The Enigmatic Death of the Isdal Woman

**"The Enigmatic Death of the Isdal Woman"** is a video made by Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej, uploaded onto YouTube on February 16, 2018. It was the fourth episode of the third season of *BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime*, and the fifty-fourth episode overall. You can find it here.

## Background

On November 29th 1970 in the Isdalen Valley near Bergen, Norway a family on a Sunday hike discovered the body of a woman wedged between large rocks. One of the first people on the scene and the last one living, police lawyer Carl Halvor Aas remembers the first thing they noticed was the very strong scent of burnt flesh. The body was severely burnt and the arms were in a boxer position in the air common in burned bodies. While the front of the body, including her face was burned beyond recognition the back side was bizarrely not burned. The officers were unable to tell how long she had been there or when she'd died. The woman was believed to be about five feet and 4.5 inches tall, aged between 25 and 30 years old.

Items recovered from the body and scene included jewelry, a broken umbrella, bottles, a watch, remnants of nylon stockings and rubber boots. However, oddly, the jewelry and watch were not found on the body but rather, beside it as if they had been placed there. All of the identifying labels on her clothes had been removed. Even the bottles found with the body had their labels rubbed off with no clues as to her identity. The police began looking for a witness who might be able to identify her. She is referred to as the Isdal woman.

An autopsy of the body discovered a large amount of fenema, a sleeping pill, in her stomach. Around 50 to 70 pills. Her blood stream had not fully absorbed them before her death. They also found smoke particles in her lungs which denotes that she was still alive while she burned. Petrol was also found at the scene near her body and it was evident that it was utilized in the burning. There was also a high level of carbon monoxide in her system a strange bruise on the right side of her neck was also discovered. After the autopsy, the death was determined to be a probable suicide due to the sleeping pills and the carbon monoxide from the fire.

In fact, the spot where she was found was the scene of many suicides in the Middle Ages and also where some unfortunate hikers fell to their death in the 1960s thus earning the title Death Valley from locals. The site was remote, difficult to clime and definitely not a hiking path.

Considering the curious state of the crime scene it's understandable to be skeptical of the ruling that it was a suicide. Who was this woman? The first major clue came three days after the body was discovered when two suitcases were found at the train station in Bergen. Inside the suitcases was a pair of non-prescription glasses with a fingerprint on the lens. The fingerprint was a match to the Isdal woman effectively linking the suitcases and all their contents to her, which is important since the suitcases contained several mysterious items.

Inside the suitcases were clothes, wigs, a comb, hair brush, make-up, money from Germany and Norway as well as coins from Belgium, Switzerland and the U.K. A tube of eczema cream was also found in the suitcase but the prescription label that would indicate the patient and prescribing doctor had been removed. The labels of the make-up had also been removed and the efforts to identify the brands failed. Beyond these items, there was one item that seemed particularly promising if not strange, to the police. A notepad with a code written in blue ink. A code that could not be cracked by the police, at first.

The second major clue also came from the suitcase and was a plastic bag from a shoe store about 130 miles away in Stavanger, Norway. Rolf Rørtvedt, the store owner's son described blue celebrity boots he sold to a woman about three weeks prior. The boots matched the ones found at the scene. Rørtvedt gave a well-detailed account of her appearance. In summary, she was well-dressed medium height with a round face with dark brown eyes, long dark hair and had a strange odor to her that Rørtvedt would realize years later was garlic.

Rørtvedt's description led police to St Svithun in Stavanger, where the Isdal woman stayed under the name Fenella Lorch. However, when police checked hotels back in Bergen no hotel had admitted a woman named Fenella Lorch which brings us to our third major clue. The coded writing on the notepad. It turns out Fenella Lorch was not the woman's real name and in fact, she had at least eight names that she used at hotel's around Norway. This meant the woman had multiple passports with differing names. Police were able to match up the names using handwriting analysis on the hotel check-in forms and cross-referencing it with the code found in the suitcase. The numbers and letters in the code correspond to the woman's stay in all the different cities. For example, 030 BN5 relates to her stay in Bergen from October 30th to November 5th.

After examining all the registrations the police realized she mostly claimed to be from Belgium when she registered. All of which were confirmed to be fake Belgium identities. They also gained insight of the woman's habits by speaking with various hotel staff. For instance, she often asked to change rooms and she utilized some German and Flemish as well as English. Additionally, they also described her as well-dressed.

