Norway Norway - Isdalen, WhtFem 503UFNOR, multiple aliases, multilingual, Nov'70

[Mrs. Badcrumble]

I know, but I learned enough Norwegian using Duolingo to be able to read much of the material in that language

Besides, Google Translate tends to make a dog's dinner of the job in this case.

Good for you!

GT is ok enough; it gets the message through, although there are some truly hilarious lost in translation moments every once in a while...

 

[Mrs. Badcrumble]

According to the associate professor in forensic odontology at UiO, Isdalskvinnens dental work was most probably done in Eastern Europe.

Translated link: Google Translate

Original link: Tennene til Isdalskvinnen gir nye spor


In related news, the story of Isdal Woman is about to become an international tv series! De skal lage stor TV-serie om Isdalskvinnen

 

[haylestarp]

According to the associate professor in forensic odontology at UiO, Isdalskvinnens dental work was most probably done in Eastern Europe.

Translated link: Google Translate

Original link: Tennene til Isdalskvinnen gir nye spor


In related news, the story of Isdal Woman is about to become an international tv series! De skal lage stor TV-serie om Isdalskvinnen

That is awesome, even more of a chance of somebody from the country she belonged (maybe somewhere in Eastern Europe?) sees it. Problem is that if she was a spy, I wound not recond that the
governmental people of the country she is from would bounce up and say that they know who she is? And if she has family and friends, they might not know that she was a spy or that she was in Norway at the time?

 

[Groucho67]

Can I just check whether there is concrete evidence the Isdal woman actually used nine different passports.
The case overview summary page mentions them but if the police actually had them in their possession they would no doubt have circulated the passport photos when they were trying to establish her real identity.
I assume this nine-passport conclusion simply comes from the fact that she registered into hotels with at least nine different aliases since I have never seen any evidence to suggest the police seized the passports.
But how often would the details on a hotel registration form actually be checked closely against a passport?
If anyone has more information on this I'd be grateful if they could share it.
thanks in advance

 

[dotr]

Can I just check whether there is concrete evidence the Isdal woman actually used nine different passports.
The case overview summary page mentions them but if the police actually had them in their possession they would no doubt have circulated the passport photos when they were trying to establish her real identity.
I assume this nine-passport conclusion simply comes from the fact that she registered into hotels with at least nine different aliases since I have never seen any evidence to suggest the police seized the passports.
But how often would the details on a hotel registration form actually be checked closely against a passport?
If anyone has more information on this I'd be grateful if they could share it.
thanks in advance

Welcome to Ws Groucho67!
Maybe the fake passports were only used to book into hotels.
The mystery death haunting Norway for 46 years
"It emerges that the woman had stayed in several hotels in Norway - using different aliases. And since most hotels required guests to show a passport and fill in a check-in form, this means she would have had several fake passports"

 

[Groucho67]

Thanks Dotr,
Not sure how closely anyone behind a hotel check out desk would have checked a passport against a registration card. My concern is that the whole spy theory is based on pretty circumstantial evidence with the multiple passport element being the most important plank.
If she was calm and well used to presenting her real passport and filling out a registration card with a different ID without anyone actually checking then it's possible she may not have multiple passports at all.
It would have been fairly easy for her to explain away if she had been discovered by an over-zealous receptionist by saying she was running away from an abusive husband and didn't want her real identity compromised.
Without the passports the spy theories look a bit shaky to me. After all a high class hooker would have just as many reasons for going on 'tour', wearing wigs and sexy underwear, having multiple identities, being seen with a variety of different men, leaving a chair in a hotel hallway to show was 'available for business' etc etc.
Much has been made of her being seen in the company of a naval officers and near navy ports but let's be honest isn't that exactly where you might expect to find someone selling sexual encounters.
An experienced hitman would hardly have murdered a spy in such peculiar circumstances as her death. They would have shot her if they simply wanted to kill her - or if they wanted it to look like an accident would have thrown her off the side of the mountain.
There's something much more ritualistic about her murder which to me at least would fit better with her murder at the hands of a jealous, blackmailed, or psychopathic punter - or vengeful ex-partner.
Spies make a habit of being anonymous or nondescript - never trying to attract attention to themselves, yet this woman was remembered by almost everyone who had even a fleeting encounter with her and most of them talk about her attractiveness and her social/sensual confidence.
Sounds more like a high-class working girl to me.

 

[worldwatcher]

Welcome to Ws Groucho67!
Maybe the fake passports were only used to book into hotels.
The mystery death haunting Norway for 46 years
"It emerges that the woman had stayed in several hotels in Norway - using different aliases. And since most hotels required guests to show a passport and fill in a check-in form, this means she would have had several fake passports"

Interesting read, thanks!

