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

[Redbob]

"I didn't know the frogs ever said "I reckon"."

Just in the south of France...

[FreedomFarmer]

[Arthur McGowan]

She would probably be dead by now, anyway, even if she hadn't been hit in the head.

[JIM O]

Where was George Bush between 1401 and 1453?

[Pharmboy]

And where were you guys the night of April 12, 1410???

[WmCraven_Wk]

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

Soon to be documented on an episode of 'Cold Case'.

[The Clemson Tiger]

We prefer the term Buccaneer-Americans...

[Bubba_Leroy]

"Never mind."

[SteveMcKing]

And you wonder why the teacher moved your desk to the back of the classroom every year....

[noblejones]

Dang! Twinkies DO last forever!

[noblejones]

>>
Soon to be documented on an episode of 'Cold Case'.
<<

Rich white guy did it.

[Zavien Doombringer]

ARRRRGHHH!!!

Twasn't me crew, headin' for Jamaica we were...

[lawgirl]

We RECKON it was pirates??? LOL! This does not sound like something a frenchman would say.

[Constantine XIII]

Ninjas >>> Pirates

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Pharmboy. Half-thawed Dead Viking Chick from a Greenland Iceberg ping.

In Horus vol II no 1, a journal published by the late David Griffard, Barry Fell was interviewed. Among other things:

We learned that seals were coming to a bad end and being mummified by nature in Antarctica in 1200 A.D. That was interesting and we wondered what was happening in Antarctica at that time...one of the technicians... noticed that a seal carcass that he himself had shot for dog-meat and that got left out through the winter... [looked] just like the mummified seals that they had been sending in. So without telling too many people what he was doing, he sent this mummified seal to be carbon-dated and do you know it was dated to 1200 A.D., and he had shot it the year before. When that was made public it really caused a storm...

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[Physicist]

Scott Peterson should have tried the "pirates" defense.

[Serb5150]

Bizarre ping.

[Blogger]

Agreed.

[Tribune7]

Did he really say "reckon?"

[A knight without armor]

Maybe the body just got loose from a peat bog or deep mud where it has been kept preserved. Good grief. At this rate perhaps someday a dino will wash up in South Beach.