WHEN she was alive people knew her. When she died no one did.

Her corpse was preserved with formalin for a decade and put on display for the public as police searched in Australia and overseas to establish her identity.

When they did identify her body, her husband confessed to the crime although he always said it was not his wife.

He was convicted and sentenced to six years’ jail, released after four and deported to Italy.

Eighty years later, the mystery of “The Pyjama Girl” still causes debate.

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The case is probably Australia’s most famous true murder mystery. The victim was found in 1934 by a roadside in Albury on the NSW border with Victoria, clad in green and yellow silk pyjamas.

She was dead from a bullet wound to the head and the killer had tried to burn the body.

It took 10 years for the body to finally be identified as that of Linda Agostini, wife of an Italian waiter, Antonio Agostini. He confessed to manslaughter and it seemed the case was finally over.

But modern police methods, access to court files and new technology suggest the case was never solved in a way in which the evidence fitted the circumstances.

Unidentified woman’s body a tourist attraction

In April 1944 newspapers in Sydney and Melbourne were full of speculation as to the identity of the woman which had lain in a bath of formalin for a decade at Sydney University and had almost become a tourist attraction during the late 1930s.

Was this the corpse of Anna Philomena Morgan or was it Linda Agostini?

It took an extended Coroner’s hearing, lasting for most of April 1944, to establish the body was Linda Agostini’s.

Police already had her husband Antonio in custody. On March 4 he had admitted to NSW Police Commissioner William Mackay that he had killed his wife.

Even though he gave details of the crime and the disposal of the body, there was still an element of doubt as to the corpse’s identity.

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The issue was completely clouded when Jeanette Constance Routledge, of Bomaderry on the NSW south coast, claimed it as her daughter Anna Philomena Morgan, and a Sydney doctor, Dr Palmer Benbow, agreed with her.

Dr Benbow claimed he had extensively examined the body and was convinced it was Anna Philomena Morgan.

He argued that Quins shack, near Albury, was the murder scene, and found Lucy Collins, who provided testimony about having seen a girl beaten. Benbow’s evidence included a broken bedstead that he claimed was the murder weapon (what he said was blood was in fact rust) and photographs in which he showed the similarity in geometry between the face of Philomena Morgan and the Pyjama Girl. His claims were dismissed by authorities.

And, after an examination of dental records, it looked as though Dr Benbow and Mrs Routledge were right.

Linda Agostini had two more fillings than Anna Philomena, but when the body was removed from the formalin bath, two porcelain fillings fell out of her teeth.

These had been done so well that they had been missed by prior dental examinations.

Police then had the body’s face made up and her horrendous injuries covered over and asked Linda’s acquaintances to view it again.

This time positive identification was made as Agostini, the missing wife of the arrested Italian waiter Antonio.

But there were inconsistencies.

The Pyjama Girl’s eyes were brown and Linda’s were blue. There was also evidence that Linda Agostini had big breasts, while the Pyjama Girl was small-breasted.

There was also conjecture over the fuel used by the killer in trying to burn the body.

The policeman who was called to the corpse of the Pyjama Girl said he noticed the definitive smell of kerosene. When Antonio Agostini confessed to the murder he was equally specific that he had used petrol.

Party girl who fell for the handsome Italian

Linda Platt was born at Forest Hill, London, in 1905 and had run a small business in Bromley in Kent with her sister.

She sold her share of the business after a broken romance and sailed for Australia to begin a new life in 1927.

She soon entered the social whirl in Sydney. At one of the fashionable restaurants, Romano’s, she met cloakroom attendant Antonio Agostini.

An Italian emigrant, Agostini had convictions for violence in Italy and had brought into the country with him a .25 pistol.

Linda was attracted to the handsome Agostini, marrying him on April 22, 1930.

They lived in Sydney for a few years before they moved to Melbourne.

The move was instigated by Antonio to get Linda away from her partying friends as she had a drinking problem.

Antonio was employed by a Sydney-based Italian newspaper as their Victorian representative. He had hoped the move would enable Linda to dry out, but by now she was probably an alcoholic as things didn’t improve.

Instead they got worse and the couple moved frequently over the next four years — a total of eight times.

On September 1, 1934, farmer Tom Griffiths discovered a body that had been partly pushed into a stormwater culvert at Howlong near Albury.

He reported the find to the police and set off the mystery that would confound authorities and fascinate the public for years.

The corpse had been partially burnt and had severe head injuries. It was dressed in a pair of distinctive yellow and green pyjamas with a dragon motif and had been wrapped in a hessian sack.

After an X-ray at Albury Hospital, a small bullet wound was found in the woman’s neck.

Police were faced with the problem of identifying the body and dental casts were made and circulated to dentists. The casts and dental examination was one of the factors that led to the delay in the identification of the corpse.

The type of pyjamas was fairly common in Australia at the time and the hessian sack was the type used by the potato industry for bagging the crop.

The bullet was extracted and identified as coming from a .25 Webly-Scott automatic pistol, which wasn’t found at the time.

Police inquiries extended far beyond NSW and Australia, but with no results.

The information and a death mask were displayed in many public places, even at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.

The body was on display in a tank of formalin at Sydney University.

But it remained unidentified, even though friends and acquaintances of Linda Agostini told the police the corpse could be hers.

A confession, but questions remain

Linda was last seen alive on August 26, 1934, and some 10 months later Antonio was questioned by police about his missing wife.

He told them she had left him and had taken up a job on a ship as a hairdresser.

Police showed him photographs of the body of a woman but he said he didn’t recognise her.

Some of Linda’s Sydney friends thought the mystery corpse at Sydney University resembled her and when Antonio came to Sydney in 1938, they persuaded him to have a look.

He did, but again denied it was the body of his wife. He then returned to Melbourne.

Antonio was interned at the outbreak of WWII because of his pro-fascist articles in the Italian paper. He was released in early 1944.

He returned to Sydney and Romano’s, where he was employed as a waiter. He still denied the body was Linda’s but the police were still active on the case.

On March 4, 1944, Antonio was called for an interview by Police Commissioner MacKay, a frequent visitor to Romano’s where Antonio was his usual waiter.

During the interview Antonio broke down and confessed to killing his wife.

He claimed he woke one morning to feel the barrel of his pistol being pressed to his head by Linda. A struggle occurred and the gun went off, killing her.

He claimed the head injuries came about when he dropped the body.

He told of driving into the country, putting the hessian sack over the body’s head, pushing it into the culvert at Howlong, pouring petrol on it and setting fire to it. He left immediately, leaving skid marks on the road, and returned to Melbourne.

Antonio Agostini was tried in Sydney and convicted of manslaughter. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

He served four years before being deported to Italy.

He married a widow Giuseppina Gasoni in December 1952 at Cagliari, Sardinia; he died there in 1969 and was buried in San Michele cemetery. Linda had been given a funeral at state expense and was buried in Preston cemetery on 13 July 1944.

But debate about the case has raged for years — with several theories put forward about who she was and what had happened.

Finally, in 2004, NSW Police said the case would not be reopened, despite the possibility of fresh DNA evidence.

Although DNA testing could perhaps unlock the mystery, police declared the case closed because Agostini had confessed and all the exhibits had been archived appropriately.

• This is an edited version of a story previously published by News Corp Australia