The daughter of a missing man whose body was found buried in a field in April - 56 years after his disappearance - says she is desparate for answers after police launched a murder investigation.
Miner Alfred Swinscoe went missing in 1967 after drinking at the Pinxton Miners Arms in Derbyshire.
On April 26 of this year, skeletal remains were discovered on farmland in Coxmoor Road, Sutton-in-Ashfield, and DNA tests have now confirmed they are a match to Alfred.
Emotional daughter Julie Swinscoe, 82, said she does not want to go to her grave without answers and is broken by the news, Nottinghamshire Live reports.
She said: "Someone, somewhere, will have some information and we would urge them to get in touch with the police. We might be able to now give my dad the funeral he deserves but we don’t have the answers we desperately want.
“Someone killed my dad and I want to know why? I need to know why.”
Alfred was 54 when he disappeared at the Pinxton Miners Arms after giving his son Gary money to buy more drinks and going to the outside toilet.
Grandson Russell Lowbridge, who was four at the time of Alfred's disappearance, contacted the police after seeing a media appeal for information on unidentified human remains.
He believed the items of clothing found with the body, including two distinctive socks and a shoe, belonged to his grandad who was a father-of-six.
Alfred's daughter Julie recalled coming home from work to discover her father was missing. She said: "I was 25 at the time, a factory worker and I remember coming home one day from work and people saying they couldn’t find dad. He had gone missing, and the police were searching.
“We all thought it was very mysterious, but we thought he would turn up. It does make you wonder how we did cope through all these years because it has always stayed with us as a family. Where did dad go?
“We never expected that the remains found in Sutton would be him. I practically went hysterical. I said: ‘he can’t have lay in that field for 56 years and no one could find him until now'. It’s just so horrible. I would like to think I could die knowing the truth. I am 82 now and I could go myself at any time.”
Her brother, Gary, who died in November 2012 following a short illness, never got the chance to find the answers he desperately needed.
In a press conference a fortnight ago, police confirmed they'd launched a murder investigation.
St John Ambulance worker Russell, 60, said his uncle was haunted by his grandfather's disappearance.
He said: "He doted on my grandad. He always said what a great pigeon racer he was. They had a shared passion for it. His disappearance haunted Uncle Gary his whole life. He went to his grave never knowing what happened.
“He wouldn’t let it go, especially as he was in the pub with him the night he went missing. He just remembers his dad giving him a ten bob note - telling him to get a round and then never ever seeing him again.
“He would go back to Pinxton at the time and even search down disused wells and even hired a private detective near the end.
“It completely broke him, never knowing what happened to his dad. I want justice for Gary because he tried so hard to get answers It tormented him up until the day he died.
“We are going to bury Alfred in Sutton next to Uncle Gary. It is time this old miner came home. It’s like what pigeon racers would say ‘it has been a long hold-over, it has been a smash up of a race, but the old bird has finally clocked in'. And for those who don’t know what that means – it means he has finally come home.”
The family are now urging anyone with information, no matter how small, to get in touch with police.
Julie added: “He was born and grew up in Pinxton and was a hard-working, loving father. They really respected him at the colliery because he was good at his job and liked to socialise in the pub after work.
“Everyone knew who he was in Pinxton because it was a proper pit village. He also had his own pigeon loft. It was a keen hobby in the 1960s. He knocked it together himself with my brother Gary. You could say it was like working class horse-racing.
“He was good at it and known as the top dog. Someone, somewhere, will have some information and we would urge them to get in touch with the police.
“We might be able to now give my dad the funeral he deserves but we don’t have the answers we desperately want. Someone killed my dad and I want to know why? I need to know why."
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Nottinghamshire Police incident room by clicking the online link below https://mipp.police.uk/operation/33EM22E48-PO1. Alternatively the incident room can be contacted on 0800 096 0095.
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