Norway Norway - Isdalen, WhtFem 503UFNOR, multiple aliases, multilingual, Nov'70

[fred&edna]

Very intriguing case. I share the opinion of an earlier poster... I doubt this unidentified will ever be named.

Trimboli family connection. It seems Giovanni Trimboli is deceased.

http://www.trimboli.com/


At the link there's a photo (by GT) and below that some links to additional info about him (including the Doe Network page):

http://www.papergreat.com/2012/04/saturdays-postcard-cheese-market-in.html

 

[fred&edna]

Note the comments by "Magnus" at the end of this blog. *Hopefully, the link works.

'Seems to add even more intrigue to this already fascinating spy case.
<modnip - non-working link>

 

[nerosleuth]

This is a very interesting and intriguingly mysterious spy case. I think it is very doubtful that this mysterious unidentified person will ever be named or identified.

One of the intriguing details that I happen to notice was that it didn’t say which German marks currency were found in the luggage at the railway station depository box.

Back in 1970 during the cold war era in Europe, Germany was separated into two different nations, East Germany and West Germany. Both nations had their own German marks currency. East Germany was a Soviet bloc nation back then.

Another intriguing detail is the black notebook with numbers and letters code that was also found in the luggage.

I suspect that the black notebook could either be deciphered messages or it was a one time pad used to decipher coded messages that were transmitted by numbers stations on the short wave radio band.

Here are two articles that explain what the numbers stations were all about during the cold war era:


http://www.dxing.com/numbers.htm


http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station


And here is an article published last year explaining why numbers stations are still in use years after the end of the cold war.


http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24910397

 

[dotr]

[video=youtube;abIXwv7l2ts]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abIXwv7l2ts[/video]

 

[arnosiracont]

It seems hard to find what some of the true details are, at least in English. A lot of sources say she spoke Flemish, some just say Dutch (implying "standard" non-Flemish). If she was telling the truth to Giovanni Trimboli (it also doesn't seem super well documented that that was indeed the man she spent time with, although I don't really see anyone saying other names of Italian photographers) about being from South Africa (which seems unlikely for a spy to do), perhaps the people who reported she spoke Flemish or Dutch or whatever only had a passing familiarity with those languages and misheard Afrikaans as one of them. Another poster here mentioned that in Belgium, French is the language of the upper class and native speakers typically don't learn Flemish. She could have been a South African spy, or a South African-born Israeli spy (South Africa has a substantial Jewish population and at the time was cultivating relations with Israel). I don't know how they know she spoke the languages she is said to have, though; I'm mainly assuming it comes from people overhearing her conversations since she seems to have kept to herself during her hotel stays.

The Thinking Sideways Podcast has a good episode on this case. This page also has a comment that brings up an interesting theory.
http://thinkingsidewayspodcast.com/isdal-woman/

 

[nerosleuth]

Here&#8217;s another person who went missing in 1946 and spoke five languages fluently.

Lola Celli missing since February 23, 1946 from Grandview Heights, Ohio.

Lola spoke five languages fluently: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and English.


http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1900dfoh.html


http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...quot-Lola-Celli-24-Grandview-Heights-Feb-1946

 

[dotr]

Here&#8217;s another person who went missing in 1946 and spoke five languages fluently.

Lola Celli missing since February 23, 1946 from Grandview Heights, Ohio.

Lola spoke five languages fluently: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and English.


http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1900dfoh.html


http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...quot-Lola-Celli-24-Grandview-Heights-Feb-1946

Wow, looks like a very good contender to me!

 

[STANDREID]

Here’s another person who went missing in 1946 and spoke five languages fluently.

Lola Celli missing since February 23, 1946 from Grandview Heights, Ohio.

Lola spoke five languages fluently: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and English.


http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1900dfoh.html


http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...quot-Lola-Celli-24-Grandview-Heights-Feb-1946

A contender although she's about 10 years older than estimates I've seen for the Isdal victim. Age estimates can be quite far off.

