DNA from a Thai family who think their missing relative could be a woman who was found dead in the Yorkshire Dales has been shared with police.
The body of a woman was discovered by a group of walkers on Pen-y-Ghent in September 2004. A cold case team announced last year that they believed the woman may have been a “Thai bride” and that she was murdered.
A press conference in north-east Thailand in January heard a family had come forward about a missing relative, called Lamduan, who married a British man in 1991 and moved to England four years later. The woman’s mother has not heard from her daughter since 2004.
DNA samples from the woman’s parents, who live in a remote region of northern Thailand, have been shared with North Yorkshire police.
The unidentified body, who has become known locally as the “lady of the hills”, was between 25 and 35 years old, of south-east Asian origin, about 4ft 11in tall, with shoulder-length dark brown hair.
When she was found she was half-dressed, wearing only Marks & Spencer jeans and socks, with a bra hanging off her left arm. A postmortem suggested she had been dead for between one and three weeks.
The body had deteriorated too much to establish the exact cause of death, but it was clear she had not been stabbed, beaten with an object or shot.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Lamduan’s mother Joomsri said: “I pray to the spirits. I don’t want the DNA to match the lady in England. I want her to be alive, just like me.” She said her daughter had called home saying she was unhappy before her disappearance.
The paper traced Lamduan’s last known movements to Burton-in-Kendal, a village in southern Cumbria, about 29 miles from where the body was found. A neighbour recalled that Lamduan and her husband returned to Thailand in 2004.
Lamduan married a British man who was working as an English teacher in Chiang Mai in 1991. Four years later, she is thought to have moved to England with her husband and eight-year-old son from a previous relationship. She reportedly later gave birth to two more children.
North Yorkshire police said: “Inquiries are ongoing to establish the identity of the woman.”
