Cold Case Files - You Might Also Like: The Prosecutors - The Isdal Woman Part 1 of 5: Take On Me

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

The Prosecutors is a true crime podcast with a different point of view. Every week, Alice and Brett bring their unique perspective as prosecutors to the most famous cold case mysteries of all time. Murder, mayhem, disappearances, you name it. If it's true crime, they're on the case.This episode is one of the greatest mysteries in true crime. A woman is found dead on a Norwegian hillside, her body badly burned. But how she died is only the beginning. Coded documents, multiple identities, and mysterious meetings have left us to wonder -- who is the Isdal woman? Listen to a new episode of the Prosecutors every Tuesday.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I'm Brett and I'm Alice and we are the prosecutors today on the prosecutors it's one of true crime's greatest mysteries a woman's charred remains are located in a remote valley just outside of Bergen doorway in a twisty investigation clues about her identity unfold like a series of riddles over 50 years later we ask who is the Isdale woman Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the prosecutors. I'm Brett, and I'm joined, as always, by my Bedorinde, or Bedorinde, I think, is actually how you pronounce it, co-host, Alice. Oh, it's really good. Whatever language that was, I felt like you nailed it.

Well, that's Norwegian. Literally, apparently, in Norwegian, it means to stress the oar. But. No, I think it means, I think that's how. you pronounce it. Oh. Oh, I see. Oh, I thought it's like if you're rowing, you put stress on the ore.

Oh, Brad, you are so sick. I don't know that you should be recording right now. Well, it literally means charming or adorable. And you are charming and adorable. Or and or. What was that? Or and or. Well, they're like Vikings over in Norway.

So, you know, they like boats. Well, how on point? Because we're talking about Norway today. So well done. I don't think I knew any Norwegian words before tonight, but now, I know. Benderda. Have you ever been to Norway? You've been so many places. Unfortunately, my brother lived there for six months for work and I did not go because I either had just had an, I was too late in my pregnancy to go and then baby Allison was born and then I was like, I should have traveled,

but I didn't. Well, I can appreciate why you wouldn't go if you had a young baby. But I got to say, I mean, Norway is high on my list of places I'd like to go. So maybe we can go visit and solve this case. Maybe we can do an episode there. There you go. I will say this is one of the famous cases in true crime, one of the most interesting cases in true crime. There is a great podcast, speaking of Norway, put on by Norwegian Radio and the BBC. It's called Death in Ice Valley.

And highly recommend it. It's really good. Available wherever you get your podcast. So after you listen to us, you can listen to them and see which thing. They are pretty sold on one theory. I'll say that. That's all I'll say about it. But it's really good.

And you should listen to it. So with that, Alice, do you have anything you want to say before we dive in? I really want to dive in because this is like such, it's a half a century mystery. It's true. So tucked away in the seven mountains region outside of. of Bergen, Norway is the famous Isdalen Valley. Isdalen Valley, which translates to Ice Valley, hence the name of the podcast, is a popular hiking spot for locals, despite its remote nature, because it is, probably like everywhere

in Norway, I imagine, quite beautiful. It has lots of trails which wind around Lake Svartoddict. I don't know to pronounce that, but whatever. are surrounded by picturesque hillsides and lined with fir trees, but behind the beauty, danger lurks. The terrain can be rugged and the hills are often steep. The trails are lined with signs warning hikers that the paths are rocky and slippery.

And as such, the area is no stranger to tragedy and has seen its fair share of accidental deaths of hikers over the years. And this combined with the fact that the valley was a popular spot also for those looking to commit suicide during medieval times, earned it the popular moniker, The Valley of Death. Reminds me, Alice, when we went to Russia and did the Diatlov Pass case. It's the mountain of death. Dead Mountain. And I just feel like, don't go places in the name. I was going to say, they tell you in the name what's going to happen.

Don't go, you know. I don't know about you, but I guess maybe they name. named it after a lot of people died there, but if you tell me the name includes death in there, I'm going to be like, I'm a stay on comfort couch. Comfort couch is where I will stay. I mean, the thing about a place where a bunch of people died is they died for a reason, right? Like, they were just like you, and now they're dead in the Valley of Death. So maybe you should avoid the Valley of Death. I don't know. That's just my advice for you, we have done way too many cases, and I've read about way

too many cases where the place is named something like the Mountain of Death, the Valley of Death, the river of death, sea of death, cave of death, whatever. Just don't go into the place named for death. That's my advice. It's free advice. Free advice. I'll even call it legal advice. There you go.

Fine. We're going to call it legal advice again. But in 1970, a body was discovered that was out of the ordinary, even for the valley of death. As investigators dug further into the victim's background and identity, the circumstances surrounding her death became more and more mysterious. now over 50 years later. Not only are we know closer to solving the mystery of her death, we don't even know her true identity.

Which seems crazy in this day and age with genetic genealogy, how much we know with all the technological advances, maybe with these technological advances are we going to get closer? I don't know, but first we have to understand why, even though this is named the Valley of Death, This particular woman drew a lot of question marks. You would think the Valley of Death, another death would not raise eyebrows. But let's dive into the investigation.

So on the morning of November 29th, 1970, two girls, ages 10 and 12, they were out walking around Lake Svar Tadeke with their father when they decided to explore a little ways off the path and up the hillside. By the way, this is the only way my kids go on walks is to go off the beaten path and run around. One of these girls all of a sudden stumbled across a clearing in the forest. And to her horror, she made a gruesome discovery because sticking out of the jagged rocks was a woman's body. But it wasn't just anybody. It was blackened and charred and her hands were raised, almost as if she had been trying to shield her face. Now, this group quickly made their way from Isdell Valley to the nearby city of Bergen, where they called the police. Can you imagine? I mean, you got a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old coming upon this? It's just awful, but that's something you never forget. In Ice Valley, they actually talk about that, about how terrible this was for this group. But it also, you know, it gives you an idea of how isolated she was. I mean, this was actually kind of lucky that they even stumbled upon her. And she wasn't on the path. Like, they just happened to decide at this spot. I mean, is they're, you know, walking around.

the lake. There's a lot of different places they could have struck off. And they decided to do it here and they stumble upon this woman's body. And for these young girls to find it, I mean, the horror. If I, I would be scarred quite literally for life. And especially to see such a devastating picture, right? It's almost like she was frozen in the most horrific time of her life. And that's the way they found her. The police were called around 9 or 10 a.m. and they began the 45-minute trek up to the valley because obviously these girls and their father, they had to go all the way back to town in order to call the police and the police have to go back out to this beautiful place. It's beautiful because it's remote. Now the following is an excerpt directly from the police report.

