Missing British grandmother found dead in remote area on Greek island

Missing British grandmother, 74, is found dead in remote area on Greek island after she went missing three weeks ago while on holiday with her husband

  • Susan Hart disappeared on the remote island of Telendos on Sunday April 30

A 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 remote island of Telendos with her husband, Ed.

She planned to wait at the front of the island while her partner went off rock climbing with a friend. When they returned, she had disappeared without a trace.

For more than two weeks, the family from Bath were joined by officials and volunteers in an extensive search of the island.

Her daughter Ruth Landale has now confirmed she was identified by her stepfather, and the family are left ‘heartbroken’.

Her body will be repatriated to Switzerland, where she was living, after a port-mortem is carried out by Greek authorities.

Susan Hart, 75, went missing after taking a ferry to the island of Kalymnos on April 30

Kalymnos is an island in the Aegean Sea, to the east of Greece and to the west of Anatolia

Susan (pictured) planned to wait at the front of the island while her partner went off rock climbing with a friend. When they returned, she had disappeared without a trace

Susan Hart was a former employee of the World Health Organisation.

She was living with her husband, Ed, in his native Switzerland.

According to The Mirror, the couple had been regularly visiting the larger island of Kalymnos for around the last eight years.

Telendos is a smaller island about 0.6 miles (1 kilometre) off the coast of Kalymnos, and an administrative part of the larger body. 

The tiny island is shaped like a semi-circle. There is a single, steep, flat-top mountain whose sides drop directly down the sea. The only settlement is based at the southern tip of the island, where the land is flat. 

After making the ten-minute ferry trip from Kalymnos, Susan Hart planned to read a while before heading over to a local restaurant while her husband went climbing.

She reportedly decided to sit out due to health problems, according to The Sun.

But when Ed returned, Susan had vanished – and nobody in the restaurant had seen her.

Her three daughters Bethan, Ella, 43, from London, and Ruth, 45, who was in Australia, kept up the search for her mother following her mysterious disappearance.

Previously speaking to The Mirror, Bethan said: ‘How does someone just disappear without a trace? The hopes of finding her alive are diminishing by the day and my sisters and I do not know what to do next.’

Image shows climbing on the island of Kalymnos, about a kilometre from the coast of Telendos (pictured in the background)

Susan’s husband paid privately for search and rescue dogs to join the search after local police failed to make arrangements after eight days of looking.

Ruth wrote on Facebook on Saturday: ‘Someone, somewhere must have seen something. People don’t just vanish with no trace in such a small community.

‘Mum has dementia and is very vulnerable. We need to find her. Please help us.’ 

Bethan also said she worries that her mother was suffering from memory loss before her disappearance, though said she had not had a formal dementia diagnosis.

After battling for access to CCTV footage of Susan walking away from the restaurant, the family is now desperately trying to access video from the other side.

They said at the time that footage from behind the restaurant might help ‘settle something playing on our minds’, that Susan took the ferry back to Kalymnos.

Bethan disputed previous reports that Susan had been found dead at the bottom of a cliff.

A flyer shared by the family described Susan as having short dyed brown hair and blue eyes.

She was said to be wearing a brown hat, grey Bermuda shorts, a light brown cardigan, a grey short-sleeved top, grey hiking boots, a grey sweatshirt and her wedding ring on the day she went missing.

Susan is mother to three and grandmother to four children.

Anybody with further information can contact the Greek Silver Alert Service at SOS 1065 or the British Vice Consulate at +30 22410 22005. 

The Foreign Office 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.’

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