A British teacher is at the centre of a death riddle after the body of a woman found in the Yorkshire Dales 15 years ago was identified as his wife who ‘disappeared’.
The body was dubbed the ‘Lady of the Hills’ after her half-naked remains were found by walkers near Horton-in-Ribblesdale in 2004.
After years of mystery surrounding the woman’s identity, authorities in Thailand said her fingerprints revealed she was Lamduan Seekanya.
And now North Yorkshire Police are probing Lamduan’s marriage to David Armitage, 55, The Sun reported last night.
Earlier this year authorities in Thailand said her fingerprints revealed the individual as Lamduan Seekanya (pictured)
Tracked down by the paper’s journalists to his home in Thailand, David, originally from Rugby, Warwickshire, said: ‘I didn’t kill my wife. Absolutely not.’
David, now working as a teacher in the country, said he was aware of reports about the case in the Thai press but said he was just getting on with his life.
An inquest into Lamdaun’s death was held in 2007 but failed to reveal how she died, with the coroner recording an open verdict.
At the time she could not be identified despite multiple appeals and photographs, along with an artist impression released by the British police were published as part of an attempt to trace the victim’s family.
She was buried in an unmarked grave in Horton-in-Ribblesdale churchyard.
A police artist’s impression of the woman who came to be known as the Lady of the Hills
The stream near Sell Gill Holes caves where the unnamed woman was found. A cause of death was never registered
The gravestone of the woman in Horton-in-Ribblesdale parish churchyard, North Yorkshire, where she was buried in 2007
A gravestone in the hills above the town reads: ‘The Lady of the Hills. Found 20th Sept 2004. Name Not Known. Rest in Peace.’
North Yorkshire Police said last year they believed the woman was a ‘Thai bride’ who had come to England to marry a local man.
Advanced tests revealed the woman lived in north Lancashire or south Cumbria.
Buasa (left) and Joomsri Seekanya said they have not heard from their daughter since 2004
It is thought Lamduan and David were married in Thailand in January 1991, then moved to England and had two children.
In 2003 they moved in with David’s parents in Rugby, but friends and family were then told she vanished.
Lamduan’s mother Joomsri Seekanya, 73, said : ‘He’s British and Christian and we’re Thai and Buddhist.
‘He is a teacher which has great status in Thailand and we are common village people. There were so many differences.’
Earlier this year Joomsri, 72, and her husband Buasa gave DNA samples in an attempt to prove the body buried in Yorkshire was their daughter’s.
She told the BBC at the time: ‘A part of me hopes that it’s not my daughter – I want her to come back alive. But if it’s really her, I can finally sleep at night.’
Mrs Seekanya, 72, from the Udon Thani region of northern Thailand, she has not heard from Lamduan since 2004, around the same time the body was found.
She also told police that the sketch depicting the woman bears a striking resemblance to her daughter.
Mrs Seekanya claims her daughter moved to Britain in the early 1990s after meeting a British man, who was working in Thailand.
She said the couple had two children and used to return to Thailand regularly to visit family.
But she explained that her daughter, who would now be 52, had abruptly ceased contact around 15-years ago and said she feared the remains could be hers.