The body of a seemingly young naked woman lying in a steep scree of large stones on a clearing in the fir tree forest. The body lay out stretched on her back in a small opening between the rocks with the head to the northwest. Her legs were stretched out with the right foot, slightly bent under the ankle of the left foot, pinched between two slabs of rock. Both arms of the body were bent up in front of the chest in a position that is called boxer position on fire-damaged bodies. Her head was bent backwards, resting on stony ground.

The whole body was burned by fire. It was reddish-brown and sooted and gave a convincing impression of having been enveloped by a short but intense surface fire. Extensive damage at the knees of the body, calves and lower thighs, suggest, however, that a subsequent fire of a more prolonged nature

has arisen here. It's assumed that this is connected with the finding of burned rubber boots by the knees of the body. Regarding a detailed description of the damages, we refer to the autopsy documents. The neck, head, and the lower arms with hands

that has not been covered, were more sooted than the rest of the body. And yeah, so this boxer position thing, as Alice said, when the girls first found her body, she has her hands like up as if she's sort of shielding herself or defending herself. And when you first see that, you think, okay, this is a sign of someone who's been attacked because she sort of died in a defensive position.

But what we know is that when someone is in a fire like this, because of the way the skin reacts to fire, there's a contraction of the skin. And when that happens, it naturally pulls the arms up to the chest. So her arms weren't necessarily in that position when the fire began. And sort of living or dead when the fire began, it would cause that movement. So it doesn't tell us as much as you might initially thought. Also, just the description of the fire. So this is a, as it says, a surface level fire. So basically, almost like a flash fire. It happens.

It happens to our entire body. We're going to talk some more about the damage done to our body. But it's relatively fast. And then it creates this secondary fire. So essentially you have this initial fire. Then a secondary fire at the sort of bottom of her body, something catches on fire and burns for longer. And because that burns for longer, the lower part.

part of her body is damaged. One thing that's interesting about this, though, is it doesn't seem as if she reacts against that second fire. So you have this initial fire, right? But then, whenever the second fire happens, she doesn't roll away from it. She doesn't get away from it. So by that point, she's either dead or incapacitated to a point that she can't react to it. And obviously, as we try and figure out what happened to her, that's going to be important.

Let's see. Okay, so this continues. I mean, one good thing about this is because it's been a famous case and it's an old case. We have a lot of documentation and it has been translated into English. So you can find a lot of this stuff online. But we're going to read to you from as many of the primary documents as possible because this case is covered widely. But it also is a case that your imagination can run wild. And a lot of people do. It can be a really sexy case. And so we're trying to keep this as grounded as possible in these initial documents to try and dispel any sort of mental. of rumors that have popped up about this case. Okay, so all the hair on the head was burned. So her hair had been completely burned away. But under the neck was found a small knot of hair, remains of a so-called ponytail, held together by a light, blue hair, loop, bow tie. Okay, let's stop again and think about this. Okay, one thing we just said was the lower half of her body.

Whatever happened there, it happened after she was already deceased, after she already couldn't get away from the fire, right? Well, this is interesting because her hair would have been burned away in this initial flash fire. Like whatever happened would have been burning her hair. But the ponytail is protected because presumably as the fire is happening, her head is already down. It's against the ground. Her ponytail is underneath her and therefore it's not burned. Well, what does this indicate?

It indicates once again that when this fire happened, either she was basically incapacitated very quickly by the fire itself, to the point that essentially she kind of falls backwards and then doesn't move again, despite the fact there's a fire, or she's already dead. Because if she had moved, then you would assume the ponytail would have burnt, or you would have found the ponytail, if it like burned to a certain extent that the hair sort of like fell off in a ponytail, you would assume you would find that somewhere else. But you don't. You find the remains of it underneath her head still held together by this light blue hair loop bowtie. So I think that's significant as well when we're thinking about what happened to this lady.

Okay. Now one thing that we mentioned earlier, these girls found her, but it was a complete fluke, right? It wasn't as if she was in the middle of the path and anyone who went up there would have found her. So there's a possibility that it would have taken some time to find her. But the police report that the body seemed fresh. It was stiff, but it did not smell. So it seems as though this is a relatively new thing. She hasn't been out there for weeks, for instance. So this is a question for like medical examiners.

To what extent does the burning preserve a body? Because obviously a body starts decomposing the moment, really, that life stops flowing through it. but does burning do anything to help preserve the body so that it may seem fresh, so to speak, longer? I mean, I'm not a medical examiner. Unfortunately, we don't have Jess with Scott Morgan on for this episode. I mean, I guess when you cook meat, it tends to last a little longer, right? Especially when it's charred.

Especially when it's charred. If you sear meat, like the purpose of doing that is it locks in moisture. And moisture, if you have retained moisture, there's. slower decomposition. Also, it is November 29th in Norway. Now, my understanding of the weather is it was cold, but not so cold. There wasn't snow piled up everywhere or anything, which I just assume Norway is always like that. Like in my mind, Norway is just always covered in snow, even in like June. Apparently that's not true. But so, like, it had been kind of rainy, but it wasn't freezing cold. So probably it's not the summer. This is not West Memphis, Arkansas, for instance. Right.

So the decomposition is going to take a little bit longer. As you said, she had been burned. So I think that probably is a factor. We're going to see more evidence later, probably when this happened. But I think it's pretty clear, whatever it happened, was relatively soon, though probably not that day or even the day before, as we're going to see a little bit later. Okay, so several fragments of clothing remained on the body. On both the lower arms, it's sort of cuffs. there were remains of some sort of synthetic materials.

So remember, she's found unclothed, but it's not because she took her clothes off. She wasn't nude whenever this happened to her. So this isn't like, could be a sexual assault that ended in a murder. It could be that. But the fact that she's not wearing any clothes ordinarily would be indicative of something like that. It's not here because essentially whatever she was wearing was highly flammable or there was something on her that was flammable because it had led to most of her clothes just being burned off.

