Mum and sister still searching for answers about man's death in Glasgow canal

Norah and Michelle Connelly still manage a smile when they talk about their son and brother Johnny.

But behind the smiles are two women, and an entire family, who are still grieving five years on from his death.

They are still searching for answers as to what happened on a dark path near the M8 motorway in Glasgow in July 2019.

“He was just the biggest, most gentle guy, you would always feel safe around him”, his sister Michelle told STV News.

“He was a normal young guy, he loved his football, he was just a peaceful person.”

The trainee chef, who had mild learning difficulties, had travelled into Glasgow city centre to ask his boss about overdue wages.

Having left with an assurance his pay would be deposited in the bank, he started the journey back to his mum’s house in Milton.

He never arrived home.

“He’d been out all night and it wasn’t like him,” his mum Norah said.

“If he was out or staying with a friend he would come back at 11pm, or if he was staying he would come back in the morning.

“But that day, when he didn’t come back, we got a bad feeling. I had made his dinner – he wasn’t here for his dinner and that was wrong.

“I sat on the veranda watching every bus coming by, praying that my boy is going to come off the bus.”

A week later, the 28-year-old’s body was recovered from the Union Canal.

The only visitor to Norah’s door was a police officer saying they had found her son.

Johnny was discovered in the water at Spiers Wharf with a number of injuries to his head and body. STV News has seen an email from Police Scotland that confirms the incident was immediately being treated as suspicious.

But no arrests have been made five years on and the family are no closer to official confirmation of how Johnny died.

Michelle said: “I know that my brother was attacked that night. It just makes things worse and it’s confusing because how anybody could hurt him is beyond me. There is no badness in my brother, he met evil that night, that must have been what got my brother.”

Norah added: “If it was one of your sons or daughters and you were in my position that I was in now, you would be hoping somebody would come forward and try and put an end to this, try and find it in your conscience, your heart.”

In the month after his death, Police Scotland appealed for information, saying they believed Johnny was injured during “an incident” in an underpass on nearby Garscube Road.

They later said there may have been “some sort of altercation” and appealed for three men seen on CCTV to come forward with information.

STV News asked Police Scotland if those men had been identified or come forward – but they declined to say if either had happened.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “Our sympathies remain with the family of John Connelly, who have been looking for answers since his death in 2019.

“Enquiries have been completed at this time and no one has been charged in relation to the death.

“Any new information received in relation to this enquiry will be investigated thoroughly.”