Dead Nurse's Body Cremated After 30 Years In Morgue

November 10, 2009 5:39 a.m. EST

London, U.K. (AHN) - The body of a British nurse has been laid to rest after laying in a Leeds morgue for 30 years.

The estranged parents of Helen Smith held the funeral for their daughter at Wakefield Crematorium in Yorkshire on Sunday after agreeing to cremate her before they die.

The father, Ron Smith, 83, had refused to lay to rest his daughter after she died mysteriously in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in May 1979. He sought the cause of her death.

Helen, then 23 years old, and a guest apparently fell to their death from the sixth floor of an apartment where they attended an illegal drinking party. Police said she and a male guest fell from the balcony while having sex. The father suspected foul play and sought an inquest while her daughter's body laid at a Leeds mortuary.

The Court of Appeals granted his wish in 1982 and investigators went abroad to gather testimonies. A jury, however, failed to establish the true cause of Miss Smith's death.