And so what you're seeing is the clothes like her shirt is essentially burned all the way down to her wrist where you're seeing sort of the cuffing of her shirt is still remaining. The stomach, crotch, and hips were covered by black burned remains of different textiles. So including her lower body, the sort of areas that you would expect to see some sort of sexual assault occur. The remains of textiles were on them indicating that she was wearing clothes when she was burned. On her right foot, there were remains of dark blue stretched trousers with a stocking pulled over, while the left foot apparently had been undressed, with a stocking found lying on the ground at the right thigh of the body. Okay.

Now, this is interesting, because it's as if she's taken off one stocking, or someone has taken off one stocking, but not the other one. She's still wearing one of them, but she has one of them off, which is a weird. thing. And that's only going to continue. Under the left calf knee, there were relatively well-preserved fire remains of a rubber boot, a so-called sailor stovel, which is a sailor boot. It's the model brand of the boot. At the right knee, there were white remains of ashes with a clear outline of a rubber sole shoe. So, remember, what do we have here? On her left side, we have a boot and we have a stocking that had been removed.

On the right side, her boot and her stocking were still on her body whenever this fire began. And at this point, you know, as you're hearing this, you're starting to develop ideas, but what exactly is going on here? What happened here? Part of this feels very much like a post-mortem thing. She doesn't seem to have moved much after she caught on fire, for instance. Right? But on the other hand, why is one boot? and sock removed

and the other knot. This makes it almost feel like something sudden happened. Like she was in the process of removing her shoes and all of a sudden there was this fire. But if that were to happen, why is there not more evidence of sort of her struggling against the flames, as you would expect? Just things to be thinking

about as we continue through this. Draped over a stone to the right of the body. There were ample remains of a woollen sweater. On the same stone, the skeleton of a burned blue nylon lady umbrella was standing. So it's almost as if she's put down her umbrella. She's put a woolen sweater on this stone. The fire burned both of those things. But both

of these things were sort of sitting on this stone when whatever happened happened. On the same side at a short distance, an almost empty quarter bottle of closter liquor was standing. This This is a Norwegian liquor. I mean, like a vodka type drink, right? So basically, at this site where this happened, there is a bottle of almost empty liquor. Two things kind of jumped in mind to me. One, someone, if someone drank, three-fourths of a bottle of that liquor, that's a lot of liquor, especially if it's a woman. Or second, if three-fourths of the bottle is missing, alcohol is an accelerant.

and clearly fire has happened here, but the bottle is not, say, burned, charred remains on the body if something had happened like that. And it almost seems like if it wore the accelerant to be used, someone who was not her, because she was consumed by the fire immediately, set that bottle down a ways away,

maybe a safe distance to watch the flame. And then the other kind of haunting picture of her was that she had this bag or purse, the like plastic remains of it, because it had burned up, were on her left thigh. As if, if it's at your left thigh, my thought is she was wearing it. So where she's set down the sweater and the umbrella seems like, ladies, if you have a purse, it's typically hits my thigh if I am wearing it.

So the fact that it's on her thigh may be that she was still wearing her purse, which I usually have my purse on if I'm still walking around, but if I'm sitting down, I usually take my purse off. So this is just a kind of a hunting image of this bag that's burnt remains is on her thigh. So I want to correct myself because I've already been spoken. So it's not Norwegian. And it's actually important that it's not Norwegian. So this liquor is actually Bavarian.

It's from Germany. It's made by the Etler Abbey. And it is between 38 and 44% alcohol by volume. Now that's important for a few reasons. Number one, because if you drink most of that bottle, you'll be pretty drunk. But it's actually not alcoholic enough that you would expect it to catch on fire. It needs to be a little bit higher than that. It needs to be closer to like 70%, I think.

Like Bacardi 151 is a liquor that you can use to catch things on fire. That's 75% alcohol, right? So it's short of what you would need for it to catch on fire. So it's probably more likely something someone will. was drinking than something someone was either using intentionally or accidentally to spark this fire. So this goes on. Along the feet of this body, on a slightly higher stone, there were two white plastic bottles that formed as flasks. One of them was somewhat deformed by the heat containing a small amount of water.

The other one was slightly deformed at the twist-off bottle and completely full of what was also presumed to be water. Now, both bottles were supplied with a small Caribbean hook attached at the bottleneck. Now, we referred to the analysis report by production manager eyed at the Norwegian Medical Supplies Depot regarding the contents of the bottle. And that report concluded that the bottles contain pure water. There's just water. I guess when you go on a hike, you take water. On the above-mentioned stone, there was also a deformed white plastic cup that presumably had

melted down due to the fire. In the cup, the shapeless remains of a colorless plastic spoon. And on that same stone, there was also a partly burnt circular flat lid made of plastic. A green and checkered woolen scarf was spread over the edge of the stone so that the lower part that hung close to the foot of the body was burnt off. It looked like the flames at the feet of the body had flashed up along the rocks in this area and had influenced, the said plastic items on the rock in the feet area. No wood or other material for an open fire was found. What really stood out to me of this whole description is that there were two flasks. Not that one person can't bring two water bottles. In fact, if you're going to go on a long hike,

you might do that. But when we're trying to assess the scene, what does this look like? It looks like the rock was a table used for a snack and maybe a drink because there's a spoon, there's some sort of a cop, there's two separate flasks with one of them still full and one of them almost empty. Now that could go two ways. Could be two people with two flasks.

Or it could be you were going to go for a hike, you brought two flasks, you were almost done with one bottle, hadn't started the next one. You know, it's funny because I always find myself thinking about what I would do in these situations,

which some people, hey, but nevertheless, I mean, I think that's the only way you can analyze this stuff is just bringing your own experience as much as you can. And I will say this. I am not, this is going to shock everyone, not the world's greatest hiker, not in the best shape. And when I go hiking, I always take a ton of water, like way more than I probably should.

And the height gets easier as I go because I'm drinking the water because I got like a gallon of water in my backpack and it's weighing me down. And I'm like drinking it, probably faster than I should just to get rid of it because it's like so heavy in the back. So to me, I have a, like if you found me dead on the side of the mountain, you think, man, he brought up. They're like 10 people with him. It's got like eight different bottles of water and a bottle of Gatorade and a beer in there. It's like so much stuff. Man, it must have an old party up here. It was like they sacrificed him or something.

