[pleboidal]

Everything about this says dead spy caught by other spies. The interesting part won't be her real identity, even though that would be a critical window into the things that are actually interesting.

No theft, no sexual abuse, no emotional yarns, bloodless, no noise yelling or fighting, drugged and burned, and obscured identity, effective for decades. The murderers were professional state operators, so whoever did it, collects a paycheck for killing people like this woman, above all ordinary law and order. Some of the rival operators may have been women, staving off sexual transgression, since that doesn't always remain professional on its own.

What was she trying to do? How did her cover blow? Whoever killed her, they had clear understanding that she wasn't who she claimed to be, and no one knew who she really was. Once they discovered mystery girl, if they weren't ordered to take her out, all they had to do was phone home and ask if they were supposed to have peers in the vicintity, if not, she's the enemy.

Based on this, you can assume by geography that she was a cold war spy, attractive, with money heading into Eastern Europe, not westbound out of Europe. If she were sourced from Eastern Europe, she wouldn't have been caught and erased so quickly while still mainland. Closer into Eastern Europe, she'd have had more protection. Operating alone like this, she may have been a canary. Bait, doomed from the start, but unaware of her role in the operation she proved as hazardous.

[pvaldes]

I'm totally speculating of course but is not necessarily execution (she had all their fingers still and the tooth). The poisoning could happen also accidentally (in a militar laboratory for example). There is not post-mortem revenge or killer names annotated in a suicide note, maybe because there was nobody to blame for her death except herself?

The victim knows that is doomed in some time, no mather what she does; and goes voluntarily to a far and solitary place to commit suicide and clean its remains for the investigators. She whore jewels and exclusive clothes and is probably worried by her aspect after the suicide. She takes painkillers to assure the death.

The case is associated probably with skin damage (eccema treatment) and maybe tooth decay, and the victim dines in public, and travel by several countries, so there is not a fear of contagious at least in this phase, this suggests that is not a biological live weapon (no waiters fell ill later)

Mushrom poisoning causes not eccema; therefore the killer agent would be probably of radioactive nature (Polonium?)

Should be relatively easy to check if the jawbone is radioactive and if gold and other metals in teeth are aplied in one or more than one time suggesting a beating or sudden tooth decay.

If tags are missing we could assume exclusive clothes. As we have a description of the colour and style of clothes exclusive could mean traceable materials, pigments and fabrics.

[pleboidal]

  fingers and teeth all there; clearly not foul play; maybe accidental overdose during interrogation?

You presume every strategic professional murder involves a torture session. Operating in hostile territory doesn't guarantee time, safehouses or personnel to cover every action every time. Norway clearly wasn't clued into the cloak and dagger games happening in their territory. Whoever did this, they weren't behaving with legal immunity. They may have had to organize a team on short notice, and act fast. Some people just don't have the stomach to cut off fingers and rip out teeth. If pressed for time, and blocking exfiltration is more important that learning details, and they were short on resources, a team might skip the dungeon.

  possible suicide, why not?

Pills, gasoline, secrecy, destroyed evidence and fake foreign passports all sound like parts adding up to professional homicide.

  latent poison as murder weapon; she did it to hasten a very slow death; she had bad skin;

Nope. Doubt it. Sedatives are a pretty classic complement to a professional murderer's toolkit. They packed her with barbituates to calm her down, and knock her out then took her some place quiet, and did her in. The skin cream, if anything, hints that maybe she was British. Eczema is a pretty common hereditary problem with the Brits, and this is a BBC story, after all.

  polonium, biological weapons, secret laboratories, tooth decay, dentistry, mushrooms...

I'm sorry but I think you should get over the Litvinenko assassination, put down the comic books and come to terms with the fact that many professional murders are not nearly so elaborate. This is from the 1970's and these kinds of things weren't trying to be tales of science fiction. A hit was a hit back then. Getting shot, stabbed, blown up or in this case, drugged and burned is pretty much how things went down.

  unmarked clothes, no giveaway

Makes a lot of sense. I agree this strengthens the spy narrative.

[grkvlt]

>> possible suicide, why not?

> Pills, gasoline, secrecy, destroyed evidence and fake foreign passports all sound like parts adding up to professional homicide.

Or just unmanaged mental illness, leading to suicide. A lot of the reason things are unexplainable or confusing might be that there is no logical or coherent rationale for them - they are simply the paranoid responses to delusional fantasies.

[pvaldes]

> You presume every strategic professional murder involves a torture session.

Not. I was thinking in a post-mortem "cleaning" of the corpse. Why to remove the tags in clothes but forget to distroy the fingerprints if they where professionals? It seems that badly damaged but partial fingerprints where recovered.

[jamespo]

Why all the pills in the stomach AND set her on fire?

[pleboidal]

Takes her out of the game. The pills don't produce a conclusive casualty in under an hour. She might survive by incidentally vomiting, recover and fly home. There might be others, undercover, tailing the kidnapping, and waiting to rescue. Rescue might simply be incidental first responders. Since she wasn't rescued we might assess there were more layers of interference in the murder. Lookouts, participating as accomplices.

The burning kills quickly (minutes or less of smoke inhalation), and even if ineffective in killing due to interruptions, certainly produces scars that won't be easily hidden in the future and puts someone on the sidelines.

It also sends an unpleasant message to everyone who didn't bring her home, and we still don't know who that is. Given that she wasn't even recovered, one might presume her original identity was marked deceased in a contrived accident, conincidentally, thousands of miles away. Maybe her family already knows the real story, and remains quiet.

[wavefunction]

Pills to kill and fire to obscure?

Fire means it will be some time before forensics could pin down the chemical situation of the victim and by that time the perpetrators would be out of the country.

[andrewflnr]

Maybe she was trying to commit suicide, but didn't do it soon enough.