Police claim to have solved London ‘spy in the bag’ Gareth Williams mystery

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A overview into the demise of a British spy, whose bare, decomposing physique was discovered padlocked in a bag in his bathtub, has completed, Londonpolice stated on Monday.

The announcement brings an finish to certainly one of the metropolis’s best mysteries of latest years.

Gareth Williams, 31, was working for Britain’s exterior intelligence service MI6 when he was discovered lifeless at his house in August 2010, and the nature of his job and his demise provoked a variety of what police later known as “weird and wonderful” conspiracy theories.

Although a coroner concluded in 2012 that Williams was most likely killed unlawfully by one other particular person, a police investigation discovered he had most likely died unintentionally on his personal, rejecting suspicions that the uncommon demise had concerned overseas spies.

An extra forensic overview was commissioned in 2021 and its findings, delivered final November, had not thrown additional mild on the case, Detective Chief Inspector Neil John, the senior investigating officer.

“No new DNA evidence was found and no further lines of enquiry were identified,” John stated in an announcement.

Williams, labored as a code breaker at the Government Communications Headquarters in western England however was on a three-year secondment to MI6, which offers with overseas espionage issues at the time of his demise.

The stays of the maths prodigy have been discovered curled up inside a zipped and padlocked crimson hold-all at the London flat – an intelligence service “safe house” – shut to MI6’s headquarters.

His physique was badly decomposed after remaining in the bag in the August warmth for a full week till he was found. Tests discovered no traces of alcohol, medicine or poison in his physique.

Police disclosed at the time of Williams’ demise that he owned £15,000 value of ladies’s designer clothes, a wig and make up. It had been advised that Williams dressed as a lady outdoors of labor, although a forensics professional has since stated they imagine the spy probably labored undercover as a lady.