Doris Irene Wright

Doris Irene Wright was found in the River Clyde on Thursday 29 March 1956 about a week after she was assaulted and fell in.

A 23-year-old man, a labourer from Partick, was charged with her culpable homicide and assault but the charges were later reduced to assault and then dropped. It was said that the man first appeared at the Central police court on the culpable homicide charge about nine hours after workmen heard a man shouting that there was a woman in the river.

It was said that the man had assaulted Doris Wright on some vacant ground to the east side of Meadowside Street on Friday 23 March 1956 and robbed her, taking her handbag (also reported as a brown paper bag) containing her personal belongings. The charge went on to say that he then threw her handbag into the River Clyde 'causing said woman to jump into the river to retrieve her property, as a result of which she was drowned, and you did kill her'.

Doris Wright was from London.

Her body was found in the River Clyde by a man from the Glasgow Royal Humane Society located about 100 yards from the quay in the middle of the river in about forty feet of water. He had been dragging the river from dawn to dusk since the previous Saturday.

Doris Irene Wright was also known as Doris Irene Deans. She had earlier, on Thursday 22 March 1956 appeared before Edinburgh Burgh Court on a charge of vagrancy, speaking with an English accent and having with her her only possession, a brown paper carrier bag. She had said that she had been born in London in 1921 and had given her address as 6 Fairlight Avenue, Woodford Green, Essex.

After leaving the courtroom she was said to have gone to the Salvation Army Hostel, but there had been no accommodation for her and that was the last that was seen of her.

Following her disappearance, a blue-green velvet hat was found on the river bank and sometime later, a bundle of magazines, thought to have been the content of Doris Wright's brown paper carrier bag, were found washed up on the opposite bank.