Isdal Woman
The modern investigation
In 2018 Norwegian NRK and British BBC journalists published a podcast series titled Death in Ice Valley, in which they not only reviewed the evidence, but also found new leads and new experts that could shed some light on the Isdal Woman case.
One of the most important discoveries that they made had something to do with age of Isdal Woman. Due to fact that she was using different names, professions and dates of birth on the check-in forms police was unable to confirm her identity, but since she always put her date of birth between 1940 and 1945 it was assumed that she was around 25-years-old at the moment of her death. However recent analysis of available tissue (parts of the jaw) shown her biological date of birth as close to 1930, which would make her 40 at the moment of her death.
Another expert was able to approximate her place of birth as south-east Germany (and more specifically around Nuremberg), which would explain why she spoke better German than English and used German in some of the check-in forms. However it was also shown that her German also was not perfect, at least in some forms she made mistakes in German words.
This was partly explained by findings of another expert, a graphologist, who sent samples of Isdal Woman’s writing to several countries around Europe and got answer that the writing patterns are typical for someone, who was educated in France.
Another bit of information was linked to the unusual gold-filling dental work that was found on Isdal Woman. That particular technique was rarely used in Western countries due to its cost and fact that there was a better technology already available on the market. This led the journalists to conclusion that she could have been treated in Germany, Central Europe or even perhaps in Middle East.
In podcast also few of the belongings of Isdal Woman were taken under scrutiny, since some of them seemed to be from completely different places - she had box of matches with German lingerie shop (or sex shop) advert, a spoon that was made in Austria, Belgian coins, Swiss coins, as well as items from Rome and Paris. At the same time she bought umbrella and rubber shoes in Norway and even the shop owner remembered she visited shop few times before actually buying them as if she needed to think about it.
However, even though the journalists and experts made a lot of progress, the identity of Isdal Woman is still a mystery.
Can you solve a mystery like this one?
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