 

[Vivette]

Maybe i missed it, but wonder if the Italian photographer took her picture and if he is still alive?

Excellent. Who knows, perhaps his (grand)children inherited a dozen of photo's of her! Their attic could hold epic information.

 

[Murkywaters]

http://www.hellou.co.uk/2015/08/curious-case-isdal-womann-unsolved-mystery-54280/

I was pleasantly surprised when i saw this article on my timeline on Facebook.

 

[thefragile7393]

The level of police cover up is so bizarre

Sent from my VS810PP using Tapatalk

 

[snowleopard]

I would really like to know why more was not heard from the photographer. I remember one account of the case referred to a rape charge that was dismissed at the hotel where IW stayed with the photographer......

 

[SurfieTX]

This is a very interesting and intriguingly mysterious spy case. I think it is very doubtful that this mysterious unidentified person will ever be named or identified.

One of the intriguing details that I happen to notice was that it didn&#8217;t say which German marks currency were found in the luggage at the railway station depository box.

Back in 1970 during the cold war era in Europe, Germany was separated into two different nations, East Germany and West Germany. Both nations had their own German marks currency. East Germany was a Soviet bloc nation back then.

Another intriguing detail is the black notebook with numbers and letters code that was also found in the luggage.

I suspect that the black notebook could either be deciphered messages or it was a one time pad used to decipher coded messages that were transmitted by numbers stations on the short wave radio band.

Here are two articles that explain what the numbers stations were all about during the cold war era:


http://www.dxing.com/numbers.htm


http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station


And here is an article published last year explaining why numbers stations are still in use years after the end of the cold war.


http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24910397

BBM
Within them were assorted clothes, all of which had their labels removed, and lining one of the cases was 500 Deutsche Mark (the West-German currency of the time).

http://www.hellou.co.uk/2015/08/curious-case-isdal-womann-unsolved-mystery-54280/

 

[SurfieTX]

Postcard by Trimboli in Norway circa 1978?

http://www.delcampe.net/page/item/i...yggen--Foto-Giovanni-Trimboli,language,E.html

 

[dotr]

If the woman was a spy, might her clothing labels contain a message/code ?

 

[dotr]

[video=youtube;Px9eEfrr9gM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px9eEfrr9gM[/video]

Published on May 13, 2015

On a trip to Bergen, Norway we discovered an interesting mystery from nearly 45 years ago.

A woman found dead. Her fingerprints sanded off, burned, and with blunt force trauma to the neck.

 

[dotr]

An easy, interesting read about female spies, fwiw.

http://www.stylist.co.uk/people/historys-most-infamous-female-spies

Women make "bloody good spies" because they have good emotional resources and are able to multi-task, according to a female MI6 agent interviewed by The Times this week.

"We are quite good at multi-tasking. We are quite good at tapping into different emotional resources. You can get into a lot of places," the agent - referred to simply as "Lisa" - told the paper.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

According to Wikipedia her fingerprints had been sanded off.

I suppose that could simply have been precautionary, but equally it may indicate that those responsible for her death seriously thought her fingerprints might well be on file somewhere.

 

[Jigoku Dayu]

Could a former actress pull off accents?
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/436dfca.html

"Jean Elizabeth Spangler
Missing since October 7, 1949 from Los Angeles, California".

I'm quite confident that Spangler was killed by her ex-husband, or failing that, died from an illegal abortion. There is the possibility she ran off with a gangster she supposedly dated, but even if that were the case, I don't see her ending up as the Isdal Woman.

 

[Lorrie]

After 46 years it seems to be a breakthrough in this case - they have found teeths and tissue samples from her remains hidden in a archive at the local hospital so hopefully they will have enough to get a DNA-profile soon according to this https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/nye-funn-kan-lose-isdals-gaten-1.13124781 ( - in norwegian). Maybe she will finally be identified ?