UK NEWS

HEAD ON BEACH WAS BROWN-EYED WOMAN 20-30 WITH FRECKLES

Police at the scene

Thursday April 3,2008

By Rod Mills

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(0)

A WOMAN whose severed head and hands were found on a popular family beach had an expensive manicure shortly before she was killed, police have revealed.

Detectives last night revealed that the mystery victim – whose remains were found by two young sisters playing in the sand – was between 20 and 30 and pretty with brown hair and eyes.

Tayside Police confirmed they found a second hand at the beach in Arbroath hours after the girls made their gruesome discovery in a black bin liner.

A post mortem revealed the woman had brown shoulder-length hair.

But their best clue could be a circular scar on her head, two inches across, just below the hairline.

Wave pattern experts claimed the body parts were likely to have been dumped either from a boat less than a mile offshore from the village, or at nearby cliffs.

Police said the first hand was also in a bin bag, but refused to confirm reports the second hand was in a Lidl carrier.

Chief Inspector Graham McMillan, who is leading the investigation, said: "We believe she’s white, in her mid 20s to 30s, she’s got brown eyes, brown eye-brows and shoulder-length brown hair.

"She has a pale complexion, some freckling across the nose and cheekbones, and a circular scar on her forehead. Her nails were well groomed, but her ears were unpierced, which is unusual.

"If that description rings any bells with anyone, we’d ask them to contact us urgently."

DCI McMillan said officers will trawl European missing persons records and unsolved murders in a bid to identify the woman.

He refused to rule out further body parts being washed ashore and hinted that the remains did not appear to have been in the sea for a long period.