The husband of missing Irish pilgrim Winnie Brady, who vanished from Medjugorje last September, confirmed yesterday that a body discovered in the hills above the Bosnian village was that of his wife.
But speculation over how Ms Brady spent her final hours will increase with the revelation that photographs from her camera suggest she may have spent her last night on the rugged hillside, either lost or physically unable to return to the village.
Stephen Brady identified his wife's body and jewellery that was found with it last Sunday in a remote spot about 3km from Medjugorje and 1.5km from Apparition Hill, where six local children claimed to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary in 1981.
Mr Brady told The Irish Times that Bosnian police had assured him that postmortem results due today would reveal "no sign of foul play" in the death of his wife, whose disappearance prompted a huge search involving police, soldiers, hundreds of volunteers and a helicopter.
Her body was eventually found by local man Vidan Kozina on the rarely-visited slopes behind Apparition Hill, where several other pilgrims have got lost and perished in recent years.
Bosnian police developed film from a camera found with Ms Brady's body, and the last five pictures give the clearest indication yet as to how she spent her last hours.
After a picture showing members of her pilgrimage group at a guesthouse in Medjugorje, which she is believed to have left, alone, at lunchtime on September 6th, comes a view taken from Apparition Hill.
Local residents say it seems to have been taken from high up, well off the normal tourist path and in the early morning, judging by deep shadow on part of the hill, suggesting that Ms Brady had spent the previous night in the open.
She was reported missing by her friends early on September 7th.
The next photograph is of a view very similar to that from the place where Ms Brady's body was found, and shows a cluster of houses and a small road about a kilometre away, across rocky ground and through thick undergrowth.
Locals said the light suggested that the picture was taken in the middle of the day.
The last two photographs are also taken in bright sunlight, and show Ms Brady's left foot and ankle, which appear to be badly swollen. They are taken from a sitting position on rocks that resemble those at the place where she was found.
The initial search for Ms Brady was hampered by a lack of clues: she left most of her belongings in the guesthouse, did not tell friends where she was going, and no one could be sure that they had seen her outside the guesthouse on the day she vanished.
She also had an arthritic knee that had been giving her pain, leading investigators to believe that she could not have walked as far as Apparition Hill, and certainly not over the crest and across the rough terrain behind it, where her body was ultimately found. Thick summer vegetation would also have made her body extremely hard to spot.
Mr Brady acknowledged yesterday that the events leading up to his wife's death may never be fully pieced together.
But after fearing that her body would never be found, he said he felt great relief that he would at least be able to bring her back to Ireland, probably next week.
"I have to be satisfied with that," Mr Brady said.
"Finally, we can see light at the end of the tunnel."