{"id":574940,"date":"2026-07-30T05:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T05:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/574940\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T05:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T05:26:09","slug":"body-found-in-suitcase-in-athens-is-that-of-38-year-old-british-woman-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/574940\/","title":{"rendered":"Body found in suitcase in Athens is that of 38-year-old British woman \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A body found in a suitcase in an abandoned building in central Athens, Greece<\/a> has been identified as that of a 38-year-old British woman.<\/p>\n

Eleven days after the find, and following an appeal to foreign law enforcement agencies, Greek police shed some light on the mystery of the body that until Wednesday had remained unidentified.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe remains, we can confirm, have been identified as belonging to a British woman,\u201d one well-placed source said. \u201cHer next of kin have been informed.\u201d They added that it had been ascertained the victim had been born in Scotland in 1988.<\/p>\n

Late on Wednesday, Greek media named the victim as Elizabeth Jane Ross. She had been staying in the city with friends, who reported seeing her for the last time on July 15th.<\/p>\n

Adding to the mystery surrounding the circumstances of her death, it was revealed that her mobile phone had been fully operational until news of her identification was released.<\/p>\n

Police were alerted after a homeless man discovered the suitcase on July 18th in a derelict building in Kypseli, a district popular among foreign nationals in downtown Athens, according to the public broadcaster ERT.<\/p>\n

Ross had reportedly flown to the region from the US, arriving in Greece, on June 29th, from Cyprus.<\/p>\n

Greek homicide officers sent fingerprints to Interpol after drawing a blank on local databases. US authorities had provided evidence on the basis of the DNA that police released on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Detectives cordoned off the building on Evelpidon Street as they investigated the circumstances of Ross\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

A police spokesperson, Konstantina Dimoglidou, had previously said CCTV was being examined to try to trace Ross\u2019s movements before her death. Authorities were treating the incident \u201cas a criminal act, given how the body was found\u201d, she told Skai TV.<\/p>\n

Airlines are also believed to have been approached as investigators try to reconstruct Ross\u2019s journey to Greece and determine whether she was travelling alone. Officials in Greece and Cyprus were scouring flight logs and hotel bookings.<\/p>\n

Local media, citing the results of a postmortem, said Ross had been dead for eight days before the discovery. There was \u201cno evidence\u201d of a struggle or signs of injury.<\/p>\n

Greek officials did not rule out UK investigators joining the inquiry.<\/p>\n

A British Foreign Office spokesperson said: \u201cOur thoughts are with Elizabeth\u2019s family during this difficult time. We are providing consular support and are in contact with the local authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A body found in a suitcase in an abandoned building in central Athens, Greece has been identified as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2917,42,43,9036,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-574940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-greece","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-scotland","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}