Husband bailed over Thai woman’s 2004 death
Steve Jones
BBC News, Yorkshire
Family photo/DONLAWAT SUNSUK
Lamduan Armitage remained unidentified by British police for 15 years and became known as the Lady of the Hills
Officers investigating the death of a woman whose body was found in the Yorkshire Dales have appealed for anyone who knew her when she lived in South Yorkshire to contact police.
Walkers discovered the body of Lamduan Armitage in a stream near Pen-y-ghent in 2004.
Police confirmed her husband, David Armitage, who was earlier arrested on suspicion of her murder, had been released on conditional bail.
North Yorkshire Police said they wanted to speak to people who knew Mrs Armitage and her family when they lived in Sprotborough, near Doncaster, and Preston, in Lancashire, between March and October 2004.
Mrs Armitage remained unidentified for 15 years until her family saw a BBC News report and came forward.
Mr Armitage, who had lived in Thailand since her death, was arrested when he returned to the UK after the Thai authorities revoked his resident visa.
Mrs Armitage, nee Seekanya, became known as the Lady of the Hills during attempts to identify her after her body was found on 20 September 2004.
A post-mortem examination established she had died between one and three weeks before her body was found, but it could not determine how she died.
Handout
Mrs Armitage remained unidentified for 15 years after her death
There was no sign of violence and hypothermia was ruled out, but detectives could not answer two main questions; who she was or how she met her death.
A cold case review was started in 2016 and scientific advances meant police were able to piece together a more detailed picture of who she was and concluded she had been killed.
Three years later there was a major breakthrough when a Thai family read about the case and believed the woman could be their daughter who vanished in 2004.
This led North Yorkshire Police to carry out DNA testing to confirm her identity.
Inquiries established she had moved to the UK in 1991 with Mr Armitage after they were married in Thailand and they had been living in northern England before her death.
Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.
#Husband #bailed #Thai #womans #death