A woman found in a lake near Oxford was last seen a week earlier when she broke into an Airbnb and claimed to have come ‘from the matrix’.
Bersi Küper, 42, woke up a group of old schoolmates staying at a property on the Yarnton Manor on the weekend of August 7 and 8 last year.
Asked where she was from, the Tunbridge Wells resident told the startled men: “You will laugh at me. I come from the matrix.”
A night porter was called to the house by the guests and tried to wake-up Ms Küper, who was slumbering beneath a blanket.
He thought one of the men, out the night before for a curry in Oxford, may have returned with her. She put him right, telling him: “No, no, no, I don’t know them. I’m stuck in the matrix.”
Oxford Coroner’s Court heard this morning that a police officer, PC Dolphin, was called to the scene after 7.30am. He let her go on her way, as she had a ‘clear plan of what she wished to do’, would return to her car and knew how to get there. She told him she had attended a local festival, but did not say which one. Later checks with Wilderness Festival, in Charlbury, which was taking place that weekend, found no evidence she had attended.
Ms Küper, described by family and colleagues as a ‘spiritual person’, was last seen walking away across fields.
Two fishermen found her body in Cresswell Lake at around 7.30pm on August 16, a week after she was last seen. They returned to their car in Yarnton and called the police.
She had no identification documents on her.
READ MORE: Appeal for information about mystery woman after body found in lake
Thames Valley Police’s Major Crime Team issued an appeal for information both internally and via the press.
Information from PC Dolphin led detectives to focus their enquiries on Yarnton Manor and the surrounding area.
They obtained CCTV from M&M Waste Solutions near Cresswell Lake, where she spoke to a security guard Robin Gale after 12.30am. She was said to have told him she was ‘following the wind’.
Yarnton Manor’s CCTV first picked her up on the estate at 3.09am. She was seen at 03.21am trying doors.
Ms Küper’s neighbour in Tunbridge Wells, Michael Plum, contacted Thames Valley Police after recognising her in CCTV still images released by the force. He told detectives of her VW Passat estate car, which was later recovered from a layby on A40.
Mr Plum spoke of her being a keen wild camper, who would spend weekends away camping out of her car.
She was said to have made arrangements to move out of her Tunbridge Wells flat. Removals men attended on August 22, having been paid in advance, and told her neighbour they had orders to take her belongings to an address in Brighton.
READ MORE: Mystery woman identified, police say
Her adoptive father, Henning Küper, said in a statement read to the court that she loved travelling all over the world. She met ‘spiritual people in the jungle’, he said, and was ‘convinced’ those contacts ‘did not do her any good’.
The German national’s former boss at Experian Finance, Richard Wand, talked of her ‘spiritual beliefs’ and said Ms Küper described being able to achieve a ‘natural high which for others it would take drugs or alcohol to reach’.
Pathologist Dr Alexander Kolar was unable to ascertain a firm cause of death due to the condition of Ms Küper’s body when it was found, the inquest heard. He found no evidence of injuries that could have been caused by another person.
Recording an open conclusion, senior coroner Darren Salter said he was satisfied there was no evidence of third party involvement in Ms Küper’s death or ‘suicidal ideation’. He described her as a ‘spiritual person who enjoyed travelling, nature and swimming’.
- The Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or by emailing jo@samaritans.org
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