TESTS to determine how an East Lancashire grandmother died whilst living in France are still ongoing, nine months after her body was found.

Evelyn Lund was discovered in the back of her car submerged in a French lake near to the home she shared with her husband, in October.

The 53-year-old, formerly of Winter Hill, Darwen, had been missing for more than a year, after a trip to a friend's house, sparking a murder investigation.

Her red Toyota Landcruiser was spotted after water levels at the lake, in Raysaac, in the south-west of the country, dropped dramatically.

After DNA tests determined the body was that of Mrs Lund, French authorities have been trying to piece together exactly how she died.

But they're still struggling to come up with a cause of death.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "We are in regular touch with the French authorities and they are still trying to determine what killed Evelyn Lund."

Until all inquiries have been completed Mrs Lund's body cannot be released for her funeral.

Today one of her three daughters, Vicky Taylor, said they hoped to hear something soon. She said: "It has gone on a while and we thought we may have had heard something by now, but we haven't."

Mrs Lund's widower Robert has called for the authorities to release her body so he can begin to make funeral arrangements.

He freely admits he is the prime suspect in the case and was hauled in for questioning during the start of the investigation, although he has never been charged.

Robert, a former tree officer for Blackburn with Darwen Council, married Evelyn in 1994 after the death of her first husband Arthur Taylor from cancer in 1991.

He has appealed to the French authorities to release his wife's body so he can arrange a funeral and said the stress of the whole situation is making him ill.

Another of Evelyn's three daughters by her first marriage, Patricia Taylor, of Franklin Road, Witton, Blackburn, has said she has complete faith in the French legal system.