Armed police arrest man after human remains found in suitcases at Bristol’s Clifton Suspension Bridge

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A man has been arrested in Bristol after human remains were discovered in two suitcases by Clifton Suspension Bridge.

Police launched a manhunt after making the horrifying discovery late on Wednesday evening. They are no longer looking for anyone else after armed police detained a 34-year-old in the early hours of Saturday morning at Temple Meads railway station in Bristol.

Elsewhere, forensic officers were photographed at a crime scene at a property in Shepherd’s Bush, West London, and at the site of some nearby bins, on Saturday. Officers said on Friday that they had discovered more human remains at the West London property.

It is believed that the remains in London are connected to those found in Bristol and that they are both of two male victims.

Avon and Somerset Police received a report of a man with a suitcase acting suspiciously on the Clifton Suspension Bridge just before midnight on Wednesday.

When officers arrived, the man had left with the two cases soon found.

The investigation was taken over by the Metropolitan Police after human remains were found at the property in Shepherd’s Bush.

On Saturday, the force’s deputy assistant commissioner Andy Valentine thanked the public for their support, saying the arrest was “a significant development in our investigation”.

Witnesses who saw the suitcases near Clifton Suspension Bridge described them as “tatty”, with one woman saying she saw one of the pieces of luggage “leaking blood”.

Another passer-by described how he had joked with a woman who was helping to move the suitcases that they could have bodies inside.

Giles Malone, 61, said he recalled the woman saying: “These are the heaviest suitcases that I have ever lifted I suppose there could be a body in there.”

He described the suitcases as “real tatty, really beaten up and [they] had straps around them like in a criss-cross.”

He added: “They were maxxed out, it was like they were bursting at the seams.”

Another man, 36, was arrested in Greenwich, south London in connection with the discovery on Friday but they have since been released without charge.

The Metropolitan Police are leading the investigation and working with officers at Avon and Somerset Police.