Police appeal for help to identify man found dead in a wetsuit

Who is this man? So far, that question has proved impossible to answer.

Detectives hope that revealing the face of the man they found dead in a wetsuit can unlock a long-running mystery.

It began just after 8am on 17 October 2024, when a dog walker found the man's body in a reservoir in Mid Wales.

Investigators explored countless avenues over the past 16 months, but the lack of clues makes it one of the UK's most baffling cases.

"No belongings, nothing found around the banking, no vehicle left nearby," DI Anthea Ponting told Sky News.

"Currently, none of the available information to us suggests a criminal element to it, however it would be remiss to say that new information may not change that."

The police search around the remote Claerwen reservoir involved a low-flying helicopter, drones, a boat team and officers scouring the water's edge. They found nothing.

All they had was the body and the Zone 3 Agile wetsuit, which was sized XL.

Dyfed-Powys Police made public appeals, searched medical databases, checked criminal records, analysed missing people cases, and even spread the word overseas via Interpol.

"It's really unusual", DI Anthea Ponting said. "We just want to resolve it."

The striking image of the man was created by Face Lab, a world-leading unit based at Liverpool John Moores University.

They used CT scans of the man's skull to then carefully reconstruct his face.

Professor Caroline Wilkinson explained: "We see a middle-aged man, who has got an unusual dental pattern that probably would be recognisable.

"His teeth don't meet and close all the way across.

"So it's what's called an open bite, and that means that his lips would have been more open at rest."

She is confident in the likeness.

"Forensic cases are always really sad," she added.

"If they need our help, it generally means that it's a difficult case to identify.

"That means the person has not necessarily been missed.

"There might be extreme circumstances as to why that is, for example, like a murder, or in this case, it looks more like an accident - but it may not be."

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Police believe the man had been in the water for 12 weeks, which means he may have gone into the reservoir in mid-summer 2024.

One theory is that he was swimming and could have had belongings with him in a dry bag, but there is no evidence for this.

The reservoir is four-and-a-half miles long, so officers decided it wasn't reasonable to drain it or search the bottom of it.

The man's cause of death has not yet been established after an inconclusive post-mortem.

Establishing his identity is what might resolve this mystery.

DI Ponting said she just wants to know who he is so "that we can try and track any family, friends or anyone who knows him - and that he can then he can be afforded the dignity of them deciding how he is permanently laid to rest."

If you have information or know someone who matches the description who has gone missing, contact Dyfed-Powys Police via their online portal for the case.

(c) Sky News 2026: Police appeal for help to identify man found dead in a wetsuit