CASE reviews into the deaths of eight unidentified people have been launched by police in the hope that new technology will help them.

North Yorkshire Police say they have a moral duty to try to solve the cases, some of which date back more than 30 years.

Among the unidentifed remains are the body of a woman found near Sutton Bank, near Thirsk, in 1981 after an anonymous phone call to police, and the body of a baby found wrapped in carrier bags under a bridge near Norton in 1999.

Police said the review would take advantage of advances in technology that were not available at the time the remains were found.

Detective Superintendent Lewis Raw said: “It is important that we find out who these people are.

“No one deserves to die in these circumstances, unknown and with no family to mourn.

“We hope that advances in technology and increasing awareness of the case reviews will help to shed more light on their identity and the circumstances of their death.”

Each case has been put on the North Yorkshire Police website in the hope that the information might jog people’s memories.

The baby abandoned by the side of the road was found at Burythorpe Bridge, on an unclassified road between Norton and Stamford Bridge.

A post-mortem examination indicated that the baby boy was about 34 weeks gestation, but it was not possible to confirm if he had been born alive.

In 2004, walkers on the Pennine Way near Pen-y-ghent found the body of a woman of Oriental origin, thought to be aged 20 to 40.

A post-mortem examination suggested that she had been dead for three weeks, but the cause of death was unclear.

The body of a man was found by a gamekeeper at Thorny Grange Moor, close to Colsterdale, near Masham, in 1997.

It is thought he could have been on the moor for more than 20 years, covered by peat washed from a nearby stream.

Other cases involve two men who were found in the River Ouse, one at Naburn, near Selby in 2003, and another found under Lendal Bridge, in York, in 1992; a skull found off the coast of Hartlepool by Whitby fishermen and a man’s body found floating in Scarborough harbour in 1989.

Thirty years on, death still a mystery.

THE discovery of the skeletal remains of a woman in the undergrowth by the side of a quiet road near Sutton Bank, on the edge of the North York Moors, sparked a huge police investigation that still intrigues officers 30 years later.

The case of the unidentified woman led to a policing world first when officers drafted in experts from Manchester University to create a three-dimensional reconstruction of the woman’s face, which led to hundreds of calls and attention from around the world.

Police were led to the scene on Friday, August 28, 1981, by an anonymous male, who called the force with the exact location of the body, a layby on an unclassified road near the villages of Scawton and Rievaulx.

The discovery marked the start of an 18-month police investigation, led by Detective Chief Superintendent Strickland Carter, to try to establish her identity.

A forensic examination of her naked body revealed no jewellery or personal effects, and it was estimated that she may have been dead for up to two years. The post-mortem examination did not establish a cause of death.

The woman was 5ft 2in, aged 35 to 40 and may have been a mother.

A police spokesman said: “Thirty years later, the same questions remain. The anonymous male caller that started this police investigation may have the answer to the other questions – who is this lady left undiscovered at the top of Sutton Bank? What was she doing there and how did she die?

“Although the passage of time has changed police technology, North Yorkshire Police’s commitment to finding the answers to these questions remains the same, so that her family can have the answers they deserve.”