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Jigsaw - Dave The Busker

Jigsaw - Dave The Busker

Released Wednesday, 1st May 2024
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Jigsaw - Dave The Busker

Jigsaw - Dave The Busker

Jigsaw - Dave The Busker

Jigsaw - Dave The Busker

Wednesday, 1st May 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
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This season, we're launching a new episode of

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Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. With the

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following series deals with issues around

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unexplained deaths, trauma and can discuss

2:16

issues of suicide. Please

2:19

take care when listening. A

2:26

man apparently buried in a residential garden

2:29

in Galway. To

2:31

date, he's never been identified. John

2:46

Doe. A person without

2:48

a name. A life story which

2:50

has no ending. A

2:53

body lying on a post-mortem table. An

2:56

investigator searching for answers. Welcome

3:00

to your latest true crime obsession,

3:03

Jigsaw. Told in bite-sized episodes which

3:05

get straight to the heart of

3:07

the unusual circumstances and the possible

3:09

clues that could help identify an

3:12

unknown body. There

3:16

are around 1,000 people found in

3:18

the UK who cannot be identified. They

3:21

were mothers and daughters, fathers and sons.

3:25

Somebody somewhere will likely be wondering what

3:27

happened to them. In

3:29

this series, we present the pieces of

3:31

the mysterious Jigsaw puzzle in the hope

3:33

that someone listening can piece them together.

3:37

So listen carefully as we present the clues.

3:40

Dust off your detective hat as we

3:42

delve into the coroner's case files and

3:44

help us dissect the details that

3:46

try and establish who they are. In

3:51

this episode, can we give a name to

3:53

Dave Dubuska? Brought

3:57

to you from the charity Loke International.

4:01

It's the

4:04

17th of

4:07

April 2002

4:10

on Upper

4:13

Salt Hill Road. It's

4:21

a typical suburban street in Galway Island. There's

4:24

a block of relatively new apartments and

4:26

the other side of the road is made up

4:28

with different colour houses, some grey, some pink, some

4:31

yellow with a dark orange trim. O'Connor's

4:35

self-appointed, most famous pub is at the

4:38

end of the street and

4:40

a local property developer plans to pay it a

4:42

visit later that day, once he's

4:44

finished clearing the garden of number 158, the

4:47

house he's in the middle of renovating. The

4:53

house and the garden are both in a

4:55

terrible state, having been used as a squat

4:57

by homeless people from the local area for

4:59

years. It's

5:01

dilapidated with rubbish everywhere, but

5:04

with a bit of money and some elbow grease,

5:06

the developer is confident he can turn it around.

5:11

The diggers have cleared most of the tree roots and

5:13

shrubs from the garden, but there's some

5:15

old debris of stones and rubble to move to. At

5:19

least the weather is holding out, nothing

5:21

worse than torrential Irish rain turning the garden

5:23

into a mud bath. The

5:28

developer grabs the shovel himself, hoping to speed

5:30

up the process of moving soil towards the

5:32

back of the garden. He's

5:36

still thinking about whether O'Connor's has any food

5:38

on that day, and he hasn't been digging

5:40

for long when his shovel turns up something

5:43

which lands on his excess soil pile but

5:45

allowed to soothe the rest of the dirt.

5:50

Rain which is clearly pale white in

5:52

colour, despite being stained with brown mud.

6:00

The developer shunts it around in the dirt with his

6:02

spade, before quickly dropping it to

6:04

the floor and taking a step back. The

6:09

gleam of white juxtaposed with a hollow

6:11

black of eye sockets is unmistakable. It's

6:15

a human skull. And

6:19

its burial location is our clue

6:21

number one. The

6:35

Irish police had the scene cordoned off in no

6:37

time. A

6:39

discovery of human remains prompts the swiftest

6:41

of responses. And

6:47

as the forensic crime officers get to work, it

6:49

isn't long before more secrets are unearthed from the

6:51

mud. The

6:54

first of these is a blue sleeping bag tied

6:56

with a blue nylon twine. And

7:00

in this sleeping bag contains more

7:02

skeletal remains. Later,

7:05

those will be positively linked to the skull

7:07

found just a few feet away. Inside

7:12

the sleeping bag is some clothes, some

7:14

jewellery, a pair of boots and some

7:16

hair ties. So

7:19

who is the man discovered in the back garden of

7:21

number 158? And

7:23

what events led him to that house and to be

7:25

buried in the garden? The

7:33

police initially suspect foul play. After

7:36

all, finding any kind of body buried in

7:38

a residential garden has all the hallmarks of

7:40

someone committing a crime. But

7:45

once the body is removed and taken

7:47

to the mortuary for investigation, the picture

7:49

changes. A

7:52

post-mortem reveals that the man died of natural

7:54

causes before his body is placed in the

7:56

ground. There's no assault,

7:58

no trauma, no violence. whatsoever.

