The Isdalen valley is an unforgiving place. It sits in the shadow of the largest of a group of mountains overlooking the Norwegian city of Bergen, its rocks whipped bare of grass by bracing winds. Translated literally, Isdalen means ‘the ice valley’, but locals give it a more sinister name – Death Valley, after a string of suicides in the Middle Ages.
This story begins in November 1970. The depths of winter were drawing in; driving rain would soon be giving way to walls of snow and the vegetation in the valley strained to soak up the few hours of daylight that remained in the ever-shortening days. Two young girls, out hiking with their father, stumbled upon what they thought was a shop mannequin discarded in the brush. Upon closer inspection, the group recoiled in horror and hurried back to Bergen for help. The girls had discovered the badly burned corpse of a woman who would become the centre of the most enduring mystery in the history of Norway.
The Crime Scene and First Clues
The scene yielded a confounding series of clues. The woman lay on her back, her arms pulled into her torso. She was charred beyond all recognition, yet there was no evidence of a campfire. Personal items were delicately placed around her body in a ritualistic fashion: rubber boots, a wool jumper, stockings, a purse, a matchbox, a ring and two earrings. All the labels on her clothing had either been removed or rubbed clean. Under her body lay a hat, on which small traces of petrol could be detected. All traces of the woman’s identity had been erased, the paucity of clues reflecting the desolation of her resting place. Who was this woman? Was she somebody’s daughter, mother, sister? What had brought her to this place? And, how did she meet her end?
Coroners concluded that her death had been an excruciating one: the sooty deposits in her oesophagus indicated she was alive when she was burned and had died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Analysis of her stomach revealed that she had ingested up to 80 sleeping pills. It was not clear whether she had swallowed the pills willingly.
The first break in the case came when two unclaimed suitcases in the train station storage facility in Bergen were examined by police. It was strongly suspected that these cases belonged to the woman, now referred to as the ‘Isdal Woman’, after the valley in which she was discovered. Inside these suitcases Norwegian police found a curious collection of items: glasses, whose non-prescription lenses bore fingerprints that matched those of the Isdal Woman, clothing and shoes (once again missing labels), makeup, Danish and German currency, numerous maps and train timetables. They also discovered a piece of paper that seemed to contain a code: the page was covered in purposeful combinations of numbers and letters, line after line of garbled text they may well have held the clues as to who this woman was.
The Mystery Deepens
Norway saw few foreigners in 1970. Anyone without a fair complexion and blonde hair would have stood out, particularly so outside the capital, Oslo. The autopsy of the Isdal Woman revealed that she had dark brown hair and dark eyes. These characteristics did indeed stay in the recollections of locals, who remembered her shopping and staying in a hotel in the area in the weeks and months prior to her death. She was eventually tracked to room 407 of the Hotel Hordaheimen, where she had signed her name as Elisabeth Leenhouwer. During check in, for which she would have had to have produced a valid passport, she wrote that she was born in November 1945 and that she had been born in Ostend, a coastal city in Belgium. With this, the Isdal woman had surely been identified. However, this was just the beginning. There was one problem with this piece of evidence: the woman’s name was not Elisabeth Leenhower.
The coded message in her suitcase became the key piece of information in her case. Norwegian police quickly cracked the code – it was an itinerary. The Isdal Woman had tracked her movements around Europe. She had moved extensively through Norway (Oslo, Stavanger and Bergen) and Europe (staying predominantly in Paris). Investigators cross-referenced her journey with hotel check-in cards and the testimony of local witnesses. They eventually unpicked a tapestry of deception; the Isdal Woman had at least eight different identities, with valid passports to match:
- Genevive Lancier, a Belgian born in July 1945
- Claudia Tielt, also born in Belgium in 1945
- Claudia Tielt again, this time born in 1945
- Claudia Nielsen, born in yet another Belgian city in April 1945
- Alexia Zarne-Merchez, a Slovenian born in November 1943
Strange stories about the woman’s behaviour began to emerge. She is remembered to have spoken English in thick accents and smelled strongly of garlic. Hotel employees remembered her as an eccentric guest: she would rearrange furniture in the room, often leaving tables and chairs upside-down in the hallway. She frequently dined alone, though at times entertained male visitors in thick woollen coats, with whom she did not seem to be getting on.
Why would a lone woman travel so frequently, hiding her identity along the way? This was late 1970 and though the Cold War was not at its height, the conflict had certainly not yet thawed. Just two years previously, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw pact allies had violently surprised attempts to liberalise Czechoslovakia, eventually invading and annexing the country. Meanwhile, the United States were embroiled in the Vietnam War, the most gruesome conflict in the country’s attempt to suppress the spread of Communism. Norway found itself at the frontline of the tension between the two superpowers. Their proximity to the Soviet Union and resistance of Communism painted a target on their back and the country’s leadership felt a need to protect themselves. As the Isdal Woman was traveling around Norway, clandestine tests of an advanced weapon were being carried out in Norway’s port cities and military bases. The so-called Penguin Missile was a best-in-class anti-ship missile, designed to skim across the surface of the water, guided by lasers at high subsonic speed. If Norway were successful in developing the missile, it would bring them to the forefront of military technology and substantially enhance their defence against the Soviet Union.
