A woman referred to as ‘The Woman in Pink’ after her body was discovered in Spain nearly 20 years ago has now been formally identified, Interpol said on Thursday.
Her case is one of several reopened under Interpol’s Identify Me initiative, launched in 2023 to help put names to women who were found dead in suspicious or violent circumstances across Europe over the past few decades.
According to the agency, the victim was 31-year-old Russian national Liudmila Zavada.
Zavada’s body was located in 2005 on a roadside in Viladecans, near Barcelona. She was dressed entirely in pink – a floral blouse, trousers and shoes – and investigators determined she had died less than a day before being found.
Officers also suspected her body had been moved in the 12 hours leading up to its discovery, reinforcing suspicions of foul play. Despite this, her identity remained unknown for years.
With the Spanish investigation stalled, authorities passed the file to the Identify Me project last year, which is run jointly by Interpol and police forces in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.
Progress finally came when Turkish police uploaded Zavada’s fingerprints to their national biometric system earlier this year, producing a positive match. Her identity was then conclusively confirmed through kinship DNA testing with a close relative.
‘After 20 years, an unknown woman has been given back her name,’ said Interpol Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza in a statement.
This marks the third time the campaign has succeeded in restoring a victim’s identity. In 2023, family members identified British woman Rita Roberts — murdered in Antwerp in 1992 — after recognising her tattoo.
Earlier in 2024, Spanish records linked through Paraguayan fingerprint databases revealed the identity of 33-year-old Ainoha Izaga Ibieta Lima.
Despite these breakthroughs, Interpol says the Identify Me appeal still has 44 unresolved cases of unidentified women.
Subscribe to the Weekly Newsletter from Spain in English.
Unknown woman in Spanish cold case named after 20 years.
— INTERPOL (@INTERPOL_HQ) September 25, 2025
A woman whose body was found in Spain two decades ago has been identified as Russian citizen Liudmila Zavada.
The cold case is part of #IdentifyMe, an international campaign to identity women who were murdered.
As part… pic.twitter.com/bS9dL2jLzo
Click here to get your business activity or services listed on our DIRECTORY.
