Missing gran, 74, is found dead on Greek holiday isle
A BRITISH grandmother who went missing on holiday on a Greek island three weeks ago has been found dead in a remote area.
Susan Hart, 74, from Bath, went missing on Sunday, April 30 after taking a ferry from Kalymnos to the island of Telendos with her husband.
She planned to read her book and visit a restaurant while her husband, Ed, went rock climbing with a friend. When he returned, she had disappeared.
Her daughter, Ruth Landale, 45, has now confirmed her mother’s body has been identified by her stepfather. She said the family were ‘heartbroken’.
Ms Hart, a former employee of the World Health Organisation, had been living with Ed in his native Switzerland. Her body will be repatriated there after a portmortem examination.
The couple had visited Kalymnos regularly for the past eight years, the Daily Mirror reported.
Telendos is a smaller island about half a mile off the coast of Kalymnos. The island, shaped like a semi- circle, has a single, steep, flat-top mountain whose sides drop directly down to the sea.
The only settlement is at its southern tip.
When her husband returned from rock climbing, his wife had vanished and nobody in the restaurant had seen her.
He paid for search and rescue dogs to join the search after local police failed to make arrangements after eight days of looking.
In an appeal for information last week, her family said they felt the local police had been ‘obstructing’ the search and the British consulate had been ‘pretty powerless’ to help.
Ms Landale said her mother had been showing signs of dementia over the last few years but had not received a formal diagnosis.
After battling for access to CCTV footage of Ms Hart walking away from the restaurant, the family was trying to access footage from the other side of the restaurant. They said at the time it might help ‘settle something playing on our minds’ that Ms Hart took the ferry back to Kalymnos.
Ms Hart had three daughters – Bethan, Ella and Ruth – who grew up in Bath but now live in Canada, London and Australia with their young families. She had four grandchildren.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘ We are providing consular assistance to the family of a British woman who has been reported missing in Greece and are in contact with the local authorities.’