The body of "the woman in pink" found 20 years ago in Viladecans was that of a young Russian woman.

BarcelonaThe unidentified body of the woman known as "the woman in pink," found on July 3, 2005, by a taxi driver in Viladecans, is that of a 31-year-old woman of Russian origin, the National Police Directorate announced in a statement on Thursday. The identification was made possible thanks to the Identify Me campaign promoted by the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), which has already helped identify several women who have been found dead under suspicious circumstances in recent decades throughout Europe. All the victims can be found at this link.

On July 3, 2005, a taxi driver discovered the body of a woman on a road in Viladecans. The body showed signs of a violent death, and it was determined that she had been moved to the road about 12 hours before she was discovered. The woman was approximately 1.60 meters tall, had fair skin, blue eyes, and wavy brown hair. All of her clothing (pants, a floral-print top, and sandals) was pink, leading to her being known as "the woman in pink."

Initial investigations failed to establish her identity, and the case remained unsolved for nearly two decades. A name and surname have now been identified for the victim after several comparisons of identifying material received by Interpol in Madrid from Turkey, where they sent some fingerprints that were in their databases and that could belong to that woman. In addition, Russian authorities were able to compare the victim's genetic profile with that of a sister.

Identify Me was launched when there were 46 unnamed bodies of women, four of them found in Catalonia. Two of them have already been identified, after the woman found dead in 2018 in a farmhouse in Sant Julià de Ramis was identified in March. Her name was Ainoha Izaga Ibieta, 33 years old, and originally from Paraguay. Her case was known as "the woman in the shed."

Two open cases

Interpol is also trying to name two other victims who appeared in Catalonia. The first case dates back to 1999. A woman between 23 and 25 years old was found dead in a hotel room in Premià de Mar, in the Maresme region. She was naked, her hands tied, and had various signs of violence on her body. No one knew her name or where she was from. She was 1.70 meters tall and had blue eyes. It is known that she was staying at the hotel with a white man, between 25 and 30 years old and 1.65 to 1.70 cm tall. According to several witnesses, she spoke French and English and could have come, along with her partner, from Geneva or a city about 10 km away with the word "violence."cityin his name. That's all that's known about this case, and Interpol is asking for public collaboration to identify the victim and find the killer.

The next unsolved case dates back to 2003. The lifeless body of a woman between 25 and 30 years old was discovered on a rural road in Malgrat de Mar. She had multiple wounds on her body and face, and according to forensic examinations, she had been dead for 12 hours. Again, no one knew who she was, and no one had missed her. A small detail may be key in this case: the woman was wearing a Hindu symbol known as the elm symbol on her right hand. Investigators thought she might be a Bengali national, as she also wore Bengali bracelets on her wrists and ankles. She was 1.60 meters tall and wore a crimson wool sweater.