8:02

How long he's been dead is difficult to

8:05

determine, but investigators are

8:07

confident it's a matter of months, at

8:09

most a year or two, but not much

8:11

more than that. What

8:14

is clear is that the man hadn't simply died where

8:17

he was found. He'd been placed

8:19

in that sleeping bag and buried, and for

8:21

that to happen someone else was involved in

8:23

giving him that burial. So

8:27

why hadn't they come forward about his death? Police

8:36

had a theory. If

8:41

the man had indeed lived in this house,

8:43

his friends would have also been squatters, potentially

8:46

using illegal substances. While

8:50

there's no suggestion that this man died of drug use, it

8:52

may well have been that his friends didn't want to draw

8:54

attention to themselves or their whereabouts when they discovered he'd died.

9:01

Police also speculated that perhaps they didn't realise it's illegal to

9:03

bury someone in unconsecrated ground. So maybe the man's friends thought

9:06

they were doing the right thing, laying

9:09

this man to rest, and not expecting it to cause an

9:11

issue. However,

9:18

in this case, unlike so many others

9:20

in this series, we do have a

9:22

possible identity for our unclaimed man. It's

9:26

just an identity which isn't complete.

9:31

Clue number two, a man called

9:33

Dave. It's

9:37

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Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. With the price

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per month. Slows. mintmobile.com. The

11:13

clothes, jewelry and hair ties found in the

11:15

sleeping bag left the police to believe the

11:17

man whose body they'd found was a well-known

11:19

busker about town, a man everyone

11:21

knew as Dave. Dave

11:29

was well-known in Galway City with

11:31

his long hair and friendly face. Dave lived

11:34

as a new age traveler and he played

11:36

the tin whistle and sometimes the guitar. He

11:42

could usually be found on Shop Street,

11:44

the main pedestrianized thoroughfare in the city

11:46

center. Surrounded by the footfall

11:48

of shoppers heading into the brightly colored

11:50

storefronts. Dave

11:54

hadn't been seen in recent years, in

11:56

fact his absence in the city had been noted by

11:58

many. But

12:00

it was assumed that he had departed for

12:02

passengers new, such was the want of a

12:04

traveller with no specific ties to Galway. Nobody

12:08

had jumped to the conclusion that he was

12:10

dead. Until now. Dave

12:16

himself wasn't Irish, having arrived in the area

12:18

a few years before. Investigators

12:22

narrowed that time down to around August

12:24

1998. In

12:27

fact, people remembered Dave the busker as

12:29

speaking with an English accent, and

12:31

anecdotally there were stories that he was from

12:33

Tunbridge, Wales.

12:36

Because Dave was well remembered, and because he

12:38

had friends in the busking and homeless community,

12:41

various pieces of information continued to

12:43

be forthcoming. Things

12:46

like the fact that Dave had been trained as a

12:48

classical musician in London, and that

12:51

he might also have a sister in Exeter. Friends

12:55

told police they also thought he'd been married at one

12:57

point. There

13:00

was one story of when Dave purchased a

13:02

dog license for his collydog, and

13:05

that he used the name Dave Rawson, although

13:07

this suggestion has never been corroborated.

13:11

A few other people said that Dave sometimes went

13:14

by the nickname Tang, and

13:16

all of this information feels as though it should

13:18

lead somewhere, that someone can join

13:20

the dots between a musician, the name

13:22

Dave Rawson, and the nickname Tang. What

13:27

did become clear from all the people the police

13:29

spoke to was that Dave hadn't been seen for

13:31

years before his body was discovered, since

13:34

1999 in fact, and

13:36

neither hit his collydog, or his

13:38

guitar and the tin whistle that he was never seen

13:40

without. So

13:48

what happened to those things? Was

13:50

it the case that Dave had passed away sometime after

13:53

1999, and been

13:55

buried in that residential garden by the people he

13:57

was living with? of

14:00

possessions lost to time. Finally,

14:06

Dave was known to carry a small

14:08

notebook containing addresses and phone numbers, and

14:10

he carried it everywhere he went. That

14:13

wasn't found with his body either, or

14:16

anywhere else in the garden. Where

14:18

did it go? The

14:23

story of Dave the Busker is one rich

14:25

with potential clues. There are

14:27

a huge number of individual leads here,

14:30

clues about Dave's lifestyle, places in the

14:32

UK he might have connections with, a

14:34

love of dogs, potential previous

14:36

education and training, and

14:39

investigators assure that they must mean

14:41

something to someone. More

14:46

than that, it's one of the few cases

14:48

where investigators know that someone else was involved.