Right? Like it would be the Odinist for the time they got finished on me. But it should be just me because that's how much water I have. So it's hard for me to draw too much. You're right. That's fair. Well, the fact that one is completely full, whereas the other one looks like it drank a lot, you would assume if it were two people, they were hiking the same distance together,

that they would probably drink at somewhat of the same rate, right? And so the fact that one is completely full, I tend to lean towards she just had two flasks. But she put them both out. It didn't stay in her bag. That's interesting. You know, well, she's going to stay there for a while.

So, you know, what I'm wanting you to imagine is, and you can find pictures of this, like black and my photos of this, and there's a woman's body in the middle of them, but it's not as graphic as you might expect if you saw something like that. But, you know,

she's in this, like, it's hard to describe. I mean, you've ever been to sort of a rocky area with a whole bunch of boulders and stuff. There's sort of all these boulders on this side of a hill, and she's kind of in the middle of them. There's like one big boulder and like another

big boulder, and she's kind of up against those, her heads like up against a big boulder behind her, and then there's a big boulder to her side, and there's a few other boulders. And then it's almost like she's in the middle and around her, sort of surrounding her all these things. You know, and they're just kind of

kind of set out on different rocks around her, whether it's, you know, on one side is where she put the sweater and where she put the umbrella. I mean, it's almost like, you know, one possibility, if you've ever been sort of out hiking and you walked around for a little while and you've got some water and you got some food, you know, you could imagine just like sitting down in a place like this and you're sort of spreading everything out. And you got like, I'm going to drink some water. Maybe like just chill here and enjoy the beautiful. beauty. Maybe I'll write in my journal a little bit or something. I mean, you know, anybody who's ever traveled to a beautiful place, particularly when you're young and you thought it was really

important to do things like that, sit down and write about like the amazing, wonderful things that you're seeing and all the epiphanies you're having. Like, you can totally imagine doing that. And so initially you see this and it kind of feels like that. You know, one of the weird things to me is this plastic cup with a plastic spoon in it. I mean, it could be anything, right? Like she could had some gelato or something she was eating right but it is sort of weird to think about you know you got that it's like sitting there next to these two flasks and what significance if any does that have one thing that's interesting about this because as people are walking through this you know they're thinking about sort of maybe she did sit down and maybe she built a fire you know it's no it's

late november she's building the fire she's not middle of nowhere no big deal she's going to put it out And then something happens. You know, there's one guy whose theory is she decided to put some hairspray on. She's like sitting next to the fire and she's like using hairspray. And at the time in particular, and I guess even now, hairspray was incredibly flammable. And so like, you know, the hairspray ignited and the bottle blew up and the flames and she fell in the fire and all this other stuff happened. Right. Well, the problem with that, as this notes.

And this is one of those things that's often misreported because it's often reported there was a fire, like a fire. Like not she caught on fire and then she caught something else on fire, but there was a fire that existed before this happened. This points out that's not true. And there's nothing there that was used to build a fire. There's no wood. There's no kindling, no circular area where you would build a fire. So quick question. How strenuous is this hike?

I've clearly never hiked here before. Is this a, I mean, a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old, you know, we're out for a jaunt. So it's not Diatlov Pass. I know that much. This woman clearly is carrying like an umbrella. I don't think you would carry an umbrella if you had to use all four of your limbs to climb up, say, like a Deatlov Pass. So how strenuous is this hike? And where she is obviously is a clearing.

So it can't be very mountainous. And it's not necessarily mountainous. The purpose of hiking here is the lake. So what is the, I guess, terrain here? So kind of like Deatlov Pass is like the mountain of the dead. And in reality, that just means that like nothing grows there. It's like not as intense. Well, there are really dangerous.

This is my understanding. I've never been there, obviously, but from reading about it, there are really dangerous parts of this valley. Like if you're scaling the walls of the valley and you fall, you can really hurt yourself. And that can be really difficult. There are parts of that are very difficult hikes. This, as you have already indicated, given that we have a 10 and a 12 year old, the part around the lake is not strenuous at all. This is a very common walk that people in the area will take. Very easy.

No big deal. It was a little bit more strenuous to get up to where she was or getting down to where she was. I'm not exactly sure if it was a little bit above the path, a little bit below the path. But once again, not so strenuous that a 10 and 12 year old just striking off didn't find it. So it's not that difficult a hike and it would not have required any special skill to be able to reach this place. And it's not the kind of place that no one ever goes. goes. And clearly, even if it was strenuous, it wasn't a fall that killed her. It's the fire, right? That's standing out here. So even if this were like the scaling, you know, very steep part of the valley,

that's not what killed her in this situation. And the fact, just the fact that she has, she's carrying an umbrella and that she, if it's her, has a bottle of alcohol indicates to me, this is not like we are setting out for this like five mile hike because you typically don't drink alcohol when you're on like a strenuous hike because it dehydrates you. But you may do that if it's like a leisurely beauty nature walk, right? And another thing to note, the shoes she's wearing. So she's not wearing hiking boots. She's wearing those like rubber, you know.

Like marshy shoes. Exactly. If it's going to be wet outside, you throw them on galoshes, basically. Not full on galoshes, but like it's muddy outside. You're going to go feed the pigs or something. You put those on. Exactly. Like she's basically.

dressed, not for a hike so much, is I'm going to walk outside where it's going to be wet and rainy. I got my boots on, got my sweater on, got my scarf on, got my umbrella. Like, I'm ready to rock and roll, right? But I'm not ready to climb Mount Everest, or even Dietlaf Pass, right? And you're right to point all this out, because it is sometimes presented as though she's in an incredibly rural area. I mean, she is in that this is the kind of place. If you're a tourist, in Norway, you're going to strike out and have her little hike, and it's going to be amazing and beautiful, and you're going to take lots of pictures and Instagram and everything else. But, you know, you're probably going to have service the whole time, right?

Like, this is not she was hiking through, you know, Death Valley or something, like the real Death Valley in California, where you actually will die and you shouldn't do that. Like, it's not like that. Like, this is not strenuous at all. It's not particularly remote. There are people around this area all the time, even though these girls did happen to stumble upon her and this was a little bit fortuitous that they did once again it's a kind of place that kids would stumble upon someone so all important in the context of what happened to her and how she ended up

there but it doesn't seem like she started a fire it seems like what happened is she caught on fire and any fire that happened was ancillary to that okay so we continue because there's more this is a very long report. I mean, this is exactly what you want. They describe for you exactly what they see. Right. On the earth covered rocks under the body, there was found ample remains of characteristic burnt and melted remains of synthetic textiles. Where the body had laid at the left knee was a steel lady wristwatch mark solo with a black imitation leather strap. So she's wearing the watch and the watch obviously was burned. Part of the strap was burn off,

but the metal buckle remained in place and unscathed. Weak burn marks on the inside of the strap indicates that it hardly could have been strapped to the arm, which is weird. So like she's wearing this watch, I guess it's not that weird. She's wearing it very loosely, right? Which I think I guess a lot of people do.