Piecing Together the Puzzle
Slowly, a picture began to emerge. The Isdal Woman had travelled throughout Europe using multiple identities and falsified documents. She carried around paraphernalia that would alter her appearance. She spent time in Norway in a time of heightened tension and, when her itinerary was checked against military records, she appeared to be following the Penguin Missile from testing site to testing site. To investigators, it pointed to one thing: the Isdal Woman was a spy.
They eventually ruled her death a suicide, pointing the vast amount of sleeping pills in her system. However, the case remains open. The Norwegian press and public have been enthralled with the case ever since and, unsatisfied with the assertations of the investigators at the time, want further questions answered. Who was the Isdal Woman? If she was a spy, which intelligence service did she work for?
With her numerous fake passports, nobody knew her real name or her date and place of birth. Though police recovered fingerprints from the body, there were no records in the database that matched. DNA would not be used as a forensic tool for at least another 20 years. It seemed that her identity would forever remain a mystery.
However, recently developed technologies have been able to shed new light on the mystery, taking investigators ever closer to solving the puzzle. All crime scenes where an individual has died are subject to forensic investigation. Forensics can be loosely defined as the application of science to answer questions that lead to the upholding of laws. Forensic science is a story of continued innovation. From humble beginnings in 13th century China, during which physicians developed methods to identify cause of death and to estimate time of death, forensic science has continued to adopt new discoveries about how our bodies function and interact with their environment. Today, forensics is comprised of a series of technologies, including highly accurate DNA analysis. Regardless of the complexity of a forensic investigation, four key things need to be established:
- Post-mortem interval (how long ago the individual died)
- Determination of age at death
- Determination of year of birth
- Determination of year of death
Biological markers can be used to determine how recently somebody has died. The breakdown of haemoglobin, the oxygen-transporting molecule contained in our red blood cells, and the slow disintegration of other tissues can give a relatively accurate picture of the time post-mortem – which also therefore indicates the year of death. Much harder to determine, especially in cases like that of the Isdal Woman, where so little is known about the person’s identity, is the year of an individual’s birth.
A Nuclear Legacy
In the case of the Isdal Woman, the answer to the question of her identity came from the very reason she may have come to Norway in the first place – The Cold War.
On 5 August 1963, the Partial Test Ban Treaty was signed in Moscow. This landmark agreement, banning the above-ground testing of all nuclear devices, was signed by the governments of the United States, Soviet Union and United Kingdom, who were soon followed by 123 further signatories. In the decade prior to the ban, the United States, Soviet Union and United Kingdom had conducted 269 atmospheric tests between them and the effect on the composition of the atmosphere was notable. Each detonation released torrents of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, the concentration of which could be tracked over time. One of these particles, known as Carbon-14 (written henceforth as 14C) which substantially increased in concentration during the era of above ground nuclear tests, would become central in the case of the Isdal Woman.
Carbon is one of the most abundant elements on our planet. It forms the basis of all living organisms on Earth. It enters the food chain when plants convert carbon dioxide into glucose and oxygen. Carbon atoms are repeatedly recycled through numerous chemical reactions and are incorporated every plant tissue, from cellular membranes to the waxy surfaces of leaves. Carbon even goes on to form the backbone of DNA, the molecule that contains the instructions to produce every protein, cell and tissue in every organism on this planet. Once incorporated into plants in this way, carbon makes its way up the food chain and eventually makes up 18% of the mass of our own bodies. The vast majority of carbon found in the molecules that make up living organisms is Carbon-12 (12C), the most stable form of the element. This form of carbon has six neutrons and six protons in its nucleus, surrounded by six electrons. Carbon can go on to share these electrons with those of other atoms, creating larger compounds, such as those found in our DNA.
Image by dacurrier from Pixabay
Though 12C is the most common form of carbon, other, rare forms exist. These rarer forms of atoms, which contain slightly different ratios of sub-atomic particles, are known as isotopes. Two further isotopes of carbon exist – 13C and 14C. Naturally, 14C is present in trace amounts – it makes up only one in every thousand billion carbon atoms. However, during the period of nuclear testing, atmospheric levels of 14C doubled. Nuclear explosions release beams of high-powered neutrons, which can strike other atoms present in the atmosphere. The most likely target for these neutrons is Nitrogen, which makes up roughly 70% of all atmospheric gases. Nitrogen has seven neutrons, protons and electrons. When struck by a high-powered neutron, one of the protons is replaced, leaving an isotope of carbon with eight neutrons and six protons in its nucleus. The isotope is named after the total number of neutrons and protons, giving this isotope the name Carbon-14 – 14C.
14C, unlike the other, more-stable, versions of Carbon, is radioactive, meaning that it spontaneously breaks down. It has a half-life of 5,700 years, meaning that it will take this long for exactly half a given amount of 14C to have disappeared. Levels of atmospheric 14C peaked just before the signing of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Since then, atmospheric levels have been halving every 18 years, not due to radioactive decay but due to absorption into natural carbon sinks, such as oceans.
