Spanish cold-case victim identified after 20 years, Interpol says

An unidentified woman found beside a road in the province of Barcelona in July 2005 has been identified after 20 years, Interpol said, marking a new milestone in the international effort to identify missing persons.

Police at the time described the death as suspicious, with evidence suggesting the body had been moved within about 12 hours of discovery. The woman was known to investigators as the woman in pink because she wore a pink floral top, pink trousers, and pink shoes. The case remained unsolved for years until it was added last year to Operation Identify Me, a global push to bring names to unidentified victims. Interpol has released black notices seeking information about unidentified bodies and has shared fingerprints and other records with police forces around the world as part of the effort. Earlier this year, Turkish police ran the fingerprints through a national database, which helped bring the identity of the woman closer to confirmation. A DNA match was then established with a close relative in Russia, allowing authorities to identify the victim as Ms Zavada.

Interpol Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza welcomed the development, saying the latest identification would give fresh hope to the families and friends of missing persons and create new leads for investigators. He noted that the global campaign reinforces that even decades-old cases can yield answers when information is shared across borders.

The campaign’s progress has been incremental. The first person identified through the initiative was Rita Roberts, a 31-year-old from Wales who was killed in Belgium in 1992. Earlier this year, another identification came in the form of a woman found dead in a poultry shed in Spain, later identified as 33-year-old Ainoha Izaga Ibieta Lima, who was from Paraguay. Police say her death remains unexplained. Officials say there are still unresolved identities for about 44 other women found dead in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, and Spain, most believed to be murder victims aged between 15 and 30.

Interpol has attributed part of the widening challenge to increased global migration and human trafficking, which can push missing-person reports across borders and complicate identifications. An official with the agency told the BBC that women are disproportionately affected by gender-based violence, including domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking, underscoring why identification work remains a high priority for investigators.

The broader aim of Operation Identify Me is to help families restore a name to a loved one and to provide investigators with potential new leads on the circumstances surrounding each death. While breakthroughs like the identification of Ms Zavada are encouraging, authorities emphasize that each case requires careful, evidence-led work to confirm timelines, movements, and possible motives. The investigation into Ms Zavada continues as authorities review new data and await corroborating details from related cases across jurisdictions.