Greek
police searching for a missing
British scientist on the island of Ikaria have found a body at the bottom of a ravine. A police source said it was likely to be that of Dr Natalie Christopher, 34, who disappeared on Monday. Police, firefighters and volunteers had been scouring the island in the Aegean since Monday when Dr Christopher’s disappearance was reported by her 38-year-old Cypriot boyfriend. The corpse was found by a volunteer involved in the search. “The body was found in a ravine, a small canyon, between 600 metres and a kilometre from the hotel where the couple were staying,” Theodoros Chronopoulos, a Greek police spokesman, told The Telegraph. Asked whether the body had fallen into the ravine or been pushed, he said it was too early to tell. “We have to await the report from the coroner, which will take two to three days, in order to have the answers. This is crucial. At this point we don’t know how she died.” Oxford-educated Dr Christopher, a keen runner, rock climber and hiker, was spending a few days on Ikaria with her boyfriend. Dr Christopher is a keen runner, climber and mountain racer He said that when he woke on Monday morning, she was not in the hotel. He called her on her mobile phone and she told him she was running. He became worried a few hours later when she did not return and called again, but she did not answer. The couple, who live in Cyprus, were staying in the town of Kerame, on the north coast of Ikaria. Police are investigating spots of blood that were found on bed sheets in the hotel room where the couple were staying. The linen has been sent to a laboratory in Athens for testing. Her boyfriend reportedly told police that the blood was from a nosebleed that Dr Christopher suffered the night before her disappearance. Natalie Christopher was last seen on Monday on the Aegean island of Ikaria There were also blood spots in front of a mirror, according to the owner of the hotel. Police are also investigating reports that the couple may have slept in separate rooms the night before the British woman’s disappearance. A cleaner at the hotel told Greek media that she found sheets spread out on a sofa in the hotel suite “which may indicate the couple was sleeping in separate rooms.” Dr Christopher, who grew up in
London, has a Masters in Physics from Durham University and did her PhD at Linacre College, Oxford. Her disappearance follows the rape and murder last month of an
American scientist who went for a jog on Crete. Suzanne Eaton’s body was found dumped inside a Second World War bunker a week after she went missing. A 27-year-old local man has allegedly confessed to the murder of the 60-year-old molecular biologist, who had been attending a conference on Crete. She worked for the Max Planck Institute at Dresden University in Germany.