The Unsolvable Case of Death Part 2: The investigation

As the suitcases were opened, the mystery of the unidentified woman began to unfold on its own. It didn’t take long to confirm that the belongings inside were hers, especially a pair of glasses with her fingerprints on the lens. Oddly, the lenses were plain glass, with no correction.

Inside the suitcases, there were also two wigs, stylish clothes, coats, a bathrobe, and a train map marking the stations between Oslo and Bergen, with handwritten notes at the top. Additional items included a compass, a pair of slippers with the word “Italy” faintly visible inside, 500 German Deutschmark, a sewing kit from a hotel in Geneva, and a steel spoon engraved with a heart and the letters “S C HP” on the back.

This spoon would later be traced to an Austrian manufacturer. Also found were cosmetics and some cream, but like many of her other belongings, the labels had been either erased or completely removed. It was clear that the woman had gone to great lengths to conceal her identity. However, there was one item that still had a label: a matchbook connected to a well-known erotic lingerie brand.

In Germany's Postal Service, investigators also found a notebook containing a series of numbers and letters—possibly a code. However, the clue that would truly kickstart the investigation was a shopping bag with a receipt inside. The receipt was from a shoe store in Stavanger, located south of Bergen. This would become the police's first lead in their quest to unravel the mystery of the Isdal Woman.

The store clerk vividly recalled serving the Isdal Woman on November 18th, 1970. Interestingly, many witnesses who were later uncovered in the investigation also noted how remarkable she seemed. The shoe store worker remembered her as a regular customer, shopping for boots. She spent considerable time deliberating which pair to buy. He described her as attractive and mentioned that she spoke English, but with an accent he couldn’t place.

Another store worker provided further details to the police. She estimated the woman’s height at about 1.70 meters, with dark shoulder-length hair, a blue hairband, and brown eyes. She wore a dress and a fake fur jacket. Both workers’ descriptions didn’t match someone of a typical Scandinavian appearance. Since serious immigration to Norway only began in the 1960s, foreigners would have been quite noticeable in the early 1970s.

The shopkeeper also noted something peculiar—especially about a lone woman like her. He mentioned that she had an unpleasant odor, which seemed odd given her otherwise well-groomed appearance. He couldn’t quite identify the scent, but later described it as resembling garlic, which was uncommon in Norway at the time.

While retrieving the correct boot size for her from the basement, he recalled that as he walked away, she called out to him in a language that wasn’t English. He believed it could have been German or French, but he wasn’t sure. He was certain, however, that based on her appearance, she was likely from somewhere further south in Europe.

This gave the police the impression that she wasn’t local, so their next step was to reach out to hotels in Stavanger. They soon received a lead from a hotel near the shoe shop. According to the hotel, the woman had stayed there for nine days, from November 9th to November 18th.

She had then taken a taxi to the hydrofoil boat to Bergen. The taxi driver, who had a confused exchange with her, mentioned that her English was poor. The woman had stayed in a single room.

She was stayed in room 615, which didn’t even have a bathroom. The bellboy who worked at the hotel at the time recalled helping her take her bags to her room via the elevator. They exchanged a brief conversation, during which he noticed her accent and asked where she was from.

She replied that she was from Belgium. She wore heavy makeup, with red lips, dark eyes, and dark hair. The staff remembered that she rarely smiled and always seemed serious. She spoke softly, but didn’t seem shy. The fact that she was a lone woman staying at the hotel made her stand out, as it was quite unusual, especially since she stayed for an extended period. November in Stavanger wasn’t exactly a busy time for tourists.

The hotel worker who checked her in got the impression that she was there for a specific reason, not for leisure. When she checked in, she filled out a hotel registration card, which provided the police with an identity: Finel Loro, from Belgium. However, when the police contacted Belgian authorities, no one by that name could be found, and her passport number appeared to be fake.

At this point, the police had a better understanding of her movements before arriving in Bergen, but still lacked concrete answers. However, they were no longer working alone. International interest in the case led to the involvement of the Norwegian secret police—something that was rare for a murder case in Bergen.

The notebook with the code was sent to a military codebreaker to decipher. Meanwhile, the police had a sample of her handwriting and at least two places she had recently visited, so they expanded their search to other hotels.

The codebreaker quickly realized that the notebook wasn’t a complex code, but instead, a form of shorthand the woman had been using. Each line represented a place and a date. Unfortunately, the codebreaker was unable to crack the final line of the notebook, which included "23n"—the day she left her luggage at the station,

the last time she was seen alive. It also featured “ml” at the beginning and “mm” at the end, the meaning of which remained a mystery. Could these initials refer to a person instead of a place, or perhaps a destination she never reached?

Soon, the police collected a stack of hotel registration cards from hotels across Norway, and even other countries like France. Each card had the same handwriting but different names. The birthplaces listed varied, though they all appeared to be from different parts of Belgium. Most of the cards were filled out in German, a language spoken in Belgium.

A very small percentage of individuals utilize it as their primary language when compared to Dutch and French. Interestingly, several German words were either misspelled or represented concepts that lacked direct translations in German.

This suggests that, although she was communicating in German, it was not the language in which she felt most at ease. The reasons for her visits varied, but she frequently mentioned professional purposes, such as trading goods or engaging in antique dealings. Some documentation required her to indicate both her previous and upcoming destinations, with one card listing London and another Oslo.

Each of these distinct identities was associated with its own passport, and it appeared that all of them were counterfeit. While the veracity of the information she provided is certainly questionable, it does indicate that she was traveling extensively in the months prior to her death. Another peculiar detail surfaced: one of the hotel cards was written in a noticeably different handwriting style.

It pertained to a stay at the Horden Heyman hotel from November 19 to 23, which aligns perfectly with the movements of the Isdal woman. Handwriting analysts confirmed that this card belonged to the same individual, suggesting that the alteration in style was an attempt to conceal her true handwriting.

This raises the intriguing possibility that, in the last hotel she occupied before her disappearance and subsequent death, the Isdal woman may have been attempting to evade someone.