New image of unidentified woman killed on the A 50 years ago
New images have been released of an unidentified woman who was killed when she was struck by a car 50 years ago as she was walking along a main road.Locate International, a charity which investigates cold cases of missing and unidentified people, said the woman was struck by one or more vehicles on the A1 near Baldock, Hertfordshire, in the early hours of 18 February 1975.Despite numerous appeals her identity has still not been confirmed, but in 2010 police discovered she may have been French and had lived in Paris.Hertfordshire Police said: "We never completely close unsolved murder or unexplained death cases and any information we receive will be treated with the upmost importance by the Cold Case team."
When the woman was found on the southbound carriageway of the A1 near the A507 slipway she was not wearing shoes and her feet were not dirty.After an appeal in June 2010, which contained a facial reconstruction of the woman, a couple came forward to say they recognised her as a young French woman who had stayed with them in the early 1970s.David Liversedge had met her in 1972 when she was hitch-hiking on London's North Circular road during a thunderstorm. She then went on to stay with David and his wife, Barbara, at their home near Baldock and gave her name as Odile.She worked making souvenirs at Plug International on an industrial estate in Henlow, Bedfordshire, and would regularly visit Stotfold Social Club. She also had friends in Newquay, Cornwall.She then went to Cambridge to study at a language school.Locate International said it had uncovered an article from the Cambridge Evening News on 25 November 1972 which mentions an Odile Ledoux, a 20-year-old French woman studying English in Cambridge, who was not injured in a house fire."Since this latest breakthrough we are now actively investigating the name Odile Ledoux in the UK and in France," a spokesman for Locate International said.
Locate International said a statement from a milkman who had picked up her up shortly before her death said she had appeared scared or worried.The charity said it also believed she may have come into physical harm at some point in the months building up to her death.Witness statements also suggest she may have used the name Anne, Anna, or a variation thereof, as well as Odile.Mark Greenhalgh, Locate International's CEO, said: " If she was alive today, she would be in her late 60s to mid-70s, so we are eager for people to come forward before it is too late."
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