This rapid rise and fall of 14C in the atmosphere acts a unique radioactive chronograph. By comparing the levels of 14C found incorporated into molecules and tissues to the relative levels of 14C in the atmosphere, it is possible to estimate when that tissue was formed. 14C levels incorporated into the DNA and other components of our cells will remain the same until the cell divides. Therefore, in tissues that do not renew, the levels of 14C in that tissue will be a snapshot of the atmospheric concentrations at the time when that tissue was first formed, early in an individual’s life. Tissues that constantly renew will instead show a snapshot of the 14C levels at the time when the most recent form of the tissue was made, presumably closer to a victim’s death.
Therefore, detection of the amount of 14C in tissues that turn over slowly can act as an indicator of the year of birth, while analysis of 14C concentration in tissues that rapidly regenerate will produce an estimation of the year of death.
Our bodies are made up of a vast range of tissues, some of which are constantly replaced, such as blood, skin, nails and hair, and some that are either never replaced once produced or are very slowly replaced, such as tooth enamel and bone tissue.
Knowing the Isdal Woman’s year of birth would go some way to determining her true identity and solving the mystery of her death. Decades after the case was closed and ruled a suicide, journalists continuing to investigate her death scoured police archives, searching for any evidence that might yield some new information. There, discarded in a cardboard box gathering dust, was just what they were looking for: the retained jawbone of the Isdal Woman. Even more than 40 years after her death, it was possible to extract samples of enamel. Hypothetically, analysis of the 14C content of her enamel would give an indication of the year when the enamel was formed. Previous work had already shown that enamel develops in specific teeth at specific stages of infancy.
Therefore, analysing the enamel of a known tooth would allow investigators to count backwards and find the year of birth for the Isdal Woman. Radiocarbon dating is not completely accurate, but it can estimate year of birth within four years. The analysis was carried out by a private organisation, keen to support the reinvigorated investigation.
Answers
Finally, decades after her mysterious death in the Isdalen Valley, investigators knew one true, verifiable piece on information: the Isdal Woman was born in 1930. She was much older than any of her aliases and, as deeper analyses of ratios of isotopes in her bone tissue revealed, she was in fact likely to have been born in southern Germany, though she did grow up further north, perhaps in the French-speaking region of Belgium.
Her year and location of birth spawned several
theories. This dark-haired girl was born in Germany in
the year that Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party became the second-largest party and
began its rapid rise to power. Could she have been Jewish, one of the many
children sent away from increasingly prejudicial treatment on the Kindertransport? Did she then go on to become an Israeli spy?
The Israeli national intelligence agency – Mossad – were known to have female
agents and were active in Norway at the time of
the Isdal Woman’s death; Israeli agents infamously assassinated
a Moroccan waiter in Lillehammer in a case of mistaken identity.
These are just theories. Forensic investigation
of recovered DNA samples and deep investigation of tissue
isotope content cannot yet tell us about ethnic backgrounds of individuals.
The case remains open, but radiocarbon dating has provided the first step in
peeling away the mystery.
The spot where the Isdal Woman was discovered bears little sign of the mystery that has engulfed a nation for half a century. Wind continues to whistle through the rocks, whipping away all but the hardiest of plants and mosses. The Isdal woman was laid to rest in February 1971. Her zinc coffin, manufactured so it would not disintegrate and could be exhumed if relatives came forward, was carried from the small chapel in the Møllendal graveyard in Bergen by six men. These men, along with the other twelve guests at the proceedings, did not know the Isdal Woman – they were all police officers. As the coffin was lowered into the ground, the priest reflected that she was probably being buried in a land unknown to her. As she disappeared into the ground, forensic science could do no more to identify her and the case was officially closed. Thanks to new technologies, investigators are one step closer to revealing her true identity. Perhaps, with even just minor developments in forensic science, the case may be closed for the final time.
14C isotope analysis propelled this, and a number of other criminal cases forward. However, it won’t be a forensic tool for much longer. It was human activity that artificially increased 14C levels in Earth’s atmosphere through nuclear weapon testing and human activity is now also responsible for artificially changing them once again. The oil and gas we use as fuel represent the remains of organisms that lived long ago and have long been buried in sediments, crushed and compressed over millennia. The atmospheric radioactive carbon that was incorporated into these organisms, and hence into the fuels derived from them, has disappeared. Therefore, the carbon dioxide emitted when these fuels are burned is free of radioactive carbon. This drives down the radio of 14C compared to other carbon isotopes, making the atmosphere appear ‘older’ than it really is. Estimates suggest that even with the most aggressive of actions to limit CO2 emissions, the atmosphere will appear to be 30 years older than it is. With little limit of CO2 emissions, the atmosphere may be up to 2000 years out of sync by the end of the century. Without dramatic action, the era or carbon isotope forensics may end as almost as soon as it began.
