Isdal Woman For Monday Mystery...!

Now here is one I don't think you have heard before, mainly because it's from Norway!

This is another one of those "long left unsolved" types of mysteries. It always bothers me a bit when a case goes this long without some type of solution. I hate to think of the family of the victim (if there is one) going all these years without knowing what happened to their loved one, ya know?

Isdal Woman

In November of 1970, hikers came across the charred, battered body of a woman in Norway’s Isdalen Valley. The body was surrounded by sleeping pills (many of which had been ingested) and bottles of gas. Her fingerprints were sanded off. She was later linked to a pair of suitcases found in a train station in Bergen; police found all the labels in her clothes had been removed. They also found 500 German marks, a prescription bottle for lotion (with the doctor’s name and date torn off), and a diary with coded entries. Her autopsy indicated dental work performed in Latin America. It was eventually discovered that the woman had traveled throughout Europe using different fake names. There were other clues; witnesses reported her in different wigs, changing hotels frequently, and speaking multiple languages.

Information on the case is scant and hard to come by; a witness came forward three decades later, claiming to have seen the woman in the forest followed by two men in black coats, saying the police told him to keep quiet when he initially reported what he’d seen. It is generally assumed that the Isdal woman must have been some sort of spy; 1970 would have been a ripe year for undercover activities in the Cold War. Despite one of the most massive investigations in Norwegian history, the woman’s identity will likely forever remain a mystery. Curiously—and very creepily—this tale bears a striking resemblance to the Taman Shud case in 1948 which also involved an unknown victim with tags removed from his clothes, a coded diary, and a suitcase turning up in a train station abandoned. That case is also still unsolved.

I got this story from Listverse where they have a large section devoted to mysteries and such! Do any of you have an interesting mystery that you think we should discuss here? If so, I'd sure like to hear it. I love this stuff!

Coffee outside once again! Man, being on the patio could become habit forming!