MYSTERY surrounds the death of a 44-year-old woman whose body was found in a ditch along the Mawddach Trail after she had bought a one-way train ticket then walked four miles.

Sarah Ann Jones, a laboratory assistant of Merstone Close, Bilston, West Midlands, died from the cold last December, an inquest at Llangefni in Anglesey was told last Wednesday. Husband and wife cyclists spotted her body beside a cycle track on the Mawddach Trail.

Pathologist Dr Mark Lord told coroner Dewi Pritchard Jones that tablets she had taken including Paracetamol, and alcohol, although not a great amount, would have made her drowsy and she could then have fallen asleep.

“It’s my opinion that this woman died as a result of exposure rather than the effects of drugs. Alcohol and drugs made her drowsy but the cold would have killed her. It would mean she would not feel the cold or be aware of the danger she was in.”

Miss Jones had caught a one way rail ticket from Wolverhampton, travelling alone and getting off at the isolated Morfa Mawddach halt, then must have walked four miles.

Detective Constable Gareth Jones said that her computer at home indicated that she had researched a peaceful and painless way of ending life and that was his personal theory of what had happened. She had been identified by a store card.

The coroner said if she wished to end her life it was puzzling why she should walk four miles to do so. “The impression I have is that she had gone into that ditch and may have taken the alcohol and tablets, become comatose and she died of cold.”

It was unlikely to have been an accident and there was insufficient evidence for a suicide verdict. Recording an open conclusion he said that suicide had not been established in law. “Unfortunately it must remain a mystery,” he added.