Police in Europe ask for help to identify 22 murdered women

LONDON – On Christmas Day 1990, walkers found the body of a young woman hidden under a rug and wrapped in blankets in a park in the Netherlands, not far from the Belgian border.

The last weeks of her life were harrowing. She was physically abused and probably died of exhaustion and starvation. She was wearing a red top and burgundy pants and was probably between 15 and 25 years old when she died. What was her name?

It’s a baffling question that the International Criminal Police Organization, aka Interpol, is trying to answer with its new campaign, Operation Identify Me.

The aim of the campaign, which began Wednesday, is to identify 22 women who authorities say have been murdered. Their bodies were found in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, and their cases have remained unsolved for years, some even decades, despite extensive investigations.

These 22 cases are the ones that “researchers in each country thought could help the public, meaning they were most likely to benefit from a public appeal,” an Interpol spokeswoman said.

Details of each “black report,” which are alerts issued to police around the world seeking information on unidentified bodies, have been released to the public for the first time on Interpol’s website. The messages contained various types of victim information, facial reconstruction images, and photos of certain identifiers such as tattoos, jewelry, and clothing. They are described with case names that read like the titles of mystery novels:The woman on the boat” “The woman with the floral skirt,” “The woman with the bracelet.”

Susan Hitchin, the coordinator of Interpol’s DNA unit, said in an interview on Wednesday that the idea for the initiative was brought to Interpol by authorities in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. The organization has 195 member states and tries to get the police in the different locations to work together.

“They were looking for what they could do to solve some of their cold cases for unidentified human remains,” she said. “They looked at all the cases they had among themselves” and came to the conclusion that the women had died from acts of violence.

The circumstances in which the women were found vary, with the oldest case almost 47 years old And the most recent of 2019. Some cases have more detail than others and the cause of death is not always known. Sometimes investigators can also determine whether the victim has moved or is from other regions in Europe.

“We must remember that these victims, these women, they have been victimized twice,” Ms Hitchin said. “They were murdered and then their identities were also taken from them.”

While these cases are now in the public eye, perhaps with more eyes than ever before, there are still obstacles to solving them.

“The success rate in solving cold cases can vary significantly depending on several factors, such as the nature of the case and the available evidence,” Ms Hitchin said. “It is difficult to give an exact success rate as reporting mechanisms can vary between different jurisdictions and time periods.”

Ms. Hitchin said advances in forensic technology in recent years have helped solve some cases and that increased public awareness, media coverage and the use of social media have all played a part in generating new leads.

She is convinced that even a small piece of information can break a case open. “It doesn’t take much,” she said. “You know, we just need that one person to come forward with the memory or knowing that their neighbor is gone, their friend, you know, their colleague.”

Eugene McLaughlin, a professor of criminology at the City, University of London, said it was very difficult to know how successful Operation Identify Me would be as a memory-boosting exercise.

“Many of these deaths are historic and apart from their families, the victims will be forgotten,” he said. “And of course there are people who have a vested interest in ensuring that there is no breakthrough in these cold cases.”

Mr McLaughlin said the killers likely viewed the women as “disposable” and treated them with contempt.

“The killers probably knew it was likely that no one would notice that these women were gone,” he said. “Most likely they were not considered newsworthy victims at the time of their deaths. These women have just been added to the long list of unsolved crimes.”