard to determine the identity of the person whose remains have been found and through initial forensic and DNA testing, the victim is a man who is likely to be aged older than 40 and who has only been deceased for a matter of days.
Last night, we arrested a 20-year-old man from the local area on suspicion of murder. He remains in custody and will be questioned by detectives.
Our main focus at this time is establishing who our victim is and at the heart of our investigation is a family somewhere, who will soon suffer the loss of their loved one – and this remains in our thoughts.
Although at this time, we have not found anything else that is of interest to the investigation in the Kersal Wetlands area, our work will not stop until we are certain we have thoroughly searched this area.
To help us do this – we have utilised our local officers and our specialist branches in the force such as our search dogs and assistance from underwater search teams to help officers in combing through every inch of this area until we are satisfied we have searched as well as we can do.
Chief Superintendent Tony Creely of GMP’s Salford district, “The arrest we made yesterday evening is an important step for our investigation, but we must keep an open mind and a big part of this is speaking to anyone who may have crucial information.
“As we continue to work in the area, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the public for their concern and cooperation so far, and we are mindful this is a disturbing incident for the local community, but I can assure you that since we were made aware, we’ve been pursuing every single line of enquiry to help us find out what has happened.
“I cannot stress the importance of people contacting us with information if they know anything at all.
“You may have information that you don’t feel is of importance, but it could be to us, please pass it on, it could be the key piece of information we need to progress this investigation.”
Anyone who thinks they may have witnessed something suspicious in the Kersal Dale area over the last few days, could be key to unlocking what happened is asked to come forward by calling 101 and quoting log number 2695 of 4 April 2024.
Details can also be passed anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
A dedicated portal for anyone to submit images or video footage which could help police can be found here: Public Portal (mipp.police.uk)