Pauline Finlay vanished while out walking her dog in March 1994
An unidentified body buried in a Welsh cemetery for more than two decades is likely to be a woman who vanished as she walked her dogs on a beach in Ireland more than two decades ago.
North Wales Police have been investigating a number of unidentified bodies that have washed up on the Welsh shoreline over the past 48 years.
A DNA breakthrough has been made in the case of Pauline Finlay, 49, who ended up in the Irish Sea off Wexford in March 1994.
Despite extensive searches, her remains were never found.
But police believe her remains may have been discovered on a Welsh beach seven months after her disappearance and an inquest is to be held.
When she disappeared Pauline's dogs were found, agitated and barking, on a beach near Kilmuckridge.
Seven months later on October 31, 1994, a woman's body washed up on the Welsh coast at Cable Bay, Aberffraw, Anglesey .
Her body was never identified so she was buried in a local graveyard - but now the investigation, named Operation Orchid, has made a breakthrough.
A spokeswoman for North Wales Police said: "Despite extensive enquiries made at the time the remains were not identified and the death, which was not treated as suspicious, resulted in an open verdict. The remains were interred in a local cemetery.
"Under Operation Orchid, North Wales Police detectives are now using the latest DNA technology to help identify human remains discovered in the region over the last 48 years.
"The operation recently had a significant breakthrough and the force has submitted a file to to HM Coroner for North West Wales Mr Dewi Pritchard-Jones suggesting the remains are those of an Irish woman who went missing from County Wexford in the mid 90s.
"Police have liaised with the woman’s family who have asked for their privacy to be respected at this time."
Irish television station RTE reported on Friday that North Wales Police contacted Gardai in a bid to identify some of the 17 unidentified bodies on their books - many of them "coastal discoveries' - or bodies washed up along the shoreline.
Pauline's family provided a DNA sample - and it was compared with the remains in the cemetery.
RTE reporter Barry Cummins told Morning Ireland: "The family has been told there is a strong indication that this is the body of their missing loved one."
It is understood relatives are due to travel to Wales to meet police in the coming weeks.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/body-woman-who-went-missing-12024016
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