IT'S a mystery that could have come straight from the pages of an Agatha Christie or Ruth Rendell classic.

A casket containing human ashes has been found floating in a Hampshire river.

In true whodunnit style, police are baffled as to how it got there.

One officer is now appealing for Daily Echo readers to play detective in a bid to help him solve the case.

An anonymous member of the public handed the casket into the Winchester Cathedral office saying they had found it in the nearby River Itchen and fished it out.

All the information that PC Nick Wieczorek had to go on was written on a plaque on the front of the casket.

It said the name Babs Bowyer and that she died on May 23,1990. He has since discovered that her real name was Florence L Bowyer. She died peacefully at the age of 86 and lived in West End, near Southampton, at some stage in her life.

A death notice placed in the Daily Echo on May 26, 1990 also reveals that the pensioner came from Flamborough, North Yorkshire, that she had a son called David and a late husband called Mac. She died at Bridlington Hospital and was cremated in Scarborough at the Woodlands Crematorium on May 28, 1990.

PC Wieczorek, of Winchester police, said: "It's a mystery. I would really like to reunite the casket with the family and they can make appropriate arrangements to bury it or disperse the ashes, as they deem appropriate.

"If the person who found it could come forward that would help. It doesn't look like it had been in the river for long so that person may have seen who put it in. The casket is in good condition and is clean."

PC Wieczorek did get family contact details from the crematorium for an address in Flamborough, North Yorkshire, and found that she lived there with son David.

However he has moved on and no forwarding address was left. The casket is being kept at Winchester Cathedral until Mrs Bowyer's relatives are found.