A lot of people wear their watches very loosely. She's doing that, and this is indicative of the fact the way it burned didn't burn her wrist, so they know it wasn't like strapped tight to her arm, to the extent that is significant. The watch stopped at 1232 p.m. And had another eight or so hours of power reserve. So the watch did not die. It stopped, probably because of the heat, which means assuming that the watch was set correctly,

it would have been about 1232. Now, a lot of people say, I've read this so many places, that the time on the watch is the same time that watches are set to when they're sold. That doesn't seem to be true. I mean, 1232 is not... I've never seen a what I would say 12. I don't know why you said to 1232. And also don't watches get set.

Every watch I've bought is running when I open it because they're showing that it works. Right. So I just feel like that's, I feel like that is one of those things people say because it's more mysterious. It's like, why is she wearing a watch that's still set to the time that it's set at when you buy a watch from the store? But it doesn't seem like that's true. And as you said, most watches are already running. Now it's 1970. So maybe in 1970, they didn't wind watches until they started.

But yeah, somebody says they used to be set to 1010. I've seen that as well because it makes a little V. right and it's like attractive it looks attractive when you look at it but I've never 1232 is a very strange I mean it's almost a line but it's not because he's 1232 not 1230 okay this is an interesting question completely unrelated if you what is the most attractive time for a watch I like the V I would say three o'clock for me because it's like the classic like when you draw a clock as a kid like I always drew like the L because it was a right angle and it was very, and it's like, I guess because I'm right-handed, it's in the direction that I'm

thinking of, you know, everything moves from left to right for me. So like when I drew a clock as a kid, I always drew like an L, so a three o'clock. I like that. I would say midnight or noon. Sure. Or that. It's both, you know, lined up right on the 12. But yeah, I don't know. That's a good. In other words, I don't know that 1232 is, I don't think there's any backup. That 1232 is the time being set. So there are two reports not in this document. So take them with a grain of salt, much like this, that are interesting. One of them says that it wasn't just that the watch was loosely attached. Then in reality, she wasn't even wearing it. That it was there sort of on her body, but she had taken it off, maybe put it on with those rocks and it had sort of fallen over

or something. I don't know, if that's true or not. It does seem like from this, report, it's very loosely attached if it's attached at all. So maybe that's how we got to this whole, oh, she wasn't even really wearing it. Now, one thing that people have said that I think is true, even though it's not in this report, is that the strap is on backwards. So like, the buckle on the strap was fixed to the 6 o'clock side of the case instead of the 12 o'clock side. Honestly, I don't even know if I would notice that. Like if I bought a watch that was like that, I would just be like, oh, I guess that's just the way it is.

Right? Like, now I'm going to go get my watch and like, try it all. But, yeah. But so maybe the watch is a little weird. We don't know. I think 1232 is a pretty good indicator of that's when the fire started. So in other words, broad daylight. Middle of the day.

Middle of the day. A lot of sun, not like it. Even in winter. Even in Norway. In Norway, it's still going, there's going to be daylight. Right. Close to the watch. Two large earcloth.

clips impressed filigree made in silver coated brass. On the top, each clip had a four-millimeter large turquoise glass stone. The clips measured 25 millimeters across and are circular shaped. I don't even know what an ear clip is, I'll be honest with you. Some sort of jewelry accoutrement of women. Maybe it's something that goes in the hair over the ears. I'm not sure exactly what this, but she had these pieces of jewelry. I assume ear clips mean, because this is 50 years ago, I assume they're clip-on earrings. That's what I thought when I wrote.

Oh, earclips, maybe. But they're not the ones that go through pierced ears. They like quite literally snap onto your ear is my guess. That makes sense. Because at the same place, there's a ring in the same material that was found. It was oval shaped with a large oval, yellow, white rock in a claw. fitting. The rock measured approximately 30 by 18 millimeters. Most likely the rock had a colored membrane that had been burnt off. And these things were relatively intact apart from smoke damage. And what they indicated was that before all this happened, and this is a weird thing, right? And this goes to the watch and like, was she wearing the watch or not wearing the watch. It seems like she took off her earrings and she took off her ring and put them on one of these rocks next to her. And when the fire happened, they got damaged by something. the smoke and maybe some of the heat, but they weren't on her when the fire began.

So this piece is really interesting because whenever we look at a potential crime scene, we think what's missing and what's not missing. And if anything, if this were a robbery, you would think that jewelry would be something that would be taken right away. And the other thing that's interesting to me is that this sounds pretty distinctive, right? We clearly still don't know who this woman is, but it's been burned, but we still kind of know the color of the stone that they are a matching set, their clip-on earrings, not pierced earrings, and it matches a ring as well.

You would think jewelry has often been used, especially in fire situations, to identify a victim when they are burned beyond recognition, but stones and metals tend to survive better that if someone knew what she wore and the fact that she's wearing it on a quote unquote hike, however strenuous this is, tends to lead me to believe that this is something she wore regularly because unlike when I go out to dinner or like a fun evening, I may put on some special jewelry that I don't wear often, but if I'm just going out for a walk, whatever's on me is on me. I don't get dressed up in jewelry in order to go on a walk. So if you find jewelry on me, I'm wearing a necklace right now. It's because I never take this necklace off. So I tend to believe

that this is not something she got dressed up for. It wasn't an occasion because she's just wearing a scarf and a sweater and what appear to be pants, not some fancy dress-up clothes, that this is what she wears all the time, which may indicate that someone who knew her would be able to identify her based on this pretty distinctive jewelry. And this is a really good point for a couple reasons. Number one, now you wouldn't expect, I guess, someone to rob someone in the middle of like this valley. So maybe it's not that surprising that there's no real sign that her valuables were stolen. But one thing we're going to see as we continue, as we said, she's never been identified.

