Italian police ID body of French skier missing since 1954

ROME – Italian police say they have identified the body of a Frenchman who disappeared when skiing in the Alps in 1954.

Police in a statement Monday said that the body emerged after a glacier receded in 2005 in the Italian Alps.

Last month, after the police posted an appeal on social media in hopes of identifying the body, a woman contacted them saying her uncle had disappeared near Cervinia ski resort in 1954.

Subsequent DNA testing involving samples from the missing man’s brother, plus examination of the skis and clothing, revealed that the body was that of Henri La Masne, who was 30 when he went missing during a ski holiday.