LONDON – The body of a young woman found covered with snow in a country lane on Christmas Day was that of the missing landscape architect Joanna Yeates, police said yesterday.
Avon and Somerset Police said they were treating her death as suspicious, although the results of a postmortem are unlikely to emerge until today.
The 25-year-old went missing on December 17th after going to a pub to meet colleagues, prompting a major police investigation and emotional televised appeals for help from her parents.
“Our heartfelt condolences go out to Joanna’s family for their loss,” said Chief Supt Jon Stratford. “We have not stopped working hard throughout the Christmas period to find their daughter. Now we will work just as hard to discover exactly what happened to her.”
A couple walking their dog found her body in a remote spot near the village of Failand, a few miles from Ms Yeates’s flat in the Clifton area of Bristol.
Ms Yeates’s boyfriend, architect Greg Reardon (27), reported her disappearance to police on Sunday last, December 19th, after returning home from a weekend away. Before police confirmed the identity of the body, the missing woman’s father, David Yeates (63), said he and his wife had assumed she was dead. – (Reuters)