And there's a reason for that. Someone took a lot of steps to conceal her identity, as you're going to see as we continue. But one thing they didn't do, as Alice pointed out, is take the jewelry with her. And as everyone knows, jewelry can be incredibly identifying. for a woman or even a man. I mean, when we talked about Mary Morris. Mary Morris, exactly. Her rings. Those were important, right? Bryce Lepisa, like, he had those earrings, which were really, he gave him away, but I mean, they could have been a really big part of his life. I think about that all the time. So my engagement ring is one of a kind. Like, it was made for me. So I'm like, good. No one else

has this exact same ring. So I can be identified by it and I'd never take it off. So I think about this all the time. I'm like, if I'm burned, if something happens to me, I have a one-of-a-kind ring that can identify me. This may sound a little weird. I was reading about Nazi war criminals because I like Nuremberg and stuff. And actually, that is one of the way they would identify them because these people, like the guy who was the commandant of Auschwitz, for instance. Like one thing they would do when the war ended, they would just try and blend back into the community. And so they would become like farmers and mechanics and all this other stuff.

And they would come up with a new name. The SS would provide them new identification documents. And, you know, I mean, they weren't as well known as some of the other Nazi leaders. And it's not like now where you can just go to their Facebook page and see what they look like. Right. So figuring out who these people were was really difficult. But so many of them kept their wedding rings. And in their wedding rings, it would say their name and their wife's name.

So several Nazis were actually captured because their wedding rings identified them. And you're right. I mean, jewelry just tends to be one of those things that could be really identifying. And if you're trying to cover up someone's identity, taking their identifying jewelry is something you would think you would do. But that didn't happen here. And in fact, it just wasn't taken. It was taken and placed on one of these rocks next to our body.

And so far, a lot of the things we've talked about are not. that unusual. Taking off the boot, taking off sock. Maybe it got wet. Maybe, you know, you wanted to massage your foot or something. There are reasons you would do something like that. Putting the flas on one rock and the liquor on another rock and leaning your umbrella up against a stone, taking off your scarf, taking off your sweater. These are not necessarily weird things to do, just if you're stopping on a hike. Taking off your earrings and your ring is weird. That is a strange thing to do and not something think most people would do in this circumstance. Right. And also indicates that you're going to sit there a bit longer than just a quick water break. Like maybe if we were sitting down to paint or write in a

journal or have a conversation with someone. I don't know why you take your jewelry off, but it just indicates to me that you're going to be there a little bit longer than a quick pit stop to drink, you know, I'm thinking about the last hike I went on. It was a really strenuous hike. And I was like, let's just stop right here taking the view because I needed to catch my breath. But like, it was to lean against the post, take a swig of water, and then I kept going. So under the body's bottom remained of what seems to have been like a fur hat. Maybe it was dark brown. And the smell from that hat indicated that it contained remains of petroleum or something similar.

Closer to the feet. Charred remains of a matchbox. At the same place, burnt remains of bread, crackers, or something similar. Under the knees and thighs of the body, small amount. of a paper-like material also charred, as no item that could fit together with the before-mentioned plastic lid was found so far,

we initiated work to clear the stone scree under where the body had been. At the bottom of the scree, approximately one meter under the body, we made two findings of a plastic-like material, yellow and gray-blue. It had trickled down through the scree. Partly on the side of the stones,

partly on the bottom of the scree, we also found ample amounts of a yellowish, fat-like material. The examination at the bottom of the scree revealed heavily soot and smoke-blackened stones, which indicates that fire must have been present here at the bottom at one meter's depth. That's a lot of information there. Okay, so you start out with this hat that's under the bottom.

Fur hat, it is November in Norway. The interesting thing, of course, is that it smells to have probably some sort of, sort of accelerant or something that smells like an accelerant, that chemical smell. And this is the only indication of an accelerant. So they didn't find any other indication of an accelerant. This was the only thing that even smelled like an accelerant. It was never tested to confirm there was an accelerant.

I don't know if they could in the 70s. I mean, maybe they could now if they still had the fur hat. But a lot of this stuff, as you can imagine, as always happens in these cases, has been lost. In fact, I think all of it has been lost. I could be wrong about that. So, but they didn't find anything else. Now, it's interesting because remember where the fire was at its most intense was down the lower half of her body. And that's where you're finding this hat with a petroleum.

That's where you're finding the remains of a matchbook, you know, or matchbox. Which you can, obviously now we have something that could have started the fire. Then you have this weird, like food almost that's been all burn up, but then paper as well, underneath her knees and her thighs. It's almost like she was sitting with like her hat in front of her. Maybe she was eating something. Like maybe it was wrapped up in paper.

She was going to eat something? I don't know. Do you find this yellowish fat like material, which literally could just be fat? Like from her food, whatever she was eating. Or from her. Maybe it was butter. Oh.

I thought it was in the plastic. It could be either. Well, it's in the scree. So, So when they sort of dig down, they go down about a meter, which is, you know, three feet. Oh, I thought it was at the bottom of the scree in a cup, but it was just in the scree. Right, because they were trying to figure out what this plastic like material was, right? They couldn't figure out what that went with, so they thought, well, maybe it's down there.

So we're going to dig down there to see if we can find it. And this is what they found. I mean, part of this just goes with the fact the fire was more intense on the bottom side of her body. So you have deeper soot, you know, smoke blackened stones. You have this fat light material, which I guess it could have been the food. It could have been... Not if it was ample, though. From her?

I thought it thought it was in a cup. But the fact that it was just on the rocks and its ample amount, you're probably right. It probably came from her. Probably. So I don't know. I don't know what to make of that. But hey, we're putting this out there for you guys. You are going to solve this case.

Okay, most strangely of all. Okay, so so far this is weird. Rightly there are weird things about this, but now we start getting into the very strange stuff and there's going to be more of this kind of thing. So the manufacturing labels on all her clothes had been meticulously cut off from the parts of the clothing, which had not been destroyed by flames. Among her items, all distinctive marks had been erased. even the labels on the bottom of the plastic bottles had been scraped off. So essentially, anything that identified the clothing, where it would have came from, her items where they would have come from, even the plastic bottles where they would have come from. Somebody, she or somebody else, took the time to cut off all those labels to scratch off things that couldn't be removed.

So if it was like engraved in there or stamped on there, scraped all that off so that you end up with all these items. that she owned that have no labels, they don't tell you where they're manufactured. And remember, this is the 70s. So these labels, you know, now you get a shirt from Walmart and says it's made in China. Whoopty do. Not that helpful, right? But at the time in 1970, probably every label told a story, told a real story about where you'd been, where you shopped, the kind of money you had.

