DNA testing on a corpse recovered by Croatian water police on Monday
has confirmed that it is Australian backpacker Britt Lapthorne -
despite local police insisting that it was "unlikely to be Britt."
The
police held a press conference at police headquarters in Dubrovnik at
7.45pm local time but informed Britt's father, Dale and her brother,
Darren, before making the test results public.
The
news is a double blow to the family who underwent the terrible
rollercoaster ride of being told a body had been found by media on
Monday morning - and the police announcing just hours later that it
could not be Britt because the body was so decomposed.
Dubrovnik
Deputy Chief of Police, Ivan Kukrika, confirmed last night that DNA
analysis has now shown conclusively that the body is Britt's.
''DNA
analysis has been completed in capital Zagreb. According to the
analysis, the body found in the sea on October 6th belongs to the
missing Australian, Britt Lapthorne'', he said.
The test
results are a particularly cruel find as all week, Britt's father,
Dale, has been reassured by a detective from Zagreb that it was more
than 90 per cent unlikely that the body was that of his daughter.
He
was told that the corpse was too decomposed to have only been in the
water for two and a half weeks and that as Ms Lapthorne, 21, had
unusually perfect teeth and no fillings, ruling her out may have been
even more simple.
But the Croatian police appear to have
made yet another mistake, echoing one three years ago when another
tourist disappeared from a nightclunb in Porec in the north and was
found in the sea.
Initial forensic reports suggested that
the body had been in the water for more than eight months and police
insisted that it could not be the Briton, Peter Rushton.
However, tests later showed that it was him and he had been beaten, tied up and murdered and his clothes filled with stones.
Two men were later charged with his murder.
The police said that it was too early to tell the cause of death but that further tests would be conducted.
Last
night, a receptionist at the Berkeley Hotel where Dale and Darren
Lapthorne have been staying said the family was "devastated" but that
no further comment would be made.
The body was found at the
bottom of a rock face known as Bonino where another young Croatian was
found dead exactly 12 months ago after a night out in a nightclub.
While
the Bonino rock below which Britt was found on Monday, is known as the
Dubrovnik suicide spot, there is no evidence to suggest that she was
depressed.
Police said that investigations and interviews
with backpackers and friends who were with Britt on the night of her
disappearance are continuing and more and more information is emerging
from Interpol.
-Paola Totaro