14:51

Someone else had a hand in laying Dave to

14:53

rest, and it feels likely that

14:55

the answer lays in the homeless community of Galway,

14:57

back in 1999. So

15:02

do you know anyone who was sleeping rough back then?

15:05

Anyone who might have some answers in this story?

15:12

As yet, none of the leads we've mentioned

15:14

have led to Dave being formally identified by

15:16

a relative or next of kin, and

15:18

nobody has come forward to admit that they have any

15:21

knowledge of what happened to him, or who he really

15:23

was. So

15:27

as you go about your day to day business, don't

15:30

forget the case of Dave the Busker. Think

15:34

about the clues you've heard today. The

15:36

streets of Central Galway, the connections to

15:38

Tunbridge Wells and Exeter, the

15:40

dog, the name, and Dave's

15:42

final resting place. Could you

15:45

hold the missing piece of the puzzle, which

15:47

might allow investigators to complete this jigsaw? work

16:00

to reinvestigate missing people's cases with a

16:02

mission to give a name to the

16:04

unidentified. You can see

16:06

images related to this case on their website www.locate.international.

16:14

On that website you'll also find a

16:16

forum, a discussion board where listeners can

16:18

share ideas and information. You

16:20

can discuss each case with other listeners,

16:22

go deeper into the story and provide

16:24

details which investigators can follow. That

16:27

address again is

16:30

www.locate.international. Locate

16:36

International believe that everyone deserves dignity in

16:38

death. If you have

16:40

any relevant information or ideas you'd like to

16:43

share with their investigators, please get in contact

16:45

with them. The information you give

16:47

us can be anonymous and your

16:49

information alone could help identify this man and

16:52

reunite him with his name. We'd

16:55

also really appreciate if you share it with your

16:57

friends and family and leave a rating and a

16:59

review that will help other people find this series.

17:07

Jigsaw is produced by What's the Story

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Sounds. We also make The Missing

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and lots of other shows we think you might like.

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Why not sign up to What's the Story Crime where

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From The Podcast

The Missing

Can you help find ‘The Missing?’ ‘The Missing’ is an award-winning true crime podcast which looks into cases of long-term missing people and asks you, the listener, to help.Every week we explore a different case, hear original interviews with family and friends, and ask the questions that need to be answered. Where did they go? What happened to them? And does anyone listening have any information?UK episodes will launch on Wednesdays - brought to you in association with the charities Locate International and Missing People.US/Canada episodes will launch on Mondays - brought to you with the support of Doe Network.To learn more or if you have information on any of the cases covered in the podcast, please visit http://themissingpodcast.orgTo suggest a case to be featured, or to securely share tips or information, you can email [email protected] or [email protected] you want to listen to The Missing COMPLETELY ad-free, and help to support the show, then please subscribe to our channel, The Missing +The Missing + is your home for the very best in true-crime podcasts. You can get early access to every series, and all episodes are completely ad-free. We will never put episodes behind a paywall, because we want as many people as possible to listen and spread the word about these important cases. But if you love the show, your subscription helps to fund the episodes.As well as The Missing, there's a whole collection of shows on The Missing +.all made by the same team. From the stories of the most pivotal assassinations throughout history, to series' dedicated to forensic science, limited series about extraordinary conmen, and investigations into miscarriages of justice - The Missing + has you covered.Signing up is quick and simple.If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, just search for The Missing +, sign up, and all the exclusive content will be in your Apple Podcasts app.If you're listening on Spotify, Amazon, Castbox, Pocketcasts, or any other player - you can sign up directly here : THE MISSING +With a couple of clicks, you'll receive all the exclusive content in your chosen platform.The Missing is presented by Pandora Sykes in the UKhttps://www.instagram.com/pandorasykesThe Missing is presented by Ashley Loeb Blassingame in the UShttps://www.instagram.com/ashleyloebblassingameThe Missing is a What's The Story? originalhttps://www.whatsthestorysounds.com/The series is made with the support of three amazing organisations, Missing People, Locate International and Doe Networkhttps://www.missingpeople.org.uk/https://locate.international/https://doenetwork.org/This series was first produced in conjunction with Podimo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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