A man has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of a Thai woman whose body was found in a stream in the Yorkshire Dales more than two decades ago.
Lamduan Armitage, who would now be 55, became known as the Lady of the Hills when her then unidentified body was found by walkers at Sell Gill, on 20 September 2004.
The group of hikers had posed for a picture on the Pennine Way between Pen-y-ghent and Horton in Ribblesdale, when they noticed a body in the stream.
Lamduan was only identified 15 years later, when her parents in Udon Thani, north-east Thailand, saw an online news BBC report on the story and contacted police in North Yorkshire.
They told police they had not seen their daughter since 2004. DNA testing later confirmed the identity of the mother of three, who had been living in the north of England at the time of her death.
Detectives initially believed she had died of natural causes but in 2018 a cold case team for North Yorkshire police revealed that Lamduan was murdered.
“A 61-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Lamduan Armitage in 2004. He remains in police custody for questioning,” a statement from North Yorkshire police said.
The force urged the public and media to “refrain from speculation” about the case and respect the privacy of family members and people connected to the case.
Cold case detectives and family liaison officers visited Thailand in February 2023, conducting interviews with witnesses in Udon Thani, Bangkok and Kanchanaburi, and meeting with Lamduan’s parents, Buasa and Joomsri Seekanya.
Lamduan had moved to the UK in 1991 and had lived in Portsmouth, Rugby, and Preston.
On their visit to Thailand, family liaison officers handed over a memorial book to her parents, which included photographs of the funeral service held in Horton in Ribblesdale in 2007, arranged and paid for by local residents.
