Investigators may have pieced together identity of mystery man found dead 45 years ago

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

A long-haired mystery man in platform boots is at the centre of a new appeal more than 45 years after his death.

A man's body was found beside the A508, which links Milton Keynes and Market Harborough, having been struck by a car in the evening of July 9, 1975. His identity has never been known.

Now, volunteer researchers working with the Locate International agency think the man may have been called 'James Brennan'. They believe he was hitch-hiking home to Middleton, in Rochdale, from the Knebworth Festival in Hertfordshire, where Pink Floyd were on a bill that also featured Captain Beefheart, Linda Lewis and the Monty Python team.

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Locate sets out to solve 'cold cases' using internet and social media research which would not have been available to police at the time. The team has scoured the internet to piece together what may have been the last movements of 'James Brennan'.

The international police agency Interpol took part in the investigation at the time but they drew a blank, and now Locate is appealing for people will come forward to solve the mystery. Clues to the identity of the man - who was aged between 25 and 35 - have been pieced together after months of research.

Locate has discovered that police spoke to a man of a similar description on the evening of July 9, and he gave them the name 'James Brennan'. He told them, in an Irish accent, that he had left home on July 4 to attend the festival. The event on July 5 was huge, with wartime Spitfire aircraft swooping low over the stage as Pink Floyd played.

It is thought that the man who may have been James Brennan set off for home in the north of England some