I mean, there's probably a lot one could gain from the labels. and all of that had been removed. And so if it were what had been left over after the flames, it seems that whoever, if someone did this and it wasn't her before the death, waited until the flames had ceased to see what was still there in order to do it. Because it would seem strange to go through all of that and cut off all the tags while it was still on her if she were alive. And can we just say, this is a strange fire,

if you were going to set it. Right? Now, it could have been sort of a spontaneous thing like you're panicking and you're doing it. But it almost has to be that because you didn't really plan for it

because it's a very brief fire. It doesn't, it does a little bit of damage to the body but it certainly doesn't come anywhere near destroying the body. It doesn't even destroy all the clothes. Like, you would think, well, let's say you went up there

to murder her and to burn the body. Like, that was your plan. And you'd take in like gasoline, clean up there or whatever. Well, you think you would make sure you just burn all the clothes. Like, you wouldn't take the time to, like, cut out all the labels and scratch off. You would just burn it all. Like, if something hadn't burned, you'd burn that too, right? But this fire is so brief and only intense in certain places that it doesn't actually do that work. Like, you would have to, if you had not cut them off beforehand, you would have to sit around, wait for the fire to go out,

check everything that hadn't been burned and cut everything off, but then not take her jewelry with you. So from a different perspective, I have a lot of kids, and my kids sometimes all of a sudden decide every tag on their clothes is going to drive them crazy, and I have to sit there with scissors and cut out the tags of every single one of their clothes,

no matter how small and no matter where they're located. So, like, currently my two-year-old, no tags on any of her clothes. I have no idea what size clothes they are, and it's frustrating because I'm like, what is this? This is the front or the back. And I cut it very close to the collar or the cuff because any amount that sticks out bothers her.

So it's like a sensory thing. So that could be a situation where especially if she's taking off earrings and a ring. Maybe she's very sensitive. I say I never take off my wedding ring. I do. Especially honestly when I'm typing. And they bug me because it like rubs against my hand or my hand swell because I'm typing so much.

I do take them off when it's bugging. me. So maybe her taking off her earrings and her ring go along with the fact that maybe she hates tags and she cuts off all her tags and all her pieces of clothing. Doesn't exactly explain the scratching off the other labels. Doesn't explain it at all. Doesn't explain it at all. The tags, I may be able to understand her doing it as just a matter of course in general. Since we don't know her, we don't know if the rest of her clothes also follow this. Now the scratching off at the bottle. I can't. I don't know how that would be something that someone regularly does just as a matter of course. And I will say this here early on in this case, I think that's a very viable theory

that she just doesn't like tags and she gets tags off. That's not what it is. And we're going to see that because it's not going to be the last time we see her effort or someone's effort to conceal her identity. And, you know, the first hint is the fact that also everything is scratched off. But we're going to see even more of this as we go. So it probably is an effort to conceal identity, not an effort at comfort, though I thought the same thing. I often hate tags as well. So when the first police stumble upon this scene, they're thinking, kind of what I was saying about the hairspray, like maybe this is some weird accident. She set a fire and then she kind of fell into the fire. Or maybe she had thrown herself back.

for some other reason, like she saw a B or something and she fell backwards and she ends up in this fire because remember she's laying on her back when they find her. Right. So there's no, let me get too graphic, but you can imagine someone catching on fire the things they might do. Right. I mean, you've seen movies or really horrific videos from wars and stuff, but you can imagine things people might do, whether it's running or throwing themselves on the ground or whatever. There's no evidence of that whatsoever. There's just no. no indication that she ever moved beyond her final position. So this is why the police are trying to figure out, like, how is it that you would end up on your back, on fire, in a situation like this? Now,

obviously one possibility is there was no fire that she fell into. Number one, no evidence of a fire that she could have fallen into. So the possibility is she was already dead. and it had just been her body that had been on fire, that someone had lit that fire in a clumsy attempt to destroy evidence, even if it was an incredibly clumsy attempt that really failed, because it really was her body that was the source of the fire.

And any fire on the ground, and as they looked more at this, they realized this was true. It wasn't that the fire lit her on fire. It was she lit the other fires that they found on the ground. So the fire started on her, not the other way, around or possibly when maybe she had intentionally burned some of her items. Because once again, they're finding these things like the paper and the other stuff that's all burnt up that they're having difficulty explaining.

So one theory some people had was maybe she's burning. She's not starting a fire. She's not building a fire. But maybe she's burning something that's paper in front of her. And somehow there's this flame up. It catches her on fire. She falls backwards and she dies. but as we're going to see, things are going to develop that add a wrinkle to even that theory.

We packed a lot of information into this episode. I realize we've only been going for an hour, but we packed a ton of information in this episode. Literally, that report on her body and how she was found and how her stuff was found is the kind of thing you could spend weeks pouring over and trying to figure out. and people have spent 50 years doing just that. But we are going to learn so many more things about this woman and how she died that are going to raise new questions that are going to confuse you. This is one of those cases where the more information you get,

the more confused you get. You probably have the clearest idea of this case that you're going to have right now. The more we talk about it and the more episodes, we have, the weirder this is going to get. So just buckle up. This is a wild ride. If you know this case, you know it's a wild ride.

And it's also going to be sort of a ride through history. This is a case that really ties into a lot of the things that were going on in Europe, both at the time during the World Wars and the continent as a whole. And it's going to be an adventure. This is a great case. I love this case. This is one of those that's up there with the Diatlav Pass incident. If you love that case, you're going to love this one as well.

Alice, do you have time for a question? Let's do it. Okay. Very excited to do this. I've been looking forward to doing this. I've been sick for like two weeks, and we hadn't been able to do it. Really, really have been sick for two weeks. I've had to wait.

But if you like me, find yourself obsessed with this case, remember, death and ice valley. Great. It's the BBC. See, you have one British person. Everybody knows they have a British person on their podcast. They just have that soothing voice. But you also have someone who's a Norwegian. and also has a beautiful voice, speaks to the beautiful Norwegian accent,

and sort of has a real connectionist area. They talked to a ton of people who were still alive, who were around at the time who met this woman, who interacted with her. It's really fascinating. And I recommend everybody should check that out. Let's see. We've answered this question so many times, but I'll go ahead and ask it again because we answered so many times.

