Gravediggers and forensic experts today began the grim task of exhuming the body of Rachel Whitear as part of a new attempt to establish how she died.
A large tent surrounded the 21-year-old heroin addict's grave at the Church of St Peter in Withington, near Hereford.
Ms Whitear's coffin will later be taken to Hereford County Hospital, where a British Home Office pathologist will carry out a post-mortem.
Officers announced last week that the churchyard would be treated as a crime scene for the duration of the exhumation.
It was originally thought that Rachel died from a drugs overdose at her bedsit in Exmouth, Devon, but no post-mortem was carried out prior to an inquest which recorded an open verdict.
A picture of Rachel kneeling over in the flat, still clutching a syringe, following her death in May 2000, was later used in an educational video to warn children of the dangers of drug abuse.
A new inquiry was begun last year by Wiltshire Police, supervised by the Police Complaints Authority, after Ms Whitear's parents raised concerns about the way Devon and Cornwall Police handled the original investigation.
PA