David Lytton, pensioner at centre of Saddleworth moor death mystery, ‘nursed secret heartache following unborn daughter’s death’
A PENSIONER found dead on a bleak moor was nursing a secret heartache following the death of his unborn daughter, his former girlfriend has told The Sun.
David Lytton, 67, sparked a riddle when his body was discovered on Saddleworth moor in December 2015 alongside a bottle containing the poison strychnine - two days after jetting into the UK from Pakistan.
Now The Sun can reveal that David - initially named “Neil Dovestone” by cops baffled by his identity - carried a heartbreaking secret after his former partner suffered a miscarriage.
Retired nurse Maureen Toogood - David’s companion for more than 35 years - told The Sun he was never the same after she miscarried five months into pregnancy.
Maureen, 69, said: "If we hadn't lost the baby I think that we would still be together now. “Things would be very different.
"David was beside himself. It was hard for both of us.”
Maureen and former croupier and Tube driver first met 18 months earlier when he literally swept her off her feet - by coming to her aid as she fainted in a London street in 1971.
MOST READ IN NEWS
Maureen recalled: “He was my knight in shining armour. The next day he came back to check up on me.
From then on we courted nearly everyday. We went on long walks or to the cinema. David was very smart and stylish, he wore expensive designer clothes.
“We would spend hours on the phone at night talking. He was thoughtful and caring.”
Maureen fell pregnant 18 months later but tragedy struck and soon after David also lost his croupier job.
He used his redundancy to buy a home in Streatham, South London, for £25,000.
The couple drifted apart and in 1976 Maureen then met another man called John who she married, but she and David remained in touch.
She added: "David knew the score and he didn't care. We just kept our relationship how it had been before. We had a companionship and a deep friendship, I loved him deeply.”
The couple saw each other regularly until October 3 2006 when he visited for the last time.
Three days later he moved to Lahore in Pakistan, having made £200,000 profit from his house sale.
Stunned Maureen recalled: "He vanished into thin air. I was heartbroken. He came to see me in October, he gave me a kiss before he left but I expected to see him again days later."
And a decade on from when she last saw him, Maureen failed to recognise David’s picture when Gtr Manchester Police released CCTV footage of him taken at Manchester’s Piccadilly rail station 24 hours before he was found dead near Dovestone reservoir in Oldham on December 12 2015.
Maureen, who was only contacted by police after they identified him thanks to a metal plate in his leg and a plane passenger list with his name on, admitted she is still puzzled by his death.
She said: "The man I am hearing about living in Pakistan and going across England to Saddleworth, it is not my David.
"I feel like I will never know what he was thinking, or who he was before he died.
The David I knew would not have killed himself
"The David I knew would not have killed himself.
“He may have taken strychnine as a boost, a dab on his skin, which could entered though his skin and killed him.
"I spent most of my life with him but I won't ever know what happened and why he didn't call me."
Mystery of the Man on the Moor is on tonight at 10pm on Channel 4.