Teenager found dead at water park ‘leaves legacy of love and kindness’
Ellen Higginbottom, 18, was found dead in Orrell Water Park in Wigan early on Saturday.
The family of a teenager found with fatal neck injuries at a nature reserve say her legacy would be “beauty and love and kindness”.
The body of 18-year-old Ellen Higginbottom was discovered in Orrell Water Park in Wigan, Greater Manchester, at about 2.30am on Saturday.
Her family raised the alarm on Friday evening after the psychology student failed to return from college.
In a statement issued through Greater Manchester Police, her family said Miss Higginbottom loved animals and enjoyed cooking and “messing on her phone”.
They said: “We could tell you about how excited she was when we tentatively suggested she might want a kitchen mixer for her 18th birthday. Not clothes and make-up and jewellery for Ellen, not really her thing.
“We could tell you how she had astonishingly reinvigorated her love of learning over the last few months after some difficult times.
“We could tell you that the last time we ‘had words’ was in 2001 when she jumped in a puddle after being told not to.
“But none of this makes sense because they’re just yellow stripes highlighting the book of her life and you haven’t read the rest of it. If a legacy is planting seeds in a garden you never get to see, then thanks to people like our remarkable Ellen it’s coming to beauty and love and kindness.”
On Tuesday, police charged Mark Steven Buckley, 51, of New Hall Lane, Preston, with the murder of Miss Higginbottom.
Buckley is due to appear at Wigan Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.
A man and a woman, both aged 30 and from the Wigan area, continue to be questioned on suspicion of assisting an offender.
A 47-year-old man from Billinge, Wigan, also remains in custody on suspicion of murder.