We'll change it up a little. Yeah. So this is from E-E-A-W-8, and they want to know. Have either of you done criminal law on the defense side? If not, do you think you could do it? I know you're obviously capable of it. Would you be willing to? And this just comes up all the time.

And we've answered this question before, and there's discussion on the gallery about it and everything else. As I have said, I think I'd be a very good defense attorney. I just, I don't know. I don't know if I could really do it. And I appreciate the people who do. Like one person said, we have like a black and white view of this, and we think prosecutors are great and defense attorneys are evil.

Never said that. Never said defense attorneys are. evil. What I have said is I think it takes a special person to be a defense attorney. Like, I wouldn't want to be a proctologist. It takes a special person to be a proctologist, right? Or like a podiatrist. I don't really want to deal with people's feet. Or like a dentist. I wouldn't want to do that either. I want to stick my hand in people's mouths all day. I mean, I just don't know that I could do that. Right. Doesn't mean any of those people are bad or we don't need them or they aren't important. It just means I don't know that I would want to do it. And I really appreciate the people

going to that work. And I feel like defense attorneys are kind of like that. Like, are they necessary? Absolutely. Are they really important? Yes. Would I want one if I was charged with something? Yes. I want the best, sleiciest one possible if I'm charged or something. You ever going to get me off? That's what I want. But I don't know that I could do it particularly, not in the run of the meal case. Right. Like, like the cases that we prosecuted, I could take those. Right. Like, I mean, whatever. I can defend those cases. But where it would get really hard for me are cases where the criminal is really bad and did really horrible things to innocent people. And it would be very hard for me to walk in and see like the parents of a 12-year-old who'd been murdered and think, I'm going to do everything I can to get this guy off today. Like that would be very difficult for me.

And I don't think I could do it. So that's why I just, I don't know that I could be a defense attorney. Yeah. I've done defense side work, but never for the types of clients that Brett just described. And I would say that I can't do it. My heart's not in it. Someone said I was in a work meeting today. Someone was like, after I talked about something I did, they were like, wow, you're really passionate about that. I don't know that I'm really passionate about it. I think I am just naturally an excited person. But I do have to be excited about what I'm doing. And that doesn't excite me to like get up and do the daily fight that is exhausting of litigant. that would not. While I could do it substantively, I probably couldn't long term because I would burn out very quickly. So I have a lot of respect for criminal defense attorneys who can do that. And it is, from my understanding of friends who do do that work, incredibly exhausting and taxing. And I'll say this, if you spend enough time around defense attorneys, you will come to the conclusion that they are delusional. And I think... We ask this question all the time. We literally look at each

rather all the time and we're like, do you think he really believes what he just wrote? Do you think he really believes what he just argued? Because I couldn't bring myself to say that. Like, I think Baldwin and Rosie truly believe that Richard Allen didn't do it. I don't know if they believe the Odinism thing, but I think they truly believe he didn't do it. Like, and if you talk to them, I think you would be like, what world do you live in? And if you've talked to defense attorneys about cases, like famous cases they've had, where someone is clearly obviously guilty of doing a really horrific thing, they come off as if they're like, no, you know, if you'd seen all the evidence, like you wouldn't be so sure, right? And you're like, really? You know, like, do I think Johnny

Cochran thought OJ was innocent? Probably not. Probably not. But maybe. I mean, who knows? If you talk to the man, maybe that's the conclusion you'd come to. And so I think that is. That, is one way they deal with it. I think some of them are just straight delusional. They just convince themselves that their client is innocent, regardless of the evidence. And so when you see them defending that client, you see this with Mark Garrikos, right?

And when he talks about Scott Peterson, or he talks about Indez brothers or whatever. Like, Pooty Poot, when Pooty Pooty Pooke talks about Mertal, Mertic. He seems like he really thinks he's innocent, right? The same thing with the other guy. I think there has to be a level of suspension of belief. and then at the core of it,

even if you kind of are like, they're not innocent, you're like, but it's the man against the everyday man. So it doesn't even really matter. It's not really about the facts anymore. It's about a principle.

I guess, yeah. I mean, so once again, just to reiterate, we think defense attorneys are great. We have a whole legal briefs episode on defense attorneys and how they're great,

particularly public and federal defenders. Love those guys. But I don't know that I could do it. And that's fine. Like, you don't have. have to be willing and ready to do every job. I wouldn't want to climb to the top of towers and change the light bulbs on those either. But there's somebody who does that and those people are great. Not for me. Fill the same way about defense attorneys. So that's my answer for the fifth time on this

question. Love it. So good. All right. Well, if you want to ask questions, if you want to ask us whether or not we would want to be defense attorneys, you can do so as well. Just leave a five-star review on the prosecutors are prosecutors legal briefs and we will answer your question reminder to those of you who leave one-star reviews we don't answer your questions if you leave a one-star review so you can leave the one-star review and be snarky but we're not going to answer your question so that's just the way it is if you want to recommend a case shoot us an email at prosecutors pod at gmail.com that is always the best way but there are times when people send me messages other places where I put it on the list but it always goes on the list if you email us so email us

If you just want to follow us or whatever on social media, add prosecutors pod for all your social media. Join the gallery, which is our fan run, fan established page on Facebook. Lots of fun stuff going on there. If you want to watch us record these episodes early, join Patreon for only $3.

If you don't care about watching us record them, but you would like to get them early and ad free, same deal, Patreon for only $3. All right, Alice. Is there anything I missed, anything you want to add before we sign off? No, but this mystery is only going to boggle your mind more and more. So far, we just read kind of an autopsy, except not autopsies, a crime scene report, and that's it. And there's already so many questions, and it will get so much more just mind-boggling.

So come back for more. Yes, do that. And we will have more for you next week. But until then, I'm Brett. And I'm Alice. And we are. The Prosecutors. These are heavy days, man.

I know. They really are heavy days. I know. They are. But, you know. Yeah, you do what you do. Yep. All right, guys.

Well, next time we'll try and do something a little bit more enjoyable like the next is now. I'm just kidding. We know there was a lifetime maybe. We could review it. We could watch the maybe and review it. Please don't make me. pull my eyes out with chalk sticks

then watch the Karen Reed Lifetime Real. I didn't know Lifetime you've hit me where it hurts

because you know how much I love you lifetime but I got to boycat this one Yeah seriously All right guys

We're gonna talk about tomorrow Yeah exactly Tomorrow tomorrow in the proskees All right guys We'll be back soon