After vanishing for five years... he's been found - but the truth behind James' death remains a mystery

The death of a loving dad who was found more than five years after going missing remains a mystery.

Despite a lengthy inquest investigation which concluded today (June 21), coroner professor Alan Walsh recorded an open conclusion into the death of father-of-two James Hodgkiss. The 34-year-old was last seen by his partner in the early hours of August 3, 2016.

Nearly six years later, on January 24, 2022, his remains were found in a peat bog on Red Moss nature reserve close to Aspinall Way, Future Park, Horwich. The remains were discovered by conservation landscapers cutting back trees and hedges at around 3pm that day.

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James was formally identified by dental records, a forensic archaeologist, and forensic anthropologists. However, an inquest at Bolton Coroners' Court which heard evidence fom both the period leading up to his disappearance and the time following his discovery could not answer how or when he died.

The court heard that he struggled with a drug addiction in the years leading up to him going missing, and despite living in Peel Park Crescent in Little Hulton, would often frequent the Weston Street area of Bolton for drug use. Giving evidence, his mother, Christine Hodgkiss, said on August 1, 2022, that she had picked him up from Weston Street and tried to take him to hospital due to his state.

He refused to go into the hospital and after taking him back and forth on a few occasions she dropped him off at his father's address in Blackrod in the early hours of August 2. This was the last time Christine saw her son, and she would report him missing on August 5.

John Hodgkiss told the court that on the morning of August 2 he dropped James