An area in Marsalforn is at the centre of police investigations into the strangling of a 72-year-old Danish woman while on holiday in Gozo.

The police believe the area they are focusing on is where Vera Bodil Engelbrecht Holm was last seen, according to sources.

Almost three weeks after her lifeless body was found naked and face down in a pool of water in Marsalforn by a man walking his dog on July 27, the police said on Tuesday evening the case was being considered a wilful homicide after forensic tests indicated the cause of death as “asphyxia by way of strangulation”.

Ms Holm had arrived on July 17 with her son-in-law, his brother and her two grandchildren.

They were staying in a rented house in Marsalforn and she was reported missing on July 24. It was her first time in Malta.

Investigators are not ruling anything out. So far, no witnesses have come forward and no one is being considered as suspect by the police.

It is still not yet clear whether the family members who were accompanying her are still in Malta.

Her belongings are still missing, including a mobile phone and a purse, according to sources.

Initially, the police were treating the case as a “suspicious death” because, although the wounds she had suffered could have been caused by foul play they could also have been the result of a fall.

An autopsy established that she had suffered a blow to her head, bruises to her chest and a broken rib but proved inconclusive due to the advanced stage of decomposition. It was only after further forensic tests were carried out that pathologists confirmed that she had been strangled.

The police are also appealing for information that could help them in their investigations.