Wigan mum still wants answers about son's death as teenagers arrested in murder probe are released without charge

A murder investigation was launched when the body of 18-year-old Samson Price was found in Westwood Lodge on Sunday, October 4.

Three teenaged boys, aged 17, 18 and 19, were arrested on suspicion of murder and remained under investigation, but police have now released them without charge.

Samson’s mother Rosanna Price says she was told there was a “lack of evidence” – and she still does not know exactly what happened to him.

Mrs Price, who lives in Goose Green, said: “I have never got justice. I don’t know how my son died, I don’t know why my son died. I am as much in the dark now as I was on the day my son died.”

Samson, a keen rugby player who was doing a plumbing course at Wigan and Leigh College, went night fishing with several other young men on Saturday, October 3.

His mother understands they took a drug similar to LSD and a video showing Samson under the influence was filmed on his mobile phone at 10.50pm. In the video, a male voice can be heard to say: “Chuck him in the pond.”

The phone was one of his “most treasured possessions” and he had been desperate to get it when he turned 18, thinking he was the “bee’s knees”, Mrs Price said.

But she says CCTV footage shows the other men going to a van at 11.16pm without him.

It is alleged the men returned to the area at 1.50am to look for Samson, but no one contacted his family or called the police.

It was only at 1.30pm that Mrs Price was told her son was missing and her husband, also named Samson, alerted emergency services.

Samson’s body was found in the water that afternoon and a post-mortem examination showed he died by drowning.

She said: “It has been six months since Samson has gone and still no contact with me, his dad or his sister or anybody.”

With no charges being brought against the trio, police will pass a file to the coroner for an inquest looking into Samson’s death.

Mrs Price, 43, hopes that could provide some of the answers she is seeking and perhaps even lead to a fresh police investigation.

It has been a difficult six months for Mrs Price and her family, who have had to deal with not only Samson’s tragic death, but questions about what happened.

She said: “It has been absolute hell. I’m not at work because I can’t cope. I cry a lot.

“I really prayed for this child and he was everything I wanted. He was so loving and so full of life and fun.”

She said she is “not one tiny bit of the woman” she was before her son died, describing herself as previously being “independent” and “strong” and now preferring to stay at home and not see people.

But she said friends of Samson’s had been “amazing”, continuing to check on her, visiting his grave and tending to a shrine created on a bridge close to where he died.

But thoughts of the future were difficult without her “prince”.

“It’s not just Samson I have lost,” she said. “It’s his life, the children he would have had, the wife he would have married, the adventures he would have gone on.

“Samson was full of adventure. This year he planned to go to festivals and finally get his passport and go to New York and do Route 66. He just really loved life.

“The world is such a dull, sad place without him in it. It’s horrible, it’s absolutely horrible. Every day me and Samson talked or he would send stupid little things.

“I just can’t believe he’s not here. I still, to this day, expect him to walk through the door. It’s so hard. No-one tells you grief is so heavy. It’s like I’m walking around with him sitting on my shoulders.

“I am a Christian woman and I do have strong faith in Jesus and I’m praying and hoping that when we go to the coroner, that it will go back to the police.”

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