 

[snowleopard]

Thanks Dotr,
Not sure how closely anyone behind a hotel check out desk would have checked a passport against a registration card. My concern is that the whole spy theory is based on pretty circumstantial evidence with the multiple passport element being the most important plank.
If she was calm and well used to presenting her real passport and filling out a registration card with a different ID without anyone actually checking then it's possible she may not have multiple passports at all.
It would have been fairly easy for her to explain away if she had been discovered by an over-zealous receptionist by saying she was running away from an abusive husband and didn't want her real identity compromised.
Without the passports the spy theories look a bit shaky to me. After all a high class hooker would have just as many reasons for going on 'tour', wearing wigs and sexy underwear, having multiple identities, being seen with a variety of different men, leaving a chair in a hotel hallway to show was 'available for business' etc etc.
Much has been made of her being seen in the company of a naval officers and near navy ports but let's be honest isn't that exactly where you might expect to find someone selling sexual encounters.
An experienced hitman would hardly have murdered a spy in such peculiar circumstances as her death. They would have shot her if they simply wanted to kill her - or if they wanted it to look like an accident would have thrown her off the side of the mountain.
There's something much more ritualistic about her murder which to me at least would fit better with her murder at the hands of a jealous, blackmailed, or psychopathic punter - or vengeful ex-partner.
Spies make a habit of being anonymous or nondescript - never trying to attract attention to themselves, yet this woman was remembered by almost everyone who had even a fleeting encounter with her and most of them talk about her attractiveness and her social/sensual confidence.
Sounds more like a high-class working girl to me.

Perhaps she was a spy, using the working girl angle to gain info.

 

[dotr]

April 2 2019 Lengthy article, rbbm.
Bergen’s cold case heats up with TV show - The Norwegian American
"The story of the Isdal Woman first came to my attention in 2014, when I saw the German-Norwegian film Two Lives (Zwei Leben/To liv), starring the acclaimed actresses Juliane Köhler and Liv Ullmann. Released in Europe two years earlier, it tells the story of Katrine, the daughter of a Norwegian woman and a German occupation soldier. She lives an idyllic life in Bergen with her husband, an officer in the Royal Norwegian Navy, their daughter, and her mother. But after the fall of the Berlin Wall, her life is disrupted when she is asked to testify at a trial against the Norwegian state on behalf of the “war children” ostracized in Norway or sent away to orphanages in Germany.

In the movie, a tangled web starts to unravel, and we learn that Katrine has been living a double life as a Stasi agent. It is a world of assumed identity, disguise, secret travel, and clandestine meetings, and yes, even murder. Years earlier, when the movie’s real Katrine escaped East Germany to be reunited with her mother, she was brutally murdered by the Stasi in the woods outside Bergen. The corpse was set on fire to destroy the evidence, as the protagonist continued on with her double life in this intriguing thriller.

Interweaving fiction and fact, the parallels to the story of the Isdal Woman were apparent. The screenplay was based on the unpublished manuscript Eiszeiten (Ice Ages) by German author Hannelore Hippe, who had read about the Isdal Woman in Bergen. Her unsolved mystery had to some extent served as a point of departure for the storyline, and with the film, a new interest in the cold case was awakened."

"Recently, it was announced that the Isdal Woman will also have her own TV series. Icelandic director and writer Óskar Jónasson is working with a screenplay. Her story will be told in both the present and past and will be filmed on location in Norway.


Jónasson is basing his protagonist on Tore Osland, son of the lead investigator of the Bergen case and author of the biography Isdalskvinnen (2002). While the Icelander is crafting an imaginative piece of fiction, he is carefully weaving it together with the facts. Jónasson sees new theories and evidence emerging from experts and witnesses, and like many others, it is his hope that someday the mystery of the Isdal Woman will be solved."

 

[Mrs. Badcrumble]

"Recently, it was announced that the Isdal Woman will also have her own TV series. Icelandic director and writer Óskar Jónasson is working with a screenplay. Her story will be told in both the present and past and will be filmed on location in Norway.


Jónasson is basing his protagonist on Tore Osland, son of the lead investigator of the Bergen case and author of the biography Isdalskvinnen (2002). While the Icelander is crafting an imaginative piece of fiction, he is carefully weaving it together with the facts. Jónasson sees new theories and evidence emerging from experts and witnesses, and like many others, it is his hope that someday the mystery of the Isdal Woman will be solved."

The story of Isdalskvinnen is also getting adapted into a theatre play, and is also a part of the plot in a graphic novel series written by Norwegian crime author Gunnar Staalesen and illustrated by Mike Collins.

 

[dotr]

For anyone interested in the film referenced in the article in my above post..

 

[AgeofAquaruis]

Have they done DNA testing? If so maybe Parabon nanolabs can find a match.

 

[dotr]

Cannot recall if this magazine titled "Medium" which has nothing to do with mediums, was already posted or not..
Very lengthy article includes many theories with photo support.
May 12 2018
Have I solved a part of the Forty Eight Year-Old Isdal Woman Mystery?

 

[annemc2]

Wow, dotr - that was an amazing read! I'm going to have to go over it again in the morning when I'm a bit more alert. That guy spent a lot of time and effort into writing up these theories. Thanks for sharing!

