from Hacker News

The Isdalen mystery

by radagast on 1/3/17, 3:14 PM with 25 comments

• by lb1lf on 1/3/17, 4:47 PM

  I am too young to remember this first-hand, but my parents were studying at the University of Bergen at the time; they vividly remember the case - unidentified bodies being exceedingly rare in Norway, this was the #1 conversational item for weeks, if not months.

  Lots and lots of theories as to her origins and the purpose of her tour of Norway not to mention the question of who killed her, and why.

  General consensus at the time was (at least in my parents' circles) was that it was too elaborate to have been a suicide - many thought she'd been in the employ of some Warsaw pact intelligence service, possibly being killed by associates after some falling out or the other. After all, if our counter-intelligence had gotten hold of her, they'd simply lock her up or deport her - or, if you are of a more sinister disposition, disappear her.

  Anyway - all just conjecture and guesswork; the idea was just to write a short comment to suggest that this case is very special by Norwegian standards - then I got a bit carried away...

• by mwidell on 1/3/17, 4:47 PM

  Reminds me of the Tamam Shud Case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamam_Shud_case

• by olalonde on 1/3/17, 4:21 PM

  There are some interesting theories and discussions about the case on the /r/UnresolvedMysteries subreddit[0]. My favorite one is that she might have been part of a check scams league[1].

  [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/search?q=isdal&...

  [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/3anykc...

• by iffycan on 1/3/17, 4:14 PM

  scree: a mass of small loose stones that form or cover a slope on a mountain

• by nl on 1/3/17, 11:03 PM

  There appears to be a follow-up story, but it is in Norwegian only: https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/er-dette-isdalskvinna_-1.13...

• by privong on 1/3/17, 11:04 PM

  The wikipedia page has some additional information not covered in this story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isdal_Woman

• by anotheryou on 1/3/17, 8:02 PM

  Spoiler: "until now" means just some new media thing about it, no news

• by Shivetya on 1/3/17, 4:53 PM

  Sadly it takes sensational stories like this get notice but in the US alone more than a half million get reported each year with nearly eight thousand missing at any one time

  At least here they have a body. There are tens of thousands of other bodies that cannot be identified in the US alone. So going forward it will probably take genetic sampling at birth so that everyone can be identified or every set of remains can be. How much of society trusts government to do only that?