The fourth major clue was the Isdal woman's teeth and tissue samples. For this clue, let's skip forward to modern times when new scientific developments were applied to the investigation. A professor of dentistry named Gisle Bang. Professor Bang examined the Isdal woman's teeth covered in fillings and gold crowns and determined the unusual dentistry may have occurred in southern or central Europe perhaps even Asia. However, before the location could be locked down professor Bang unfortunately passed away in 2011 and the teeth, hilariously were rumored to have been thrown away because they smelled. The Isdal woman's missing teeth were later found at Haukeland hospital in a remote warehouse. Also in that hospital were tissue samples that included the Isdal woman's heart, lungs, spleen and liver among others.

The Isdal woman's teeth were subjected to an isotope test which determines where the woman grew up based, incredibly, on the water she drank. Using this test, scientists were able to pinpoint an area near the France and Germany border where the Isdal woman likely grew up. DNA testing revealed the Isdal woman was of European descent, possibly from North America though, her poor English would suggest otherwise.

With the Isdal woman's features and background starting to materialize out of the darkness new police sketches were drawn of her in 2016. In May 2017, a black notice is sent out through Interpol with the Isdal woman's DNA attached in hopes to find new leads and with that we arrive at the end of the clues. Yet, the question persists. Who was this woman?

As some of you might have already wondered many suspect she was a spy. Let's see if that claim has any weight. Obviously, the case file was quite peculiar but external factors such as the ongoing Cold War also catalyzed speculation that the Isdal woman was, in fact, a spy perhaps connected. Norway was revealed to be home to Russian spies and Mossad agents from Israel a mere three years after the Isdal woman's death. In fact, four Mossad agents were questioned about the Isdal woman. However, none of the agents claimed to recognize her or any of the Isdal woman's aliases.

Around the time of the murder Norwegian intelligence agencies looked into the case of the Isdal woman due to the odd circumstances surrounding it. A week after the discovery, Ornulf Tofte and Bjorn Langbakke of the police security service began investigating the case. Ornulf Tofte says he was called by the Bergen Chief of Police to investigate whether there was anything connecting the strange case to spying. While their team ultimately decided the death was an accident Tofte remarks that it doesn't mean the woman was not involved in espionage. He claims her false passports point to the possibility of her being a "illegal agent". Here's the Bergen police crime commissioner's response in an interview a few weeks into the investigation after being asked about the role of espionage in the case. "We have no proof of that. No, we can safely say. I'd go further to say we've completely eliminated that possibility". However, the Norwegian surveillance agency denied involvement until 2002.

Knut Haavik, a crime reporter covering the case says he was given case files to write an article about the Isdal woman in the 1970s. In the files, he found an envelope containing a cassette tape. However, the envelope was marked with a warning that said it should not be opened without express permission from the supervisor. As such, the envelope was never opened and there was no record of what was on that tape.

Finally, as further proof that the Isdal woman may have been a spy her habits in situation were also suspect. Just to recap, she had multiple passports and used fake names, she had wigs, wrote in code and all identifying labels and marks on her belongings were scratched off, either by her or by somebody else. She also seemed to have quite a bit of money to dress so well, travel to each country/city and then afford all the hotels that she stayed in. Other than that, there's nothing concrete. It appears the Isdal woman is as allusive after death as she was when she was living.

## Theories

* **It was a suicide as originally determined.** Returning to the autopsy, 50 to 70 sleeping pills were found in her stomach. Officials see this as a sign of suicide as it would be hard to force someone to consume that many pills in multiple doses.
	+ Though, due to the odd detail surrounding the case many, including officers involved, doubt that suicide is the true answer.
* **It was an accident.** On the scene, officers suspected she may have been burned by flames which she might have fallen into and responded by jumping backward away from the flames and over the cliff. Police security service, as mentioned before ultimately decided that the death was an accident. One question there uncovered by this service revealed that she had a large can of hairspray which in theory, could have been dropped in a bonfire she had built. The result would be an explosion causing her burns and ultimately, her death.
	+ Though this doesn't seem to explain the petrol found at the scene that was utilized in her burning. Furthermore, there would also be evidence of an explosion.
* **She was murdered.** Her possible life of espionage would undeniably lend itself to a veritable list of enemies. So, it's not unthinkable that somebody would want her dead.
	+ Returning to the crime scene, the jewelry and watch were not found on the body, but beside it as if it had been placed there. Sure, this could have been the last acts of a person committing suicide but if her true plan was to commit suicide why set herself on fire? Adding to this, is nobody seemed to have an explanation of how the fire started other than the wild hairspray theory.
	+ Returning to the autopsy, there was a strange bruise on the right side of her neck. The crime reporter mentioned before, Knut Haavik also wasn't convinced on the ruling. "Personally, I'm totally convinced that this was a murder. She had various identities, she operated with codes, she wore wigs, she traveled from town to town and switched hotels after a few days. This is what the police call conspiratory behavior."