 

[worldwatcher]

Am not sure if,it's posted here before....but here is a very good timeline-link (1970-1974/2016)
(picked it up from another forum)

With each scrolling -crime scene photo's,fly-pass,police report,etc


Police Offices-1970
It was the largest investigation into the history of the Bergen Police. Here is some of the most important things that happened in the police force on the Isdalskvinnens identity:

November 29, 1970, at 13.00
Unknown woman found dead in Isdalen
A hiker and his two daughters find the body of a burned woman in a stone wall above the drinking water source Svartediket in Bergen.

November 29, 1970, at 14.00
Police arrive at the scene
After being notified by those who found the dead woman, the police moved out to Isdalen. They block the area around the scene and start investigations.

November 30, 1970
Crimean technicians do more thorough investigations
The forensic investigations continue the day after the discovery. The woman has then been lying on the scene over night with guards taking care that no one destroys any traces.

November 30, 1970
The body is moved to the Gades Institute for autopsy
By the day the dead is moved to the Gade Institute at Haukeland Hospital where the autopsy will be carried out. The autopsy is done by forensic medicine J. Chr.Giertsen.

December 1, 1970
Wanted is sent out to all police districts
The first inquiry related to the unknown woman is sent out internally in the police in Norway via the Police Officer.

December 2, 1970
Suitcases are found at the railway station in Bergen
The police find two suitcases in a storage box at the railway station in Bergen. The suitcases were put in on November 23, but have not yet been collected even though the time paid has expired. Quite quickly, they manage to connect the suitcases to to the missing woman.

December 4, 1970
Wanted internationally
Wanted with information about the unknown woman is sent internationally via Interpol. The search contains information about the appearance, clothing, teeth and objects found on the scene.

December 4, 1970
Preliminary autopsy report
The preliminary autopsy report shows that the woman has had undissolved tablets with tranquilizers in her stomach. They also find a small amount of alcohol in the blood.

December 4, 1970
Rubber boots slot
The police in Stavanger find out that a foreign woman who fits the description of the Isdalskinner has bought a pair of rubber boots of the type "Celebrity" in a shoe store in the city. Remnants of a boot of this type, with the right color, were found at the scene. The police find out that the woman has entered a hotel under the name Finella Lorck.

December 5, 1970
No hit with the name in Belgium
Belgian police have checked the name Finella Lorck, who used the Isdalskin when she was in Stavanger. They find no one with that name in their records.

December, 1970
Test results from forensic toxicology studies
The Institute of Forensic Medicine reports that the female donkey had 4 milligrams of the sedative Fenemal in the blood. This is not a lethal dose, but would have drained the woman vigorously. In addition, she had 12 tablets of Fenemal in the stomach, which were not dissolved when she died.

December 7, 1970
Åstedsrapporten completed
The state report to the police is finished. It is stated that the woman has been surrounded by a brief but intense fire. There was no residue for a bonfire, but the technicians could smell thethe petrol from a fur hat they found under the corpse.

December 7, 1970
Solution for code block
The police solve the code on the writing block they found in Isdalskvinnens baggage. It turns out to be a comprehensive itinerary - both in Norway and in Europe.

December 7, 1970
More travel tracks
The police discover that the Isdalskinner has traveled to and from Trondheim with Braathens SAFE (airline). Here she may have used the names E. Velding and L. Selling, but because she did not have to legitimize herself on airplanes in 1970, they cannot say for sure that she used the ticket.

December 8, 1970
The surveillance police are connected
According to an agreement between the chief of police in Bergen and the supervisor, the surveillance police (POT) is connected to the case. They will secretly investigate the spy theory. Two investigators from POT in Oslo travel to Bergen.

December 8, 1970
Confirms Oslo visit
The police in Oslo check foreign documents at all the hotels in the city. At Hotel Viking (today's Hotel Royal Christiania) they get hits. There, Genevieve Lancier has lived - one of the Isdal women's false identities


[ ]

Tidslinje: Slik etterforsket politiet Isdalssaken

 

[worldwatcher]

NRK's podcast collaboration with the BBC honored: This year's podcast and best "webcast"
"Death in Ice Valley" got two awards.

It started with the NRK project "The riddle in the valley" in 2015 - about a mysterious death in Bergen in 1970. This later became the BBC-NRK podcast "Death in Ice Valley", which on Tuesday this week broke off with two first prices during the distribution by The Drum Online Media Awards 2019 .

NRKs podkastsamarbeid med BBC hedret: Årets podkast og beste «nettdugnad»

 

[Littlegreenlady]

Good for them - I saw the team give a talk at a podcast convention in the UK. It was really interesting how they set it all out and how they used social media to help them to discuss certain points. They weren't sure if a second series would happen, as really there's no new evidence.

 

[ilovepierre]

Very intriguing case!
With all the aliases/passports, I still think she was a spy.

IMO

 

[Legally Bland]

Long article on the BBC. I haven't read the thread yet, so this could be old information.

Death in Ice Valley: New clues in a Norwegian mystery

 

[jslk]

What struck me was that there is DNA, which could be run through public family tree databases, but they cannot legally do this yet. There is a legal process which they have to go through first. Colleen Fitzpatrick wants to work the case. Frustrating. This is probably the only thing that may produce new info at this time.