Long-dead lady baffles French (2-year murder investigation reveals that victim died 500 years ago)

Sunday Times (South Africa) ^ | Wednesday January 25, 2006 08:54 - (SA)

[dead]

BREST - French police who spent two years trying to identify a woman who was murdered by a blow to the head were relieved to discover the reason their efforts were failing: the woman died half a millennium ago.

The skeleton of a woman in her 30s was found during an exceptionally low tide in December 2003 near the seaside Brittany town of Plouezoc'h.

A long gash in the skull convinced investigators she was killed with a hatchet or other sharp implement.

Police ploughed through missing persons' files to no avail.

A theory that the woman was the wife of a Normandy doctor who disappeared with his family in a famous 1999 case was dismissed after DNA tests.

Eventually radiocarbon dating established that the death had occurred between 1401 and 1453.

"We are satisfied because at least we know the date now. We reckon it was pirates," said Francois Gerthosser of the Plourin-les-Morlaix police.

Sapa-AFP

[Squeako]

Inspector Clouseau is on the case............

Mehrder?! What mehrder?!

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I heff soll-ved ze case!

[albee]

"To be under the water, just below the tideline, for 500 years, and to look "good as new" seems a little hard to believe."

Yeah! She doesn't look a day over 375 years old.

[reagan_fanatic]

"She's not dead, she's just resting."

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Is the equation 500 years = half a millennium part of the New Math?

Is this a trick question or am I missing something? Any way you look at it 500 years is one half of a millennium (1,000 years).

[madison10]

...it was me fate. sitting there on the beach, I was. Drinking me marguerita, I was...Then out from beyond the treeline came a noose that bound me around me neck.... Been hanging around since

Why does the above read like "Yoda Goes A'Pirating?"